12. Pretentious man
Daylight filtered in through the doors and windows, making the entire room bright. The girl's face became more and more lively and bright, and she said as a matter of course, "Of course it's a pity. How many more Marquises of Wu'an have emerged in the hundreds of years of the Dayin Dynasty?"
Fan Changyu counted on his fingers and said to him: "He was the one who took back Jinzhou, the throat of the northern frontier. He also recovered the twelve counties of Liaodong, which had been fought for decades and lost countless good ministers and famous generals. Although the battle of Jinzhou was controversial, when Jinzhou was captured by the Northern Jue, weren't the people of the Central Plains in the city also massacred?"
"General Xie died standing with dignity, but the Northern Jue people hung his body on the city wall and exposed it. The civil officials criticized Marquis Wu'an for his cold-blooded cruelty, but weren't the soldiers and civilians who died in Jinzhou sixteen years ago innocent? How can they easily expose the Northern Jue's crimes on behalf of those dead people with just a few words? Without Marquis Wu'an, I don't know who can defend this piece of land in the northwest."
Xie Zheng had heard too many righteous remarks condemning his battle in Jinzhou, but this was the first time someone spoke up for him.
He felt a little strange in his heart, and couldn't help but re-examine the woman in front of him, "You dare to say that."
Fan Changyu looked at him in confusion: "What the officials say is their business, and we the people are not stupid. Wu Anhou's military and political methods are indeed brutal, but he is not as evil as those literati say. We the people do not scold those corrupt officials who squeeze the people's blood and sweat, but scold Wu Anhou for killing his enemies too ruthlessly? What is wrong with his brain!"
Xie Zheng: "...don't people use his name to stop children from crying at night?"
Fan Changyu said with embarrassment: "My father looked so ferocious when he killed the pig. People in the town often used my father's name to scare children."
Xie Zheng: “…”
He raised his hand and pressed his brow, speechless for a long time. Miraculously, the anger and gloom in his heart dissipated a little at this moment.
…
During lunch, Fan Changyu first lit a stick of incense in front of the tablets of her parents. When Xie Zheng heard her mention her father before, he also glanced at the tablet on the altar against the wall in the main hall.
After seeing the name clearly, he suddenly asked, "Is your uncle called Fan Daniu?"
Fan Changyu was a little surprised: "How do you know?"
Xie Zheng said: "Your father's tablet."
Fan Changyu took a look at the three words "Fan Erniu" on his father's tablet and instantly understood what he meant.
She said, "My father's real name is Erniu, but he got lost when he was a child. He found his family when he grew up. Later, the people in the town gave my father a nickname, Fan Lao Hu, and everyone called him by that nickname."
Xie Zheng just nodded indifferently and glanced at her mother's tablet, but found that her mother didn't even have a surname. The name on the tablet was just Lihua, which looked like a name randomly chosen by a country person.
He couldn't help but ask, "Did you ask someone to pick your and your sister's names?"
This couple doesn't look like the type of people who would give themselves names like Changyu and Changning.
Fan Changyu put all the dishes on the table and said, "No, it was my mother who gave it to me."
When she talked about her mother, she had a little pride in her eyes: "My mother is amazing. She can read and write, and she can also make incense and flour. Other butchers kill pigs and they smell bad. But our clothes are fumigated with the incense made by my mother after washing, and there is never any odor."
There was a hint of surprise in Xie Zheng's cold eyes: "Your maternal family is quite wealthy?"
If any one of the abilities of literacy and perfume making is taken alone, it would be difficult for a simple family to acquire them. But if these two are combined, one must be a wealthy family with a lot of background.
Fan Changyu shook his head: "I have never seen my grandfather. My father met my mother when he was escorting outside in the early years. She was not a daughter of a wealthy family. She was just a maid in someone's house."
Lihua does sound like the name of a maid.
If she was a maid from a prominent family, it wouldn't be surprising if she knew these things.
Fan Changyu said: "It's a pity that I'm stupid. I learned to read from my mother. I got a headache when I read. I didn't learn to make perfume and flour well. Otherwise, I would have another way to make money now."
Xie Zheng recalled the scene where she beat someone with a stick, and said something ambiguous: "Maybe you are more talented in other things."
Fan Changyu nodded in agreement: "I think so too. If I hadn't learned how to kill pigs from my father, my house and property would have been taken away by now, and I would have been sleeping on the street with Ning Niang."
Little Changning was trying to pick up a meatball. When she heard this, her wet eyes widened and she said, "Mother Ning, don't live on the street."
Fan Changyu helped his sister pick up the meatballs that she had been trying to pick up for a long time and put them into her bowl. "We don't want to live on the street. We have to buy a big house in the county in the future."
Changning was relieved, and continued to use chopsticks to compete with the meatballs in the bowl, and occasionally said a few words to Fan Changyu.
Compared to the two sisters chattering while eating, Xie Zheng almost stopped talking after he picked up his chopsticks. He truly was the man of the expression “no talking while eating, no talking while sleeping”.
He ate in a very elegant manner, but Fan Changyu couldn't compare.
Killing pigs is a physically demanding job. She consumes a lot of energy on a daily basis, so naturally she eats more than an ordinary woman.
She directly picked up the big bowl and ate her rice. Changning followed suit and almost buried his whole face in the bowl.
The two, one big and one small, moved in surprisingly consistent steps.
When I put the bowl down after finishing the meal, I sighed with satisfaction. It seemed that the meal had become more delicious.
This was the first time in Xie Zheng's life that he saw a woman eating like this, and his expression was very subtle.
-
In the afternoon, Fan Changyu asked carpenter Zhao to help repair the broken door of her house, while she went to the market with the money to buy a pig.
In order to get married and deal with Fan Da, she closed her newly opened butcher shop for three days. If she didn't reopen it, all the fame she had built up with salt offal would be in vain.
Before leaving, Xie Zheng suddenly asked her, "Your mother can read and write. Does your family have paper, ink, brush, and inkstone?"
Fan Changyu said: "Yes, do you want to use it?"
Xie Zheng nodded: "Borrow some."
Fan Changyu went to find the four treasures of the study that her mother had bought before. Because they had been stored for a long time, the papers had turned a little yellow, the inkstone had a big crack, and the goat-hair brush had been broken into a broom.
When Xie Zheng saw the four treasures of the study placed in front of him, he was silent for a moment before thanking her.
It's better than writing on cloth with charcoal.
Fan Changyu didn't ask him why he wanted paper and pen, thinking that he could read and that maybe he was too bored at home with his injured leg, so he wanted to practice calligraphy or something.
After Fan Changyu left, Xie Zheng started grinding ink in the room. The ink was not of good quality and it hardly dissolved evenly in water.
He resisted the urge to throw the brush and charcoal in his hand, which had been scattered like a cockscomb, out of the window, and patiently wrote an article in front of Carpenter Zhao who had repaired the gate.
He asked Carpenter Zhao to help him take this article to a nearby bookstore to sell: "The Spring Examination is approaching, and articles should be selling like hot cakes in major bookstores. Please go to the bookstore for me and see if they accept this kind of article."
Carpenter Zhao could not read, but he could see that Xie Zheng's handwriting was very good. He was surprised and said, "Young man, you are also a scholar?"
Xie Zheng said, "I read a few books when I was young, and I gained some experience while traveling around the country as a escort. Now that I am injured and have no money, I want to try to earn some money by writing contemporary articles."
The royal family was in decline and the northwest was in turmoil. When these articles of his were circulated, they would stir up a huge wave of condemnation of the Wei family among the scholars of the world, which would keep the father and son busy and naturally they would have no time to care about or search for his whereabouts.
Some information could also be conveyed to his old subordinates through contemporary writings.
The appearance of the Saker Falcon in the town is too conspicuous. If it is found by someone with ulterior motives, it will definitely cause trouble.
Carpenter Zhao couldn't help but feel tears welling up in his eyes when he heard him say this: "You are a good child. Changyu is a miserable girl. She was able to save you when you were injured in the wild. This is probably the fate between you two. Her aunt and I will feel relieved that you care about her so much..."
Xie Zheng knew that the old man misunderstood his statement of wanting to make money because he felt sorry for the butcher's daughter. He wanted to make some excuses, but he couldn't find a better explanation at the moment, so he could only remain silent.
But Carpenter Zhao seemed to have accepted it.
He felt even more suspicious and was afraid that Fan Changyu had misunderstood, so he acted even colder after Fan Changyu returned home. However, his face usually did not show any unnecessary expressions, and Fan Changyu was a calm person, so he did not notice anything abnormal about him.
-
That night.
Fan Changyu made the bed in the north room and let his sister sleep there first. Then he went to the kitchen to prepare the pork to be sold tomorrow. Thinking that Yan Zheng was injured and might be afraid of the cold at night, he put the red charcoal left in the stove in a charcoal basin and sent it to him.
She had lived in the room for more than ten years, and she still hadn't changed her habit of walking straight in. When she entered the room, she found that the other person was applying medicine in half-undressed state.
However, Fan Changyu did not care about the embarrassment this time, because the man's entire back was covered with blood, and his snow-white underwear was also stained with a lot of blood.
During the day, she wanted to apply medicine on him, but he refused. She thought the wound on his body was not serious, but she didn't expect it to be so serious.
Xie Zheng frowned when she pushed the door open. Just as he was about to put his clothes back on, a pair of warm and strong hands held his shoulders.
The thrill of their skin touching made his brows furrow even tighter. He subconsciously tried to push away the hand that was blocking his shoulder, but was restrained by the other person and pinned to the spot, unable to move.
Xie Zheng's breath was choked, and there was a hint of confusion in his beautiful eyes. He didn't know whether he was confused by the strength of the woman in front of him, or confused by her courage: "You..."
"What do you mean? Are you going to die? Is it so difficult for you to ask someone to help you apply medicine?"
When Fan Changyu saw the gaping wounds on his back, he didn't look at him kindly. He didn't know what this man was being stubborn about. He had so many injuries all over his body, how much money would it cost to treat them!
She picked up the medicine bottle on the table and poured it on the bloody wound on his back and couldn't help muttering, "What's so hypocritical about a grown man!"
Xie Zheng's forehead jumped violently. The woman's hand on his shoulder had not yet moved away. Half of his shoulder felt like it had been burned by iron. He frowned tightly and said, "Men and women should not touch each other."
Fan Changyu said: "I was the one who carried you back from the wilderness! We have already kissed each other, whether it is given or not!"
As soon as the words came out, the whole room fell silent.
Fan Changyu also realized that she had said the wrong thing. She hated studying the most, but this person had to say these words to her in such a literary way. She scratched her hair in annoyance: "Didn't I say I kissed you... Hey..."
Xie Zheng's eyelids also began to twitch, and he interrupted her before she could say something shocking again: "I know what you mean."
Fan Changyu nodded quickly: "It's OK for you to know."
Afraid that he would misunderstand that she had some feelings for him, she gritted her teeth and lied against her conscience: "Don't worry, I have no intentions towards you. I... I haven't let go of my ex-fiancé! After all, we were childhood sweethearts. He is so handsome and so smart. He is the only one in the whole county who passed the exam. How can I really let go of him if I say so?"
After saying this, Fan Changyu got goosebumps all over his body.
The person in front of him had an inexplicable expression and only said, "My condolences."
Fan Changyu:?
Song Yan is not dead yet!
The author has something to say:
Mini-theater:
Changyu: The people like you very much!
Xie Hou: They use my name to scare children.
Changyu: My father kills pigs, and they also use my father's name to scare children.
Rounding off, Xie Hou = pig killer (ho ho ho)
This chapter drops 100 red envelopes~
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