NOVPUBSong Residence, Li Nuo comfortably enjoyed the massage.
At the Horse Field, Zhou Yu scratched his head with some confusion as he looked at the empty racetrack.
These past few days, as long as he was present, those fellows from the academy who were also skilled in horse riding would surely come, even arriving earlier than him.
Today, he was a little late, so how come not a single one of them was there?
Could it be that they felt they couldn’t compete with him in horse riding and voluntarily gave up?
But it was also good that they didn’t come, saving him the trouble of competing for the track. Zhou Yu practiced alone, heartily, for a two-hour period until he was thoroughly exhausted and in the end didn’t even have the strength to crack a whip...
When Brother Li supervised him before, he could practice continuously for two periods.
Today, with Brother Li absent, Zhou Yu always felt something was missing; after practicing a little more, he felt his enthusiasm wane and left the Horse Field, returning to the Zhou Family.
He had just gotten home and hadn’t even had a chance to bathe when his mother informed him that four old men had come to his house, claiming to be there to teach him Mathematics.
Zhou Yu remembered the four old men he had seen at the Song Residence today.
Up to now, he still didn’t know the identity of the other party.
He only knew that they seemed to be mathematics teachers from some academy, and Brother Li asked them to help improve his mathematics score. He thought that Brother Li had mentioned it casually, but they had found their way to his house.
All he wanted to do now was to sleep.
If it was a teacher invited by his father, he couldn’t be bothered to care.
But if it was arranged by Brother Li, he really didn’t dare to be presumptuous.
Zhou Yu quickly took a simple bath and obediently went to the study to listen to the old men’s lecture.
An hour later, Zhou Yu emerged from the study feeling refreshed.
These old men had some skills indeed.
The hour passed so quickly that Zhou Yu hardly felt time’s passage, and today’s lesson was already over.
The mathematics problems that had troubled him for a long time were, under the brief explanations of these old men, like the girls at the Hundred Flowers Building, shedding their garments one by one to reveal their perfect forms.
For the first time, he felt that mathematics might not be so difficult after all.
As the old men were leaving, they said that starting from tomorrow, each day at this hour, one of them would come to Zhou Mansion to teach him Mathematics and for him to wait at home and not to wander off.
The Minister of Transportation got off his sedan chair just in time to see several old men walking out of his house, boarding a carriage, and departing triumphantly.
He felt that the old men seemed familiar; he seemed to have seen them somewhere before.
Soon he remembered that they were four grandmasters of Mathematics of Daxia who had educated students all over the land, and who had now retired behind the scenes, no longer managing academy affairs.
Even though they no longer wielded actual power, their influence was still not to be underestimated.
Not only were they among the setters of the Mathematics questions of the Imperial Examination, but they were also the final arbiters for the Mathematics exam papers.
After returning to the mansion, the Minister of Transportation asked his wife with curiosity, "How did those gentlemen come to our house?"
Zhou Yu’s mother expressed her surprise, "Aren’t they the mathematics teachers that the master had hired for Yu’er?"
Him?
Zhou Ting shook his head.
If he was willing to spend a large sum of money to invite one of them to offer some advice to his son, it wasn’t impossible.
But for all four grandmasters to come at once and not take a penny, he certainly didn’t have that kind of clout.
Zhou Yu, who had just gone to sleep, was called awake again.
First it was more than an hour of horse riding practice, then another hour spent on mathematics. He felt both physically and mentally drained and wanted to get a good sleep to recharge, but he couldn’t get his wish.
The Minister of Transportation looked at him and asked, "What’s with those old gentlemen?"
Zhou Yu, half-asleep, said, "What do you mean, what’s with them? They are the mathematics teachers Brother Li found for me. Dad, do you know them..."
After learning about the background of the old men from his father, Zhou Yu was wide awake in an instant.
Were those old men that powerful?
The Minister of Transportation said, "Not just powerful, the mathematics questions for each Imperial Examination are set by them. You must study hard with them, even if you don’t become the top scholar in horse riding, if you rank among the best when all Six Arts are combined, there is still hope to become an Advanced Scholar... "
Zhou Yu then realized Brother Li’s painstaking efforts.
It turned out he was worried about his potential loss in horse riding, so he specially found such powerful teachers to help improve his weaker subjects.
Although he and Song Yu shared similar interests,
Brother Li was truly a beneficial friend in his life.
No, more than a beneficial friend, he was practically a foster father!
Meanwhile, at the Song Residence.
After dinner, Li Nuo lay comfortably in his chair, tilting his head to the right to taste a grape peeled by Mumu, and then tilting it to the left to catch a piece of apple hand-cut and fed to him by Ning’er.
In the sisters’ rivalry, Li Nuo became their battleground. 𝒏𝒐𝒗𝒑𝒖𝒃.𝙘𝒐𝒎
After eating one last grape, he stood up from his chair and said, "I’m full; no more, you two go play. I’m going to read..."
Song Ning’er walked away, biting an apple, while Song Mu’er huffed lightly. Brother Li’s first bite was grape, and his last bite was still grape; he still favored her most in the world.
Watching the two sisters leave, Li Nuo lay back down.
Of course, he did it on purpose that he started and ended with grapes.
Despite Mumu’s young age, her mind was even more complicated than his wife’s, and if he didn’t eat hers first or last, she would surely start to doubt their number-one relationship in the world.
He lay back in the chair and casually picked up a book from beside him.
He was reading about "auspicious ceremonies"; the Imperial Examination tested on the "Five Rites," with auspicious ceremonies being the foremost. It was mainly about the sacrificial ceremonies to Heavenly Gods, earth spirits, and human ghosts.
Candidates needed to know which year, month, day, and specific time these sacrificial activities would take place, what the process of the ceremony was like, what needed to be done at every stage of the ceremony, what kind of music to play, and how to handle various unexpected situations that might arise...
