The disgraced official I took care of was actually Zhu Houcong's childhood friend.

The next morning, before dawn, Zhou Chu was woken up.

Zhou Chu, who was severely sleep-deprived, felt dizzy and lightheaded.

"This must be Brother Chu."

A strong, resonant voice rang out, instantly energizing Zhou Chu.

"Yes, Father."

Lu Wei was still half asleep and yawned.

"I've met the master."

Zhou Chu instantly understood the identity of the man in front of him.

Lu Song, the head of the Lu family.

For the previous month, Zhou Chu had been learning etiquette from the butler.

Lu Song was also a member of the Embroidered Uniform Guard, and was very busy with official duties.

So this was the first time Zhou Chu had met his father.

Lu Song looked at Zhou Chu and nodded in satisfaction.

“His mother told me everything about the second son. Thanks to you, you can learn martial arts with the second son from now on.”

The Lu family has been members of the Embroidered Uniform Guard for generations, and each of them possesses extraordinary martial arts skills.

The Lu family has always possessed its own martial arts techniques.

The reason they decided to pass it on to Zhou Chu was firstly because Lu Song and his wife did not treat Zhou Chu as an outsider.

Secondly, since Zhou Chu is Lu Wei's page, if he knows martial arts, he can protect his son in case of danger.

Kill two birds with one stone.

Upon hearing this, Zhou Chu immediately perked up.

The martial arts skills of each member of the Embroidered Uniform Guard are extraordinary.

Not to mention the Lu family, who have been imperial guards for generations.

"Thank you for your advice, sir."

Zhou Chu said.

Lu Song looked at Zhou Chu, who was young but knew how to behave appropriately, and nodded in satisfaction.

"The second son is clumsy, so you'll have to work with him from now on and take care of him."

“It is all I should do, sir.”

Zhou Chu lowered his head and said meekly.

"If you want to practice, start with the basics. Begin standing meditation today and try to do it for 15 minutes."

After saying this, Lu Song began to instruct the two on their stance posture.

Lu Song taught a style of stance training that involved wide, sweeping movements.

"Knees should not extend beyond the toes."

"A little further down."

This kind of stance training is extremely difficult.

Let alone a quarter of an hour, in less than three minutes, Zhou Chu felt his legs trembling.

However, stance training is different from other physical labor.

You might feel like you can't keep going with the stance training, but you can still grit your teeth and persevere.

After getting through those few minutes, I suddenly didn't feel so tired anymore.

You might even feel a sense of sudden enlightenment.

It was Zhou Chu's first time practicing martial arts with Lu Song, and he naturally didn't want to disappoint him.

We could only grit our teeth and persevere.

After ten minutes, Zhou Chu's legs stopped trembling.

It's not as difficult to stick to as it was at the beginning.

Following the breathing method taught by Lu Song, Zhou Chu swayed his body slightly in rhythm with his breathing.

In this way, I didn't feel tired at all.

It even became easier.

However, the sweat constantly pouring down Zhou Chu's body indicated that his stance training was not easy.

At this moment, Zhou Chu remembered that someone had mentioned something about standing meditation in his previous life.

It is said that one should practice standing meditation with a dynamic stance.

It turned out to be the case.

After a quarter of an hour, Zhou Chu and Lu Wei looked as if they had been pulled out of the water.

Yang Shi and Yin Qiao, who were waiting nearby, came over with tea.

Yang took a handkerchief and wiped Lu Song's sweat.

The maidservants serving Lu Wei wiped his sweat.

Lu Wei and Zhou Chu didn't care about anything else at this moment. They picked up their tea and drank it down like guzzlers, one pot each, in the blink of an eye.

Fortunately, the tea wasn't too hot.

It seems the servant who prepared the tea had gained experience.

After practicing martial arts, Zhou Chu's breakfast became much more elaborate.

It originally had some meat, but very little.

Now, under Lu Song's instructions, breakfast is stewed mutton, and there is even some venison.

Both of these are excellent for replenishing qi and blood.

Especially venison.

However, venison is low in fat, so eating only venison won't fill you up.

So most of it is mutton.

During the Ming Dynasty, pork was not a mainstream meat.

Because raising pigs consumes a lot of grain.

In those days, most families didn't even have enough food to eat.

Where can we find space to raise pigs?

Cattle and sheep are different.

They can be free-range and graze on grass.

They won't steal people's food rations.

However, almost no one eats beef.

Cattle are important tools for production.

The imperial court had relevant laws and regulations.

Beef must not be eaten.

Lamb became the main meat for wealthy families.

Venison is occasionally available.

Lamb paired with spices from Southeast Asia.

It has virtually no gamey smell.

It's delicious.

The meat that Zhou Chu ate was specially delivered by Yin Qiao through Yang Shi.

No matter what, Zhou Chu was still a servant.

It's impossible to eat at the same table as the host family.

Zhou Chu was hungry.

Very hungry.

They grabbed the mutton and began to feast.

After eating a meal of meat, Zhou Chu felt warm all over.

Zhou Chu knew very well that this was the purpose of mutton and venison.

As the saying goes, "The poor are scholars, the rich are warriors."

If you want to practice martial arts, you can't do it at all without enough flesh to replenish your qi and blood.

Later on, they even had to use a secret medicine to ensure their bodies wouldn't get injured.

These all cost money.

Fortunately, the Lu family has now spent this money on him.

The Lu family treated their servants, especially Zhou Chu, exceptionally well.

Zhou Chu was aware of this.

I've always known that.

The days that followed were dull but fulfilling.

Every morning, I would get up and practice standing meditation with Lu Wei, and then go to the academy after breakfast.

With Zhou Chu's help, Master Yang grew to appreciate Lu Wei more and more.

The time spent teaching Lu Wei each day has increased from less than an hour to more than half a day.

The amount of material taught is also increasing.

Once you get into something, you can learn it at lightning speed.

Learning without truly understanding is like trying to see flowers through a fog—as difficult as climbing to heaven.

Clearly, Lu Wei has taken it to heart.

Whenever an article was difficult to understand, Zhou Chu would explain the allusions and sources of the article to Lu Wei.

For example, when discussing Han Yu's "Elegy for My Nephew Shierlang," one cannot simply talk about the article itself.

It is about the relationship between Han Yu, Han Xiangzi, and Han Twelve, uncle and nephew.

The poem that tells of Han Yu's demotion to Chaozhou and his subsequent tragic writing of "On My Demotion to Languan, Showing it to My Nephew Xiang" is a testament to his grief.

A memorial was presented to the emperor in the morning, and by evening he was banished to Chaozhou, a place eight thousand li away.

After Han Yu was demoted to Chaozhou, he did not wallow in self-pity or blame others. Instead, he worked with Han Xiangzi to educate the people and improve their lives.

As a result, a river in Chaozhou was renamed Hanjiang by the locals, and a mountain was renamed Hanshan.

The people of Chaozhou revered Han Yu and his nephew as deities and dared not call them by their given names.

Su Dongpo praised it as a literary revival that ended the decline of eight generations and a moral salvation for the world.

The people said his achievements were no less than those of Yu the Great, and the first ancestral hall in Chaozhou was built in his honor.

Even today, there are countless Han Gong Ancestral Halls in Chaozhou.

Incidentally, Zhou Chu also explained "On Teachers" and other works by Han Yu.

Lu Wei was once again fired up by what he heard.

He secretly vowed that he would become a good official like Han Yu, who spoke up for the people.

His name will be remembered in history.

“The little one speaks well. I didn’t expect that a little kid like you would have such knowledge.”

The study rooms in the academy are never closed.

An old man, drunk and looking like a beggar, stood at the door, staring at Zhou Chu with bleary, drunken eyes.

"You flatter me, sir."

Although Zhou Chu didn't know who the old man was, he could tell from his manner of speaking that he was a learned man, so he quickly returned the greeting.

However, the old man didn't pay much attention to Zhou Chu, lying at the doorway in a state between sleep and wakefulness.

Seeing this, Zhou Chu continued lecturing to Lu Wei.

It was soon time for dinner.

Zhou Chu watched as the old man lay there, occasionally taking a sip of wine. He hadn't eaten much in half a day, but he had only eaten about a third of the mutton he had brought. He then placed his food box in front of the old man.

"Sir, this is my food. If you don't mind, you can have it as a snack with your drinks."

Zhou Chu knew that this person must have been a scholar in the past, but now he was just a disillusioned man.

Such people are few, but they do exist.

At least within the academy, there are several.

However, this old man was the oldest and the most slovenly.

Since they had run into each other, Zhou Chu thought he should help if he could.

The old man didn't stand on ceremony. He wiped his right hand on his clothes and reached for the mutton in the food box.

They ate meat and drank alcohol at the same time.

Zhou Chu naturally had no time to pay attention to him and returned to the study to continue helping Lu Wei with his studies.