The Lucky Farmgirl
Chapter 827 - 805 Different Ideals IV (Happy Birthday and One-Month Celebration to Zhao Moyan and Her Little Princess)

Chapter 827: Chapter 805 Different Ideals IV (Happy Birthday and One-Month Celebration to Zhao Moyan and Her Little Princess)

Bai Shan asked curiously, "Why are we an exception?"

County Magistrate Tang replied with a smile, "Maybe it’s because you resemble how I looked in my youth."

Unable to restrain herself, Bai Shan showed a flicker of distaste, which Manbao also couldn’t help revealing.

Laughing, County Magistrate Tang said, "What, you find that objectionable too? Do you only like those like Zhangbo?"

This time, Manbao couldn’t restrain herself and retorted, "County Magistrate Yang is much better than you, both generous and amiable."

"Do you know that Yang Heshu carefully investigated your backgrounds?" County Magistrate Tang looked at Manbao, "Especially you."

Startled, Manbao asked, "Why would you investigate me?"

Seeing only confusion and no anger in her eyes, County Magistrate Tang smiled again and asked, "Aren’t you angry?"

Scratching her head, Manbao said, "I’m not too angry now, but I might be when I get a little older."

Curious, County Magistrate Tang inquired, "Why is that?"

"Because the older I get, the more secrets I’ll have. I don’t have many secrets now."

Keke stayed silently in Manbao’s mind, flickering to remind her of its presence.

Manbao ignored Keke, feeling that no one would see or discover it, so it didn’t matter.

Then County Magistrate Tang burst into hearty laughter and praised, "You’re right. The older a person gets, the more secrets they have. I have nothing I can’t tell others; I’m not afraid of being investigated. But that’s not the case for everyone."

Both of them looked at him with curiosity.

Seeing their pure gaze, County Magistrate Tang felt more at ease and became much more candid, "When Zhangbo was young, he met someone..."

Interrupting him, Manbao said, "Lord Tang, County Magistrate Yang is very young now, so how old was he in his ’youth’?"

After thinking for a moment, County Magistrate Tang replied, "At that time, I was twelve years old, and he was a bit younger than me, probably nine or ten."

Twelve-year-old Manbao turned to thirteen-year-old Bai Shan and said, "Nine years old, still a child."

Silently, County Magistrate Tang watched her for a long while before saying, "At nine years old, his mind was more mature than yours is now."

After a pause, County Magistrate Tang continued, "His new friend was older than all of us, about fourteen, and despite being several years older, there was a perfect match in everything. Whether in studying, calligraphy, or interpersonal relations, they got along very well, especially with Zhangbo, so Zhangbo considered him a confidant."

Bai Shan remarked, "Isn’t that just like us?"

County Magistrate Tang glanced at the two and said, "No, it’s different."

Bai Shan asked, "How is it different?"

"You are a boy and a girl, while they were both boys," said County Magistrate Tang, showing his annoyance at their constant interruptions, and asked, "Do you still want to hear the rest?"

Both nodded together, eagerly asking, "Then what happened?"

County Magistrate Tang continued, "That year when I turned twelve and started accompanying my father on inspections around the empire, by the time I returned to the capital for the New Year, those two were inseparable," he said. "Their friendship was so close that even I, the son of a lifelong friend, had to keep my distance."

"That year, there was a homicide case in the capital," sighed County Magistrate Tang. "It was the first case I helped investigate."

Manbao and Bai Shan exclaimed with a "wow," asking, "You could investigate a case at twelve years old? Did the court hire you as an official?"

"No, I worked for free, a bargain for the court," County Magistrate Tang’s sense of injury was dispelled by their exclamation, "My father was the Vice Minister of the Ministry of Justice. He took on the case, and I followed him in the investigation."

"A farmer, stricken by poverty due to illness, sold his daughter into servitude under a contract for three years," he explained. "At the end of the contract, when the farmer came to collect his daughter, he found that she had died the previous month and was told it was due to illness, but they wouldn’t give him the remains."

"The farmer felt something was amiss and reported it to the authorities. The yamen officers of Chang’an County went and found the daughter’s body with multiple injuries; thus, a case was established, and the family employing her was eventually judged guilty of servant abuse."

Bai Shan said, "Such a charge doesn’t incur a heavy sentence; the farmer must not have accepted it."

County Magistrate Tang nodded approvingly, "Exactly, he was dissatisfied. Most of all, he uncovered that it wasn’t his daughter’s employers who had abused her to death but someone outside. Unconvinced, he appealed to the Ministry of Justice. My father had just returned from the inspections, happened upon the case, and took it on."

"The investigation led us to our friend, and the deeper we probed, the more homicide cases came into the picture, along with other matters. This person had two faces: to others, he appeared as a modest, polite, and talented noble, but in secret, he was a cruel and calculating man. This greatly traumatized Zhangbo."

Bai Shan inquired, "Did he scheme against County Magistrate Yang?"

Curious, Manbao asked, "What did he plot against County Magistrate Yang?"

County Magistrate Tang coughed lightly and said, "Regardless of his schemes, the main point is that Zhangbo was deeply hurt by it. Imagine if one day, you suddenly discover that the other’s closeness has an ulterior motive and that all their past behaviors towards you were feigned. Wouldn’t that hurt you?"

Manbao and Bai Shan looked at each other, then nodded emphatically.

"So, Zhangbo developed a bad habit. He loves cleanliness, which is reflected not only in his daily life but also in making friends," County Magistrate Tang explained. "Most people, if they meet someone, then meet someone, but if he wants to be close friends with someone, he can’t help investigating their past to confirm it’s clean enough and not calulatedly approaching him. Only then does he truly open his heart."

Therefore, when Yang Heshu wrote to ask him to take extra care of Manbao and Bai Erlang, County Magistrate Tang knew these three were approved friends, and he was sure Yang Heshu must have thoroughly checked their ancestors.

So, when he was in Yizhou City, he didn’t ask too many questions about the two before entrusting someone to look after them. Occasionally, he would visit Mr. Zhuang in the small courtyard to have tea and share a meal, letting the people of Yizhou City know that those from the small courtyard were under his protection.

After County Magistrate Tang shared so much, Bai Shan belatedly realized and said, "Oh, so you’re telling us all this because you’re afraid we’ll get angry at County Magistrate Yang and not be friends with him anymore, right? But if you didn’t tell us, we wouldn’t have known."

"It must be because we might come across it in our future investigations, right?" Manbao suggested.

County Magistrate Tang coughed lightly and said, "So being too clever as a young person is not always good, as it can make you unhappy. Look at Yang Heshu; he excelled in his studies from a young age and had a more mature mind than us, which is why he’s always unhappy."

"Nonsense," Manbao countered. "The County Magistrate Yang we know is always happy every day."

Bai Shan also nodded in agreement; they could distinguish whether happiness was genuine or feigned.

County Magistrate Tang smiled and said, "Of course he’s happy doing what he enjoys, but you haven’t seen him when he was in Chang’an..."

Seeing both thoroughly intrigued, County Magistrate Tang shook his head with a chuckle and said, "Never mind, let’s drop it. Let’s talk about your ambitions. What do you want to do in the future?"

Manbao said, "Lord Tang, that’s quite an abrupt change of topic."

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