The First National Preceptor of the Tang Dynasty

Chapter 405

“I didn’t know your cousin before. I just thought he was weak and incompetent. But now it seems he’s been scheming at every turn. It’s better to walk steadily than to be crushed to pieces. Being used by others is what it means to die without knowing why. Get out of my way.”

After Duan Lun left, Duan Hong stood up, drew his sword, and began slashing wildly.

The teaware and heavy objects in the room were all chopped to pieces, and wood flew everywhere.

The servant boy poked his head out, intending to offer some words of comfort, but seeing the man slashing wildly like a madman, he immediately shrank back and dared not utter another word.

Around noon, Duan Hong came out of Lanxuan and, as expected, saw his squad of soldiers surrounding him. They said, "What are your orders, General?"

For some reason, they felt that the general had become even more sinister and weak than before. They had to make a comparison: before, the general was just a little cautious, but now he was like a wounded venomous snake. If you were bitten by him, you would surely die.

"Xu Tian is nothing but a martial arts novice! Yet he dares to plot against me, the general. Go and find some men, and do this and that, and he will surely be punished by the Emperor and never be able to recover for the rest of his life."

Hongwen Academy

These Persian workers are looking at the blueprints and completing the design of the last floor of the teaching building. It is the dead of winter, so the work is progressing very slowly, but it also gives these Persian technicians time to consider and deliberate.

Soon, a man stepped forward and placed a huge silver note directly on the design drawing. The Persian merchant was taken aback at first, then asked, "What are you trying to do?"

Because Xu Tian had taught them a lot of Central Plains dialect over the past few days, these Persians could understand at least 30% of the Central Plains language.

The man who came to bribe him was concise, saying, "If you listen to us, this ten thousand taels of silver is yours."

The Persian, speaking in a somewhat broken Central Plains accent, said, "If you want to bribe me, I'll do things for you."

The servant hadn't expected the Persian to be so cooperative, and immediately nodded, saying, "Then what do you want with these silver notes?"

The Persian merchant immediately nodded, patted his servant on the shoulder with a happy expression, and said, "Since it's such a good thing, let's make it a win-win situation!"

The servant was overjoyed and went back to tell Duan Hong that he had already bribed the Persian workers.

Soon after, there was a knock on Xu Tian's door.

The Persian worker walked in and said, "Xu, you're grilling again. You've almost eaten all the sweet potatoes."

Xu Tian smiled slightly and then said, "Jekal, what brings you here? Come and have a sweet potato I just baked."

These cards waved their hands and said, "I'm not eating anymore. You've been roasting sweet potatoes and yams every day all winter. I'm about to throw up."

Xu Tian couldn't help but think to himself that this Persian was quite interesting. He then said, "Since you don't want to eat roasted sweet potatoes and roasted yams, what brings you here?"

The Persian technician carefully took out a piece of paper from his pocket, stared at it for a while, and then said, "This is a whole ten thousand taels of silver. Someone tried to bribe me yesterday."

"Xu, someone is plotting against you. You must be careful. I heard that a high-ranking official has recently arrived in your court; he's probably the one trying to bribe me. Alright, I need to go now. Otherwise, if I stay too long, they'll definitely become suspicious."

Seeing Jekar walk to the door, Xu Tian said, "Jekar, thank you. I didn't expect you to give up this ten thousand taels of silver for me."