After saving the Empress, I became the top scholar in the imperial examination.

"Hey hey hey~" Widow Ning immediately turned around with a smile, "Mother will be here soon!" Her tone was as gentle as if she were talking to a newborn baby.

Cui Cui pursed her lips and nodded her chin.

With a flick of her hair, she left Ning Nan with a graceful silhouette as she carried the dishes into the main room.

Ning Nan was so shocked that his jaw almost dislocated.

They're engaged... What's that called back then? I think it's called a formal engagement, or something like that.

He frowned: "The marriage certificate is already written?"

The old woman turned around and slapped him hard on the shoulder. "I wrote it! If you dare to treat Cuicui badly... I'll hold up your father's memorial tablet and beat you senseless!"

Although her tone was stern, the woman's face was beaming with a bright smile. The wrinkles at the corners of her eyes were layered together like neatly arranged crescent moons, reflecting the light in her eyes and giving them a radiant glow.

Ning Nan nodded blankly, then his mother turned around contentedly: "Come on, let's go inside and eat!"

Seeing his mother's once again brisk steps, he twitched his lips, feeling quite gratified, at least his mother's health had returned.

Phew... Cui Cui saved my mother's life. My mother planned to arrange a blind date for me, but the date failed. Cui Cui then decided to marry me.

Suddenly receiving this combined information, and with my mother speaking vaguely, the thoughts in my mind became tangled up like a mess of hemp.

After thinking for a while, he frowned... Did Cui Cui pretend to marry him to appease her mother who was sick?

As soon as you walk in and finish your meal, the other person will pull you aside and say, "You saved my life, I saved your mother's life, we're even now."

Then, under Steward Xu's arrangement, they took a carriage back to Nanjing overnight.

That's not impossible... So that's why Manager Xu didn't stay with Miss Zhu, but had dinner at his own home instead? Ning Nan frowned.

However, if that's the case, there's no need to write a marriage certificate!

Zhu Cuiwei... According to my mother, the other party even wrote this name on the marriage certificate, along with her birth date and time. Given the superstition of people in ancient times, such a thing wouldn't be faked.

Is Cui Cui superstitious?

It seems like superstition... Who doesn't believe in superstition these days... He laughed self-deprecatingly.

The name and birth date should be genuine... If the other party is just going through the motions, there's really no need to change the name.

"Was it just to go all out for the sake of the performance?"

To appease his mother and to repay her kindness, the marriage certificate was real, and the marriage was real too.

He pretended to marry her, but then, on their wedding night, he kicked her off the bed and said coldly, "You actually wanted to consummate the marriage? We're getting a divorce in three months..."

Then he'd say things like, "I've done everything I could, I've repaid the debt of saving my life," and then let me sleep on the floor...

Thoughts and images like these kept popping up, overwhelming his mind... He couldn't help but rub his temples, his emotions becoming increasingly complex and difficult to describe.

He was also absent-minded while eating.

Cui Cui sat to his left, eating her meal in a serious manner, without even glancing at him.

Sitting on the right is Uncle Fu, the old coachman from Ning Beizhi's wife's household.

As the guests ate, they would occasionally boast about their culinary skills, to which he would respond with a perfunctory smile, lacking his usual ease and confidence.

Only when a few people praised the rice wine goose would he say a few words, "Today's dish is really well made!" But Chef Cui didn't react much and didn't say anything.

Fortunately, my mother is very outgoing and talkative, so she never lets the atmosphere get awkward.

The conversation never stopped at the dinner table. She poured wine for the three drivers, sometimes thanking them for bringing back things for her son, and sometimes chatting about the local customs and culture of Nanjing.

Uncle Fu was alright, but the two coachmen from the Zhenguo Marquis's residence, after having a few drinks, couldn't help but boast about how big the mansion was, how wide the roads were, and even said, "The walls of the imperial palace in the capital are higher than the mountain outside your house!"

"Higher than Hawk Mountain?" My mother's eyes widened, always giving an exaggerated reaction at the right time.

Manager Xu listened with a smile, not pointing anything out. When the old woman shifted the conversation to him, the old man said he was just a merchant passing through your esteemed place. He had seen your mansion with auspicious purple clouds rising from the east, a truly magnificent sight, and had thought he'd come and freeload a meal... The old woman tilted her chin up and poured wine for the old man: "Thank you for your kind words!"

Uncle Fu had a simple and honest look on his face and didn't say much. But at one point, he quietly pointed to the offering table behind him, clasped his hands in a fist salute to Ning Nan, and said, "Young Master Ning, if I may be so bold as to ask, are these memorial tablets perhaps...?"

Ning Nan exclaimed, "Oh, this is my grandfather, grandmother, and father."

Uncle Fu seemed a little puzzled. He nodded and mumbled something under his breath. Ning Nan didn't hear it clearly, but didn't ask any further questions.

My grandfather, Ning Changping.

Grandmother Zhou Rui.

Father Ning Beiwang.

Over the past eighteen years, my mother has kowtowed countless times.

Uncle Fu glanced at the altar a few more times without saying a word, and only looked away after a long while.

After dinner, my mother, full of energy, went to arrange accommodations for the three drivers... She patted her chest and said that the Ning family would pay for it.

The drivers immediately expressed their gratitude.

Uncle Fu and the other two drivers were all somewhat moved.

This young master Ning is someone who can sleep in the same bed as the seventh young master of the Zhenguo Marquis's family, and is even regarded as a nephew by the Marquis's wife.

This young master was very polite to them throughout the journey, and they discussed things with him.

Even when they encountered someone tailing them, Young Master Ning did not act arbitrarily. Instead, he asked them to take a look first and see if the woman resembled a female bandit, which was quite commendable.

These men had all crawled out of piles of corpses. In their experience, soldiers and cart drivers like them would be lucky if they weren't cursed as filthy by scholars. They had never seen a scholar who treated them with such respect, cooked for them, and ate at the same table with them.

"It's a bit of a pity that Young Master Ning is planning to get involved in some business matters..."

The driver of the second carriage for Ning Nan sighed as he drove.

The second carriage was the heaviest, but the horses didn't struggle. They even swapped horses with the third carriage a few times.

He had helped Young Master Ning move things before, and knew that the carriage contained many baskets of saltpeter, sulfur, charcoal, and flint.

I handled a shotgun when I was in the army.

I remember that the gunpowder formula recorded in the "Treatise on Military Preparedness" was "one ounce of saltpeter, one and four-tenths of a mace of sulfur, and one and eight-tenths of a mace of willow charcoal".

I was curious and concerned, since shotguns are known for their dangerous tendency to explode. There was a young master in my household who was interested in them, but after his servant was blown up once, he never dared to touch one again.

So I asked Young Master Ning, and it turns out that Young Master Ning is the kind of person who reads a few books and then dreams of making firearms, wanting to go to the court to ask for rewards and official positions, but in the end he is often blown up and loses his hands and feet.

With such great talent as Young Master Ning, the imperial examination is the right path. At the very least, he could be introduced by the Seventh Young Master to become a staff member for the Marquis.

Young Master Ning smiled and said that these things were used to make flint and steel, and he planned to make a batch to sell to peddlers to supplement his family income.

He nodded in understanding, then shook his head: "Young Master Ning is very talented. It's a bit of a disservice for you to do all this."

Young Master Ning smiled and said helplessly, "Even a hero can be brought down by a single penny!"

That's so well said. His eyes lit up then, and he still remembers it now. A slight smile played on his lips as he planned to tell it to Lao Fu and Lao Jiang later.

...

...

The dim yellow light filled the entire main room of the Ning family's house.

My mother moved back to her inner room.

Cui Cui moved out and into her own room.

Ning Nan's mind was still a little numb after washing the dishes. She silently tidied up the main room, intending to make a bed for herself.

At this moment, Cui Cui, who was inside the house, unlatched the door and poked her head out, saying to him with a calm expression, "Come in."

"Well……"

Ning Nan paused, guessing that the other party was planning to lay their cards on the table.