Joy of Life: The Mei Family's Son Grows Up

Chapter 23 Work and Annual Leave

Mei Cheng'an's general plan was to first classify all the books in the Qilin Hall into four categories: classics, history, philosophy, and collections.

The scripture package refers to the Three Books, Six Classics, Book of Filial Piety, etc., including derivative texts and annotations. This part is basically important teaching materials used to educate people on morality, and is considered the foundation of education and academic research units.

History refers to historical works of various genres, not just the history of the Qing Dynasty, but the history of all countries. Official history, other history, and unofficial history are all included. In addition to history, books that disregard the geography of various countries are also included in this category.

The scope of "zi" is relatively broad, including books on various schools of thought, arithmetic, astronomy, biology, medicine, military, art, religion, divination, geomancy, fortune-telling, notes, novels, encyclopedias, etc., which show the diversity and richness of Qing State in philosophy, social sciences and natural sciences.

Collection refers to poems, songs and the like, and there are probably not many of this type.

These are just major classifications. They can be further divided into countless branches, but that’s all for later. Let’s finish the first step first.

In one morning, Mei Cheng'an had only sorted out less than a quarter of the books. He had originally planned to classify them according to the names, but he found that some book titles did not match the contents. This caused him a lot of trouble and slowed down his progress.

Mei Cheng'an looked at the clepsydra and saw that it was noon. He was just thinking about what to do for lunch when the young eunuch Xiao Ming came in with a large food box in his hand.

"My Lord, lunch is here."

Mei Chengan asked curiously, "Does our palace provide meals?"

Xiao Ming came to the table, opened the lunch box, and placed the food on the table. As he placed the food, he said, "It's just lunch. After all, this is the palace. It's not nice to go in and out."

"Makes sense."

Mei Cheng'an came to the table and sat down, looking at the food in front of him. You know what, it was quite rich. There was a plate of stir-fried vegetables, a braised platter with braised beef, braised pig ears and chicken feet, an order of scrambled eggs with tomatoes, a serving of stir-fried pork with garlic chives, and... a small bowl of rice. It was called a small bowl because he didn't know how to describe the container for the rice. It was much larger than a bowl, but smaller than a bowl. The rice was not in a flat package, it was like putting one bowl of rice on top of another.

"Why is there so much food?"

"Eunuch Hou specifically instructed us to prepare more food, saying that since the master has practiced martial arts, he would probably have a big appetite."

Mei Cheng'an was speechless. Practicing martial arts didn't mean that one would have such a big appetite. It was really exaggerated. Moreover, the more he looked at this small bowl, the more familiar it looked.

"Have you eaten? If not, let's share. I can't finish all this by myself."

"I have already eaten, please enjoy your meal."

After saying this, he stepped out and closed the palace door.

Mei Cheng'an curled the corners of his mouth, picked up the chopsticks, and gestured for a long time towards the rice that was not much smaller than his head. He didn't know how to use the chopsticks. After looking at it carefully, he figured out why it looked familiar.

Isn't this the "bowl" of rice that Ning Cairen prepared for Fan Xian when he went to her place? It's exactly the same as what's in front of him.

It seems that it was prepared for the eldest prince according to his appetite.

Come on, just eat as much as you can. I’m a little hungry now.

Mei Cheng'an stopped eating until he couldn't eat even a grain of rice. It wasn't because he was trying to be stubborn. He just couldn't bear to see the food go to waste, so he could only try his best to eat.

The four dishes in front of him were finished cleanly. Fortunately, there was the soup from the scrambled eggs with tomatoes to mix with the rice. Mei Cheng'an finished two-thirds of the big bowl of rice, and he really couldn't eat the remaining one-third.

I have to say here that the braised food in the palace is not as flavorful as the one in Mei’s canteen, and it tastes a bit bland.

If this amount of food happened at home, it would scare the whole family to death.

After burping a few times, he felt less bloated and quickly walked back and forth in the hall to digest the food, otherwise he would have felt very uncomfortable.

When Xiao Ming came in to collect the lunch boxes, he was also shocked. The adults actually ate so much. He was indeed a child prodigy.

If Mei Chengan heard this, he would have to pinch his neck and ask him, what does eating a lot have to do with being a child prodigy?
After strolling for most of the day, I finally felt better in my stomach.

After meditating for a quarter of an hour, Mei Cheng'an felt refreshed again and then immersed himself in the sea of ​​books.

In the morning, I was not yet proficient in the business, so the progress was slow. In the afternoon, the progress was much faster. By the time the office was dismissed at Youshi (around five or six o'clock in the afternoon), there was less than a quarter of the time left.

Mei Chengan stretched, tidied up, cleaned the strawberries on the plate, tidied the table, and left work.

When we left the hall, the sun had already set outside, and the afterglow of the setting sun sprinkled on the ground, as if it was covered with a layer of gold powder.

Mei Cheng'an greeted Xiao Ming outside the palace gate.

"Let's go, Xiao Ming, see you tomorrow!"

"Sir, walk slowly!"

He strolled out of the palace gate. Blue Bird was already waiting outside. When she saw him come out, she jumped off the carriage and took out the horse stool.

"Good evening, Bluebird."

"Good afternoon, Master, you seem to be in a good mood."

Mei Cheng'an jumped onto the carriage by stepping on a horse stool.

"Of course. If you're not happy after get off work, when will you be happy? Let's go, let's go." Bluebird rarely smiled, but only curled up the corners of his mouth. He quickly returned to normal, put away the carriage seat, and drove the carriage towards Mei Mansion.

After returning to the mansion, Mei Cheng'an went to see Mei Zhili first.

"Why are you back so late?"

Mei Cheng'an was stunned for a moment.

"Is it too late? I came out as soon as it was Youshi, and I didn't stay for a moment longer. I didn't meet anyone on the way out."

"They left long ago, so of course you couldn't see them."

"What? Dad, didn't you tell me that officials usually get off work at 3:30 pm?"

“That’s an ordinary government office.”

"What's different about the Hanlin Academy?"

"The prince's class ended at 5 p.m., and the princes took a rest, so naturally the people in the Hanlin Academy also dispersed."

"Then why didn't you tell me before?"

"Do I need to tell you this? Can't you see whether your colleagues have left or not? Didn't anyone tell you?"

Mei Cheng'an slapped his forehead. This matter was completely ruined. His father didn't know that he would be assigned to work separately and would not be with the people from the Hanlin Academy.

So he told Mei Zhili what happened in the morning.

After hearing this, Mei Zhili looked at Mei Chengan with a strange look.

"Dad, what's with that look in your eyes?"

"I know that His Majesty favors you, but I didn't expect him to favor you to this extent. This is to protect you and prevent you from being contaminated by the old customs and habits of the officialdom too early."

"To be honest, I was quite surprised. It's just two poems. Is it that serious?"

"Is it that serious? Of course it is. You wrote a masterpiece like "Ask the Canal Where the Clear Water Is" in the boy's test, and you also wrote the famous lines "There Are Fairy Grasses in the World, Tea is a Precious Plant" in front of the emperor. These two poems are enough to be regarded as a good story in the literary world of our dynasty. The appearance of these two poems has brought a blessing to the literary world of Qing Kingdom, so His Majesty treats you so well."

Mei Chengan curled his lips and was speechless.

"Just do your job well." Mei Zhili said finally.

Mei Chengan nodded frantically, but what he was thinking in his heart was whether he should go home early tomorrow.

After having a quick dinner, he returned to his own yard, lay on a recliner and chatted with several maids about the vast collection of books in the Qilin Hall. Sweet Potato asked if there were any secret books on true qi, Blue Bird remained calm, Cucumber asked if there were any rare piano scores, and Green Ant was interested in whether there were any chess scores.

Mei Cheng'an kept this in mind and planned to take a closer look after he had sorted the items and find some good things for them.

However, Mei Cheng'an overestimated his work efficiency. It took him a full six months to complete just a rough classification. Of course, this was also due to the many National Day holidays (one day off every five days, not counting holidays), leaving early (all the Hanlin Academy did this), and sometimes when he was flipping through the book and saw a part that interested him, he read a little longer, which wasted some time.

After the major classification, there are minor classifications, which are mainly focused on the two major categories of history and philosophy. History should be arranged in chronological order according to dynasties, countries, and the distinction between official history and unofficial history. The philosophy part is much more complicated because there are more than a dozen categories.

In fact, a small part of this part had already been done during the general classification, so it took relatively less time and was completed before the holiday on the 20th day of the twelfth lunar month.

Mei Chengan has already made the follow-up work plan, but he is not in a hurry because the New Year is coming.

From the 20th day of the 12th lunar month to the 16th day of the 1st lunar month, the imperial court will have a nearly one-month holiday.

Mei Cheng'an once made a calculation of the holidays in Qing Kingdom when he had nothing better to do. Including weekdays off, holidays, holidays during solar terms, and all kinds of fancy wedding leave and bereavement leave for relatives within five degrees of mourning, there is also clothing-changing leave in September, the birthday of Emperor Qing, the birthday of the Empress Dowager, home visit leave, and temporary leave. In total, Qing Kingdom officials have about 110 to 120 days of vacation a year. It can only be said that being an official in Qing Kingdom is quite happy. At least Mei Cheng'an feels very satisfied.

After staying at home for a few days and accompanying Mei Zhili to meet many people, her face was stiff from smiling. This was not going to work, so Mei Cheng'an planned to take the maids out of town to hunt and add some game to the New Year's Eve dinner. The maids, who had not been out to have fun for the whole year, were naturally delighted and excitedly changed their clothes and got ready.

Mei Cheng'an was originally thinking about who would help him change his clothes, but when he turned around, no one was there, so he had no choice but to do it himself.

Mei Cheng'an also planned to invite Wang Qinian and his wife on this trip. Mei Cheng'an had met Wang Qinian many times during this year. They had eaten together, traveled together, and became familiar with Mrs. Wang.

When they met up, only Wang Qinian was there.

"Lao Wang, where is your sister-in-law? Why are you here alone?"

"Don't mention it. Your sister-in-law had already packed up, but for some reason a lot of customers suddenly came to the shop today, and she was too busy to handle it. I had to beg your sister-in-law for a long time before she agreed to let me out."

"Is it you, Lao Wang? Can you bear to see your sister-in-law busying herself alone?"

"Oh, I'm either working in the Overwatch Council or helping out in the shop every day. I'm also a human being, and I need to relax, too."

"Okay, let's try to catch more prey today, so that we can stop my sister-in-law from scolding you."

"Hey, that's what I planned. Where are we going? Are we going to Meishan again?"

(End of this chapter)