Chapter 98: Ringing Apricot

This was a small matter, Yan Penglai agreed, asked his sister-in-law to open the door, and went back to the house to get a small bowl, filled it with well water for her, and held it in front of her.

She leaned against the pear tree he was leaning against. When she took the bowl, a breeze blew and a pear petal fell into the bowl.

She lowered her eyes to look at it, but did not pour it out. She drank two sips of water and held the petal between her lips.

The jade-white petals were stained with her bright red lipstick, turning an ambiguous pink. She slowly raised her hand to remove the petal, then wiped her fingertips with the handkerchief offered by the person next to her. With a half-smile, she said to the young man in front of her, "Thank you very much. Unfortunately, I have important matters to attend to and cannot stop here to rest."

Yan Penglai didn't understand what was going on, so he smiled at her, put away the bowl silently, and continued reading his book.

The lady turned around and led the group away. A group of people came and went in a hurry, just like a petal falling into a bowl, causing a tiny ripple and quickly dispersing.

It never left any trace in his heart.

After all, from childhood to adulthood, there have been many people who have examined and stared at him. He has long been accustomed to it and quickly forgot about it.

In the blink of an eye, it was early summer. The master's wife went back to her parents' home and brought a basket of ringing apricots. She had always treated him kindly, so she specially stuffed a few ringing apricots into his pocket, wishing him success in the future and that he would be admitted to high school in one go, thus making good on his ten years of hard work.

When he returned home and saw his younger brother and sister-in-law, he gave them the ringing apricots, one for each of them.

My father, who was making mud cakes in the yard, saw this and asked casually, "Where did you get the apricots? They look really beautiful."

"Dad, this apricot is so sweet!" My sister took a big bite, and the juice made her little lips sparkle.

So he handed the last apricot in his hand to his father. His father was thirsty, so he took it and rinsed it at the well. He ate it in two bites and praised it, "It's really delicious."

The mother who was embroidering inside the window put down her embroidery and said angrily through the window: "You are so grown up, why did you eat the child's food? Didn't you see that A Lang only had these three apricots?"

Seeing his son's empty hands, the father came to his senses and could only scratch his head and smile: "Hey, Dad will buy you a basket in two days!"

However, two days later, his father was conscripted by the county to perform labor service. Because he was good at bricklaying, he went to the place where Qin and Zhao were negotiating to bury their soldiers to repair the palace.

This is an ancient site of the Qin and Zhao dynasties, housing a small imperial palace. However, with the Tang Dynasty in decline and the central government in dire straits, no one has come here for a long time. It has been abandoned for decades, with only a few craftsmen being recruited each year to do some minor repairs.

In a corner of the Imperial Garden, he saw a tree with ripe yellow apricots bursting and falling all over the ground. The orange-red and sweet apricots were exactly the same as the ringing apricots he had eaten that day.

He took three days to repair the wall and two days to repair the roof tiles. During the five days, he could see the apricots in the corner whenever he looked up. They fell one after another in the sun, and the orange, red and bright yellow apricots rotted in the weeds.

When finishing work on the last day, he fell behind the others and secretly picked five ringing apricots from the branches and put them in his arms.

When Yan Penglai saw his father again, he was standing at the foot of the wall outside the county government office, covered in blood.

His father was stealing in the palace and was discovered and reported. He was beaten with twenty boards on the spot and sent to the county government.

Although it was just a few apricots, the court could not tolerate it and sentenced him to wear shackles in public for three days to serve as a warning to others.

Under the June sun, his father collapsed to the ground after being exposed to the sun for half a day with injuries. He was dragged to prison without any consciousness.

My mother went to my uncle's house to borrow money, hoping to arrange something to redeem the person.

Her uncle half-deceived and half-intimidated her, and as a woman, she had no sense, so she asked her uncle to sell her family's land to raise money to save the man. However, the money she received was 40% to 50% less than the market price, and it was not enough to save the man.

At that time, the young Yan Penglai was ignorant. In anger, he ran to the ancestral hall to complain to the elders, but was accused of disobeying the elders, and was punished to kneel in the ancestral hall and be punished according to the family law.

Her husband was imprisoned, her son was punished in the ancestral hall, and her mother deeply regretted having ruined all the family property, but she couldn't even save the people, so she jumped into Mianchi in despair.

But his younger brother and sister-in-law followed her secretly. After seeing her jump into the water, they tried desperately to save their mother. As a result, all three of them drowned in Mianchi Lake.

He was released from the ancestral hall and limped back home, trying to discuss ways to save his father with his mother. However, all he saw were three corpses lying on the door panel.

His mother and siblings were covered in mud and dirty water and were already freezing cold.

He knelt in front of his relative's body all night, and the next day, the county magistrate Zheng Raoan came in person.

Zheng Raoan has always valued talents, and this time he pointed out a clear path for him. The grand sacrifice of the national dynasty is about to begin, and the Guanglu Temple is preparing to search for young men from all over the country to accompany the sacrifice, and they only need those with clean family background and outstanding appearance.

If he could really become one of the young men who were to be led in the sacrifice, then his father's petty theft would naturally be easily erased, because the court would give him a clean family background.

At that time, it was less than two months away from the August provincial examination. If it weren't for this accident, he would have been able to pass the examination and become a scholar, and then go to Beijing for the spring examination. With years of hard study, he would have entered the official career and gradually realized his dream of bringing peace to the people.

However, his father is now in prison, seriously injured and dying.

He had no choice. After Zheng Raoan asked the yamen runners to take good care of his father, he hastily buried his mother and siblings, changed into plain clothes and went to Chang'an.

He easily stood out among the many candidates from all over the Tang Dynasty, and when he practiced the Eight-Legged Dance for the first time in the Guanglu Temple, he attracted everyone's attention.

There, he saw the noble lady he had met once before. Among the snow-like pear blossoms this spring, he had brought her a bowl of clear well water.

On spring days, his downcast eyes were reflected in the water, rippled by falling pear petals, making it difficult to see clearly. But now, on an autumn day, Princess Gao walked through the young men and women in the garden, approaching unscrupulously, carefully examining every inch of his appearance, allowing him to see herself clearly.

Princess Gao, who was welcomed by the entire court, easily made him the head of the procession. He stood in the front of everyone, with the sunlight focused on him, making it impossible to look directly at him. From then on, the millions of people in Chang'an had a concrete image of this immortal young man.

The emperor personally gave him the name "Penglai". He entered the Taibu Office and was able to enter the court without having to study hard for exams.

But what he faced was no longer the suffering of the people of the world. From then on, his life was filled with empty thoughts of gods, Buddhas, ghosts, and astrology, and he no longer cared about the people but about ghosts and gods.

His father's previous mistakes were easily erased, but the injury was treated too late, and he was paralyzed in bed for life, with no medicine to cure him.

He treated the elders who came to him with indifference, ignoring them. He did not believe in those imaginary gods and Buddhas. After his family was overthrown, he prayed sincerely, but never received a response from his mother and siblings. Even seeing them in his dreams was a luxury.

He often stood on the Sitian Terrace and looked into the distant end, watching the sun and the moon rotate in the sky, from black to white.

The poetry, books and classics that he had read so well in his youth gradually faded from his mind, making him realize that he had truly bid farewell to his past ideals.

But he didn't know how to go on this new path.

Rumors that he was just relying on his looks to hold a position in the court without doing anything were rampant, and the voices of ridicule and mockery even reached the Taibu Office.

Knowing this was indeed the case, he was desperately searching for an opportunity to prove himself and gain a foothold in the Taibu Bureau. He wanted to make it known to everyone, just like he had been when he was a child prodigy, that he stood proudly in his rightful place, unrivaled and without a rival.

Soon, Princess Gao found an opportunity for him.