When there are children at home, making noise, talking and laughing, time seems to pass especially quickly.

In the blink of an eye, three years have passed.

Zhang Xueming still remembers the two red-skinned little monkeys wrapped in big red swaddling clothes. Looking at Zhang Lingxiao and Gong Qizhen now, they are just two little children with delicate features. They treat people very well and observe all the etiquettes and rules well. The elders in the clan can't help but praise them when they see them.

What's interesting is that Zhang Lingxiao, who looks like his father, smiles whenever he sees someone, and is lively and cheerful, like a warm little sun. However, Gong Qizheng, who looks like his mother, always has a stern face, and smiles with his eyes downcast, so reserved that he won't even show his teeth.

The two children are very gifted and learn things quickly. They started their education at the age of two and began to practice horse stance at the age of three. They are not lacking in intelligence and perseverance. Zhang Xueming even feels inferior to him.

Now the brother and sister are four years old. One of them is trying to learn swordsmanship from Zhang Xueming, while the other is very interested in medicine and poison. However, he does not bother Gong Yuanzheng, but takes the opportunity to avoid his sister and come to Zhang Xueming alone.

Children have very rich expressions, and face reading technology cannot support the information they convey. Simply observing micro-expressions is not as efficient as asking directly.

Zhang Xueming pinched his son's nose and shook it gently: "Son, your father is a well-known doctor and poison master. If you want to learn, you should ask your father to teach you, why don't you go to him?"

Gong Qizhen pouted, didn't tell her the reason, just hugged her arm and acted coquettishly.

Zhang Xueming didn't buy it. He grabbed the man by the back of his collar and pulled him aside. He squatted down and looked him straight in the eye: "Gong Qizheng, can you tell mother why you don't want to learn from father?"

Gong Qizheng lowered his head, put his hands behind his back, kicked his feet with the tips of his shoes, and after a long while, he uttered three words: "Daddy is fierce."

Zhang Xueming was stunned for a moment: "For example?"

When has Gong Yuanzheng ever been mean to his two children?

Compared to her mother who goes out early and comes back late every day and just wants to sleep all day on holidays, Gong Yuanzheng is really a father who couldn't be more competent.

In the past few years, outside of the imperial capital, there are only seven cities in the East China Sea waiting to be conquered, and there are also a few small countries that like to seek death and need to be dealt with.

The steam engine was successfully manufactured, thermal power plants were built, electric lights entered thousands of households in the North, and the emergence of the telegraph made military communications convenient.

Now that railway tracks have been laid across the entire North, the first steam locomotive carrying people and cargo is about to start running.

The Zhang family is not a family that needs to rely on restricting people's knowledge to maintain its status, otherwise they would not have vigorously promoted the development of papermaking and printing technology and supported the popularization of pinyin and simplified Chinese characters.

People with high IQs are fed up with talking to ordinary people with fish lips. If you can't understand, please refer to the poor parents who help their children with homework. After explaining more than three times, they want to open the children's heads and replace their own brains.

The Zhang family did not have high demands. They went against all odds and eliminated a large number of families that stood in their way. They promoted literacy, published newspapers, and engaged in public opinion propaganda, all in order to ensure that future government orders could be passed smoothly and there would be no more policy misinterpretations or rumors.

They hope that everyone can follow the Zhang family and work hard towards a prosperous future, rather than the king dragging down the bronzes, the king struggling forward while the bronzes stand still.

In order to appease the big cats of the Zhang family who are temporarily unable to march east, Zhang Xueming has to go all out to accelerate infrastructure and economic development.

This resulted in her only being able to spend one hour a day with her children over the past few years.

Gong Yuanzheng and Zhang Wenling were the ones who solved all the problems that the children encountered while growing up. She could only sigh dryly afterwards: "Thank you for your hard work."

When Zhang Xueming heard his son say that Gong Yuanzheng was murdered, he felt distressed and wronged.

She felt sorry for Gong Yuanzheng, who was both a father and a mother to two children but never complained about his hardships, and she felt sorry for him.

Gong Qizhen obviously didn't expect that he would need to give examples when making a complaint. He looked at his mother blankly and lowered his head again.

There are many things that cannot be told to Zhang Xueming. Those are secret agreements between them and their parents.

All that can be said are trivial matters, and saying them will actually help Gong Yuanzheng gain favor from Zhang Xueming.

Gong Qi Zheng pursed his lips, knowing that his plan to compete with his father for time to spend with his mother had failed.

To avoid being retaliated by Gong Yuanzheng later, he pouts and throws himself into Zhang Xueming's arms, hugs her neck, and says half-truthfully: "Grandfather took my sister and me to the medical school to see father...People who ask questions and those who can't answer questions will be coldly called 'idiots' by father."

So that's how it is. It's not because Gong Yuanzheng is strict that I think my father is bad.

Zhang Xueming secretly breathed a sigh of relief.

She picked up her little son, who was particularly spoiled behind others, and patted his head, smoothed his back, and rubbed his face: "Don't be afraid, son. Your father is mean to others at work, but it's because others make your father unhappy, not your father's fault. Look at your father when he comes home, does he answer all questions from you and your sister, and never say a harsh word to you?

When you were sick as children, it was your father who felt your pulse, boiled medicine for you, and stayed by your side all night long, refusing to rest even when his eyes turned red...

He treats you as his own flesh and blood, so you should take good care of him and not say anything that would make him sad, understand?"

Gong Qizheng leaned on her shoulder, looked up and saw Mei Ziqing flashing outside the window, his eyes suddenly became gloomy, but he admitted his mistake in a baby voice: "Aqi is wrong, he shouldn't say that about daddy. Aqi didn't mean it, mother, please don't hate Aqi."

Zhang Xueming kissed his little head, coaxed him, and let him go to play with his sister.

Gong Qizhen left, but she had no intention of continuing reading the documents. She put down her pen and went out to look for Gong Yuanzhen, who had been listening quietly outside the window.

Zhang Xueming found him in the pharmacy.

Gong Yuanzheng was not fiddling with the new and exotic herbs that Gong Shangjiao had the caravan send to him. He sat quietly by the window, not turning a page of the book in his hand for a long time.

He must be sad, Zhang Xueming thought.

She was the one who took good care of the children, but in the end, the children preferred to be close to her, the mother with whom they did not spend much time.

Zhang Xueming closed the door, walked to Gong Yuanzheng, closed the window, poured him some hot tea, opened the snack box, picked up the water chestnut cake that he liked recently and fed it to him.

Gong Yuanzheng raised his head and glanced at her quickly, his eyes slightly red. He lowered his head and silently ate the dessert from her hand.

When Zhang Xueming fed him again, he shook his head and looked listless.

Zhang Xueming hugged him and said softly, "Don't be sad, Ayuan, the children are still too young. They only see the surface and don't understand how good you are to them."

Gong Yuanzheng hugged her waist and buried his face in her abdomen. Zhang Xueming couldn't see his expression, but could hear him sniffling from time to time.

Zhang Xueming touched his head, not knowing what else to say.

In the end, no one knew what happened, but the two of them went to the inner room for some unknown reason and curled up together on the beauty couch.

The little bells on her ankles jingled happily.

Feeling dizzy, Zhang Xueming always felt like he was being fooled.

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