Those Who Offend Huang Shang, No Matter How Close, Must Be Slain (Please Recommend and Bookmark!)

In the study.

Murong Fu carefully inspected the little red-clay stove and set a kettle on it to warm the wine.

Before long, the kettle began to gurgle. The aroma of wine drifted from the jug immersed in the hot water—rich and fragrant, but not strong.

He also laid out several plates of food to go with the wine. There wasn't much, but every dish was exquisitely prepared.

Each of the Capital City's seventy-two major restaurants had its own specialty. Hui Xian Pavilion was the most peaceful and elegant, but its food was not the best.

As for the finest cuisine, that had to be found at the Zhang Family Garden.

The food Murong Fu had brought out now was the best of the Zhang Family Garden.

Every dish was a feast for the eyes and palate, and there were even fresh green vegetables—exceedingly rare in winter.

There were no greenhouses in this era. Green vegetables were grown with the help of hot springs. Though out of season, they had a flavor all their own.

"Master, it's time to eat."

At Murong Fu's practiced call, Huang Shang put down his book, got up, and came to the table. He picked up his chopsticks.

As a child from a poor family, his attitude toward such luxuries had always been...

Never turn them down!

The Gusu Murong clan might have been confined to Jiangnan, lording it over their own little corner and thinking the well was the whole sky, but one had to admit they were wealthy.

With the power of money, Murong Fu had raised Huang Shang's standard of living by several notches.

The comfortable surroundings made it easier for him to devote himself to his studies.

These past few days, his understanding of Confucianism had deepened another level.

In the Song Dynasty, Confucianism drew on the strengths of many schools.

By now, Confucianism had become a broad concept, one that could embrace and absorb all things. There were no insurmountable boundaries.

Many great scholars interpreted the classics from their own perspectives. Each school had its own original ideas, weaving its academic beliefs into Confucianism.

Even many Buddhist and Daoist theories had been incorporated.

If Confucius came back to life in this era, he surely wouldn't recognize this Confucianism as the tradition he had passed down.

Huang Shang rather liked this transformation.

He possessed the learning of an ancient, but the perspective of a modern man. He excelled at letting his imagination run wild.

If Confucianism had been like the rigid eight-legged essays of the Ming and Qing dynasties, he would have had far less room to show his strengths.

So as Huang Shang brought together the classics and allusions he had mastered, he found himself growing ever more adept.

At the same time, he gave himself a mock exam every day, anticipating the questions that might appear on the Departmental Examination.

Three years of imperial exams, five years of practice tests.

As for Han Zhongyan's malice, Huang Shang had already put it out of his mind.

He trusted that the people around him were already taking action.

When you had capable helpers and didn't use them, insisting on doing everything yourself—that was the height of stupidity.

Sure enough, after Murong Fu had finished serving the meal, he left the study and immediately summoned the Four Great Retainers. "How is the investigation going?"

The Four Great Retainers lowered their heads. "Young master, we're still consolidating the martial world's forces in Eastern Capital. It'll take time."

If you never traveled, you wouldn't know how vast the world was. If you never came to Kaifeng, you wouldn't know how many people there were.

To modern people, a city with a population of over a million was just a small city in the fourth or fifth tier.

But in ancient times, without towering buildings, a city of a million people was unimaginably vast.

The Four Great Retainers were considered notable figures in the martial world, but only after arriving in the Capital did they learn what it meant to be insignificant.

Never mind the four of them—even four hundred and forty retainers thrown into the mix would make no more than a tiny ripple, gone in an instant.

So the Four Great Retainers had returned to their old trade, using the Gusu Murong clan's connections in the martial world to establish informants in the Capital.

Murong Fu knew they couldn't rush things, but lately he had been dealt repeated blows by Wu Que and the others.

Wu Que, Nightingale, Xu Yue, and Xu Feng were locked in a fierce rivalry. Their attention was mainly on one another, but they also found time to "take care" of Murong Fu.

Reincarnators struck with brutal efficiency. If Murong Bo hadn't been secretly helping him, Murong Fu wouldn't have been able to hold out. He would have been driven away from Huang Shang's side.

That only made Murong Fu more eager to prove himself. A ruthless gleam appeared in his eyes. "Don't worry about anything. Make full use of all the favors we've built up over the years!"

The Four Great Retainers understood: he meant to drain the pond to catch the fish.

The Gusu Murong clan had been passed down from Murong Longcheng to the present day, nearly a century. The connections generations had built in the martial world were considerable.

But now Murong Fu would rather spend all the favors they had accumulated than fail to prove his worth to Huang Shang. He had entirely shifted his focus from the martial world to the court.

Murong Fu lowered his voice again. "Also, from now on, don't call me 'young master.' For our future, you must treat Huang Shang as your master. Don't let anything slip. Understood?"

The Four Great Retainers exchanged glances, nodded, and turned to leave.

Meanwhile.

In a pavilion by the pond in the rear garden of the chancellor's residence, flames roared in a brazier, making the hall as warm as spring.

Han Zhongyan was hosting a banquet.

More than twenty scholars sat in the hall, chatting quietly. Cai Jing was among them.

At just fifteen, he was the youngest, yet handsome and peerless. The maids passing by kept sneaking glances at him.

His learning was just as impressive as his looks. Han Zhongyan had praised him as pure and accomplished in both conduct and learning—a very high compliment.

In a tree outside the residence, Xu Feng listened through an earpiece to their stilted conversation and thought it was painfully boring.

He had once loved the Overheard movies. Though the three leads—Mr. Liu, Gul'dan, and Gu Zai—all met terrible ends, Xu Feng thought the feeling of lurking in the background and listening in on secrets was incredibly cool.

But in practice, most of it was just long-winded, tedious nonsense.

And yet he had to listen carefully to these scholars prattling on, because their words contained plenty of crucial information.

For example, their slander of Huang Shang.

It was clear that Han Zhongyan disliked Huang Shang, and his attitude had prompted the scholars to join in attacking him.

In truth, Huang Shang wasn't the only one unwelcome in the Capital. The whole lineage of Zhang Zai was looked down upon there. This was tied to the regional rivalries among scholars.

Huang Shang had first rejected Sima Guang and then gone to study under Zhang Zai. In the eyes of many, that made him a traitor to his region.

Later, he also skipped poetry gatherings and kept to himself. With such blatant disregard for them, who else were they going to attack?

Never underestimate this kind of slander. It was just like people on the internet in later generations making baseless accusations at the drop of a hat. The slanderer merely had to move his lips, and those who feared the world might be peaceful would spread the rumor. Before long, three people could make a tiger. Once it became the talk of every street and alley in Kaifeng, Huang Shang's reputation as a scholar would be ruined—and then he'd be in trouble.

Forget becoming the top scholar; he might not even earn the title of jinshi.

This was no exaggeration. Just look at Ouyang Xiu. He was a great literary figure renowned throughout the land, yet the Niece Scandal had left him battered and humiliated.

Could Huang Shang compare to Ouyang Xiu?

But those scholars would never have guessed that the Reincarnators were monitoring them from every direction.

Whenever a scholar had just cooked up a rumor, before he could spread it, Xu Feng and Xu Yue would show up that very night to "check his water meter."

They didn't kill them, lest they attract the authorities. Instead, they made each scholar fall seriously ill and miss the imperial examinations.

For these smug scholars, who were certain they would pass with flying colors, that was crueler than killing them.

"Those who offend Huang Shang, no matter how close, must be slain!"

"It's a shame that after all we've done, we can't let Huang Shang know about it yet..."

Thinking of Xu Yue's reminder, Xu Feng felt an itch in his heart. He really couldn't help himself.

In his view, if you cared about someone, you should make sure they felt it every moment.

But Xu Yue held the opposite view.

Making sure the other person knew every moment was actually the worst thing you could do.

The first time, it moved them. The second time, it moved them. But after too many times, they grew numb. They began taking it for granted, or even feeling resistance and disgust.

Only at the perfect moment, when you let your target discover that they had been quietly protected all along, could you move them the most.

That would be the best time to offer the contract.

"My sister really is amazing!"

Only then did Xu Feng understand why some suck-ups had nothing, while others had everything.

Bah, he wasn't a suck-up!

Xu Feng shook his head, then suddenly pricked up his ears.

Cai Jing had brought up the Great Xiangguo Temple and started discussing Huang Shang's relationship with the nuns, subtly steering the conversation so that everyone would believe the two were having an affair.

The mood at the banquet instantly heated up. Those faces full of disdain spun out all kinds of theories with such confidence, you'd think they had witnessed it themselves.

Xu Feng grinned savagely too. "That bastard finally gave himself away. He was the one who got Chen Sheng!"