The two walked for a while, the sky had completely darkened, Zhou Qiren thought that Chen Yan was going to go back to the post house, but he didn't expect that he turned to a street alley completely opposite the direction of the post house at this time. Zhou Qiren felt strange and asked, "It's so late, where are you going?"

Chen Yan said that he was going to visit an old man, and asked Zhou Qiren not to follow. Where are Zhou Qiren willing to listen, but they follow more closely than before, and Chen Yan doesn't say much.

The two of them were silent and turned a few more streets, and the bustle gradually became in front of them. Zhou Qiren looked around and found that he had arrived at the most famous Shamao Hutong in the capital.

This area was home to officials from the DPRK and China, so the prices were much higher than in the rest of the city, and of course the goods sold were particularly elaborate and noble. If it weren't for the high-ranking ministers in the imperial court, or the wealthy and wealthy families, they wouldn't be able to afford to live at all. Zhou Qiren has been with Chen Yan since he was a student, but he never knew why he could live in such a prosperous and prominent place, and he couldn't help but keep looking at Chen Yan, but Chen Yan only didn't know, and after a while, he turned around and entered a shop on the right hand side of the street.

Zhou Qiren looked up at the door plaque, and saw that the three big characters "Babao Zhai" on it were shining with gold even in the dark night, and he was a little puzzled.

This "Eight Treasures Zhai" in the capital can be said to be known to everyone, no one knows, specializing in all kinds of dim sum to eat, because of the exquisite materials, fine workmanship, and the recipe handed down by the ancestors, so the taste is more different than elsewhere, sought after by the dignitaries and nobles in the capital.

When the first emperor visited the house of a certain important minister, he accidentally ate a piece, and he was full of praise, and listed the "Eight Treasures Zhai" as the royal use, and regularly supplied snacks to the palace. Stained with the word "royal", even the stinky can be turned into fragrant, not to mention that the dim sum of "Babao Zhai" is indeed worthy of its name.

Since then, the price of Babao Zhai has risen, and everyone has to compete to taste the taste of this royal pastry, and the price of dim sum has naturally risen with the tide, so that now the most ordinary pastry also costs a few taels of silver, not so much eating dim sum, but eating silver.

A poor scholar like Zhou Qiren usually doesn't even dare to take a look at this "Eight Treasures Zhai", but Chen Yan seems to have already gone smoothly.

Zhou Qiren followed Chen Yan in suspiciously, and saw the shopkeeper nodding and greeting him from behind the counter, obviously having dealt with Chen Yan before. Behind the counter are all kinds of fruit snacks, all round and full, delicate and durable, exuding a sweet and sweet smell.

Chen Yan didn't even ask about the price, he asked for a few of everything, so that the boss could pretend to be alive. In the end, the price was nearly 100 taels of silver. Several richly dressed sons around them all looked sideways, but Chen Yan did not change his face, took out a stack of silver tickets from his arms, took out one and handed it to the boss. Zhou Qiren looked at it from behind, if the thickness of the pile of silver tickets was calculated in one hundred taels, it should be a thousand taels, and he couldn't help but be stunned.

The two of them came out of the "Babao Zhai", and then turned into an alley, and at the end, they entered the courtyard of the deep house, and the two big characters of "Zhongfu" were written on it. This mansion looks spacious and magnificent, and even in the dark night, it looks extraordinary, and it is obvious that it is not something that ordinary people can afford to live in. Zhou Qiren was thinking carefully in his heart about which Lord Zhong in the court was so wealthy, and Chen Yan had already stepped forward and knocked on the knocker.

Suddenly, the door creaked open, and a person's head poked out, thinking that it was the gatehouse in this house. I saw that this porter looked very ugly, two front teeth were out of the mouth, one of them was still half missing, and there was a broad bean-sized mole on the right side of the face, and a few fine hairs on it were trembling like rat whiskers under the reflection of the lantern, making Zhou Qiren look hairy.

The concierge saw Chen Yan, but as if he had seen his own father, he nodded and said, "Oh, isn't this Lord Chen, please come in, please come in." ”

Chen Yan stepped into the door with a few boxes of dim sum, and Zhou Qiren hurriedly followed. The courtyard of the mansion was pitch black, and by the light of the lantern in the doorman's hand, Zhou Qiren saw Chen Yan take out a bag of bulging things from his sleeve and hand it to the gatekeeper, which was obviously the door bag that entered the door. The concierge took it and checked it, smiling more and more, but stared at Zhou Qiren and asked, "Dare to ask Lord Chen, who is this ......?"

Chen Yan's handsome face was expressionless: "This is Chen's colleague in the Hanlin Academy, revising Master Zhou." ”

The porter nodded and said, "Oh, oh, it turned out to be Lord Zhou, and the little one has eyes and doesn't know Mount Tai." As he spoke, he changed his words again, and looked at Chen Yan as if he was very embarrassed and said, "Lord Chen, look at this big night, our master is also tired." If you come alone, you can bring a Master Zhou, this ......"

Zhou Qiren was confused when he heard this, but Chen Yan already understood what he meant, glanced back at Zhou Qiren angrily, took out a bag of silver from his sleeve, and threw it to the porter: "Please take us in." ”

The concierge took the silver, and then he agreed very kindly, and led Chen Yan and Zhou Qiren to the depths of the house.

Zhou Qiren walked on the road, thinking to himself in his heart, entering the door to give the door bag, this is a tacit rule in the officialdom, he himself has also given it, except for Fu Qian's mansion The door rules are stricter and do not want to promote this trend, even if it is Zhao Yongning Zhao's mansion, this is indispensable to enter the door, and the higher the official position, the more expensive the door bag, and some officials use this to raise their lintel. From this point of view, the Lord Zhong visited by Chen Yan should be a high-ranking official, but Zhou Qiren walked all the way to the main hall, and he didn't think of any official in the court who was like this, but there was a Yanguan surnamed Zhong, but Zhou Qiren didn't believe that he dared to put on such a big shelf.

The lights in the main hall were bright, and Zhou Qiren followed Chen Yan into the door to see, and his heart was a jump, only to say that he was really guessed by himself this time, but the master in the main hall was not who the famous official Zhong Shaoyun was.

This Zhong Shaoyun was originally Emperor Heng's orthodox eighteen-year Tanhualang, and he should have a bright future, but because of his poor family and upright temperament, he refused to give gifts to the academicians of the Hanlin Academy, and was assigned to six departments to be a seven-grade official.

Yan has a low official position, a meager salary, and because he often has to be impeached, it is very easy to offend the powerful in the DPRK. In addition to eating and drinking, Zhong Shaoyun's monthly monthly income is used to settle such disasters, and he is stretched thin, and when he is embarrassed, he even has to pull down his face to borrow debts from his colleagues and neighbors to live. A dignified court official is really worse than the ordinary people.

Zhong Shaoyun is proud of his talents, his heart is high, how can he stand such humiliation, he doesn't know how to deal with people, he has never been pleasing in front of the peak, seeing that there is no hope for promotion, and his career is jammed, he has the idea of giving up on himself, thinking that instead of living in such a humiliating life, it is better to break the kettle and do something impressive, and it is good to be a blockbuster, and then it is worth dying.

As soon as Zhong Shaoyun had made up his mind, he took up the pen and worded, and wrote a bullet seal to the emperor who was harshly criticized in the past for being sad for his court magnates, adding oil and vinegar to those who were at fault, and fabricating those without fault. The power of the imperial court magnates is intertwined, and Zhong Shaoyun, a small official with weak strength, naturally cannot shake it in the slightest. Zhong Shaoyun didn't want to do anything to them, he just fought for his life and gained a reputation for not being afraid of the powerful. Who knew that at that time, Emperor Heng was losing his power, jealous of the powerful ministers in the court, and wanted to seize power, but he couldn't find a reason for it for a while. Zhong Shaoyun's bullet seal was on the right to Emperor Heng's thoughts, and the old emperor didn't ask about the merits at the moment, and used the topic to play, and demoted the ministers to the officials, and the rest of the officials.

Zhong Shaoyun unintentionally inserted willows, but he overthrew a series of powers, which can really be said to be a mayfly that shook the towering ancient trees, and his reputation has been great since then. The officials of the DPRK and China were afraid that he would do the same to him, and none of them dared to look at him squarely, and even the first-class officials had to be polite when they saw him. There are even more people with ulterior motives, seeing that Zhong Shaoyun is favored by the emperor and his momentum is flourishing, so he paid a bribe and begged him to write a bullet to attack his political enemies.

Zhong Shaoyun was afraid of poverty before, as long as he had money, he would not refuse to come, and never asked about the merits. That Emperor Heng relied on him to consolidate his power, so he naturally had to be perfunctory to him, but he attached great importance to all his recitals, and sometimes even if he knew that he had nothing to do, he turned a blind eye. I don't know how many officials fell under Zhong Shaoyun's pen in those years, so that when his name was mentioned, all the ministers of the Manchu Dynasty looked sideways.

Now that Emperor Heng has long passed away, Emperor Jing inherited the unification, reigned for 23 years, and is located in today's saint. After three dynasties, Zhong Shaoyun has already been over half a hundred years old, and the original momentum has long faded, but the name is still well-known among the officials, but the praise and disapproval in it are profound, and everyone is only allowed to understand it.

Such a character is a little contemptuous in the eyes of Zhou Qiren, but Chen Yan is very enthusiastic and polite, put a few boxes of "Babaozhai" snacks on the table, and took out a stack of silver tickets from his arms, and pushed them to Zhong Shaoyun's hand together: "It's a small meaning, it's not a respect." ”

Zhou Qiren saw that this □□was actually a naked bribe, so he changed color and looked at Chen Yan. That Zhong Shaoyun Xu was jealous of him in front of him, took a pair of squinted eyes and tilted it on the silver ticket, and then covered the pu fan shaking in his hand quietly, just covering the stack of silver tickets underneath, and then smiled: "Lord Chen will come, and bring something, it's really polite." ”

The two of you talked back and forth for a long time, and what they said was just some painless gossip. Zhou Qiren couldn't hear anything, but he felt that something was very wrong in his heart. Soon, Chen Yan got up to say goodbye, and Zhou Qiren also came out, walked out on the street, and hurriedly asked: "Chen Yan, you tell me the truth, where did all this money come from? We are just poor scholars who have just entered the Jinshi, and we only live in an inn for five taels of silver a month, but you bought a few hundred taels of snacks as soon as you made a move, and gave a few thousand taels to Lord Zhong.

Chen Yan ignored him, and only walked ahead by himself, and was occasionally pulled by him in a hurry, before turning back and saying: "I have been with the emperor for so long, what's so strange about some silver? Zuo is just taking people's money to do things for others, and the royal secrets, can you afford to hear about them?"

When Zhou Qiren heard him mention the emperor, his heart was throbbing, and he felt a little guilty. When I raised my eyes, I saw that his face was hidden in the darkness of the street, with a bit of stubbornness, like a lotus flower struggling alone in the middle of the night to poke its head out of the mud. Zhou Qiren's heart was even more uncomfortable, and he couldn't help but stretch out his hand, and hesitantly grabbed Chen Yan's hand: "Chen Yan, I ......" but Chen Yan threw him away, turned around and walked back and forth.

Zhou Qiren followed Chen Yan back to the post house, the two of them are still living next door as when they were rushing for the exam, Chen Qi went up the stairs and went straight to his door to unlock the door, Zhou Qiren also went to the door of his room, turned his face sideways and peeked at Chen Yan.

Chen Yan opened the door and entered the room, but because there was no wax, the room was dark. He closed the door behind him, but he didn't go into the house, just stuck to the door panel and listened to Zhou Qiren's movements next door. I only heard Zhou Qiren wait outside the door for a while, and then he entered the house with a low sigh, followed by the familiar creak when the door closed, and then there was silence.

The stubbornness on Chen Yan's face finally collapsed slightly, and he muttered in the dark: "You only care about asking me why I am rich, but you don't think about why I am so rich, but I still live in an inn for five taels of silver a month?" 166 Reading Network