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Someone else other than An Junwang might value a petty seventh ranking official position as a rarity, but not An Junwang. It was just that the Zhuang Family had traditions—— all the children of the Zhuang Family must take the imperial examination to become officials and must not enter the officialdom through shady means. If not for this, An Junwang would not settle wasting his talent like this.
Junior Compiler Cen naturally didn't have the courage to complain about An Junwang, so he vented his anger on Xiao Liulang, who was always being targeted by others.
Xiao Liulang didn't care about him and simply took a broom to clean the west study.
The west study was bigger and more messy than the east study. He first straightened the bookshelves and cabinets.
Today, he was much stronger than a year ago. If he was still the original weak boy who had fainted from hunger at the roadside, he might not be able to lift these bookshelves at all.
The young man's body faintly exuded a vigorous masculine strength as his gently rolled up sleeves revealed the firm texture and distinct contours of his forearms, with sweat dripping down his delicate jaw.
An Junwang, who was resting outside, inadvertently glanced at the window of the west wing.
Despite being a man, he was almost dazzled at that moment.
After he finished cleaning the west study, Xiao Liulang accidentally found that this room actually had an attic, and the ladder was behind the last row of bookshelves.
He wiped the ladder and went up to take a look. There were also books in the attic, but it was probably too hidden for anyone to touch them. Apart from the dust, it wasn't too messy up there.
Xiao Liulang decided to move in the books outside first, and then clean up the attic later.
"The books can be brought in, it's going to rain." Xiao Liulang went out and said to several people.
An Junwang looked at the dim sky and frowned. Why didn't he notice it just now? The books were spread so wide that it was troublesome to put them away.
"Let’s pack up quickly." He said.
However, while Xiao Liulang's west study had been cleaned, Junior Compiler Cen's east study had only been halfway done.
"What kind of work are you doing? Such a small room has not been cleaned up until now!?" Senior Compiler Yang scolded Junior Compiler Cen in his face. Afterwards, he said to Xiao Liulang, "Go and help him!"
They originally had two coachmen with them, but the roof leaked, so the coachmen went to repair the roof and couldn't spare any hands at the moment.
Xiao Liulang went to the east room.
Junior Compiler Cen glared at him angrily, "You did it on purpose, didn't you? You let me make a fool of myself in front of Lord Yang on purpose!"
What did Xiao Liulang have to do with this?
Xiao Liulang simply worked fast because he didn’t only study like most scholars. Apart from the heavy work which Gu Jiao forbade him to do, he didn’t do any less chores at home.
How could this be blamed on him?
Xiao Liulang blandly said, "If you use the time on cleaning rather than having a temper tantrum, the east room would have been cleaned early."
"You..." Junior Compiler Cen felt choked.
After the east room was cleaned up, several people moved the books in. Just after moving the last basket, light rain poured down the sky.
At this time, the roof had been repaired.
A few people breathed a sigh of relief, and then they began to sort out and summarize the books.
At this point, Senior Compiler Yang wouldn’t bother bullying anyone. He sorted out the books in the east wing with An Junwang and another Senior Compiler, while Xiao Liulang, Junior Compiler Cen and another Senior Compiler sorted out the books in the west room.
The rain was getting heavier, causing the heat to disperse, and with the drop in temperature, the west wing wasn’t so hot anymore.
Several people buried themselves in work, and all of them seriously focused on working.
Xiao Liulang was a newcomer, and the task assigned to him wasn’t heavy. After he finished sorting out the two rows of bookshelves in front of him, he remembered the attic above.
He took a rag and an oil lamp and stepped on the ladder to the attic.
The books in the attic didn’t look disorganized, but if you look carefully, they were grouped in the wrong categories.
He hung up the oil lamp, cleaned up the dust first, and then sorted out the books one by one.
There were no pen and paper tools in the attic. If there were any incomplete or damaged ones, he would put them aside first, then fix them later.
He was so engaged that he didn't notice that it was getting late.
When he was alarmed by a bout of pain in his lower back, he decided to go for a walk, only to find that the room was already dark.
It was drizzling outside.
He walked around the silent room with an oil lamp in hand.
"Hello?"
He asked.
He was answered by the sound of rain.
Xiao Liulang walked around the courtyard holding an oil lamp, and finally concluded that everyone had really left. The front gate was even locked.
Xiao Liulang went to the back door. Not surprisingly, the back door was locked as well.
Although there was no gold or silver here, it was still worrying that a thief might come in and destroy the ancient books in the studies, so they would lock the gates from the outside when leaving.
Xiao Liulang observed the terrain on the way here. This courtyard house was at the foot of Mount Yueluo, and the nearest building was a tea shed about a li away.
Besides, the tea shed only did business in the daytime, then they would go back to the village at night.
"It seems that I can't go back tonight."
Xiao Liulang looked at the falling rain. As though something flashed in his mind, he frowned, let out a sigh, turned around and stepped into the corridor.
The courtyard house had been uninhabited for a long time, so naturally there was nothing there to eat. Fortunately, Ning Zhiyuan brought him a bowl of plain noodles at noon, so he wasn’t hungry at the moment.
However, his oil lamp was running out.
He went to the east room and brought the oil lamp over there.
With nothing to do, Xiao Liulang simply began to organize the books
Because of the heavy workload, they had only sorted out less than one third of the books, and hadn’t even started to restore the damaged ancient books yet.
Xiao Liulang had been in Hanlin Academy for less than a month, and his being good in historiography was actually due to Old Feng who left him many history books in his library.
"Huizong traveled on horseback to Yanbei Pass, wanting to cross the Yan River...."
Xiao Liulang was once lucky to read this paragraph in Old Feng’s books. It told about the personal expedition of the second Emperor of the former dynasty, Wen Huizong.
The weather was so bad that it was not suitable to cross the river that day.
Wen Huizong didn't listen to advice and insisted on going. Fortunately, a fisherwoman risked her life to stop him. After midnight, it rained cats and dogs, and the waters of Yan River surged and whirled. Wen Huizong felt that he and the soldiers of the three armed forces had dodged a bullet.
Later, Huizong, regardless of the opposition of his courtiers, resolutely conferred the title of imperial concubine to the fisherwoman.
It was supposed to be a beautiful story, but the end of the fisherwoman wasn’t pretty.
There were three thousand beauties in the harem, where one could only see newcomers laughing and unable to hear the old ones crying.
Since the third year of her entry into the palace, the fisherwoman had never seen the Emperor again. She died in the deep palace, leaving the "Ode of Yanbei" piece before she died, which contained her dissatisfaction from being lonely for half of her life.
What was missing here happened to be the Ode of Yanbei.
Xiao Liulang started to write and filled up the part for Ode to Yanbei.
The next day.
A servant overseeing the courtyard house came.
He was looking after the house for the original owner and only came once every three to five days. It rained last night, so he came to see the things in here, worried that the roof was leaking again.
He went to the east study first, and as soon as he entered, he saw a man lying on the desk, making him so scared that he fell to the ground, "Ghost——"
He couldn’t be blamed for mistaking him for a ghost. All the doors were locked. Who could come in but a ghost?
Xiao Liulang was awakened by his cry, and his head pressed on his arm slowly lifted.
It was an impeccably perfect face despite the indentation.
The servant froze at once.
How could this be a ghost? It was clearly a celestial being!
Moreover... The room was actually clean. How could this be possible without the celestial being’s powers?
Although he knew people from the imperial court came to sort out the books here, they only came here yesterday morning. How could those fine-skinned officials clean this place up completely?
Xiao Liulang sorted out the books in the west study last night, but before dawn, he also went to sort out the ones in the east room and didn't sleep until dawn.
"What time is it?" Xiao Liulang sat up straight, straightened his robe and asked quietly.
The servant froze for a while before answering , "Three, three quarters to Chenshi(7-9 am)."
Xiao Liulang knit his brows into a frown, "It's so late."
Duties at Hanlin Academy started at the period of Chenshi.
Xiao Liulang looked at him, "Excuse me, is there any carriage nearby?"
The servant said, "Yes, there is at the tea shed. Does the young celestial… er… young master want a carriage?"
Xiao Liulang opened his purse, took a silver ovule ingot and handed it to him, "Please help me hire a carriage."
"All right!" The servant went up to him, took the silver ovule ingots with both hands, and went out to hire a carriage for Xiao Liulang.
Xiao Liulang stood up and planned to go to the backyard to fetch some water to freshen up.
When the servant looked back, he happened to see Xiao Liulang coming out of the east wing with a crutch.
He froze, "Ah..."
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