Chapter 1

This year is a leap year.

According to the ancient custom of the great Wei Dynasty, every leap year, as long as men or women over the age of 16 will board the sacrificial platform on their birthday in this year to accept the test of the talent of cultivating immortals, so as to determine whether they have enough qualifications to become an immortal.

For many people, especially the children of poor families, the talent test of immortals every four years is the second chance given by God in addition to reading and taking the imperial examination.

In addition to aristocratic families, ordinary people can retain talents for themselves. Once they are determined to have the talent of cultivating immortals, they will be recruited by the local government, recorded in the file and sent to the government for selection and appointment by the imperial court.

Among the people selected in the past few decades, the most famous is Xu Ruxian, the Prime Minister of the great Wei Dynasty. When Xu Ruxian was young, his family was destitute. When he was young, he practiced alone to the second realm. At the age of 16, he measured the talent of cultivating immortals in the sixth section of the top grade. He was favored by the emperor. So far, the fish jumped over the dragon's gate and became a noble of a country.

This is the famous "leap test" of the great Wei state.

Leap test does not look at strength, but only talent. It is called "middle list" if it can measure grade talent in leap test and is selected by the emperor or an official as his disciple. Those who are on the list will be arranged to study in the National Palace. After the expiration of three years, they can work in the Chaozhong or local Xianmen office.

Every leap year, the great Wei state measured that there were not many people with the talent of cultivating immortals, let alone those with high-level talent. In recent ten years, including those aristocratic families, on average, there are only less than 1000 people every year.

Among the 1000 people, only about 100 were finally selected.

As for those who fail in the list - that is, those who are not favored by the emperor or ministers, but have the talent of cultivating immortals, will eventually be arranged to study in the "immortal cultivation hall" established by the local government, or sent to the frontier to lead the guards to perform tasks.

Today is June 24th.

For the Yang family in the border town of the great Wei state, it is a day worth celebrating. Three members of the Yang family met the test conditions this year. It happened that they were the same age and on the same day. Superstition says this is a great auspicious omen.

As long as one of the three has enough talent and is selected by the imperial court, the Yang family will have the opportunity to regroup in the next few years, return to the forefront of local forces and compete with the other families in the city.

Otherwise, they will continue to linger and wait for the next leap year.

At this time, the Yang family was in the lobby.

Yang Dingshan, who is now in power in the Yang family, is over 40. His temples are a little white. Sitting at the top, he has a powerful momentum. Below him, Yang Zhixue, dressed in a martial arts suit, presented the case records of her three children this year. Her long eyelashes hung low and looked like she wanted to talk and stop. It was obvious that she had something on her mind.

Yang Dingshan glanced at her and put the bottom of the case aside.

"Are all the children here?"

"Yang Ajiao, Yang Qianhuan and Yang Zhou are all waiting in the ancestral hall."

"Well..."

"Brother, there is another person..."

"Who?"

"Yang Xuan, he is also 16 years old this year. His birthday is June 24."

"Yang Xuan? Yang Xuan... Yang Xuan..." his finger gently knocked on the table. Yang Dingshan whispered for a long time before spitting out his breath, "he... Don't come for the time being."

"Brother, although he is a sinner, the hatred of our generation should never be involved in the younger generation."

Yang Dingshan didn't hear it.

Yang Zhixue refused to give up, "big brother, what if the child has one in a million talents? Just like his parents..."

"If so, my Yang family is not blessed." Yang Dingshan's tone is gentle, but his attitude is firm.

"Big brother..." Yang Zhixue opened her mouth and wanted to say something, but finally sighed and didn't say anything, "whatever." I owe myself at will and turn away.

But her eyes suddenly became firm.

Leave the lobby, turn around and walk to the courtyard in your memory

The courtyard is located at the back of the whole Yang family.

As a family with dazzling glory in its ancestors, the Yang family's house is quite large, but it seems slightly dilapidated without repair all year round.

This is especially true in the back yard. In addition to the broken walls around and incomplete paint, several tiles on the roof fell off. The only thing that can be sure that there are people living here is about the flowers and plants at the root of the surrounding wall.

There is a young man in plain clothes in the yard. At this time, he is holding a dust brush and carefully cleaning the cobwebs and some insects in the eaves and corners of the room.

His expression and every action were very serious, almost paranoid. It seems that what he brushed under the dust was not a insect net, but a piece of beautiful works of art. He is cleaning the dust from these works of art. From the inner room to the outer room, and then from the outer room to the courtyard, the boy cleaned up and determined that there was no residue before he satisfactorily put away the dust.

Then he looked up at the place where the tiles fell and estimated that if they were not repaired, the roof would become more and more dilapidated. Then he folded and went to the ear room to move a wooden ladder, leaned against the wall, and slowly climbed up with a wooden bucket carrying a half bucket of soft mud that had been reconciled in advance. When he came to the eaves, he stuck a corner of the barrel in the tile ditch with his right hand, and then pasted a mass of mud to block it, so that the barrel wouldn't slip. Only then did he safely climb the eaves with both hands and force under his feet, and the whole person climbed up the roof.

It is not difficult to repair the rain and make up the leakage with the mud. The difficulty is how to stand firm on the roof with tile ditches to ensure that it will not fall from it.

Fortunately, the boy has been skilled in all this. Climbing up the roof, he straightened up naturally, glanced around the roof, roughly estimated the places that needed to be repaired, bent down to lift the bucket, and walked step by step from the sloping roof to the damaged place

The young man was named Yang Xuan. He had no father or mother since he was a child. Since he was very young, he has lived in this small courtyard and hardly left. The farthest place a teenager has been in his life is only an ancestral temple not far from home.

For more than ten years, he has been used to living alone. He is also familiar with cooking, washing, insect repellent, leak repair and other things. He has never practiced anything. Even how to treat his illness and make him recover, he slowly explored some ways.

Yang Xuan continued to walk, and finally stopped at a leaky tile. His eyes couldn't help glancing at the most brand-new place of the whole Yang family, which is the ancestral hall of the Yang family and the place dedicated to the ancestors of the Yang family.

Standing on the roof, he could clearly see that there were many people gathered over the ancestral hall. Something big should happen. But no matter how big it is, it has nothing to do with him. After only one look, the boy bent down and continued to work. He dug a mass of mud with his hands, pasted the place with large tile joints, gently flattened it, and then continued to repeat the same action.

It took about half an hour for the leak on the roof to be repaired. There is just enough mud in the bucket. Yang Xuan wiped the sweat on his forehead, turned to the tile eaves, and held the tile eaves down the stairs.

At this time, there was a knock on the door outside the silent courtyard.