At the banquet, everyone was silent, and even the sound of the qin stopped playing.

They couldn’t mock She Dengke and Liu Quxing’s names and clothes again, but they couldn’t help but reflect: if they were slandered, how many people would be willing to stand up and speak for them?

When ordinary people hear rumors about you, they will only repeat a few words they heard from others.

But perhaps you don’t care what others say; perhaps you care more whether your friends spoke up for you when others spread rumors about you.

Chen Ji didn’t expect She Dengke and Liu Quxing to stand up and speak for him. Precisely because he didn’t expect it, he was surprised.

At this time, the Crown Prince drained the wine in his cup. The wine cups at the prince’s mansion were a bit small, and he felt it wasn’t enough, so he thought about asking someone to change to a larger wine bowl.

However, he was glared at by Bai Li Gongzhǔ, and he had to give up.

Jianghu spirit was naturally incompatible with literati gatherings.

The Crown Prince, though, muttered softly: “This group of literati is ultimately not as interesting as jianghu people… The name Chen Ji sounds a bit familiar, seems like I’ve heard it somewhere before?”

At this time, Bai Li Gongzhǔ looked towards Chen Wenxiao: “May I ask, is your younger brother’s IOU real?”

Chen Wenxiao smoothed his sleeves and sat upright: “My younger brother Chen Ji is good at gambling, owing a total of one thousand two hundred and thirty-one taels of silver to seven gambling houses. Every word above is true.”

A literati bowed to the princess and said: “Wenxiao’s character is noble, he would absolutely not lie in this matter.”

“Good,” Bai Li Gongzhǔ let out a breath.

Chen Ji was silently listening by the pavilion side. He was also thinking about what kind of person his former self was. Was he really a gambler?

It was possible; after all, the IOUs from the gambling houses couldn’t be fake, and this kind of thing was very easy to verify.

But those things had nothing to do with him; they were in the past.

Behind the bamboo curtain, Jing Fei vaguely looked towards Chen Ji: “Does your family not know you are a person from the Mi Tan Si?”

Chen Ji replied: “Reporting to Madam, I am not a person from the Mi Tan Si; at most, I am a falcon for the Mi Tan Si, not even a Mi Tan.”

“Oh?” Jing Fei was somewhat doubtful: “Why do you serve the Mi Tan Si?”

Chen Ji answered frankly: “For money. If I help them find a clue, they give me fifty taels of silver.”

Jing Fei was slightly startled: “Only fifty taels? For fifty taels of silver, you just risked your life to do things for the Mi Tan Si?”

At this time, she already believed Chen Wenxiao’s words. This apprentice at the medical hall was indeed a gambler, someone who didn’t even care about his life for money.

However, Chen Ji thought to himself that this was the disparity in the world. He worked hard to earn only fifty taels, and this small amount of money in the eyes of Jing Fei and Yun Fei was simply insignificant.

Jing Fei, behind the bamboo curtain, slowly leaned on her soft couch: “Help me take revenge. If the matter is successful, I will give you one thousand taels of silver.”

Chen Ji thought for a moment: “You want Liu Mingxian to die?”

“Correct.”

“Master Liu has hidden experts beside him, and he stays deep inside and rarely goes out every day. Killing him is not easy. If you borrow the hand of the Mi Tan Si, Yun Yang and Jiao Tu were both overthrown by him, so it is even more difficult… If you want revenge, you need five thousand taels.”

“Two thousand taels, no more.”

“Deal.”

Chen Ji breathed a sigh of relief. Indeed, rich people’s money was easy to earn!

With these two thousand taels of silver by his side, he dared to probe the inner prison again, collect all the Bing Liu, and light up over a hundred furnaces.

At that time, as long as no Xing official made a move, ordinary three or five Mi Tan wouldn’t even think about doing anything to him.

While thinking, Jing Fei suddenly asked: “What do you think of Chunhua? She’s in her peach and plum age, a truly lovable time. Although she is older than you, she knows how to care for people. I bought her from Yangzhou initially, which cost me one hundred taels of silver.”

Chen Ji hurriedly replied: “Madam, please don’t randomly match couples. Giving money is enough.”

……

……

At the banquet.

Chen Wenzong looked towards She Dengke and Liu Quxing and inquired: “Are you colleagues of my younger brother? Is he doing well recently? Has he come today?”

“He has come. Whether he is doing well or not, you, as his brother, should ask him, why ask me,” She Dengke responded sullenly.

Chen Wenzong showed an embarrassed expression: “You are right.”

Chen Wenxiao’s face sank: “He himself did that kind of thing, why should we still care about him?”

The Ning Dynasty was governed by ethics. The set of “ruler is ruler, minister is minister, father is father, son is son” constrained the order of the entire society. However, although everyone said “mother is kind, son is filial, brother is friendly, brother is respectful” in their mouths, in this world, how many non-biological parents could truly treat a concubine’s child as their own?

It was all for show.

Liu Quxing was just about to open his mouth to retort, but he was patted on the shoulder. He turned around to look, and Chen Ji had already returned to his seat without him knowing when.

Chen Ji cupped his hands in the air towards Chen Wenzong and Chen Wenxiao: “Two elder brothers, we haven’t seen each other for a long time and are reunited today, but I didn’t expect it to turn out like this. Let’s just let it go. After all, this is the Crown Prince’s literary gathering, don’t disturb the literary gathering of other guests.”

Bai Li saw Chen Ji appear and hurriedly pulled the Crown Prince’s arm: “Brother, it’s him, the one who collected our toll and gave us the ladder! We shouldn’t have helped him speak up!”

The Crown Prince laughed heartily: “I feel like it wasn’t in vain to help him. Don’t you think he’s very interesting? He even dared to collect a toll from Jing Wang Crown Prince!”

Bai Li pouted: “He collected three taels of silver at once, his heart is completely black. But… although this person is very bad, I don’t feel like he’s a gambler.”

The Crown Prince laughed: “What do you think a gambler looks like?”

Bai Li recalled: “I saw them when I followed you to the gambling house. The gamblers inside the gambling house were all losing their minds. They didn’t care about anything besides gambling, their eyes were all bloodshot, their clothes were dirty, and there was mud under their fingernails… But he is very clean and full of energy.”

Gamblers only had gambling in their hearts. They gambled when they woke up, and slept after gambling. Where would they have time to notice their appearance?

The Crown Prince nodded: “Indeed, not like. Anyway, the little monk said he has already quit greed and anger, I believe the little monk.”

“Where has he reformed? Even if he doesn’t gamble, he’s still very bad!” Bai Li said sulkily.

The Crown Prince laughed to soothe her: “Okay, okay, three taels of silver is just one box of your rouge powder.”

At this time, Chen Wenzong felt Chen Ji looked somewhat familiar.

It was also at this moment that Chen Wenzong suddenly realized that Chen Ji had been staring at him at the seat earlier, but he actually didn’t recognize the other person.

Of course, it was also because they weren’t close before, and his mother always instructed him not to associate with the other.

Chen Wenzong stood up: “Earlier, Wenxiao was wrong. I apologize to you on his behalf, please don’t take it to heart.”

Chen Ji smiled: “It doesn’t matter. Tongues grow on other people’s bodies, and you can’t stop them from saying anything.”

Chen Wenzong said: “Recently, Father has been at home. You should come back to fulfill your filial duty when you have time. He will naturally be happy to see that you have reformed and are steadily learning medicine.”

Chen Ji replied: “Studies at the Tai Yi Yuan are quite busy, so… there’s no need.”

He didn’t plan to return to the Chen family, not even in the future. As he said to Old Man Yao, he really had taken the medical hall as his home.

Chen Ji could understand that with a gambler son at home and his mother’s identity also being suspicious, he was naturally not welcome.

Since he was not welcome, then he would no longer associate with them, which also saved everyone the trouble of pretending.

At this time, one person stood up and laughed: “So-called ruler is minister, father is son, ethics cannot be disordered. Perhaps you resent your father for not sending you to the Donglin Xueyuan initially, or you resent him for neglecting you, but he is ultimately your father, and you are ultimately his son. The filial duty that should be fulfilled still has to be fulfilled.”

Chen Ji looked at the other person’s face with some doubt: “You are?”

The speaker had a handsome demeanor, wearing a blue Confucian robe, a exquisite black gauze hat on his head, a jade belt wrapped around his waist, and a jade pendant hanging on the belt, which was not cheap.

Hearing Chen Ji’s question, the other person said proudly and reservedly: “Donglin Xueyuan, Lin Chaijing.”

It seemed that by just saying this name, Chen Ji should know who he was.

But Chen Ji’s attention was not here. He suddenly realized why he felt the other person looked familiar!

This Lin Chaijing actually looked eight points similar to Lin Chaoqing from the Xing Bu. Thinking about it, if they weren’t brothers, they must be relatives.

But Chen Ji clearly remembered this voice; it was precisely this Lin Chaijing who said he wanted to denounce the eunuch party in the palace examination… And Lin Chaoqing was a member of the eunuch party.

He didn’t think further, just patted Liu Quxing and She Dengke: “Let’s go. This place is not suitable for us. Sorry for making you suffer anger for me.”

“Mm, let’s go,” Liu Quxing sniffed.

“Wait a moment,” Lin Chaijing said loudly: “The three of you have also come to participate in the literary gathering. You must also have people with lofty aspirations in your hearts. Earlier, everyone took out their new works to recite, but I don’t know what works the three of you have brought?”

Chen Ji looked directly at Lin Chaijing, silent and not speaking.

Works? He had no works.

Copying works from his world? He couldn’t copy either.

Chen Ji had a severe bias in his studies. These years, he had always researched science, popular science, reasoning, investigation, and counter-investigation knowledge. Even if he researched some humanities content, he only learned cryptography.

So, you could ask him to make gunpowder now, no problem, but reciting a poem was truly difficult for him…

If he really had to recite a poem, he would probably only recite the most famous line from each poem.

For example, “Long winds will break waves, there will be a time, directly hang the cloud sail and cross the vast sea.” As for what came before and after, he couldn’t think of it for a while.

And most importantly, the allusion of the Double Ninth Festival was weighing on Chen Ji’s heart. He still didn’t know what the connection between this world and his world was. If the poem he recited was one that someone had written before, then he would be making a fool of himself.

Wait!

Chen Ji’s thoughts suddenly cleared up like the clouds parting to reveal a clear sky for ten thousand miles.

The earlier haze instantly dispersed: gunpowder?

Gunpowder!

Although he couldn’t recite poems, he could make gunpowder.

Poetry was art, couldn’t an explosion also be art?

…

There’s still one chapter left to come.