CH 73

Chapter 73 Nian'an Temple

Generally speaking, as soon as the Snow Clearing Festival of the Academy arrived, it meant that the annual vacation was about to happen.

Chaoge’s Academies had different class times from other places. This was because there will be exams around the second month of spring. Students from all over will come to the capital city to take their exams. During that time, there will be a lot of people in Chaoge, and it will be very chaotic.

For the safety of the noble young masters, the students from the Academies in Chaoge are all given a holiday during exam month.

Wen Yantong was looking forward to taking annual leave because she wanted to go back and see the parents of the little cannon fodder.

When she first entered Songhai Academy to register, the small cannon fodder cleverly wrote the address and name of a distant relative of the Wen Residence. This distant relative of hers was an old woman, who suffered a case of dementia, and she answered yes to anything when asked.

The old woman's son died early, and her daughter-in-law ran away secretly, leaving behind a son who was raised by the old woman herself. This grandson of hers was exactly the same age as the little cannon fodder. It's just that her grandson didn't study well. After he grew up, he ran away and never came back.

When the people of Songhai Academy went to check the information at the address, everyone thought that the old woman's grandson was not dead. They believed that he followed the bigwigs from Chaoge and went to study in the Academy. Therefore, in this situation of confusion at both ends, the information security of the cannon fodder passed without a hitch.

The little cannon fodder went home during her vacation last year, but she didn't dare to say that she was disguised as a man in the Academy. She could only lie and say that she was learning embroidery in Chaoge's embroidery workshop. And so Wen Jin agreed to let her stay in Chaoge.

Of course, the most important thing right now was that Wen Yantong didn't even know where the cannon fodder's home was. She only knew it was in Chang'an, but she didn't know the exact address. So even if she wanted to send a letter home, she didn't know where to send the letter. 

Fortunately, the Wen Residence was a well-known wealthy business family in Chang'an City. If she really traveled back to Chang'an City, then finding the Wen Residence would not be a particularly difficult task.

The Academy was immersed in the atmosphere of the Snow Clearing Festival for several days in a row. Wen Yantong felt that a large part of the reason was because of the participation of the newly enrolled female students. After all, with the presence of beautiful girls, boys would be full of energy in everything they did.

Maybe because Wen Yantong did not anger Chi Jingxi during his stay the past few days, he didn't order anyone to drive Wen Yantong away after departing. So in this way, Wen Yantong became a person Little Marquis agreed to allow to be living in his dormitory.

Wu Yutian joyfully went to sleep after completing his complaint at that time. He couldn’t wait to hear the news of Wen Yantong being thrown into the snow by Little Marquis in the early morning of the next day. Lo and behold, he was soon disappointed. After hearing that Chi Jingxi agreed to Wen Yantong to live in that house, Wu Yutian was so angry and felt extremely sour. He gritted his teeth, wishing that he could sit in the snow and cry.

Of course, he didn't know at all, but Wen Yantong had already started to plot his downfall.

After Wen Yantong returned to the bedroom that night, while she was comfortably soaking her feet beside the stove heater, she caught a glimpse of the erhu hanging on one side of the wall. She then remembered that it had been a while since she had played it.

Since Fu Tanghuan brought her new qin, Wen Yantong had been using the new xiqin during her pastime. She disliked that dull, black erhu, so she never touched it again.

However, she bought it with her own money, and it wasn't cheap. After all, she couldn't bear to see her qin covered with dust, so she took it down after soaking her feet.

Her family was poor in her past life, so back then, Wen Yantong only had an old qin that her second uncle used. She still cherished it and wiped it every day. Now that she had money, Wen Yantong was no longer as diligent as before.

Wen Yantong sat on the chair while holding the qin. She sighed and lamented, "Money truly corrupts..."

She wiped the qin with a piece of silk cloth. After Wen Yangtong wiped off all the dust on it, she picked up the bow casually, wanting to play a few tunes.

Who knew just when the bow touched the strings, and before she could exert much force, the strings snapped. It recoiled and hit her fingers, causing her to feel some stinging pain.

Wen Yantong was startled. "Just because I didn’t use you for half a month, you’re angry at me now?"

Erhu’s had two strings in total, and one of hers had snapped.

She put the bow down, took a closer look, and discovered that the string was broken in the middle. It was snapped near the ends, or the place where she put the bow, so Wen Yangtong vaguely felt a little strange.

After careful inspection, she found that there were signs of wear and tear on the strings. However, she knew that it was impossible for a relatively new erhu that wasn’t used as much to show signs of wearing away. Thus, she continued scrutinizing her qin and realized that someone had worn the strings with a dull knife.

Someone deliberately fiddled with her erhu’s strings.

Wen Yantong instantly thought back to the Snow Prayer Festival. Right before she went onto the stage that day, Fu Shi had come to talk to her especially. At that time, she only felt it was a little bizarre, but now she realized that Fu Shi was probably secretly persuading her to take the old qin.

She knew that the strings of the old qin had been tampered with, or it was done by her!

Fu Shi wanted her to make a fool of herself in the performance. This way, she would be unable to participate in the performance. It's just that this snake-of-a-woman never thought that Fu Tanghuan would send a new qin right before the performance.

Wen Yantong also took the new qin to the stage because she liked the new and hated the old, so Fu Shi's strategy failed completely. Later, because Wen Yantong didn't touch the old qin, she was never made aware that Fu Shi had tried to frame her like this.

Sure enough, she was a vicious and merciless woman. She was only so young, yet her mind was already so sinister. This was why Wen Yangtong wanted to avoid her at all costs. Besides, she didn’t do anything to offend Fu Shi. It was only because someone had used her to step on her once that Fu Shi had borne some resentment toward her.

Wen Yantong sat annoyed for a while. She inwardly reminded herself to find an opportunity to teach Fu Shi a lesson. There was no way she could swallow this grievance.

She was so aggrieved that when she went to class the next day, she was still in a vexed mood. Even Mu Yang, who liked to annoy her, didn't dare to raise a peep when he saw her fuming face.

During break time, Mu Yang turned his head and said to the two of them, "It will be the Snow Clearing Festival in three days. Brother Xi and the others have already drawn lots, so it’ll be our turn soon."

Wen Yantong was attracted by his words and quickly released herself from her anger. She asked curiously, "Which temple did the Little Marquis and the others draw?"

Mu Yang replied, "Brother Xi and Brother QianYuan are both assigned to Nian'an Temple."

It took a bit for Wen Yantong to realize that QianYuan was Cheng Xin's courtesy name. Cheng Xin turned eighteen years old in February this year, so he was given a courtesy name. In ancient times, peers would usually not call anyone by their given name.

In fact, in the real history of ancient China, the coming of age for men was marked at twenty years old, but the setting of this book changed it to eighteen years old.

Wen Yantong had known that the two would be sent to Nian'an Temple, so there was no other surprise. She sighed. "Little Marquis and Fifth Highness weren’t so lucky this time."