Top Scholar

Chapter 283 A Golden House Lies Within Books

Su Lu took it with both hands and saw that it was a land deed.

“This is a villa I acquired while in office… I can’t live in the yamen all year round; sometimes I need to go somewhere else for some fresh air,” said Prefect Jia.

"Of course, my salary is limited, the place is small and a bit remote, please don't mind."

"No, that won't do. Where would you like to relax if you want to go anywhere else?" Su Lu quickly declined.

"I no longer need this official position. The Censor has already approved my resignation. I'm going home to take care of my elderly mother," Prefect Jia said with a smile.

"Huh?" The whole room was shocked, not expecting that Prefect Jia was serious.

"Is Grandfather really going to abandon us?"

“I am also reluctant to leave you all, but my elderly mother at home needs me more. I am eager to return home now and have no time to deal with this only property in Luzhou, so I will give it to Hongzhi... Firstly, to reward you for your ‘triple victory’, and secondly, to thank you for your ‘Difficulty in Finding Beauty’ letter, which made me determined to resign from my official post!”

Su Lu was about to decline, but Prefect Jia insisted, "You have no idea how much you have helped me. I think this gift is too little. If you don't accept it, I will leave this post with a sense of guilt."

"Alright, then this student thanks the old master for the reward." Su Lu had no choice but to accept it reluctantly.

"That's more like it. The deed and transfer documents have all been processed." Prefect Jia then smiled happily and said, "Everyone will definitely give congratulatory gifts later. Mine will definitely be the least valuable. I just got here early."

"Where? This gift from our ancestral master is invaluable; I will certainly cherish it well," Su Lu hurriedly replied.

"That's wonderful! I put a lot of effort into that villa. Selling it to a boorish merchant would be like burning a zither to cook a crane," said Prefect Jia, then looked at the group from Hejiang County and asked with a smile:
"By the way, guess who took my seal?"

"Could it be our county's elderly parents?" the group of new scholars asked, following his lead.

“That’s right.” Prefect Jia nodded with a smile. “It is indeed Lu Zhaoye, the magistrate of Hejiang County. I estimate that he will be taking office in a few days.”

"Really?" the scholars exclaimed with delight. "This is truly a stroke of luck amidst misfortune."

"You all must continue to work hard and make progress, and never be complacent or slack off." Prefect Jia said in a deep voice at the end: "Mountains may not move, but rivers will; we will meet again one day."

~~
At the Su family's warm invitation, Prefect Jia stayed for the banquet before returning home.

No sooner had he left than Zhu Jie and his wife arrived with their children.

As soon as they got out of the car, the Zhu family laughed and said, "Good heavens, this pile of firecracker debris is even more intense than the New Year celebrations."

"How could we trouble you and your wife to come all this way?" The old man hurried to the door to greet them.

"You are our elder, so of course we juniors have to come and pay our respects," Zhu Jie said with a smile. "Besides, I heard that Hongzhong achieved the highest honors in the imperial examinations, so as his senior, I must come and offer my congratulations."

With that, he waved his hand, and the Zhu family's servants carried several boxes into the mansion.

"Thank you so much! How did your son do on the exam?" The old man quickly ushered Zhu Jie and his wife into the house.

"It certainly won't be as good as your grandson's exam results," Zhu Jie laughed. "One got sixth and the other seventh, barely satisfactory."

"Father, we have no choice. As long as Hongzhi is here, this is the best result we can achieve." Zhu Zihe and Zhu Zigong, the two brothers in the same predicament, said with a wry smile, "Who told us to study the classics together?"

“Yes, teacher.” Su Man nodded and said, “Zihe’s writing is better than mine. I only benefited from studying the Spring and Autumn Annals.”

"Haha, Yingzhi is too modest." Zhu Jie shook his head with a smile and said, "You were sixth in the first round, but you were able to rank third in the end, which shows that your skill in studying the classics is much stronger than that of your juniors."

"I've studied for two more years than them," Su Man said modestly. "In a few years, I might not be their match."

"Senior brother is too modest. They're learning from you, they'll never catch up." Zhu Yin also came, dressed beautifully as usual, and even had makeup on…

"Junior sister thinks too highly of me." After several trips to help students take exams, Su Man hadn't eaten a single flower cake from her, but the two were no longer so distant.

But Su Man remained polite yet distant, clearly unmoved by her beauty.

But that's normal. If you look like Su Man, you'd probably see everyone as ordinary...

Su Lu then chatted with Zhu Zihe and Zhu Zigong, asking who the other three were among the Five Classics Champions.
"Baiyun Mountain is second, he studied the Book of Poetry; Xiao Tingjie from Naxi is fourth, studied the Book of Changes; Xu Chengye from Jiang'an is fifth, studied the Book of Documents." Zhu Zihe said clearly, "Our Zhengyizhai has a total of fifteen students who passed the exam, and Chengxinzhai has nine. If we include the senior students from previous years, our academy has a total of thirty-two students who passed the exam."

"They all performed quite well." Su Lu nodded. In previous years, candidates from Luzhou always accounted for 60% to 70% of the total number of test takers.

"Not many students from Luzhou passed the exam this year," Zhu Zigong said. "The main reason is that your Taiping Academy is too competitive; it snatched up several spots at once."

"It's not so much that Taiping Academy is amazing, it's that Qiji is amazing!" Zhu Ziming said with admiration. "I heard that all the scholars who passed the county-level exam in Hejiang County were in Qiji's class. Qiji's class at Heshan Academy was originally one of the later ones to enter, but in the end, six more students passed the exam than the advanced classes!"

"You're making it sound like it's all my doing," Su Lu laughed heartily.

"Is not it?"

"Of course not," Su Lu shook his head and smiled.

That afternoon, the Su residence was packed with guests, who came in an endless stream to offer their congratulations. Everyone wanted to take this opportunity to get to know Luzhou's first "Little Three Scholars" (a title bestowed upon a single scholar in the highest imperial examinations).

Five of the seven prominent families from Luzhou attended, and the Han and Li families, whose heads of household were absent, also prepared generous gifts.

In addition, the families of all the students from Zhengyizhai also came.

Many unfamiliar gentry and businessmen, whom he didn't know at all, also came to offer their congratulations with gifts. They arrived one after another, and the entire east wing room was piled high with all sorts of gifts…

The guests who came to offer their congratulations did not stop until it got dark.

It was like fighting a war day. If it weren't for Steward Tian and his men stepping in in time, the Su family wouldn't have been able to handle it at all.

The whole family was very grateful to Steward Tian, ​​and Su Youjin gave him fifty taels of silver, insisting that he accept it no matter what.

Manager Tian could not refuse, so he thanked the master for the reward and led his delighted men back to rest.

By the end of the day, Su Youjin had given out nearly two hundred taels of silver... For the first time, he felt that he hadn't made a mistake in choosing his name.

But this was still a huge profit – the aunt and the proprietress roughly estimated the value of the gifts they received. Not counting the ancient books, paintings, calligraphy, ink, and inkstones that were hard to value, just the gold, silver, jewelry, coins, and jade items alone amounted to more than three thousand taels of silver!
In addition to the villa given by Prefect Jia, the Zhu family also gave a shop on Dahe Street, the Deng family gave ten acres of paddy fields outside the city, and the Lei family gave a distillery with four cellars... to thank Su Lu for his help to Deng Dengying, Lei Shengyuan and others.

Looking at the thick list of gifts, the aunt stared wide-eyed and exclaimed, "Sister, even when my uncle passed the imperial examination, I didn't see anything this valuable!"

"One, five, ten..." Auntie happily counted off the soldiers, not forgetting to tease, "Were you born yet, back then?"

"Of course, how can my father's scholar compare to Qiu-ge'er? He's a top scholar in Luzhou, and everyone thinks he'll pass the imperial examination," the proprietress said with a smile.

"If he passes the imperial examination in the future, won't he earn even more?" Auntie thought to herself, "My second uncle always said that there are houses of gold in books, and I never thought it would be true."

"That would have to be up to Qiu-ge'er's level." The proprietress praised sincerely, "Sister-in-law, your family was so poor back then, and you still insisted on supporting their education. It was truly remarkable."

"That's not quite right," Auntie sighed. "It's true that I'm supporting my second uncle and Chun'er's education, but the family simply doesn't have the resources to support another one..."

She suddenly felt the silver was burning her hand and put it down, saying, "That's why I never wanted Qiu-ge to go to school, which delayed him for many years. Later, the child became very determined and passed the entrance exam for the academy in a hundred days, and only then did I agree to let him study. But then my uncle suddenly got married and spent all the family's money, and I couldn't even pay for his tuition..."

"You can blame this on me..." The aunt's face turned bright red with embarrassment.

"So, sister, we've all owe you a debt of gratitude. You've paid for Qiu-ge's schooling." The aunt gratefully grasped the landlady's hand.

"Actually, the idea of ​​making money was all Qiu-ge'er's." The proprietress said somewhat insecurely, "I only contributed my efforts, but in the future I will have to enjoy the benefits in place of his own mother. I really can't feel at ease."

"So what? Qiu-ge doesn't even remember what his mother looks like," the eldest aunt comforted the landlady in a carefree manner.

"..." The proprietress gently shook her head; she had read Su Luzhou's essay from the provincial examination.

"Sigh, what's wrong with you two?" Even the aunt couldn't stand it anymore. "Why are you talking about whether you're a good match or not?"

She asked her aunt, "How is Qiu-ge'er treating you now?"

“Okay,” said the eldest aunt.

"Does Brother Qiu still call you 'Mother'?" the aunt asked the landlady again.

"Go ahead and call out," the proprietress said.

"Then that settles it?" Auntie said. "When a family lives together, it's like gritting your teeth and swallowing blood; you still eat and drink as usual. How can you not live?"

"Oh my, third son's wife, you're quite knowledgeable!" the eldest aunt praised, "I underestimated you before."

"I've experienced this firsthand!" my aunt exclaimed. "If you're too calculating, you can't live a normal life."

“My sister is right.” Even the proprietress was convinced, and smiled with relief: “Forget all that nonsense, I am Qiu-ge’er’s mother!”

"Yes, I am his aunt!" The aunt could finally hug her beloved little Yuanbao with peace of mind. "I even raised him from infancy, changing his diapers and feeding him!"

"That's right." The aunt secretly breathed a sigh of relief. If the two of them couldn't feel at ease, she, as the aunt who had done Su Lu no favors, would be even less able to enjoy everything she had now.

"Yes, I've finally discovered your good points, Third Brother's wife," the eldest aunt nodded earnestly.

"What are your strengths? Is it that you can comfort people?" the aunt asked happily.

"No, it's about being thick-skinned," Auntie laughed. "We should all learn from you."

"..." Auntie lowered her head in frustration, only to have her cheek bitten again.

P.S. The next chapter will be 200 words long (facepalm).

(End of this chapter)