The Grand Secretary's Pampered wife

Everyone thought that this Junwang was ignorant of the world, a weak youth who only knew how to show off his literary skills. But if he really was as weak as he seemed, how could he manage to live well after so many years in the State of Chen?

No one knew how much Junwang suffered in the State of Chen. An Junwang didn't even tell his biological parents. However, the man in black accompanied An Junwang and witnessed him go through those dark years.

He knew An Junwang's methods better than anyone else, and that whatever he was determined to do would be done to the end.

Young Miss Zhuang, who felt humiliated after losing in the competition with Gu Jinyu, decided to ignore Gu Jinyu completely.

But just because she didn't go to see the other party, didn’t mean the other party wouldn’t find her in their courtyard.

"What are you doing here?" The next morning, Gu Jinyu suddenly appeared in their courtyard. Young Miss Zhuang looked coldly at her and asked grumpily.

Gu Jinyu smilingly replied, "I came to send a copybook to Young Miss Zhuang."

Young Miss Zhuang's expression changed in an instant, "You dare to mention copybooks in front of me? Are you sincerely here to humiliate this young miss?"

Gu Jinyu shook her head slightly, smiled gently and said, "Young Miss Zhuang misunderstood. How could I possibly humiliate you? I saw Young Miss Zhuang’s words yesterday and found that the problem isn’t with Young Miss Zhuang."

Young Miss Zhuang became interested upon hearing this. She raised an eyebrow and asked, "What do you mean?"

Gu Jinyu answered, "Young Miss Zhuang's writing style is imposing, but the zanhua style used by ordinary women isn’t grand enough, and doesn’t fit the strength of Young Miss Zhuang. If Young Miss Zhuang changes the font to something else that fits your style, you will certainly be able to develop a sense of grandeur in your handwriting."

No one disliked hearing such nice things. Young Miss Zhuang was no exception.

Her rejection of Gu Jinyu lessened greatly at once, "You are a little discerning. This young miss always thinks that the font is not quite right! No matter how much I practice, I always thought it never comes out well!"

"Why don't Young Miss Zhuang give this a try?" Gu Jinyu took out the copybook and put it on the stone table.

"Whose writings is this?" Young Miss Zhuang asked.

"It’s the treasured piece of calligraphy of Little Marquis of Zhao." Gu Jinyu answered.

Young Miss Zhuang blew her top on the spot, "You want me to practice men's handwriting?"

Gu Jinyu smiled and shook her head, saying, "There is no distinction between men and women when it comes to calligraphy, it’s just that women's strength is small and the zanhua style is easier to use, and it also looks beautiful. However, the characters of the Little Marquis of Zhao are still the best."

That was a big truth. Gu Jinyu also practiced it in private. Granted that it didn't have the essence of most famous calligraphy styles, it was still much better than the zanhua style.

She got this copybook from Imperial Concubine Shu with great difficulty. Imperial Concubine Shu had also painstakingly exhorted a lot of words in front of His Majesty just to have it. It could be said to be very precious.

This time, it also took Gu Jinyu a lot of determination to take it out.

Gu Jinyu said softly, "Young Miss Zhuang might as well give it a try? Let's start with copying first."

Young Miss Zhuang felt that these characters were indeed beautiful, ten times better than the copybooks collected by the Zhuang Family for her. Besides, Gu Jinyu persuaded her so kindly that she could only take a big step back.

She ordered someone to bring her brush, ink, paper and inkstone, and then started to copy the characters. After copying a few, she compared it with yesterday's handwriting. It really showed obvious progress.

Gu Jinyu exclaimed in praise, "Young Miss Zhuang is really brilliant. I myself have practiced a lot at the beginning, but couldn’t achieve such powerful strokes like Young Miss Zhuang does. As long as Young Miss Zhuang persists diligently, it won't be long before she can surpass me."

Young Miss Zhuang said smugly, "That’s natural!"

……

Meanwhile, after Xiao Liulang and Feng Lin headed for the provincial capital to take the provincial exam, Gu Xiaoshun became in charge of taking Gu Yan and Little Jing Kong out for lunch. Among the three, Gu Yan was the oldest, but had the least life experience, so the nickname Baby Gu wasn’t just in name only, but also in reality.

Baby Gu was picky about food.

"I don't want to eat noodles today!" Baby Gu pouted as he said.

"But today’s meal should be noodles ah." Little Jing Kong spread out his hands.

Little Jing Kong was a planned little person, who arranged their daily meals in perfect order. It didn’t matter to Xiao Liulang what he ate, even more so for Gu Xiaoshun, so their meals would depend on him.

Before, Gu Yan thought it was his brother-in-law's idea, so it was a matter of doing him a favor. But ever since he knew that it was Little Jing Kong who planned their meals, he began to take a contrary action.

"I don't care, I just won't eat noodles!" Gu Yan looked at the sky in protest.

Gu Xiaoshun looked at the frowning Little Jing Kong, and then at the uncooperative Gu Yan. He felt as though his head could explode.

He missed his brother-in-law. How did he hold these two guys down?

Before the emergence of Gu Yan, it was Xiao Liulang and Little Jing Kong who pinched each other to death. After Gu Yan appeared, the internal contradictions were directly shifted. In fact, if there was no such huge threat as Little Jing Kong, then Gu Yan and Xiao Liulang might have also pointed fingers at each other.

To put it bluntly, Xiao Liulang was the fisherman who made a profit when his two younger brothers fought with each other.

Gu Xiaoshun was at a loss of what to do when a familiar figure suddenly appeared in his line of sight. His eyes lit up at once, "Big sis!"

The two squabbling fellows suddenly quieted down at the same time and swished their heads towards that way.

Gu Jiao came to the entrance of the academy with her back basket, looked at the three people and asked, "Why haven't you eaten yet?"

"It’s brother Gu Yan who won’t follow the meal as planned!" Little Jing Kong said with a serious little face.

Gu Yan grunted, "You only know how to tell black accusations all day long!"

Little Jing Kong rested both fists on his hips and replied, "This isn’t an accusation, but a statement of facts! Also, my accusation isn’t black! It’s multicolored!"

What black accusation? That didn’t sound cool at all!

Gu Yan cut in and said, "I've only heard of multicolored fart[1], but I haven't heard of multicolored accusation. Besides, I never agreed with your own plans!"

Little Jing Kong reasoned, "You used to follow it just fine before!"

Little Jing Kong had a little obsessive-compulsive disorder. Asking him to alter his plans was impossible unless you could persuade him by reason, but obviously ordinary people couldn’t beat him with words.

Gu Jiao asked Little Jing Kong, "What's the meal for today?"

Little Jing Kong answered, "Plain noodles in broth!"

Gu Jiao looked at Gu Yan and questioned, "What do you want to eat?"

Gu Yan stared at Little Jing Kong and said, "Rice and fish!"

Gu Jiao nodded her head, saying, "Just as it happens, I brought some rice and fish. Let's find a noodle restaurant and order another bowl of plain noodles."

Neither of them had any objection to this arrangement.

Gu Yan wondered, "How do you know I want to eat fish today? What if I said just now I want to eat meat instead?"

Gu Jiao said with a smile, "Because I’m craving for a fish today."

Twins were truly so magical.

After several people had lunch at the noodle restaurant, Gu Xiaoshun went back to the academy by himself, while Gu Jiao sent Gu Yan and Little Jing Kong to the private school. Afterwards, she went to the Rejuvenation Hall and sold the herbs she picked from the mountain.

It was still early. She decided to go to the iron shop to see the progress of her farm tools. It would be just in time for the three people to finish school later.

It had been twelve days since Gu Jiao left the blueprints.

It took three days for the carpenter to create the piston bellows designed by Gu Jiao, and in the remaining nine days, the iron shop was really able to rush out more than a thousand pieces of iron tools for mining.

The blacksmiths were simply astonished.

There was actually such an amazing treasure in this world!

"Old Wang, this thing is much more useful than the water-powered furnace of the imperial court!" A young blacksmith said.

The old blacksmith nodded in shock, saying, "That’s right, not to mention the water-powered furnace of the imperial court, I'm afraid even the water-powered furnace of the State of Liang isn’t as powerful as this."

In terms of ingenious craftsmanship and all kinds of small inventions, the State of Liang amongst the six states should rank the first. The State of Liang's water-powered furnace technology had already reached its peak. In order to acquire this technology, the State of Zhao did not hesitate to exchange three mines for it.

However, what the State of Liang passed to the State of Zhao was just the very early stage of water-powered furnace technology.

"Who on earth is that girl?" The young blacksmith thought of something and opened his eyes wide in horror, "She can't be a spy from the State of Liang, right?"

The old blacksmith slapped him on the head and said, "Are you stupid? Would the State of Liang's spy willingly pass on such powerful technology to us?"

"You’re also right." The young blacksmith finally realized how painful his head was and glared at the old blacksmith with bitterness. "Can’t you consider how much a blacksmith's hands weigh? If I take two more smacks from you, I'll become a fucking broken piece of iron!"

Old blacksmith: Hehehe.

The young blacksmith added, "What about that girl?"

The old blacksmith said, "What about her? Oh, you’re talking about her farm tools. Since she really made us able to finish more than 1,000 pieces of iron tools in ten days, then I will keep my promise. I won't charge her any money for her farm tools!"

Not only that, but the old blacksmith also hoped to reward the girl in person.

Unfortunately, he waited in anticipation all afternoon but didn't see Gu Jiao appear.

1. ↑ — This is more like a literal translation, also translated as rainbow fart. It means over-the-top praise.