Chapter 47 Appointment

After returning to his hometown to pay respects to the ancestors of the Li family, Li Yu, under the persuasion of both the county magistrate and his father, finally went to pay his respects at the grave of his biological father, Shen Eryong. He also funded the relocation of his biological father's grave to another auspicious burial site, hired someone to write an epitaph, and had the gravestone inscribed in gold dust.

Li Yu harbored no excessive reluctance; after all, the debt of birth should certainly be repaid.

However, he paid no further attention to the rest of the Shen family. He did not step foot into the Shen clan's ancestral hall, nor did he entertain the two elders' weeping grievances and curses about him being ungrateful and forgetting his roots.

With the ancestral worship completed, it was time to set off for his official post. Naturally, none of the family members could bear to part with the others.

Li Gang was a sentimental man. When his eldest daughter followed her husband to the capital, he wept buckets, and now that his eldest son was leaving, he wept buckets all over again.

Zhang Sanniang was naturally the same. Wiping away her tears, she said, "I hear that the people in the Qilu region are rough and uncultivated, eating only wheat flour and producing no rice at all. How will you ever get used to eating there?"

If they couldn't even eat well, how could they live a good life?

Hearing this, Li Yu was left between laughter and tears.

"Mother, where on earth did you hear such things? They produce plenty of rice there, too. You just listen to the nonsense of people who have never even stepped out of the county town."

When he went to the capital for the imperial examinations, he had mentioned that he came from the Bashu region.

Oh, boy.

A certain examinee from Jiangsu and Zhejiang looked at him with profound pity, with a gaze resembling that of someone looking at a refugee fleeing a famine in the slums, even asking him if he managed to get a bite of meat every three days.

True.

His childhood had indeed been bitterly hard, and for a year or a half, he truly could not afford a single morsel of meat.

Yet the truth was that poverty and wealth existed everywhere. Could a wealthy place like Jiangsu and Zhejiang possibly lack beggars? Would places that favored wheat flour never occasionally want to change their palates with a bowl of rice, or fail to purchase rice altogether?

Even his own family made wheat-based dishes from time to time!

"Your mother is just worried that you won't eat well, and she has never been anywhere else."

Li Gang felt his son made sense, but he still insisted on having several large bags of rice he had purchased loaded onto the carriage.

"What if the rice produced in the Qilu region doesn't suit your tastes?"

Thinking that since the flavor of the rice would be different, the chickens raised on it and the eggs they laid would certainly be different too, Zhang Sanniang hurried around in a flurry to buy them a batch of eggs.

Li Yu smiled wryly and said, "Mother, those things are easily bought out there; please don't trouble yourself."

This wasn't modern times where everywhere sold purely free-range eggs instead of flavorless factory-farmed ones.

"How could things from outside compare to what we have at home?"

Thinking of her son's fondness for cured meats, and remembering that there were still two cured pig trotters left in the pantry, Zhang Sanniang turned around like a gust of wind to fetch them.

"Mother..."

Li Yu stepped forward to call his mother back, but was gently stopped by his wife.

"This is also Mother's token of affection; Husband, you should just accept it."

If you don't let her worry or refuse to accept her care, she will only feel more aggrieved.

Zhang Sanniang touched her grandson's face and said reluctantly, "Taking such a young child on such a long journey—why not let Zhao'an and Chun'er stay behind at home?"

"Why not wait a few years until the child is older before going to join you at your post?"

With her son away on official business, a wife was often expected to stay behind to look after her parents-in-law, fulfilling the husband's filial duties on his behalf.

Zhang Sanniang didn't particularly need filial service from her daughter-in-law; she simply couldn't bear to part with her grandson.

"Why don't I leave Chun'er behind?" Li Yu was certainly unwilling to live apart from his family. He said bluntly, "Even if he won't take anyone else's milk, after going hungry for a few meals, he'll naturally start eating."

At these words, all of Zhang Sanniang's thoughts vanished instantly. How could she bear to let her precious grandson starve?

Although Li Lian and Shen Dan were also reluctant to see their eldest brother go, they felt even more a sense of envy.

They thought the official robes issued by the imperial court looked truly, exceptionally magnificent.

Putting aside the power represented by the official robes, the fabric alone was worth a considerable sum.

Shen Dan draped the official robe over his own shoulders, imagining what it would be like if he, too, became an official.

"Brother, do you plan to be a good official, or a corrupt one?"

This question had been swirling in his mind for a long time. Up to this point, he still hadn't figured out what kind of official he actually wanted to be.

Perhaps he wasn't even meant to be an official at all?

"Naturally, I intend to be a good official."

Although Li Yu occasionally wished he could be a corrupt official, he possessed a relatively strong sense of morality and wasn't willing to pocket just any money that came his way.

Yet he dared not guarantee that his entire life would remain as pure as water.

Assuming a profound air, he declared, "To establish destiny for the people, to secure life and fortune for the masses, to carry on the lost teachings of past sages, and to bring enduring peace to all generations—that is your brother's lifelong aspiration."

You certainly couldn't tell a little bean sprout who was still studying that he must grow up to be a corrupt bureaucrat. Wasn't that corrupting the flowers of the nation?

These words prompted Li Lian and Shen Dan to applaud in unison. Having not yet entered officialdom and feeling quite bewildered about their prospects, they finally found a guiding principle for their inner selves.

Unlike the reluctance of his parents and brothers, Teacher Xie Huan was much more optimistic.

Patting Li Yu on the shoulder, he smiled and said, "Work hard. Your teacher will wait for you to become an important pillar of the imperial court soon, and by then, this old man expects to bask in your glory."

When that time came, his tuition fees would probably be able to multiply several times over.

Knowing what was on his mind, Li Yu could only helplessly cup his hands together and wish the old man great fortune.

Before leaving, he embraced his parents and his two younger brothers.

"Study hard and strive for your scholarly honors. Big Brother believes you can do it."

Five carriages gradually rolled out of the familiar small town. The couple then visited the prefectural city to bid farewell to his father-in-law, who promptly prepared two more carriage loads of goods for them.

Only then did the couple resume their journey.

Seven-month-old Li Chu'er was at his most playful age, and Li Yu's sole amusement along the way was teasing the child.

He would either intentionally poke him with his beard or pull funny faces to scare him.

The little fellow didn't mind the funny faces and wasn't afraid, but being pricked by the beard was truly unbearable, to the point that later on, whenever he saw Li Yu approaching, he would cry and put up a resistance.

Whenever this happened, Zhao'an would step in, rescuing her son from her husband's hands.

"Fatty is your own flesh and blood; the child is not your toy."

She truly couldn't fathom what her husband was thinking. Other people's children had such pleasant, poetic, and meaningful childhood nicknames.

Yet when it came to her son, her husband simply bestowed upon him the name "Fatty"?

Fatty?

When the time came to attend classes at his official post, wouldn't those fellow students from the land of Confucius and Mencius laugh her son to death?

"Husband, you simply must give our son another childhood nickname."

"Isn't he still young?"

Ignoring the boy's wholehearted resistance, Li Yu hoisted the little fellow out of his wife's arms and resumed teasing him.

"We can talk about it when he grows up."

As his cub, how could he crumble just from being pricked by a beard?

It was nothing; after getting pricked a few more times, he would get used to it.

Sure enough, Fatty quickly shifted from initial resistance to a look of utter resignation toward life.

Ning Zhao'an shook her head helplessly; her husband was still somewhat childish after all.

Indeed.

Her husband was even a year younger than her, and in the morning, he still had to be coaxed just to get out of bed.

Upon arriving in Jinan Prefecture, Li Yu had Tie Yi escort the carriage directly to Zhangqiu, while he himself took Xiaolu to report to the Provincial Administration Commissioner's Office.

In the Dayong dynasty, the Provincial Administration Commissioner was a prominent second-rank frontier official, overseeing six prefectures, fifteen sub-prefectures, and eighty-nine counties, holding sway over the administration and finances of an entire province.

Such a lofty figure was naturally not someone Li Yu could meet on a whim.

After sitting on the cold benches outside the gate for half an hour, he finally met the seventh-rank Senior Secretary Chen, who was in charge of such matters. Although Secretary Chen held the same official rank as him.

Because he worked in a provincial-level agency, he held his head so high that if he lifted it any further, his neck might snap.

"Twenty-sixth in the second tier?"

The official credentials contained all of Li Yu's background information. Secretary Chen swept his gaze up and down Li Yu with a critical eye, making no effort to conceal his blatant discourtesy.

A Sichuanese, and saddled with dependents besides.

With such a high ranking in the palace examination, he had still been relegated to this place to serve as a mere county magistrate without even securing a post as a departmental supervisor. At a single glance, it was obvious he was someone with no influential backing.

With credentials like that, his career prospects for the rest of his life would amount to just about this much.