The Famous Detective of the Red Mansion

Chapter 70: The Get-Together of the Same Year

Probably influenced by Jia Yucun's words, Sun Shaozong was a little depressed for several days. He looked at those files in a daze every day and was unable to review a few cases from morning to night.

During this period, Shen Dan, the Deputy County Magistrate who was careless with a human life case, was unexpectedly dismissed, but he did not bear any criminal responsibility for it.

Listening to the following officials' comments, saying that in the case of Shen Dan, as long as he was willing to curry favor with authority for personal gain after the event, he can recover his position in three or two years. This was how Jia Yucun recovered the Jinling Magistrate title after he was dismissed.

However, seeing that Shen Dan was only able to get the small official title of a Deputy County Magistrate, he may not be able to get the financial capacity and determination.

Another thing that surprised Sun Shaozong. Since the death of Hu's husband, Zhou Da has been taking time off to help with the aftercare at her home. He was so busy with her and also posted a lot of money into it.

At first, Sun Shaozong thought that he and Zhou Liang might be some kindred relatives. Later, he learned that there was no such thing at all. The reason why Zhou Da was so busy in and out for her was that he had taken a fancy to Hu's courage to maintain one's virtue or integrity and planned to take her as a concubine after her filial piety period was over.

Sun Shaozong specially sent someone to inquire and determined that Zhou Da had not taken advantage of his power to bully people and forced her to be his concubine. It seemed that Hu had no resistance to the marriage, so he left it to them.

After all, for ordinary women these days, it was an excellent result to be able to marry an official as a mistress when they remarried.

—Dividing Line—

On the ninth day of February, Sun Shaozong had muddled along and fooled around for most of the day. Seeing that there was no urgent task for him to deal with in the Criminal Division, he didn't bother to wait for the dismissal of the Yamen [off-duty time] and went home early.

When he arrived at his yard, he saw Ruan Rong practicing embroidery in the parlor. Several semi-finished designs had been placed in the dustpan with silk threads. It could be seen that she had practiced for some time.

However…

Looking at the crooked neck pheasant in the middle of the embroidery, Sun Shaozong had to say that Ruan Rong was not made for needlework.

"Why did you suddenly think of learning this recently?"

He easily grabbed the embroidery bandage and threw it into the dustpan. After carefully confirming that Ruan Rong had no embroidery needles, pendants, or other things on her, Sun Shaozong picked her up and put her on his leg.

He then rubbed his chin around her hair like a waterfall and said with a smile, "It's not like our family can't afford to hire a sewing woman. Do you need to make an effort to do it?"

"How can it be the same?"

Ruan Rong pushed his chin with the back of her head, stubbornly grabbed the embroidery bandage, and muttered, "If we have children in the future, I will need to make things like innerwear and sweaters by myself."

Tch!

Women think far when they are free. Before they got pregnant, they had already thought about the clothing they would need after the birth of their children.

Seeing Ruan Rong being so persistent, Sun Shaozong couldn't continue to fight her, so he put his arms around her waist and watched her continue to fight with the crooked neck pheasant.

Just being held in his arms like this, how could Ruan Rong still concentrate on doing her needlework?

She made several wrong stitches in a row. Looking at the sign that the crooked neck pheasant was about to develop a "hump," she threw the embroidery away angrily and said, "I’m not doing embroidery anymore. This design of a “Mandarin duck playing in the water” is so troublesome! Tomorrow I'll learn another simple one, starting with flower and grass embroidery."

Sweat~

If she hadn't said it, Sun Shaozong really couldn't see that it was a Mandarin duck embroidered on the veil. But speaking of mandarin ducks playing in the water…

Sun Shaozong lowered his head and put her silver coin-like earlobe in his mouth, blowing hot air, and said with an obscene smile, "Why don’t we wait after dinner, and let's..."

"Ah, I almost forgot the proper business when I went to learn embroidery!"

Unexpectedly, when he mentioned dinner, Ruan Rong suddenly remembered something. She hurriedly struggled to the ground and took out two invitations from the inner room,

She handed it over to Sun Shaozong and said, "These are the invitations sent in the afternoon. They are all invitations for you to the banquet."

Sun Shaozong took a look and found that the above one was sent by Jia's house. It said that he was invited to have a drink at noon on February 12.

"Why did they send me an invitation for your godsister's birthday?" Sun Shaozong said speechlessly, "Man and woman are different. I can't even enter the backyard door. Do they want me to celebrate her birthday across the courtyard wall?"

If Mrs. Xing, Mrs. Wang, or Mrs. Jia celebrate their birthdays, it's reasonable for Sun Shaozong, as a member of the younger generation, to go to the Rongguo Mansion to congratulate them, but how could a dignified man attend a birthday banquet for a girl who hasn't gotten married?

Ruan Rong pushed him and said angrily, "What are you talking about? Look carefully at the signature. It's clearly the Old Second Master of the Rongguo Mansion who invited you to a banquet. What does that have to do with Sister Lin's birthday?"

Sun Shaozong looked closely again, and the signature was indeed written with the words "Jia Zheng."

Since it was Jia Zheng who invited him, it has nothing to do with Daiyu's birthday.

Does Jia Zheng want to thank him for his son himself?

After thinking about it, he felt that that shouldn’t be it. With Jia Baoyu's usual style, he will definitely take care of Lin Daiyu first. If it’s not about him, where is the word "thank you?”

Unable to think of Jia Zheng's purpose for the moment, Sun Shaozong was too lazy to continue to ponder. He put the invitation on the table and casually opened the second invitation. The content of this invitation was much more. It could have had four or five hundred words, and it was written with gold powder stained with vermilion. While looking at it, it crackled down with gold powder.

For fear of reading slowly and having this invitation would first get *“self-destruct.” Sun Shaozong hurriedly skipped the prefix of the parallel construction of pairs of four and six-character sentences and roughly browsed the content.

After reading it, he frowned unconsciously.

It was because this invitation was not issued in his name but in the name of all martial scholars in Guangde's eighth year that Sun Shaozong was invited to attend the same year's get-together in the Capital on the evening of February 12.

The so-called same year means being admitted to the civil service [besides the examination of the liberal arts, there was another origin system for the examination of selecting military officers] in the same year. They may not be familiar with each other very well. It's just that newcomers wanted to use a name to build their network.

And because “Sun Shaozong” who had just won the title of martial official to become a civil servant, had offended Prince Yizhong not long ago, he had to flee to the Country of Qian Xiang to avoid disaster, and there was no intersection with these people.

Therefore, Sun Shaozong rummaged through his memory fragments and only remembered about two or three names, but he still couldn't match their looks!

Taking part in such a party full of strangers, coupled with the invitation full of gold powder, Sun Shaozong thought with his ass and knew that the scene must be boring and embarrassing.

It’s just that…

He was rising in power now. Both as a civil servant and military general who established meritorious service, he could be regarded as the most outstanding person among martial scholars for transferring. If he didn’t show his face, he would inevitably fall into a supercilious review.

Sigh~

In the end, it's still the four words “connection and favor!”

It seems that in recent days, he should have started to collect information about these same-year people so as not to make any jokes when possible.

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