An Yinong twisted his wrist and freed his hands. He stretched out a hand to grab the shiny black hair scattered on his body: “Over the years, I have often heard people say that they encountered spirits in the mountains or ghosts on the roadside, and then they became seriously ill. Or encounter disaster. But when I met my teacher and studied with him, everything I encountered was a good thing.
“I met this monk today. That day when my husband left, this monk stopped me on the road and said that I was too close to you, so I was sick all year round and my life span was shortened.”
Gu Zhengzhong shuddered, hiding the fact that he used spiritual objects to repair the damage, and said with difficulty: “He is right.”
Listening to Gu Zhengzhong’s voice, An Yinong just continued to wrap his fingers around his black silk hair, his eyes watery: “I told the monk that a person’s sorrows and joys are harmful to the body, and obsession is even more harmful to one’s life, just like a drunkard drinking wine in a cup, like a scholar in hand.”
“Sir is the book I can’t put down, and the wine I keep quitting is harmful to my body, but I am willing to do so.”
“Are you willing? Do you know what I want to do to you?” The demonized Gu Zhengzhong was still struggling with himself.
An Yinong guessed that Gu Zhengzhong must have been an upright person before, so he could still stick to his principles after becoming an inhuman being. He was different, he did as he pleased, and he never spoke the truth.
So he said: “I didn’t know before, but now I know. Even so, I can’t regard you as an ‘extraterrestrial’.”
The person he liked said words that were almost redemptive. Gu Zhengzhong could hardly control his boiling joy, but the monk’s almost cursed message made him restrain his emotions: “You are just confused because we have been together for several years. To be an official is to realize one’s ambitions, marry a wife, have children, and have descendants.”
“Sir, don’t you believe me?”
The redness in Gu Zhengzhong’s eyes faded away, and he no longer had the strong aura he had at the beginning. He felt helpless and placed his hand on An Yinong’s forehead, letting him fall asleep.
“He actually believes me?” Gu Zhengzhong’s voice was filled with uncontrollable joy and fear of self-loathing.
“How can he believe in a monster like me?” Nothing happened that night.
The system looked at Gu Zhengzhong, who looked confused and doubtful about his life, and then at the sleeping host, and couldn’t help but give a thumbs up: “Host, you are such a talent.”
It was dawn when An Yinong woke up. The snakes and crows were gone, and neither was Gu Zhengzhong, but there was still a warm fragrance in the air.
After getting up, he saw Gu Zhengzhong’s fan that never left his body lying on the table, with a piece of paper pressed down: Call my name if you need anything, and don’t believe everything a monster says, including me.
A slight smile appeared on An Yinong’s face: “Look, he is always so considerate. If he goes a little too far, wouldn’t I be able to go directly without any burden?” For a ghost to be so principled, it makes him quite shameless.
“Host, since you didn’t reject him, then last night…”
Before the system finished speaking, An Yinong gave him a sideways glance: “Not rejecting, and being led away by other people’s rhythms are two different things. Moreover, he is always so confident, calm and self-possessed, and occasionally he gets messed up. Isn’t it great?”
“…” The system exhaled vicissitudes of life. It was obvious that the host was a rookie in terms of force value, but there was always a feeling that Boss Gu would be eaten. The host was really not a human being.
When he was about to put on his socks, An Yinong discovered that there was a red string hanging on his ankle. The head and tail were not visible. It was completely natural. There was only a gold bead the size of a teardrop strung on it. He looked at it for a while, thinking about what he had done yesterday. The sight of someone holding his ankle and putting it on made him feel erotic inexplicably.
In ancient times, feet were a very private part.
“You said he had the guts to hang a rope around my feet, but why didn’t he have the guts to stay?”
The system remembered the way Gu Zhengzhong was pacing back and forth in the room yesterday, and then looked at the host’s heartlessness, and felt a subtle sympathy in his heart: “Maybe he is worried that he can’t control himself and has betrayed the host’s ‘trust’.”
“Oh.” An Yinong said noncommittally, “Then he will be disappointed sooner or later.”
After the rain stopped, An Yinong continued on the road. The carriage staggered through the muddy path and drove into the county town. A crow stood on a branch, watching the horse bells swing.
After a short rest, he took Shu Xiu up the mountain to visit the mountain chief, who was the dean of the county school.
For the sake of purity, the county school was set up in the mountains. It has green mountains as its back and faces a stream. One can enjoy the colorful falling flowers in spring and the red plum blossoms and lingering snow in winter. It was really a good place with pleasant scenery.
The mountain chief tested his knowledge and played chess with him. After that, he became interested in his talents and wanted to accept him as his disciple.
“Thank you for your kindness, sir. It’s just that the student already has a teacher.” An Yinong bowed his head and declined. Because he had a good attitude, the mountain chief didn’t say anything. He was just sorry that he missed such a good talent.
That night, there was a figure standing in front of the window, projected on the window paper together with the plum branches, and disappeared only after dawn. After that, An Yinong began his life of studying in the mountains.
He got up at four or five in the morning to read early, and went to bed at eight or nine at night. When he had some free time, he mostly read poetry collections.
The academy has a day off every fifteenth day, and everyone went to the colorful world outside the mountains to have fun, but he never went there, he just reads in peace. The mountain chief saw it, admired him very much, and was more willing to teach him knowledge.
Life in the mountains was poor, and three meals a day were simple meals. Among the students, the rich and wealthy were not used to it, so they could only spend money to buy some meat outside, and then pay people in the kitchen to help cook it.
An Yinong was an outlier among them. He adapted well to bland food, and he doesn’t even bring a book boy with him. He did all the washing and folding of quilts by himself. Even if the clothes were torn, he could sew them himself. Not to mention, the stitches were fine and the sewing was quite professional.
Such a noble face, such a stand-out figure, he could play music, chess, calligraphy and painting, and can write poems and songs, but he was always doing the chores that a book boy had to do as if nothing had happened. Not to mention those with a wide range of orientations, even straight men thought it was a waste of natural resources and asked their book boy to help take care of it several times.
An Yinong refused. But when he woke up later, he found that the clothes he had changed yesterday had been washed and hung in the room.
An Yinong looked at the dirty pants fluttering in the wind, neither surprised nor blushing: “Do you think he washed it himself or asked someone else to do it? How do you feel?”
System: …You can be a human being.
The system thought that after several years of close relationship, and suddenly a person left, the host would be more or less uncomfortable, but it didn’t seem to happen. Apart from burning a stick of incense every day and still retaining the habit of holding an umbrella when going out, he really can’t see anything wrong with it.
Boss Gu was so affectionate that he made the wrong payment. The next year, when the triennial provincial examination came, An Yinong said that he wanted to take the test.
The mountain leader felt that his foundation was good but needed to be polished. However, in line with the mentality of “testing the waters and gaining a correct understanding of the scientific examination”, he still stroked his beard and wrote a letter of introduction. The first few people in their county school who were preparing for the exam went to the provincial capital together.
They did not encounter any danger on the way to the provincial capital. Later, they heard that other scholars rushing for exams were eaten by mountain spirits and robbed by bandits while taking the same road. Everyone patted their chests and felt lucky.
An Yinong thought of his journey of escaping from famine. In the plot, their group should have encountered bandits who robbed the road twice, but they didn’t. It seemed that someone helped out.
He opened the window and looked outside, and sure enough he found a black crow. The crow was frightened. He carefully moved his claws and hid himself behind the leaves.
An Yinong laughed. He was in a particularly good mood during those days and was reading very efficiently.
Among the people rushing to take the exam at this time, An Yinong was the youngest, had the shortest time to study, and had the least hope. But no one expected that he passed the first provincial examination and ranked third, which was considered to be very high. Some students who usually studied better than him actually ranked behind him, or even failed.
An Yinong guessed that maybe they had a bad mentality, were nervous before the exam, and the environment in the exam room was not good.
Because he was ranked third and entered the deputy list, his name was directly sent to the Imperial College, which was the highest university in the country. This means that after he returns to his hometown to take care of his family affairs, he could go directly to the capital to continue his studies.
“Huang Meisheng is probably so jealous that smoke is coming out of his head.” The system laughed, and it was counting on the other party to contribute a few more regret points.
Passing the Juren exam was a big deal. Once one reaches this level, they have already beaten 99% of the people in the country.
An Yinong was received by the county magistrate when he returned, and they, the newly minted candidates, got to know many wealthy households in the county at the banquet. In a daze, they seemed to have become the masters who were being complimented, and the mentality of several of them was floating.
Afterwards, the rich family invited beauties to dinner, and several of them accepted the invitations. They indulged themselves in the embrace of the beauties in the wealthy countryside, and only An Yinong’s baggage slipped away quickly. He went to the county school and thanked the mountain chief seriously.
The mountain chief said that his knowledge was already good, but if he wanted to go further, he would need to gain more knowledge: “If you have the conditions, you might as well walk around.”
After that, An Yinong returned to Sanjin Village, used the silver reward given by the county to build roads, and bought some land to set up a private school to educate the children in the village.
He said: “When I was fleeing poverty, I saw many young people suffering disadvantages because they were illiterate, and even signed deeds of prostitution without even knowing it, so I wanted to set up a school like this.”
“This school only teaches the most basic writing and arithmetic, so that children can know something and not become blind. If you want to go further, you have to go to a private school in the town.”
He also made a rule that this private school is not exclusive, so both men and women can come. Boys come in the morning and girls come in the afternoon. It’s okay for adults to learn, but they have to stand outside.
The people of Sanjin Village already cherished his kindness, so there was nothing wrong with him at this time. Almost all the children in the village were sent to this temporary school. Boys came in the morning and girls came in the afternoon. They all used a sand table to practice calligraphy. As for whether girls should learn to read? Women have become emperors. Besides, why shouldn’t they take advantage of the free benefits? So even the most conservative families sent girls.
Later, all the Tian clan members who had fled together came and said that this was a major event for the clan and would definitely be written down in the family tree. What does it mean to be poor in a busy city and have no one to ask, but to be rich in the mountains and have distant relatives?.
An Yinong looked at the face of the old village head of the Tian family, and spent some money to buy an ancestral hall and clan fields, so that the Tian clan could settle down here.
He himself also made new clan rules, which were very formal. In addition to not breaking the law and discipline, he also wrote down rules such as parents not being allowed to abuse their children, husbands not being able to abuse their wives, and children not abandoning the elderly. He also required all the boys and girls in the family to go to school to read.
In addition, the rule that only men are allowed in to worship ancestors every year has also been changed. Married daughters-in-law and unmarried daughters can also worship ancestors.
Some people with the Tian surname think there are too many rules and don’t like them, but it doesn’t matter. Their mother will teach them what they like: “A woman can be the emperor, so why can’t women be allowed to perform ancestor worship?”
Several old people named Tian signed their names, stating that if they did not abide by these rules, they would be expelled from the clan. People can’t just think about benefits and not fulfill their obligations.
After becoming a civil servant, An Yinong became the first choice son-in-law of many wealthy families in the county. Some of his classmates also asked, tentatively, explicitly, and even introduced their sister.
Even the head of the mountain asked about his marriage: “Yinong, a man is weak at twenty, and you are already twenty. It’s time to think about your own life events. If it’s because you have no parents or elders that it’s hard to make the decision, why don’t I do it for you?” Can you introduce one?”
“The chief is a matchmaker himself?” This made other people envious. The chief has been operating in the county for many years and has a wide network of contacts. The people he wants to introduce are definitely not the kind of rich nouveau riche, but those who are truly well-established. This was the best match for a poor boy.
Didn’t you see, in those story novels, the person who meets the poor scholar is either the ghost of the daughter of an official, or the daughter of an official who is temporarily in despair?
“It’s great to become a Juren.”
“That’s just because he is Tian Yinong. Do you think other people are treated like this? If I had a sister, I would also want to marry her to him.”
The two scholars walked through the peach blossom forest as they talked. There were no peach blossoms in the peach blossom forest at this moment, but there was a quiet crow staring at them.
“Marrying a wife and having children is the path that human beings should take.” A handsome man appeared on the peach blossom branch. His black robe was lazily draped and mixed with his long black hair. He held a glass of wine in his hand and looked lonely.
“He deserves to be liked and deserves to be chased.”
He had a handsome appearance and a gentle temperament. He has no wives and concubines and is very self-sufficient. He cannot be said to be rich, but he is not poor either. The only drawback is that he has no parents or family and no one to help him.
But from another perspective, this was also an advantage. Without the influence of relatives, friends and family, there was no difference between the son-in-law and the bride-in-law.
“Since His Highness likes it and he is willing to do it, why not give it a try?” Crow didn’t quite understand. He was a pure demon. If he liked it, he could build a nest and have cubs without so much entanglement.
“He is young and doesn’t know that there are many alternatives in the world.” Gu Zhengzhong laughed, raised his head and drank the bitter wine: it was precisely because he liked him that he did not dare to act rashly.
WhiteMoon x BlackSun 