After seeing off Li Daozong, Lu Chen returned to the study, sat on a chair, lit a cigarette, took a puff, then shook his head and smiled bitterly, saying to himself: "This old Li Tou is really good at calculating!"
Fortunately, Lu Chen was the only one in the study. If others heard that Lu Chen actually called the current emperor "Old Li Tou", what kind of uproar might result!
Lu Chen shook his head and collected his thoughts. In fact, although Lu Chen felt unhappy about being "calculated" by Li Yuan, on the other hand, Lu Chen's "Shengshi Group" was recognized by the court in disguise. Lu Chen could then free up his hands and feet to do some things.
For several days in a row, Lu Chen spent most of his time in the study except for eating and sleeping. Liu Jing and Su Chang were even afraid that Lu Chen would get sick from suppressing it. People who move around rarely spend such a long time in the study.
"Gouzi, your father-in-law isn't holding something wrong, is he?" Looking at the closed study door, Su Chang, who was sitting in the wing, put down the books in her hands and looked through the window in the direction of the study, murmuring with some worry. road.
"No!" Liu Jing, who was practicing calligraphy, replied without raising his head, "My father-in-law should be designing new things. Didn't you notice that Xu Gaofeng and the others have made a lot of new furniture in the wood workshop recently? "Really? There are two carriages delivering all kinds of wood to the workshop!" Liu Jing said to Su Chang while practicing calligraphy.
"Yes! It's still a little messy outside now!" Su Chang turned her head, looked at Liu Jing who was writing seriously, and said with her chin propped up.
"You wrote the word wrong!" Su Chang reminded Liu Jing with her chin propped up.
"Which one?" Liu Jing stopped writing and looked at Su Chang and asked.
"That's it!" Su Chang stretched out her hand, pointed to a word on the paper and said, "There is no such word here, and the order of your strokes is wrong!" Su Chang stood up directly, turned to Liu Jing's side, and picked up Liu Jing's The writing brush attached itself to the paper and re-wrote the words Liu Jing had just written wrongly.
When Su Chang was writing, she was very close to Liu Jing. Looking at Su Chang's soft face and the fragrance of the girl, Liu Jing couldn't help but blush and breathe quickly.
"Practice calligraphy! Look what I'm doing!" After finishing writing, Su Chang noticed something strange about Liu Jing. She stretched out her hand and patted Liu Jing's head gently, then hurriedly left the wing. When she left the wing, Su Chang did the same. He took a few deep breaths to calm down his mood.
"Just practice calligraphy! Why hit me!" Liu Jing rubbed the top of his head that was patted by Su Chang, then muttered, looking at Su Chang's leaving figure through the window, Liu Jing couldn't help laughing. For a moment.
"That should be enough!" After Lu Chen drew the last design, he stretched out, stood up, and opened the door to the study. As soon as he opened the door, a cold wind blew through, which immediately refreshed Lu Chen. Quite a few.
"Gouba!" Lu Chen stood at the door of the study and called Liu Jing directly.
"Hey!" Liu Jing responded loudly and ran out of the side room.
"Master, what's the matter?" Liu Jing came to stand in front of Lu Chen and asked after Lu Chen saluted.
"Give these to Xu Gaofeng! Then ask Lao Du to come over!" Lu Chen handed the stack of design drawings to Liu Jing and ordered.
"Yes!" Liu Jing responded, turned around and ran out quickly.
Not long after, Lu Chen had just had two sips of tea in the front hall when Liu Jing brought Du Chengze to the front hall. After entering the front hall, Du Chengze saluted Lu Chen.
"Old Du, sit down!" Lu Chen looked at the chair beside him and motioned to Du Chengze to sit down and talk.
"Thank you, Master!" After Du Chengze thanked Lu Chen, he sat on a chair beside him.
"Have all the things that should be distributed in Zhuangzi been distributed?" Lu Chen put down the tea cup in his hand and looked at Du Chengze and asked.
"Back to the Lord!" Du Chengze cupped his hands at Lu Chen, "They are being distributed. After all, there are many farmers and craftsmen in this village. Moreover, with the family members of Beiwei Wei and the families of those craftsmen settling down, the population has increased a lot. , Therefore, the things to be distributed are not the same amount!" Du Chengze said seriously.
"Yeah!" Lu Chen nodded. As Lu Chen's stall grew bigger and bigger, the population of Lujiazhuang also increased. Outside Zhuangzi, there were still more than 2,000 reserve army camps with Wei guards on their backs. With the reserve army After training and selection, the number of Beiwei Guards has now increased from fifty to five hundred.
"By the way, what's the situation in the back mountain area now?" Lu Chen remembered the location of the poisonous salt mine in the back mountain. Although there is a poisonous salt mine, future salt makers and escorts need to be stationed in front. , Therefore, during this period, although the land cannot be leveled, we have been opening up the land area and getting rid of some dead trees on the land.
"About thirty-three acres of mountainous land have been widened now!" Du Chengze took out a notebook from his arms, flipped through a few pages, and reported to Lu Chenhui.
"Thirty-three acres, right..." Lu Chen touched the beard on his chin and muttered, "Let's do this before the end of the year! The thirty-three acres of mountainous land should be enough for early use. When spring comes next year, we will Once the ground is leveled, let's start building a house!" Lu Chen thought for a while and said.
"Yes!" After hearing Lu Chen's instructions, Du Chengze took out a charcoal stick from his arms and started writing it down in his notebook.
"Huh?" Seeing Du Chengze actually writing with charcoal sticks, Lu Chen's eyes suddenly lit up, but when he saw that Du Chengze used charcoal sticks to write, he still held the pen like a brush.
"Lao Du, aren't you tired from writing like this?" Lu Chen looked speechlessly as Lao Du wrote on the notebook with charcoal strips, and couldn't help but ask curiously.
"Go back to my father-in-law, there is no way to do this! It's freezing in this cold place. If you write with ink outside, the ink will solidify after just a few words. There is no other way but to use this to write!" Du Chengze smiled bitterly. After a while, he explained to Lu Chen.
"Would it be more convenient to write like this?" Lu Chen took the charcoal stick directly from Du Chengze's hand, and wrote a few words on Du Chengze's notebook using a hard-pen calligraphy method. Lu Chen wrote these words The speed of the words was obviously much faster than what Du Chengze had just written.
"This..." Du Chengze was shocked when he saw the way Lu Chen held the pen, because Lu Chen had obviously subverted the traditional way of holding the pen and created a new way of holding the pen.
"Come on, Lao Du, try it!" Lu Chen ignored Du Chengze's shocked expression and directly put the charcoal stick back into Du Chengze's hand.
"Oh! Oh!" After being stuffed by Lu Chen, Du Chengze reacted and quickly grabbed the charcoal stick that Lu Chen put into his hand. Then, under Lu Chen's guidance, he followed Lu Chen's example just now. The way he wrote, he wrote a few words.
At the beginning, Du Chengze wrote quite laboriously, and even scratched a few pieces of paper at one point. After all, he had just switched from one way of holding the pen to another, so it was inevitable that he would not get used to it, but gradually, it became clear that Du Chengze could write smoothly. got up.
"Not bad!" Seeing that Du Chengze had started writing smoothly, Lu Chen nodded.
"Master, you have created a new way of writing!" Du Chengze put down the charcoal stick in his hand and bowed to Lu Chen, "Students who cannot afford pens and ink can also practice writing in this way. Oh! You are simply the benefactor of those students!" Du Chengze said with some emotion.
"Old Du, what you said is too much!" After hearing Du Chengze's words, Lu Chen quickly waved his hands and said, "But these charcoal bars are used up and my hands are dirty!" Lu Chen glanced at the charcoal in Du Chengze's hand Lu Chen said with a frown, as well as his own dark fingers and Du Chengze's dark fingers.
"Yes!" Lu Chen took the wet hand towel handed over by Liu Jing and said while wiping his hands, "We can make graphite pens!" Lu Chen said excitedly.
"Graphite pen? What is that?" Du Chengze asked curiously after hearing Lu Chen's words.
"This graphite looks similar to charcoal, but there is a difference between the two. Graphite can leave marks on paper, but charcoal can't. It's just that they both look similar. By the way, they can leave marks on the mine. Craftsmen, please pay attention to whether there is graphite!" Lu Chen explained to Du Chengze that Lu Chen felt more and more that he was too smart, and he could make "pencils" with graphite.
Naturally, there are pencils in the base, but the pencils are not rich. They are all left over from the barracks, and they are not something to be stored in large quantities.
"Yes! I'll notify you immediately!" Lu Chen said, but Du Chengze wrote it down in his notebook. When Lu Chen finished, Du Chengze bowed directly.
"Yeah! Go!" Lu Chen nodded. After Du Chengze saluted Lu Chen, he left the front hall and went to inform the people below.
"Master, someone from the palace is here!" Just when Lu Chen was drinking tea and feeling that he was so talented, Su Chang walked in from the front hall.
"Is there someone from the palace? Whose person?" Lu Chen was slightly startled, put down the tea cup and looked at Su Chang and asked, there are only three days until the first day of the year, why did the palace send people here at this time? Didn’t you meet Li Yuan on Yuan Ri?
"It's from Concubine De!" Su Chang came to Lu Chen and whispered.
When Lu Chen heard the word "virtuous concubine", he immediately frowned.
"Can I not see you?" Lu Chen looked at Su Chang and asked.
"I'm afraid this won't work. After all, she is the wife of Concubine De. It would be unreasonable for the father-in-law to avoid seeing her. Moreover, Concubine De is a strong person in the palace, and the princess is still living in the palace..." Here, Su Chang said nothing, but looked at Lu Chen.
"Okay! Let that person in!" Lu Chen could only say helplessly when he heard Su Chang mentioned Li Yanjun.
