Chapter 76 Candidates.

Li An and the other man walked out of the Hall of Prayer for Good Harvests. Looking at Hong Sixiang, who was sitting on a stool in the moonlight in front of them, and the motionless food and wine beside him, a smile appeared on their faces.

Although there were no huge troops outside the huge and spacious hall, just this one person made Wang Shisanlang behind him alert.

His hand silently placed on the hilt of the sword, he walked around Li An, took a step forward, stood in front and was fully focused on defense.

In his heart, he always thought that this was the great master in the palace that the world had passed down, so he was so cautious.

It seems that Si Gu Jian did not tell his disciples some inside information.

Li An waved his hand to stop Wang Shisanlang's actions.

He just asked in a loud voice: "Thank you for your hard work, Eunuch Hong."

"I dare not." There seemed to be a hint of weirdness in the air. Hong Sixiang was in a bad mood. No one wanted to face a grandmaster alone, especially when the grandmaster was exuding his aura.

"My little strength is nothing compared to yours. With you in the palace, I think it will be safe." Hong Sixiang paused respectfully, looked up at the man in front of him who was too young, sighed, and said, "Compared to you, I don't know how many years I have wasted."

"Oh, you're really not worried? Look at the food and drinks next to you, they haven't been touched." Li An joked, ignoring Hong Sixiang's sigh, and asked, "Fan Xian left?"

"He just left not long ago." Hong Sixiang nodded. With his level of skill, he could tell a person's state without any instruction: "He is quite drunk."

Li An smiled slightly to show that he understood, and said, "It's getting late, Eunuch Hong, please don't go."

Hearing this, Hong Sixiang bowed and stepped aside, watching Li Ang's figure gradually disappear into the distance. It took him a long time to come back to his senses.

Inside the Hall of Prayer for Good Harvests.

In the eyes of everyone, after Fan Xian came to Beijing, he faced the solicitation and conspiracy of various forces and faced tremendous pressure, which led to today's outburst.

Various poems and articles gushed out of Fan Xian's mouth.

Some old scholars who were good at recording or officials who loved poetry were overjoyed, and they all thought that there should be more such explosions. Then who is who, how about you go and give Fan Xian some strength tomorrow?
"I don't have the wings of a colorful phoenix, but I have a clear mind."

Even though Emperor Qing had already left, the Qing officials in the palace refused to leave. Only the Northern Qi envoys, who had been "tortured" by the diplomatic officials of the Honglu Temple in the past few days, left first.

The officials of the Qing Kingdom in the palace could also see the joy of the Qing Emperor. The smarter ones could see that the Qing Emperor was consciously praising Fan Xian today. It was unknown whether His Majesty was giving face to the Fan family.

After thinking for a moment, they were no longer bothered by these things and just started muttering to themselves that these poems were truly wonderful.

"Although this one is not as good as the previous long poems or quatrains, this one sentence alone is the finishing touch." An official from the Ministry of Rites ignored the ugly expression of Shangshu Guo Youzhi beside him, savored it carefully, and said with squinted eyes intoxicated.

It goes without saying what Guo Youzhi's fate will be, and they are no longer afraid of it.

This move made some officials from various departments who admired Fan Xian and Li Ang in their hearts but dared not show it, feel like they had met their soulmates and they all spoke up and agreed.

"There are so many poems, and each one is a masterpiece. Could they really be written by Master Fan and the other?" One of them still had an expression of disbelief on his face.

Someone nearby sneered disdainfully, "You mean to say that Mr. Li, who is the fifth greatest grandmaster in the world, helped Mr. Fan to lie?" The expression on his face was as if he was looking at a fool.

The person who just said this waved his hands repeatedly, saying that he had no such intention.

A prestigious person in the field said, "Why do you still ask this question? Look at this calligraphy!" He pointed at the rice paper with an angry look on his face, "Mr. Li and Mr. Fan are indeed very young, but this calligraphy alone is enough to establish a school of calligraphy! You still don't believe in the literary accomplishments of Mr. Li and Mr. Fan, it's really ridiculous!"

"Yes, maybe this is the reason why Master Fan and Mr. Li are friends. Didn't you see that whenever Mr. Li publishes any masterpiece, he only tells Master Fan about it." Some people have even imagined how the two met and the scene of them reciting poems to each other. Looking at the noisy ministers in the hall, Guo Youzhi sighed deeply. What else can he do now? What he did today obviously made Emperor Qing very angry. It was just that he did not vent his anger because of the presence of envoys from various countries.

I wonder if Her Royal Highness the Princess will help me mediate? Guo Youzhi looked at his son who had passed out drunk, thinking about a way out.

Meanwhile, in the imperial study on the other side of the palace, Emperor Qing was looking at the many copied poems, and was slightly mesmerized. The eunuch at the side was serving by his side, occasionally responding with comments that were mixed with some of his own thoughts.

Who made Lord Fan so generous on a daily basis?

"No matter how unruly Lord Fan Xian is on weekdays, his words of 'Duke Zhou spits out food to welcome guests, and the whole country is at peace' in the Hall of Prayer for Good Harvests tonight were extremely well said." Eunuch Hou cheered softly.

This was written by Cao Gong in ancient times on Blue Star. The phrase "Zhou Gong spitting out food" also has a prototype in this world, but it has been circulated widely and its origin is unknown.

Therefore, people in this world treat it as an allusion to ancient times, but no one uses it in literary creation.

Here, we can also see why Eunuch Hou is Emperor Qing's confidant.

Not only does he have a high level of literary accomplishment, but he is also good at observing people's words and expressions.

Apart from other things, Emperor Qing had been clearly protective of Fan Xian since he came to Beijing. His Majesty would often be delighted by his constant praise of Fan Xian.

"It's really good." It was rare for Emperor Qing to praise someone so directly, and he showed a satisfied look on his face. He raised his eyebrows and said softly: "But the merits cannot hide the flaws. Why haven't I heard of many of the allusions in it? Let people check it out and look through the books!"

Emperor Qing was of course satisfied and very happy tonight.

Since he ascended the throne, the Kingdom of Qing has been engaged in war.

He wanted to reverse the decline of Qing's literary style, and was not content with being described in history books as a monarch who was invincible militarily but a southern barbarian who was looked down upon by other countries culturally.

"Although some of these poems are unclear, their quality is excellent. The most important thing in poetry is the artistic conception, and Fan Xian has already grasped the true meaning."

Emperor Qing murmured to himself as an idea suddenly occurred to him.

"Since Fan Xian is so famous for his literary talent, why not let him preside over next year's Spring Examination?" Emperor Qing shook his head. After all, he still lacked prestige and experience. Let's just take it one step at a time.

"Many great works are written by young people. Perhaps, Lord Fan Xian is a genius in poetry." Eunuch Hou said cheerfully, reenacting the scene in the palace with great joy. "Lord Fan Xian wrote a poem while drunk tonight, which really stunned everyone in the palace! Now that our dynasty has such a great literary figure, this is a rare happy event!"

Emperor Qing's hands were not slow, and he kept changing the pieces of rice paper. The more he chewed on the poems, the more delicious they became.

His eyes gradually changed, and a cold voice suddenly came: "Zhuang Mohan's reputation of more than 70 years has been lost in one day."

The sudden change made Eunuch Hou hesitate for a moment, and then he asked carefully, "Why, why did the Zhuang family frame Master Fan like this?"

Emperor Qing sneered and did not answer Eunuch Hou's question, leaving no one knowing what he was thinking.

·····
　Everyone please don't be so aggressive.

　　Just read the novel leisurely and don't make yourself unhappy because of me.

　　Everyone reads the novels I write with their brains, which makes it very difficult for me to do so.

　　0.0
　　I would also like to thank some book friends for their strong support!

　　Thanks to book friend No. 6643 and Lu Chuanfeng for their long-term and irregular feeding!
　　
　
(End of this chapter)