Chapter 102

What, isn't it just for you to study and make you proud?"

"Why do you say you are so stubborn! You say you are so stubborn, who are you showing your stubbornness to?!"

"I know you don't like me, but I've been like this for many years, and I can't change it! I don't plan to change it either!"

"Look at Hong'er, does he look like you?"

...

Xue Tingxiang suddenly felt that someone was shaking him. He opened his tired eyes and saw the dark inner room. Hu San's face was no longer young, and even the lines on the curtain were so familiar. He was just dreaming.

It's just that the dream was too clear, the sorghum fragrance in the air, and the curve of her stubbornly pursed mouth made him feel like he was actually there. There were also her tears from being angry, crystal clear and shining with colorful light, he wanted to reach out to touch it, but someone woke him up.

"My lord, it's time to drink the medicine."

Xue Tingxiang was propped up and given medicine. He was so ill that he had to be taken care of even to drink medicine. How could he look like that extremely human minister Xue Shoufu who had ruled the court for decades.

Oh no, he is not the chief assistant now.

He has already written a letter to beg for the bones, intending to return to his hometown for the elderly, and the Holy Majesty has already agreed, but he has no home to return to, no relatives to rely on.

In fact, he didn't intend to go back.

"Master Zhang, Mr. Wang, and Mr. Li and Mr. Cao all came to visit you, but they obeyed your orders and blocked the door. They come every day, and they are here again today. Would you like to see me?"

What can they do? Didn't they think that his illness was an expedient measure, waiting for him to stand up and continue to lead them to fight against the emperor, but he was really ill, terminally ill, and the medicine was useless.

"not see."

"My lord, please sleep a little longer."

The room became quiet again, Xue Tingxiang's eyelids began to get heavy again, he blinked again and again, and fell into sleep again.

...

"How come Mr. Wang is free to visit this old man?"

Wang Mingcheng's eyes were a bit complicated, but he smiled on his face: "After all, I am a minister of the same court, and I should come to visit Mr. Shoufu because of emotion and reason."

"I didn't expect you, Wang Mingcheng, to say such hypocritical things, but to see if the old man is dying on behalf of the emperor?" Xue Tingxiang sarcastically said.

He is obviously a haggard old man who is obviously dying, but just because of his calm, indifferent eyes that seem somewhat unpredictable, people dare not ignore him in the slightest.

After all, this is Xue Shoufu, and the name alone is enough to intimidate everyone. That was Xue Tingxiang's deep-rooted roots left by him after going through three dynasties and dozens of years, just like a towering ancient tree with intertwined roots, without him doing anything, just standing there is enough to make everyone daunting.

If not, why would the new emperor have to exhaust all means, but still dare not act rashly, only dare to take that roundabout strategy.

"It seems that my lord has misunderstood His Majesty a lot."

Xue Tingxiang snorted and laughed, half closed his eyes, did not speak, and looked obviously too lazy to talk to him.

"Actually, I'm here for myself. I just came to see how lonely and miserable the villain who abandoned his wife and son was now. I'm afraid Mr. Xue is dead now, and even a descendant in mourning None, in fact, Mr. Xue is too hard to see, it is just a show, just listen to it and watch it, how can you take the fake show as real and make yourself like this? Is it because of a disturbed conscience or fear? His true face is known by the world, he is reviled by others, and he will be stigmatized for thousands of years?"

"you……"

"To say that you abandoned your wife and son is too much to save your face. It should be killing your wife and son, isn't it, Mr. Xue?"

No one knows about all this. The world only knows that Xue Shoufu had a first wife before Mrs. Xue, but they don't know what happened to that first wife. After all, the time is too long, Xue Tingxiang has stood in the court hall for dozens of years, and his former, former and current opponents have all been trampled under his feet.

People in the world only know that Mr. Shoufu is friendly and respectful to the corporals, but they don't know that Mr. Shoufu also has a vicious side. In recent years, anyone who wanted to make a fuss about his past events all became lonely ghosts. No one knows how many ghosts have been added to it, and the only one who can know is Wang Mingsheng, the "bitter master".

"You, you are..."

Wang Mingcheng leaned closer to his face: "It's a pity that my mother's life is so bad, and so is my life. The sinking ship didn't kill us, but was saved by others. Do you know that for so many years, day and night, I I want to see this scene every night. It's a pity that your life is too long, and the power is in the hands of the people. I can only climb up step by step, to the position where I can step on you..."

"You are... Hong'er..." Xue Tingxiang struggled to say this.

Wang Mingsheng stood up straight and smiled heartily: "My name is not Hong'er, nor is my surname Xue, but my surname is Wang. My mother remarried, to the person who saved us...don't get excited, even if You are dead now, and I am not your son..."

Wang Mingsheng has always been known for being calm and introverted, hiding his secrets, and it was probably the first time he laughed so freely in front of people.

"By the way, you don't have to think that even if my official surname is Wang, I can still pass on the family lineage to your Xue family. Let me think about it. Yao Ji released the rumor that my official is as good as Long Yang back then, as if you ordered someone to do it. You really hit the mark, I don’t like women, that’s why I haven’t married for many years..."

He smiled and looked at the old man on the bed, seeing how shocked, disappointed and remorseful he was.

But so what?

He suddenly found that he was not as happy as he had imagined, and even this smile seemed too fake. He suddenly lost interest, flattened the corners of his mouth, brushed off his sleeves, and said, "Since Mr. Xue is fine, I will take my leave."

...

"I didn't, I didn't..."

"My lord, what are you talking about?"

Hearing this voice, the fog in front of Xue Tingxiang suddenly dissipated, and he woke up suddenly from his dream. In front of the eyes is this dark inner room again, Hu San's unattractive or even ugly face, the air is filled with a bitter smell of medicine, and there seems to be a decadent smell floating gently.

Xue Tingxiang moved his lips, but no sound came out.

"My lord, what did you say?"

Hu San was very anxious, and kept asking, but Xue Tingxiang couldn't speak at all. Hu San could only ask based on his own guess: "Are you thinking about the past? Don't worry, your words have been passed on to Mr. Zhang , he already knows that Lord Wang is your only son, and will follow your instructions."

Xue Tingxiang blinked his eyelids. Hu San thought he still had something to say, so he put his ear next to his mouth, but only heard one sentence: "I didn't..."

After that there is no text.

When Hu San anxiously looked up, he saw Xue Tingxiang's wide-open eyes and gray-blue face.

He moved forward to touch the other person's breath with shaking hands, but was so startled that he sat down on the ground.

*

The cold wind came in through the holed window paper, blowing Xue Gouzi's face coldly.

Shocked, he opened his eyes.

What imprinted in my eyes was a small room with blue brick walls and black tile roof. The walls were plastered with white ash, but it looked gray. The beams of the house are log-colored, and because there is no dust, they are bare/exposed. There are several bamboo baskets hanging on them. There seems to be something in the baskets, and they are covered with blue cloth.

He was lying on a kang with a half-new quilt covering his body. The quilt looked clean and tidy, but in fact the cotton wadding inside had hardened.

Facing his kang feet, there is a row of dark brown kang cabinets, with brass bare nails inlaid with hinged leaves and copper tassel handles, and simple patterns of auspicious clouds and flowing water carved on them, which look thick and generous. . Although it is nothing in a rich family, it is already a piece of furniture that can be sold in a peasant family.

There is no problem passing it down for generations!

This is what his father said back then, and his father was the best carpenter in the village.

Xue Gouzi felt his head hurt, as if he had been hit hard with a hoe. He wanted to support himself to sit up, but he was exhausted and fell back onto the kang again.

It was only then that he realized that he was Xue Gouzi, the eldest son of the second room of the Xue family. Because of something that happened, he couldn't think about it for a while, and he was so angry that he became ill for a while, and he had been sick for many days.

He is not Xue Tingxiang, that Xue Tingxiang is the person in his dream.

How could he be like that?

In order to prove that all that was just a dream, he raised his hand to look at it.

really! The hand in front of him was slender and fair, and he hadn't developed the muscles and bones that a man should have. He was only fourteen this year, how could he live to be over seventy years old, and die in the end.

Xue Gouzi let out a heavy breath, looked around again, and finally felt more at ease.

Someone was talking outside, and the voice came in through the cracks in the window.

"I'm talking about recruiting, it's not my aunt talking about you, look at what you are now, a girl who stays at home all day, and learns from those small traders to do business. That business is what you can do. Did it? Look at your fourth uncle, you can’t save a lot of money by running around outside every day, so don’t worry about it, and if you have that little time, you can help fourth aunt with some work!”

The voice sounded like a young woman, but the sarcasm in the words was too strong. It is said that appearance is born from the heart, and it is no wonder that Mrs. Sun has a mean face.

This thought flashed subconsciously in Xue Gouzi's mind, and then he was stunned. It's true that he hated Fourth Aunt, but why would he miss her so much?

Before he could figure out why, he heard the voice in his dream.

"Fourth aunt, I would like to help you with some work, but you also know that the dog has been ill for a few days, and the family gave a few pennies for the medicine at first, but after taking it for half a month, grandma said that the family The money is not in hand, so I stopped the medicine. Gouzi is my man, I can't just watch him be so sick, it's not impossible for the fourth aunt to want me to help with the work, or you can lend me some money to buy medicine, I Can I pay you back slowly in the future?"

The owner of the voice was a young girl, and the tone revealed a capable and crisp taste, mixed with a bit of teasing.

That's right, Zhao'er deliberately ran on the Sun family.

Mrs. Sun has always had a temperament of only getting in and out, and it is more difficult to ask her to give out a penny, let alone lending it to the two half-children of the second room.

Now there are only these two people left in the second room, the top door is only fourteen, but there is an older one, only sixteen, and it is still a girl's family. Every time Mrs. Sun heard the rumors from the villagers that Zhao'er, a dead girl, had made some money by doing some business, she would be full of disbelief.

What kind of business can this dead girl do to make money, but she digs three melons and two dates from the wild, and takes them out to trick the people in the city into exchanging a few pennies.

"Your fourth aunt has no money to lend you. Our family's money is all in mother's place. You don't care about mother's going!" Sun patted her buttocks, stood up and went into the house, too lazy to talk nonsense with Zhao'er.

"Since the fourth aunt has no money to lend me, and I don't dare to take care of grandma, I can only figure out where to get some money to get some medicine for the dog!"

Zhao'er's voice was very loud, so naturally she was speaking not only to Mrs. Sun, but also to Mrs. Zhao who was sitting in the main room.

Sure enough, Zhao'er entered the house with his front foot, and Mrs. Zhao stood at the door behind him and scolded Mrs. Sun: "You haven't cleaned the pigsty, so you're going back to the house to hold a corpse?"

Zhao'er curled her lips, lifted the door curtain and walked in, bumping head-on into Xue Gouzi's eyes looking at her.

They were all from humble backgrounds, and of course they knew how difficult it was to study in a farming family, so before Xue Tingshan said that the Xue family never forgot to cultivate their children and grandchildren while they settled down, Qiao Xiucai praised them greatly.

Because he knew that this matter seemed insignificant, but it was actually too difficult for farmers. How many families had the idea of ​​changing their own destiny by reading books.

It can be said that those who are born in a poor family in the countryside and can achieve great fame have all experienced great hardships. The starting point is much lower than others. It takes countless efforts to catch up with others, and at the same time they have to face all kinds of cruel competition.

This kind of competition is not only between classmates, but also between the same clan, and even one's own brothers.

If you succeed, the sea and the sky will be bright, and you will not be an ordinary person since then. If you fail, you will put down the book and pick up the hoe, and face the loess and the sky for the rest of your life.

It is because they understand this kind of cruelty that the two of them can't help but wonder whether this son deliberately said that his knowledge is weak, or he just wants to pull his brother to reduce the difficulty of the question. But this is a double-edged sword. After all, it is a disadvantage to oneself to lose one's studies to others.

These thoughts only happened in an instant, and because of the sudden attention of He Xiucai and Qiao Xiucai, Xue Qingshan's eyebrows jumped wildly, for fear that Xue Tingxiang would say something amazing again. At this moment, he couldn't care less about why Xue Tingxiang knew the explanation of the scriptures, and he completely forgot that his previous idea was that Xue Tingshan didn't understand the scriptures, and it would be easy for his son to beat him.

This is also true for Patriarch Xue. If something happens in the clan that cannot be seen by others, it is limited to the clan. If it happens in public, it will be a bit ugly.

The eyes of the two seemed to have needles, and they were anxiously focused on Xue Tingxiang's face. Unexpectedly, he smiled shyly and said: "The boy was weak and sick when he was young, so he inevitably fell behind."

Xue Qingshan hurriedly laughed and said: "That's exactly the case. Don't be afraid that the two seniors will laugh at me. My nephew is talented and intelligent, but his weak body hinders his studies."

Patriarch Xue also nodded in agreement.

Others didn't know what was going on, they just opened their eyes and watched. Only Zheng Lizheng seemed to realize that there was something wrong, but he couldn't tell the details, so he could only keep silent.

After He Xiucai and Qiao Xiucai gave in to each other again, He Xiucai was the main one in the end. Sitting at the top, he said to Xue Tingxiang: "Since you don't understand the scriptures, it's a bit unfair to go beyond the scope of what you have learned. You two are still young, and it's time to lay down the foundation, so I will test your two. Human base."