Being an emperor is not something he can do, so he can only rely on his connections.

Zhang Jingwei had a rare good sleep. He got dressed early in the morning and jogged twice around the entire mansion. There was a kitchen in the east courtyard. He asked Liang Dahai to cook a pot of porridge and two fried eggs before he ran back, and to put more sugar if necessary.

Don't even think about white sugar. In that era, white sugar was very expensive, one ounce of sugar was worth one ounce of gold. It was usually something that only appeared in the imperial palace.

Zhang Jingwei couldn't believe how white sugar was made in ancient times. He'd read novels where the protagonist used yellow mud water to make sugar, but as a science man, he didn't want to believe in such a decolorization method that violated inorganic chemistry. He imagined that if the flocculant auxiliary materials in the workshop could be used to make sugar, he would make a lot of money.

After eating a whole pot of porridge, Zhang Jingwei was so full that he could not walk. He wanted to go back and take a nap, but suddenly he remembered what his father-in-law had told him yesterday.

He came to the accounting office, but instead of the mountains of gold and silver he had imagined, there were only piles of account books and an abacus.

Come to think of it, he had never seen a mountain of cash piled up in the company's finance office.

"How do I use an abacus?" Looking at the beads on the abacus, Zhang Jingwei fell into deep thought. He decided to use Arabic numerals instead. He added up ten or twenty taels and worked for an hour.

I didn't know until I calculated it that I was shocked. Last night I received nearly three thousand taels of silver, and there were some miscellaneous items and gifts, which I estimated were worth about one thousand taels of silver.

Zhang Jingwei widened his eyes and exclaimed in disbelief: "Oh my God! This wedding banquet is so profitable! With a cost of only seven hundred taels, we can make such a huge profit!" As he spoke, he rubbed his hands excitedly.

At this moment, Huangfu Ling suddenly appeared from somewhere and said slowly, "Is this settled?"

Zhang Jingwei was caught off guard and was so frightened by the sudden voice that he trembled all over and almost jumped up. He turned his head and looked at Huangfu Ling with horror, stammering, "You... why are you here?"

Huangfu Ling smiled slightly, a hint of curiosity in his eyes, and said softly: "Let me see how well you calculate accounts. You can even write Sanskrit!"

Zhang Jingwei calmed down and quickly explained, "This isn't Sanskrit. It's just some simple numbers."

Huangfu Ling tilted his head, nodded as if understanding, and muttered, "I don't understand. But having said that, you are really amazing. If the accountant were to do the calculation, I'm afraid the abacus beads would be smoked by him."

Zhang Jingwei couldn't help but burst into laughter after hearing this, then patted his chest and said, "Sister Ling, do you want to learn it? If you want to learn, I can teach you step by step!"

Huangfu Ling hesitated, bit her lip, and answered uncertainly, "Can I...can I learn? But these Sanskrit-like numbers look so difficult to understand."

Zhang Jingwei waved his hand and said nonchalantly, "It's okay, it's okay!" He then rushed forward and pressed Huangfu Ling onto a nearby chair. He then quickly pulled out two sheets of paper, picked up a brush, dipped it in ink, and began writing with great flourish.

He first wrote the Arabic numerals from one to ten in a neat and tidy manner. After finishing, he paused for a moment, then continued writing, saying as he wrote: "Next is the hundreds digit..."

After a while, Huangfu Ling stretched out her delicate hand and pointed to the place where the three numbers "125" were clearly printed. She opened her cherry lips and read out word by word: "One - Hundred - Twenty - Fifteen."

Zhang Jingwei, who was standing nearby, immediately had a pleased smile on his face and praised, "You're so smart. You learned it so quickly."

Huangfu Ling's cheeks turned slightly red when she heard the compliment, and she said coquettishly, "It's because my husband taught me well!" After that, her beautiful eyes moved and she looked at Zhang Jingwei lovingly.

Zhang Jingwei was in a good mood and continued, "In that case, let's keep going. How about I teach you addition and subtraction within 100?"

Huangfu Ling nodded happily and said, "It's all up to my husband to arrange."

However, when it came time to actually learn addition and subtraction, Huangfu Ling found it difficult. Zhang Jingwei carefully wrote out the equation "35 - 17" on a piece of paper and then explained it in detail: "Look, the number in the ones place, 5 minus 7, isn't enough, so we have to borrow one from the tens place."

Huangfu Ling blinked her bright eyes and suddenly said something that made people laugh and cry: "What if it is not borrowed?"

Zhang Jingwei was stunned at first, then he pretended to be serious and said: "Ah... If you don't lend it... If you don't lend it, I will beat it. It must borrow it today!" After that, he deliberately waved his fist and made a ferocious look.

Huangfu Ling couldn't help but burst out laughing when he saw this.

The two sat side by side, their eyes meeting. Looking at Huangfu Ling from such a close distance, they could see that she was actually a rare beauty, with fair skin, clear eyes, red lips and white teeth. Her narrow sword-like eyebrows might not make one fall in love with her at first sight like those peerless beauties, but Huangfu Ling was the kind of woman who was very attractive the more one looked at her, the more beautiful she became.

Huangfu Ling felt a little shy being looked at, her cheeks flushed, she lowered her head shyly, and called softly: "Husband...husband." Her voice was as small as a mosquito or fly, but full of tenderness and sweetness.

Zhang Jingwei's eyes were full of love and doting. He stretched out his arms without hesitation and hugged Huangfu Ling tightly in his arms, as if he wanted to rub her into his body. He leaned close to Huangfu Ling's ear and whispered softly, "You are so beautiful..."

Huangfu Ling's delicate body trembled slightly, and she leaned obediently on Zhang Jingwei's broad and warm chest. She listened quietly to the increasingly rapid heartbeat, and gradually, her own heartbeat began to synchronize with it uncontrollably.

After a while, Huangfu Ling gently raised her head, staring at Zhang Jingwei with eyes as clear as water, and opened her red lips: "Brother Qi, I feel like you seem different from before."

Zhang Jingwei smiled slightly, gently stroking Huangfu Ling's soft hair, and slowly said: "Nothing is different. I was just young and frivolous before, and I loved to play. Now that I have experienced many things, I understand that the truly important things are right beside me."

Huangfu Ling's face was filled with a happy smile. She put her arms around Zhang Jingwei's waist and said coquettishly, "This is the first time you hugged me so tightly. I really want you to hold me like this forever and never separate us."

Zhang Jingwei looked at Huangfu Ling affectionately and said solemnly, "Sister Ling, I have indeed done too many things to let you down in the past, causing you a lot of injustice. But as I told my father-in-law yesterday, for the rest of my life, I will devote everything I have to make up for my mistakes."

After a while, Huangfu Ling suddenly blinked and asked curiously, "Brother Qi, what does 'idiot' mean?"

Zhang Jingwei was stunned at first, then he smiled awkwardly and said self-deprecatingly: "Actually, I used to be an idiot, silly and pretentious, and I never knew how to cherish the people in front of me. But not anymore, I have completely woken up." After that, he gently pinched Huangfu Ling's nose.