Volume 4: Gathering of Sages Chapter 606: None of them is reliable!
The fourth prince's sudden hug around the waist stunned the aggressive King Jiangdu.
Although he had not put down the hammer he held high, his murderous tone suddenly changed. Although he did not see clearly who the boy who suddenly rushed out to hug him was, the request he made just hit his biggest weakness.
Three years ago, he got tired of horse riding and archery, so he started learning blacksmithing. He thought he was very talented, so he showed off his blacksmithing skills everywhere and promised to make things for people including the Fourth Prince. But in the end... of course, he stood up a lot of people!
King Jiangdu glanced at the dumbfounded brat, but couldn't help but linger on the handsome young man next to him. Although the brat his youngest son mentioned was also born with a flat head and a clean face, he was really much different from the other one. He didn't need to guess, he could tell who was who by the sharp contrast.
Without a doubt, the good-looking one is Zhang Shou. He is so handsome, no wonder Zhu Ying, who has always been fond of handsome men, likes him... Of course, he likes him too. His biggest regret in life is that his sons are all ugly like him, and none of them inherited their mother's beauty!
After so much effort, she finally got a beautiful daughter, who now looks no worse than Zhu Ying, who is famous in the capital, but she actually fell in love with this wild boy who came out of nowhere! At least this girl has a higher standard and brought back a leisurely and elegant young man like Zhang Shou for him!
The King of Jiangdu once again showed a frightening and fierce light in his eyes, but although Mr. Song was a little scared by his gaze, he could not scare the little guy who was clinging to his waist. He kept shouting, "Uncle Wang not only owes me a dagger, you also owe my third brother an iron paperweight, you owe my father an iron ruler, you owe the Empress Dowager and Concubine Yu..."
Before anyone could finish their words, King Jiangdu quickly covered the man's mouth with his free hand. By now he had already realized who the man was. At such an old age, he could still keep calling his father and third brother. Who else could it be but the greediest little bastard, the Fourth Prince?
Every time he entered the palace, he loved to talk about blacksmithing, and promised to do a lot of things. But in the end, he just liked blacksmithing, and after more than three years, his skills were really mediocre. Even the master who taught him blacksmithing said in fear and trepidation, "It's not that you are slow to learn, but that it takes many years to be an apprentice in the blacksmithing business!"
Nowadays, he can make some rough things like sickles, but he can't make delicate things at all! Dagger... He can make a piece of iron and grind it, can he give it as a dagger?
The dark-faced King Jiangdu took a deep breath, then loosened his hand slightly, forced a smile and said, "Fourth Prince, I have guests in my palace today. Can I give you the little things you mentioned next time?"
"Of course there's no rush for the things." The Fourth Prince certainly wasn't as angry as King Jiangdu, but he didn't struggle either. Instead, he muttered softly, "But Uncle King, you don't keep your word! You promised me something, but in the blink of an eye, there's no news. You don't even come to the palace. Only Sister A Ling comes to visit... She likes to eat sweets, but you're willing to hire someone to make it for a high price, and you just leave us aside!"
Nonsense, how can my own precious daughter be compared with you brats?
Prince Jiangdu snorted inwardly, but now the Fourth Prince is no longer just the little prince raised by the Emperor in the Qianqing Palace, but the closest brother of the future Crown Prince. He can't tell what his future will be like. Even if he doesn't care about power, he can't offend him too much, so he can only laugh and say, "What are you talking about, Fourth Prince? Of course I often go to the palace, but you didn't see it..."
"But father said you haven't been to the palace for a long time! Father said that without you, uncle, he wouldn't even have a rival in horse racing or archery!"
Upon hearing this, the King of Jiangdu's face finally calmed down a little. Although horse racing and archery were no longer his main hobbies, the emperor said that without him, there would be no opponent, which was absolutely true. Apart from him, probably only Zhao Guogong Zhu Jing could beat the emperor, and the others... hehe, they wanted to make the emperor look like a god and the best in the world!
"Okay, I'll go to the palace tomorrow to satisfy my brother's desire!"
At this moment, hearing the King of Jiangdu call him his "brother", Zhang Shou managed to keep his face together, but his heart was in turmoil. This strong man looked like he was in his forties, which was polite. He would be believed if he was fifty. How could he be younger than the current emperor? He just heard the fourth prince call him "Uncle Wang" and thought that maybe this was just an empty title like "Uncle of the World". After all, the words "Uncle Wang" were really not nice to hear...
While Zhang Shou was thinking about this irrelevant thing, the fourth prince's free play did not end. He smiled and let go of the hand that had just been hugging the King of Jiangdu, and nodded heavily, saying: "It's good that the prince uncle is willing to go. I can also give an explanation to the emperor after I return to the palace. The emperor was grumbling before, saying that the prince uncle is lazy and dared to excuse himself from attending the imperial lecture!"
This time, the King of Jiangdu took a deep breath. Of course, he declined the imperial lecture. Previously, he had sent all four of his sons to listen to the lecture for a few days under the pretext of letting them have a good baptism. He only hoped that the emperor would show leniency and let him go, and not let him listen to those boring things.
As a result, for nearly ten days, no one seemed to have investigated his laziness at home. But the emperor secretly took note of it! This was bad. You know, the emperor had a great ability to hold grudges, not to mention his other abilities!
Seeing his father so upset by the Fourth Prince's ramblings that he forgot that his own good cabbage was about to be eaten by a pig, Zheng Silang, who had just gone to ask for help, was furious. But before he could bypass his father and personally question him, he heard a laugh that made him tremble.
"A Ling, you went to the palace to talk to the Queen Mother for no reason. Why did you come back with guests?"
Following the voice, Zhang Shou saw two young men who were slightly older than him and had very similar square faces, accompanying a beautiful woman in gorgeous clothes. The beautiful woman had a beautiful face, a red silk jacket and a long gold-woven skirt. From her head to her neck and wrists, she was all glittering with gold and jade, even more ostentatious than Zhu Ying, who always liked all kinds of jewelry.
Especially the whole headpiece. Although he couldn't see the pattern clearly at a glance because of the distance, the distracting parts underneath, the centerpieces, the flower ornaments, the top hairpins... anyway, it was made of all kinds of gold and jade inlaid with gems , covering up almost no hair. His first reaction was that with so many things on the head, how could a person walk?
But this beautiful lady, who was obviously the princess of Jiangdu, walked steadily and gracefully. Although she asked the Princess of Hailing, she did not wait for anyone to answer, but greeted Zhu Ying with a smile.
"It's been a long time since we last met. Yingying, you're getting married. Oh, your ideal husband is so handsome. If I were 20 years younger, I would definitely leave A-Ling's father behind and take the initiative! Such a talented and handsome man is hard to find even with a lantern!"
Zhu Ying wanted to explain the whole story, but she was interrupted by the Princess of Jiangdu. When she finally stopped talking, she smiled and said, "Princess, if you were 20 years younger and were competing with me for Ah Shou, I would be in trouble... Everyone in the capital knows that the Princess is the Goddess of Wealth. One penny can turn into ten or a hundred coins in the blink of an eye!"
Zhang Shou rarely saw Zhu Ying complimenting others. When he looked at the Princess of Jiangdu, she seemed to have been tickled, and her expression became even more beautiful. Although he had some knowledge of the wealthy families and merchants in the capital, the population of the capital was too large, and he really had not learned about the Jiangdu royal family. When Zhu Ying counted on her fingers which famous old stores were owned by the royal family, he could not help but look at Mr. Song.
Fortunately, perhaps because the Song family in Guangdong was accustomed to hearing all kinds of silver and money figures, or perhaps because he was thinking about getting investment from his future father-in-law and mother-in-law, in short, Mr. Song was absolutely calm and confident at this moment.
The Princess of Jiangdu, who heard the news, did take advantage of this opportunity to take a closer look at Zhang Shou and Mr. Song.
She had heard of Zhang Shou's fame for a long time, and had also glanced at him from afar before, but now that he was really standing in front of her, even though she was not a person who was obsessed with appearance like Zhu Ying when she was young, she couldn't help but admire him in her heart. After all, he was not a fool who was just waiting for an embroidered pillow and a bag of straw. Not to mention his talent, even his way of doing things was quite remarkable.
It can be said that if Zhu Ying's enthusiasm for Zhang Shou was really short-lived, and her daughter really picked Zhang Shou up and yelled that she wanted to marry him... she would definitely not say a word at this moment!
But her daughter actually fell in love with this idiot next to Zhang Shou, who was born in a famous family and participated in the imperial chef selection competition as a juren! Her husband didn't know much about the situation, but she, who was well-informed, had heard of this person a long time ago!
When Princess Jiangdu noticed that her husband seemed to be about to speak, she coughed heavily. Seeing that her husband immediately shut up, she greeted Zhang Shou with a smile and was also very polite to Mr. Song. It was not until she saw that Lady Hailing seemed to be relieved that she calmly stepped forward and took her arm.
"A Ling, I heard from your fourth brother that you followed the Queen Mother to watch the Imperial Chef Selection Competition today? Tell mother, what's interesting about it?"
While asking, Princess Jiangdu dragged Princess Hailing away, chatting like a mother and daughter. Her actions, with a smile on her face but no ambiguity at all, made Zhang Shou think of the equally strong and shrewd Wang Xifeng.
He stopped Zhu Ying, who wanted to follow and join in, thoughtfully, and glanced at Mr. Song again. Seeing that Mr. Song was not panicked at all, he looked at him with admiration.
When his daughter was taken away by his wife, the King of Jiangdu felt that all the troubles were gone. He behaved more naturally than before. Although he still disliked Mr. Song, he at least did not blow his beard and glare at him as if he wanted to eat him alive. However, he did not ask Zhang Shou, Zhu Ying and others to come in and sit down with him, as he was bringing his four sons with him.
As for the Fourth Prince... fortunately he is not the Third Prince who is about to be crowned Crown Prince. He can only apologize first!
However, without inviting anyone in to sit down, and without being able to think of anything to talk about, the King of Jiangdu could only glance at his four sons, suggesting that they could come up with some topics. Of course, it would be best to send these uninvited guests away.
However, compared to the Fourth Prince who distracted his attention by talking about all sorts of things right from the start, some of his four sons continued to glare at Mr. Song, while others looked at each other. In short, no one spoke, and the atmosphere suddenly became awkward!
Seeing that the father and his five sons were all equally unsociable and were completely different from the Jiangdu Princess just now, Zhang Shou was immediately amused. He would not just stand there in a daze with them, so he smiled and asked a few questions about blacksmithing, and gradually turned the topic to his Tiangong Workshop.
Sure enough, the non-mainstream prince like Prince Jiangdu was indeed very interested in the Tiangong Workshop, which the emperor had personally visited and given a name to. Moreover, when Zhang Shou said that the workshop had recruited many craftsmen from all walks of life, he gradually became more interested.
He didn't learn blacksmithing well, maybe because his master was hiding something and refused to teach him all his skills! Why not build a relationship with Zhang Shou and go back to the workshop to take a look. If there is any good blacksmith, ask him to come back and teach him?
With this idea in mind, King Jiangdu became much more enthusiastic towards Zhang Shou. And when he softened his attitude, Song Juren, who was thinking about how to persuade his father-in-law to invest, finally saw his chance.
After all, he had been hanging out with the glassmaker Yang Zhan for quite some time. He took a chance to talk about glass and then mentioned Zhang Shouxian's formula. He then took out a lens he carried with him and began to demonstrate and explain it in public.
Although the King of Jiangdu and his son were both quite hostile to him, being hostile to people did not mean being hostile to things. Moreover, although some of the things that Zhang Shou had demonstrated on the first day of the imperial lecture were called witchcraft by some people outside, due to rumors, the father and son felt that it was some kind of magic trick. They were curious and naturally willing to listen to Mr. Song's explanation.
Although Zhang Shou found the explanation irrelevant - after all, Mr. Song was a typical liberal arts student, and at best his skills were limited to dessert technology, and he could not understand the essence of mathematics, physics and chemistry - but at this time he was solemnly reciting the terms he learned from Yang Zhan (although Yang Zhan also learned them from Guan Qiu), which was enough to fool an outsider.
Zhu Ying and the Fourth Prince were bored listening to the talk - one was totally uninterested, the other was a little interested, but his interest was too low to keep up. So, the two who were not afraid of trouble looked at each other and tiptoed away. Although the father and son of the King of Jiangdu noticed this scene, it was not Mr. Song who sneaked in, so they didn't care.
As a result, after a long while, Princess Jiangdu came out with Princess Hailing, followed by the smiling Zhu Ying and the Fourth Prince . Compared with her happy daughter, Princess Jiangdu was now in a state of headache. However, when she saw her husband chatting with Mr. Song and Zhang Shou was surrounded by her four sons, she felt very tired.
Apart from her, there are five people in this family, including the father and his two sons, plus this spoiled daughter. None of them can be trusted!
