[Woke up at 3 a.m. to attend court; the trash emperor doesn't do a single decent thing.]
Xu Yanmiao tucked a steamed bun into his bosom, braved the wind into the court waiting room, sat down in a corner, and began to gnaw on it.
Incidentally, he used the gossip provided by the System to accompany his meal.
[The Assistant Surveillance Commissioner has fished for fifteen days without catching a single fish. Hahahahaha, his fishing skill is just too terrible!]
[The Minister of War hasn't bathed, washed, or changed his socks for seven days. Last night he was finally kicked out of the bedroom by his wife. Rare, really—she actually put up with it for seven days. If it were me, I couldn't stand it.]
[Tsk, tsk, tsk, the Chief Minister of the Court of Imperial Sacrifices…]
"Ahem."
Xu Yanmiao looked up and rose respectfully. "Might I ask what Lord Zheng has to instruct this subordinate about?"
Chief Minister of the Court of Imperial Sacrifices Zheng Peng stroked his beard and smiled. "Young Xu, where did you buy this steamed bun? I can smell how fragrant it is."
"Oh, oh, it's…"
After Xu Yanmiao finished explaining about the bun, the Chief Minister asked whether he had slept poorly last night, as there seemed to be dark circles under his eyes. After asking about the dark circles, he asked whether handling official business was difficult, and why he was wearing so little on such a cold day—was it because the servants at home had been remiss…
From food and clothing to lodging and travel, from poetry and song to the philosophy of life, they chatted until it was time to attend court. Only then did the Chief Minister stroke his beard and take his leave with a chuckle.
Xu Yanmiao sighed secretly.
[So the Chief Minister of the Court of Imperial Sacrifices is actually a chatterbox? He talked so much I had no time to read gossip.]
[Forget it. I'll attend court first.]
Xu Yanmiao looked ahead and happened to see the Chief Minister's back. No matter how he looked at it, he felt the man had run into something good today; he walked with a spring in his step, and even his footsteps seemed much happier.
He also saw… the Minister of War gazing at the Chief Minister with mournful resentment?
[Hiss—]
[Could it be… that the Chief Minister of the Court of Imperial Sacrifices and the Minister of War share some past where you loved me, I got married, I didn't know you loved me, and you climbed to a high position only to give me a resentful look?]
"Bang—"
The Chief Minister seemed to accidentally step on the hem of his trousers and fell flat on his face.
Xu Yanmiao hurriedly put away all those random thoughts and followed the other officials forward to express concern for the fallen Chief Minister. Out of the corner of his eye, he glimpsed the Minister of War standing in the farthest spot—standing especially… deliberately?
[Is this… avoiding suspicion? There's no three hundred taels of silver buried here…]
The Minister of War suddenly raised his voice. "Is Lord Zheng all right?"
The Chief Minister immediately replied, "I'm fine, I'm fine. Thank you for your concern, Brother Li!"
One smiled, and the other smiled too, filled with the hypocritical, polite concern of adults.
Xu Yanmiao secretly took a bite of the bun. His eyes shone—
[Lotus root severed but threads still connected! Severed but still connected!]
Forgive him. When he could be dragged down to the Meridian Gate at any moment to be beheaded for examination fraud, all he could do was read gossip and muddle through the days.
Anyway, he only muttered these things in his heart and would absolutely never say them out loud. No big problem!
[I said they must have some unspeakable past. Sure enough, when one fell, the other couldn't hold back his urge to show concern!]
[Oh, oh! His smile stiffened again. Did he realize he had carelessly revealed his feelings and was locking the stable door after the horse had bolted?]
Xu Yanmiao gnawed his bun and watched the Minister of War, after greeting the Chief Minister, turn around and continue walking toward the door—his steps so brisk, his turn so decisive…
Xu Yanmiao stood on tiptoe, looked across the thick crowd at the Minister of War's back, and blinked lightly.
[Strange, why does the Minister of War look so much like he's fleeing in panic? Why is he still wiping sweat?]
Of course, he didn't take the little dramas he staged in his mind seriously; those things were just idle amusements to entertain himself when bored.
[Could it be…]
Several people passing by Xu Yanmiao involuntarily tensed up.
[Has some upheaval occurred in the court?]
Just as he finished thinking this, Xu Yanmiao heard several soft breaths from beside him, as if people were letting out a sigh of relief. He stepped two paces aside, his face full of bewilderment.
*
Xu Yanmiao was a transmigrator.
He was also a useless transmigrator who never lifted a finger, couldn't tell one grain from another, and needed eight minutes just to finish a one-thousand-meter run.
As for the essential skills every transmigrator should have—smelting iron and forging steel, hand-making gunpowder, cement, hot-air balloons, steam engines… he knew none of them.
The only lucky thing was that he had a System. Though it was useless and could only provide gossip, having a cheat-like advantage meant he hadn't become a transmigrator for nothing. It was just that this System…
[Hey, hey, System, can you hear me?]
[Bzzt… bzzt… System malfunction… bzzt…]
Today was another day when he couldn't contact the System.
Xu Yanmiao, long accustomed to it, turned off the System, straightened his official cap, and with his head lowered followed at the very end of the line to attend the court assembly.
The original body was seventeen this year, hardly a young genius. He had entered the imperial examinations purely to gain experience and familiarize himself with the examination process. Who would have thought that first there would be a once-in-a-millennium great flood? More than a dozen commanderies were stricken. The old emperor, in a fit of benevolence, specially permitted candidates qualified to take the prefectural exam to be directly promoted to provincial graduates and wait until February of the following year to take the metropolitan exam. The original body was one of them.
Also, because the failure rate for the metropolitan exam had reached ninety percent over the past decade, the court, for the sake of the examinations' development and the supply of officials, established a series of policies for those who failed—
For example, scholars who failed the metropolitan exam still retained their examination status. Another example: those who failed could enter the Imperial Academy to study, and then either choose to keep taking the metropolitan exam until they passed, or wait for an opportunity—perhaps they might be assigned to various government offices to observe administration.
The original body… had another burst of luck. After entering the Imperial Academy, before long, because the Ministry of Personnel was short-staffed, he was plucked out to fill an official post and became a Secretary of the Ministry of Personnel (Rank 9b).
—That is, responsible for collecting documents, registering miscellaneous matters, and distributing them to the various bureaus for handling.
[A minor official like me—I don't know what madness got into the Chief Minister this morning that he came to chat with me.]
From above came the ritual officer's loud cry: "Kneel—"
Xu Yanmiao knelt down with the others,
"Bow—"
And bowed down as well.
Guessing that the old emperor had appeared, Xu Yanmiao curiously raised his eyes to steal a look, but could see nothing; all around was a bustling crowd of people, and all he could see was the buttocks in front of him.
Xu Yanmiao instinctively—
[What a perky butt. When becoming an official, do they look not only at faces but also at butts?]
From both sides of the solemn imperial path came seven or eight coughs, as if someone had choked on saliva, ringing out abruptly.
"…"
On the golden platform, after a moment of silence, a eunuch relayed the old emperor's decree: "These days the capital has turned colder. All you pillars of state, take care of your health and do not catch cold."
Then came another round of thanks and kneeling, thanking the old emperor for his concern.
Xu Yanmiao skillfully followed the others, and skillfully carried on his internal monologue: [Isn't it rumored that the old emperor is short-tempered and moody? Those coughs just now count as losing decorum before the emperor, right? He didn't even make an issue of it—his temper is actually pretty good.]
Turning his head, Xu Yanmiao saw someone constantly wiping sweat and was instantly stunned.
[This… is the old emperor that terrifying?]
In the dead of winter, scaring people into sweating?
The man wiping sweat was already on the verge of tears. It wasn't just him; Xu Yanmiao discovered that the people around him were either sweating on their foreheads despite the cold or trembling slightly. The most exaggerated was the brother on his right, whose tears pattered down as if he were about to die and was going to be used as a punching bag by his superiors.