Chapter 18 Only One Half of the Soul Remains
Jin Suiqing lay on the ground, pondered for a moment, and quickly accepted reality: "This shitty life can't get any worse."
Zhang Yu's white teeth gleamed in the darkness: "You think so too, that's great."
"That's great, haha," Jin Suiqing laughed speechlessly. Zhang Yu's relaxed state didn't seem like he had been tied up at all; it was as if he had come here to be whipped. "How can you still laugh?"
Jin Suiqing writhed and sat up, facing Zhang Yuyi. Without further ado, she got straight to the point: "Well, let's not beat around the bush. You know I took the sulfur combustion engine from the National Academy, right?"
Zhang Yu nodded.
Jin Suiqing: "You also know that I was the one who followed you at the flower viewing banquet. You deliberately provoked Huihong and put on an act for me to believe that you are a scumbag, right?"
Zhang Yu's eyes widened: "You can tell?"
Jin Suiqing smugly blew a breath: "Of course, if you were a real scumbag, when you were wanted by the National Academy and your legs were broken, you would definitely cling to Huihong's leg, kneel down and cry, begging Huihong to take you away and hide you in the Jin Mansion."
He grinned, but didn't say anything.
“You look even more like Huihong now,” Jin Suiqing said. “I thought you looked very alike the first time we met.”
At this point, Jin Suiqing's thoughts jumped around a bit. Some people might wonder, don't she and Jin Shiyu look alike?
Zhang Yu paused for a moment, then said absentmindedly, "So you figured it out. I thought that once I got tanned and stronger, no one would be able to tell that I'm Huihong's brother."
Jin Suiqing looked at Zhang Yuyi, who seemed somewhat lost and dejected, and thought of Huihong's indenture in her arms.
“Zhang Jingbao of Zhangjia Village in Lingnan held a banquet to celebrate his eldest son’s graduation from school. He voluntarily pawned his youngest daughter for ten taels of silver, promising to never redeem her after she died.”
The sooner they die, the more money they get.
Huihong lived, grew old, got sick, and died, and had no further connection with the Zhang family. What the slave trader did with Huihong, whether she became a sheep or a chicken, was no longer of concern to the Zhang family.
Ten taels of silver, just for a prestigious college entrance banquet, that's how much Huihong is valued in the eyes of her parents and the slave trader.
Jin Suiqing fell silent.
After a long silence, Zhang Yu said softly, "My real name is Zhang Zongchang. I am from Zhangjia Village in Lingnan. There are four people in my family: my father, my mother, and my sister. I passed the county-level imperial examination and became a Xiucai. To celebrate, my parents held a banquet to celebrate my academic achievement. However, we were poor, so we pawned my sister, who was still seriously ill, to raise money."
“My mother asked a high monk to give me a name, to go to Zongchang and stay in Yuyi, hoping to keep a good name. It was as if fate was mocking me. I lost my sister and was left all alone. I could not bear it any longer, so I changed my name to Yuyi and left home in anger to find my sister.”
He summarized his past in a way that was as short as an epitaph.
Zhang Zongchang was three years younger than his sister, which was just the right age for him to take care of her.
While his parents went out to farm, he stayed at home, studying and taking care of his younger sister.
My little sister is so cute! She's all pink and chubby, even cuter than a newborn lamb.
At that time, Zhang Zongchang did not understand the connection of blood. He only felt that when he looked at his sister, the ethereal thing called the soul was completed, and he became a complete person.
My little sister is so cute. She ran up to him with the only hard-boiled egg she received for her birthday: "Brother, here's an egg for you. Mother said that you're going to take the imperial examinations and become a high-ranking official. You need to eat well so you can study hard."
That night, Zhang Zongchang held the egg and cried.
He huddled in the corner, afraid of waking his parents and sister who shared the room, tears and snot streaming down his face.
From then on, what supported Zhang Zongchang's diligent study was no longer the heavy and ethereal "Zongchang".
It was her younger sister.
He wanted his sister to have a good life.
She wasn't the good wife and mother her mother had described.
These are good days when my sister can do whatever she wants.
Half a month before the county and prefectural examinations, a hole appeared in the main house, and the place where his younger sister slept was leaking. She didn't say anything and even secretly covered him with her bedding. It wasn't until a few days later, when she developed a high fever and fainted while working in the field, that she told him.
The younger sister was burning up, but she smiled brightly: "Repairing the roof will affect your exam, and catching a cold will also affect your exam. You have an exam, so you can't not rest well or catch a cold."
Before taking the exam, Zhang Zongchang repeatedly told his parents to take good care of his younger sister. While writing the exam questions, he was thinking about his sister all the time, and he got the highest score in the first class.
He rushed home but didn't see his lively younger sister.
His parents counted the money, beaming with joy, and said, "Zongchang, the news has spread. You are the first scholar in our Zhangjia Village. Our family is so proud. Starting tomorrow, we will invite the whole village to a feast to celebrate."
Zhang Zongchang: "Where is my sister?"
Zhang's mother said lightly, "Oh, she was too sick and died."
Zhang Zongchang's face turned pale: "You're lying, my sister said she'd wait for me to come back."
Zhang Jingbao shoved his wife, who was about to speak but couldn't, aside and angrily said, "You sold him to a slave trader just to raise money for me."
Zhang Zongchang was stunned: "My sister is seriously ill, how can I buy it?"
It would have been better if he hadn't brought it up, because once it was mentioned, Zhang Jingbao exploded: "Speaking of which, if that little brat hadn't been sick, would I have sold her to a slave trader? All the bachelors in the village have fields and cattle, and as soon as they hear that she's sick, they don't want her. Otherwise, she could have given her family a lot of money! Useless trash, they'd rather sell her than buy her."
Before Zhang Zongchang fainted, he heard Zhang Jingbao say, "Damn it, a money-losing piece of trash, not even worth as much as a lamb."
Illness strikes like a landslide, and the folk healers are no use. Zhang's mother used half of the ten taels of silver she had spent to buy her sister to hire a high-ranking monk.
He was not a high-ranking monk; five taels of silver could not afford to hire one. He was just an old country monk who didn't even have a monastic insignia.
The old monk said calmly, "Young Master Zhang has a smooth life, but his name is too heavy and can't be balanced. It would be best to change it to a lighter one."
Zhang's mother said anxiously, "What should we change it to? Please, Master, bestow a name upon us."
The old monk asked, "Do you have any brothers or sisters at home?"
Zhang Zongchang opened his mouth, but he lost his voice and could not speak.
He has a younger sister.
Zhang's mother said decisively, "No, it's just him."
The old monk closed his eyes: "Then it shall be Yu Yi. Yi means beautiful."
"A good name, a good name!" Zhang's mother kowtowed repeatedly, took Zhang Zongchang home, led people to the Zhang family's dilapidated ancestral hall to change his name, and pressed the weak Zhang Zongchang to kowtow to the ancestral tablets, "May our ancestors bless our only son Zhang Yuyi, and may he surely pass the imperial examination with flying colors."
At that moment, extreme shame and remorse filled the missing half of Zhang Yuyi's soul.
The villagers said he was cured and praised the wild monk highly.
In reality, only Zhang Yuyi knew that he was terminally ill.
Under the cover of night, Zhang Yuyi left home to look for her younger sister.
From then on, until he found his younger sister, he was called Yu Yi.
He had no money or power, and was a scholar who could have run a school and taught, but teaching required staying in one place and was inconvenient to travel around, so he concealed his knowledge and became a laborer who could travel all over the country.
He followed the path of the slave trader and entered a private mine that mined sulfur-based gold.
He knew that illegal mining was illegal, but the pay here was good enough to support his trip to the capital.
It was in this illegal mine that he got into trouble.
The private mine collapsed, burying many people. The families of the dead went to the government to find someone to take the blame.
Everyone else had fled, but Zhang Yuyi volunteered to stay and help write the complaint. He was arrested and made a scapegoat.
He seemed to be dying.
But he still hasn't found his sister.
Zhang Yuyi grasped at the last straw.
Qin Xianglan took over the private mine through connections and accompanied the county magistrate to visit the former mine owner in prison.
Zhang Yu knelt before Qin Xianglan and said piously, "I am not a private mine owner, I am just a miner."
Qin Xianglan scoffed coldly: "I know whether you own the mine or not is none of your business."
“I know,” Zhang Yu cried, “I want to live, please save me.”
Qin Xianglan hooked Zhang Yu's chin with her toe: "You can read?"
"Not only am I literate, but I am also a first-class scholar. My original name was Zhang Zongchang, but I changed it to Zhang Yuyi."
"A top-ranking scholar? Why did you become a miner?"
Zhang Yuyi clung to Qin Xianglan's leg: "I owe black market gambling debts, and I can't pay them back, so I have no choice but to run for my life."
He pretended to be a gambler, a cultured man who valued his life.
A gambler who is desperate can become an accomplice.
After three days of deliberation, Qin Xianglan took Zhang Yuyi away, made him sign a contract of indenture, and brought him to the capital.
On the first day, Zhang Yu, who was doing hard labor, met Hui Hong.
Hui Hong had fair skin, stood tall and graceful, dressed in luxurious clothes, and was well-versed in etiquette. Zhang Yu thought she was someone's young lady and dared not approach her.
Huihong gave him a ladle of water, saying that she was a maid in the Jin family and was sold to the capital when she was ten years old.
Zhang Yuyi's heart started pounding again.
His soul has found its other half.
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