Chapter 016 Storybook

Yuan Ming held him and comforted him for a long time before he understood the whole story from Ji Qingyue's sobbing and intermittent words.

It was the storybook that caused the trouble.

Most of the stories Ji Qingyue had read before were about passionate scholars or romantic talents. They told the stories of how they met beautiful, talented, and broad-minded women or boys, took them into their backyards, and finally lived together harmoniously and happily.

But Yuan Ming felt that such stories were nonsense. True love is selfish and contains a strong desire for exclusivity. If you really love someone, how can you tolerate others?

Such stories are just to cater to, distort, and reconstruct the ideas of scholars. It satisfies the men who read the book, and at the same time, it subtly shapes the characters of women and boys, making them gradually mistakenly believe that only "magnanimity" can win the hearts of their husbands, and only sharing is great love.

Ji Qingyue, who is keen on reading all kinds of vernacular novels, obviously has such thoughts.

He pouted and said, "Huo Lang is so talented and handsome, isn't it normal that many people like him? I don't understand why Yun Ge is angry and wants to leave him."

Yuan Ming held his forehead.

Huo Lang Huo Huaiying mentioned by Ji Qingyue is the male protagonist in the vernacular novel. He comes from a famous family and is full of talent. He is already a famous third place in the capital before he even reaches adulthood. There are countless women and boys who love him.

However, Huo Huaiying was different from ordinary men. He neither accepted the marriage arranged by his family nor looked down on the noble ladies in Beijing. On a trip to collect folk songs, he met Mu Yunge, a boy from a martial arts school, and was deeply attracted to him. Soon, they fell in love.

After all, the collection of folk songs could not last long. Before the academy opened, Huo Huaiying took Mu Yunge to the capital and knelt in front of his parents, declaring that he would not marry Mu Yunge in this life.

Huo's parents were not pedantic people, and they soon agreed. However, the condition was that Mu Yunge could only be a servant, and Huo Huaiying's wife had to obey the arrangements of his family.

At first, Huo Huaiying was reluctant, but under the coercion and temptation of his parents, he finally gave in.

After Mu Yunge learned about this, he was heartbroken and cried bitterly, saying that he had made a mistake and mistook a fish eye for a pearl, and was willing to abandon his parents for him. It turned out that Mu Yunge's parents also disagreed with their relationship, and Huo Huaiying actually eloped with him.

After that, no matter how Huo Huaiying tried to please him, Mu Yunge never smiled again, and secretly ran away when Huo Huaiying was leaving for class. Huo Huaiying felt very guilty after knowing this, fearing that Mu Yunge, a little boy, would encounter some danger outside. He ignored his family's opposition, went to the academy to apply for a leave of absence, and then took his bag and went around looking for him.

Ji Qingyue happened to see Huo Huaiying getting caught in the rain while looking for Mu Yunge and falling seriously ill. He was almost bedridden and kept muttering Mu Yunge's name while unconscious. Therefore, she felt very sorry for Huo Huaiying and blamed Mu Yunge for being willful.

First, he left his parents for his own personal feelings, and now he left Huo Huaiying for a little thing.

"He is taking advantage of his relatives and lovers' concern for him and stabbing them in the heart. Mu Yunge is really too bad!" Ji Qingyue said angrily.

Yuan Ming's reaction was not surprising, and he did not directly refute him.

After calming him down, he said softly, "You said Mu Yunge's parents loved him, so why did they marry him to the son of the town governor for the future of the martial arts school? You also said Huo Huaiying loved him, so why did he obey his parents' arrangement and marry someone else?"

If all these can be called love, then love is too cheap.

Ji Qingyue was stunned for a while, and said after a while, "But aren't these supposed to be?"

"Qingqing, if your father insisted on not letting us be together and arranged a marriage for you, would you compromise with them and draw a clear line with me?"

Hearing this, Ji Qingyue quickly retorted, "Of course not, even if we elope, I want to be with you."

At this point, he paused. Yes. In this case, what's wrong with what Mu Yunge did to pursue his own happiness? Should he be condemned just because he didn't succumb to fate?

Yuan Ming knew that it would take more than a day or two to change Ji Qingyue's ideas. Seeing that he had been inspired, he stopped talking and comforted him, "Qingqing, don't think about it. It's just a storybook. The stories in it are all fake. There's no need to be upset about it. Eat first."

But Ji Qingyue obviously didn't think so. In the next few days, he put all his attention on the storybook. Except for eating and sleeping, he held it in his arms at all times.

Yuan Ming couldn't help but feel puzzled.

The storybook was only a thin book. With Ji Qingyue's experience of reading countless books, he should be able to finish it in one day. After he was puzzled, he asked.

Ji Qingyue was stunned for a moment, then shook his head: "I don't know either. I used to read those stories for fun, and that was it after I finished reading them, but this time it's different."

He lowered his head and gently stroked the melancholy and beautiful boy on the cover: "I always feel that he is a living person, who really exists. After reading his story, I can't bear to let him go."

Yuan Ming was surprised by this answer, but it was indeed understandable.

Huo Huaiying fell seriously ill before he found Mu Yunge, and encountered bandits blocking the way. He left secretly this time, and only brought a weak book boy with him. The two of them could not resist the vicious bandits at all. At the most critical moment, Mu Yunge appeared.

He drove away the bandits and carried Huo Huaiying to the clinic.

When Huo Huaiying woke up, he found out that Mu Yunge not only did not encounter any danger after leaving him, but also saved the wife of a senior official, and then followed that lady as her personal bodyguard.

When the two met again, one was dressed in a splendid outfit and looked heroic, while the other was alone and frail. Such an obvious contrast made Huo Huaiying feel inferior in front of Mu Yunge for the first time, and also laid the foundation for their subsequent tragedy. After

Huo Huaiying recovered from his illness, he took Mu Yunge home again. Because of the last incident, the two elders of the Huo family were even more disgusted with Mu Yunge, but in front of Huo Huaiying, they acted as if they had accepted Mu Yunge as their son-in-law.

After that, they got married smoothly, but their married life was not as good as they imagined.

Huo Huaiying's exams were not going well, and Mu Yunge could not learn to be

a lady from a rich family. The anger and anxiety in her heart gradually ate away her rationality, and she finally vented all her dissatisfaction on the person she loved the most. Huo Huaiying began to doubt whether it was worth it to disobey her parents and give up her studies for Mu Yunge. Mu Yunge also lost her original style amid the intentional or unintentional suppression and bullying by her parents-in-law and the contempt and ridicule of Huo Huaiying's relatives and friends, and became suspicious and paranoid.

And a subsequent change brought their relationship to an end - Princess Shihua took a fancy to Huo Huaiying and wanted to summon him to be her husband.

If he was the young talent back then, Huo Huaiying would have rejected the princess's kindness without a second thought.

But now it was different. He had not been admitted to the imperial examination for many years, and there were many talented people in the capital. He was nothing. Moreover, Huo's father was not well-received and was framed by political enemies many times. Huo Huaiying could not watch the glory of his family come to an end, so he agreed.

How could the daughter of the emperor be a concubine?

Huo Huaiying asked everyone around him to lie together and concealed Mu Yunge's secret on the grounds that he could not bear to make Mu Yunge sad. It was not until the wedding day that Mu Yunge knew that her husband was going to become someone else's husband.

It is not easy for a man to get pregnant. After five years of marriage, the couple still has no children. This makes Mu Yunge suffer from cold eyes in the Huo family. On this day, he diagnosed the pregnancy pulse. He wanted to tell Huo Huaiying the news happily, but when he returned home, he saw red silk everywhere. The

beautiful joy echoed in his ears. People came and went in the courtyard. Huo Huaiying was toasting at the banquet in a bright red wedding dress, feeling very happy and comfortable.

When the two got married, it was very deserted. Such a lively scene only appeared in Mu Yunge's dream, but now it has become a reality, but it has nothing to do with him.

Looking at all this, Mu Yunge raised the corners of his mouth, did not step in again, turned back to the clinic, and drank a bowl of abortion pills.

The plot of abortion was added after Yuan Ming's repeated hesitation. In this era of marriage, women obey their husbands and their sons after their husbands' death, it is a great disgrace for a boy to abort the fetus without permission, but Yuan Ming finally stayed.

It was not for the sake of attracting attention. He thought that if Mu Yunge really existed, he would do the same.

Even though her married life was unhappy and her husband was tormented, Mu Yunge's heart would never change, and the subsequent plot was just like this.

Mu Yunge returned to the mansion the next day, and in front of the two elders of the Huo family and the princess, she told the fact that she had an abortion, and successfully asked for a divorce letter.

He didn't want anything. Just as he came alone for love five years ago, now that love is gone, he left alone.

At the end of the story, the princess lost interest in Huo Huaiying and began to recruit male lovers. Huo Huaiying dared not speak out and silently wore a green hat for more than a dozen times. Mu Yunge was depressed for a few years at first, but soon cheered up.

He returned to the town where his parents lived, and used the knowledge of the Four Books and Six Arts he learned in the capital to open the first school for boys and girls to teach them to read and write, and to be polite, honest and modest. Even if only one of them could truly learn to rely on himself instead of relying on men, he felt that everything he did was worth it.

Mu Yunge on the cover of the story is the gentleman who sees through everything and only wants to teach and educate people.

Although such an ending does not make people feel happy as the traditional happy ending, Yuan Ming thinks that this is the best ending for Mu Yunge.

Yuan Ming held Ji Qingyue in his arms and comforted her softly, "Mu Yunge may not exist, or he may really exist. But if he really exists, he will definitely be very happy to know that there are people like you who support and understand him."