NOVPUBSong Residence.
Li Nuo stepped out of the room and comfortably stretched his limbs.
It was the tenth of September.
Ten days had passed, and his lifespan had increased from one hundred and eighty days to two hundred and ten days.
Not only did it not decrease, but it had also gained an extra month.
Unlike before, when he had to laboriously earn his own life expectancy,
these days, he just needed to find some time to stamp documents at the Ministry of Justice, and the numbers on the cover of the Law Code would swiftly rise.
A few days ago, by observing the changes in the numbers on the Law Code, Li Nuo had determined another miscarriage of justice.
The Ministry of Justice promptly dealt with a ninth-rank official who had callously taken a human life, and half of the forty days added to Li Nuo’s lifespan came from that adjustment.
Li Nuo was not presiding over trials in court; he merely closed the door and stamped documents, and the officials from the Ministry of Supervision could find nothing to critique.
Not to mention nitpicking, they couldn’t even enter Li Anning’s government office.
The increase in lifespan was going smoothly, but the selection of candidates for the Imperial Examination’s Shooting discipline was still undecided.
After the Imperial Examination, those who excelled in Shooting usually went on to military positions.
Military officers and civil servants, being from different systems, were intimidated by the mere name of the Ministry of Justice if they were lower than fourth-rank civil servants, but it had no authority over military officers.
Unlike other disciplines, once past the Imperial Examination, there’s no need to continue practicing.
Archery is a basic skill for a military officer, and once in the military, they still need to train regularly.
Even though there were countless skilled archers in the military, Li Nuo had no way to target them.
These days, with his wife’s hands-on instruction, Li Nuo could also shoot a few arrows decently, but this was still far from the requirement of the Imperial Examination.
In the Horse Riding discipline, Zhou Yu had not disappointed Li Nuo.
In recent days, he had not been fooling around with Song Yu but had instead been wholeheartedly improving his riding skill.
Whenever Li Nuo went to supervise, he could see Zhou Yu’s figure sweating profusely on the Horse Field.
His driving skill too had improved by leaps and bounds under such devilish training.
Even Li Nuo, an amateur, could see his progress.
Li Nuo was very pleased with this.
The only drawback was that Li Nuo couldn’t definitively verify Zhou Yu’s training results.
Actually, according to Li Nuo’s original thinking, with sons of nobility like Song Yu and Zhou Yu, even if they didn’t engage in fraud or serious wrongdoing against heaven and reason, it would still be easy to catch their shortcomings if they were serious.
But aside from going out to train, Zhou Yu just went back home to sleep, giving Li Nuo not even the slightest fault to pick on.
Moreover, Li Nuo heard from Song Yu that Zhou Yu always ranked first in the Law tests at the academy.
Even those seeds for the Imperial Examination couldn’t surpass him in Law.
This youngster had not only memorized the Law Code but also studied numerous real cases, and his understanding of Law wasn’t something the average person could match.
His father being the Minister of Transportation, it was very easy to get a hold of material others couldn’t access.
Zhou Yu, being so self-disciplined and controlled, made Li Nuo rather depressed.
Was this like lifting a rock only to drop it on one’s own foot?
Today, after lunch, Li Nuo was planning to visit the Horse Field again but saw Song Yu, supporting a limping Zhou Yu, slowly walking towards him.
Li Nuo paused, hurried over, and asked with concern, "What happened?"
Zhou Yu squeezed out a bitter smile on his face and said, "Brother Li, I’m in no condition to train today."
Actually, whether he trained or not was his own business, but he felt that he should tell Brother Li so that he didn’t make a wasted trip.
Li Nuo looked at Zhou Yu and asked sternly, "Who did this?"
In the Imperial Examination, the competition for top scholar in a single discipline was even fiercer than for top scholar in all disciplines.
The top scholar in all disciplines had to be proficient in every area, but the top scholar in a single discipline only needed to specialize in one.
As long as they mastered that one discipline, even if they were weaker in others, they could still be accepted unconditionally.
There was only one top scholar for each discipline, and to clear their own path to victory, these people would stop at nothing.
With less than half a year until the Imperial Examination, if Zhou Yu was injured and it affected his performance in the Horse Riding discipline, wouldn’t he also be finished?
So Li Nuo’s expression was very displeased.
Song Yu said helplessly to Li Nuo, "Brother-in-law, I really can’t do anything this time, Zhou Yu’s injury, it was his father who beat him."
"Oh..."
Li Nuo reined in his anger.
A father punishing his son was natural and right, and the government had no place to interfere.
Let alone if he beat him to a limp, even if he beat him to death, at most the government would sentence him to three years of imprisonment.
That’s what the Daxia Law stipulated.
But he still asked doubtfully, "What did you do to make your father punish you so severely?"
In these days, Zhou Yu had been the model of a second-generation official, not fooling around like other scions; every day, he earnestly practiced driving, to an extent that moved even Li Nuo.
He couldn’t think of any reason the Minister of Transportation would have to beat him.
At the mention of the incident, Zhou Yu’s face showed a hint of frustration and he said, "My stepmother and mother had a quarrel, and I just took my mother’s side; father used family law on me. I accept his discipline, but the stepmother should never have disrespected my mother..."
What can be said or not, this time Li Nuo stood with Zhou Yu.
As a son, Zhou Yu would definitely stand on his mother’s side.
What the Minister of Transportation did was quite undignified.
A wife is a wife, a concubine is a concubine; the wife is honored and the concubine is inferior, as written in the Law Code.
A concubine has no place to quarrel with the legal wife.
The legal wife can beat her to death without the need to compensate.
It was definitely because the Minister of Transportation usually doted on her excessively, which gave a mere concubine the audacity to quarrel with the legal wife.
Of course, modern Law treats everyone as equal, and homicide is not encouraged.
But modern Law does not support extramarital affairs either. Traditional moral values would also support the legal wife rather than a mistress.
