Chapter 232

He knew he was dreaming again.

This dream appeared in his life for decades, day and night, entangled, it seems to be deep into the bone marrow, but also like flesh and blood. I can't throw it away, I can't dig it away, and if I don't come for a day, it seems that something is missing.

But he had never had such a clear dream, so clear as if it was real.

"Dog, why do you think you are so stubborn? Isn't my money your money? What do you think I earn money for? Isn't it just to support your education and make you feel proud?"

"Why do you say you are so stubborn! You say you are so stubborn, who are you showing your stubbornness to?!"

"I know you don't like me, but I've been like this for many years, and I can't change it! I don't plan to change it either!"

"Look at Hong'er, does he look like you?"

...

Xue Tingxiang suddenly felt that someone was shaking him, opened his tired eyes, and saw the dark inner room, Hu San's face that was no longer young, even the lines on the curtains were so familiar, he knew He was just dreaming.

It's just that the dream was too clear, the sorghum fragrance in the air, and the curve of her stubbornly pursed lips made him feel like he was actually there. There are also her tears from being angry, crystal clear and shining with colorful light, he wanted to reach out to touch it, but someone woke him up.

"My lord, it's time to drink the medicine."

Xue Tingxiang was propped up and given medicine. He was dying of illness, and he had to be served by someone even to drink medicine. How could he look like that extremely human minister Xue Shoufu who had ruled the court for decades.

Oh no, he is not the chief assistant now.

He has already written a letter to beg for the bones, intending to return to his hometown for the elderly, and the Holy Majesty has already agreed, but he has no home to return to, no relatives to rely on.

In fact, he didn't intend to go back.

"Master Zhang, Mr. Wang, and Mr. Li and Mr. Cao all came to visit you, but they obeyed your orders and blocked the door. They come every day, and they are here again today. Would you like to see me?"

What can they do? Didn't they think that his illness was an expedient measure, waiting for him to stand up and continue to lead them to fight against the emperor, but he was really ill, terminally ill, and the medicine was useless.

"not see."

"My lord, please sleep a little longer."

The room became quiet again, Xue Tingxiang's eyelids began to get heavy again, he blinked again and again, and fell into sleep again.

...

"How come Mr. Wang is free to visit this old man?"

Wang Mingcheng's eyes were a bit complicated, but he smiled on his face: "After all, I am a minister of the same court, and I should come to visit Mr. Shoufu because of emotion and reason."

"I didn't expect you, Wang Mingcheng, to say such hypocritical things, but to see if the old man is dying on behalf of the emperor?" Xue Tingxiang sarcastically said.

He is obviously a haggard old man who is obviously dying, but just because of his calm, indifferent eyes that seem somewhat unpredictable, people dare not ignore him in the slightest.

After all, this is Xue Shoufu, and the name alone is enough to intimidate everyone. That was Xue Tingxiang's deep-rooted roots left by him after going through three dynasties and dozens of years, just like a towering ancient tree with intertwined roots, without him doing anything, just standing there is enough to make everyone daunting.

If not, why would the new emperor have to exhaust all means, but still dare not act rashly, only dare to take that roundabout strategy.

"It seems that my lord has misunderstood His Majesty a lot."

Xue Tingxiang snorted and laughed, half closed his eyes, did not speak, and looked obviously too lazy to talk to him.

"Actually, I'm here for myself. I just came to see how lonely and miserable the villain who abandoned his wife and son was now. I'm afraid Mr. Xue is dead now, and even a descendant in mourning None, in fact, Mr. Xue is too hard to see, it is just a show, just listen to it and watch it, how can you take the fake show as real and make yourself like this? Is it because of a disturbed conscience or fear? His true face is known by the world, he is reviled by others, and he will be stigmatized for thousands of years?"

"you……"

"To say that you abandoned your wife and son is too much to save your face. It should be killing your wife and son, isn't it, Mr. Xue?"

No one knows about all this. The world only knows that Xue Shoufu had a first wife before Mrs. Xue, but they don't know what happened to that first wife. After all, the time is too long, Xue Tingxiang has stood in the court hall for dozens of years, and his former, former and current opponents have all been trampled under his feet.

People in the world only know that Mr. Shoufu is friendly and respectful to the corporals, but they don't know that Mr. Shoufu also has a vicious side. In recent years, anyone who wanted to make a fuss about his past events all became lonely ghosts. No one knows how many ghosts have been added to it, and the only one who can know is Wang Mingsheng, the "bitter master".

"You, you are..."

Wang Mingcheng leaned closer to his face: "It's a pity that my mother's life is so bad, and so is my life. The sinking ship didn't kill us, but was saved by others. Do you know that for so many years, day and night, I I want to see this scene every night. It's a pity that your life is too long, and the power is in the hands of the people. I can only climb up step by step, to the position where I can step on you..."

"You are... Hong'er..." Xue Tingxiang struggled to say this.

Wang Mingsheng stood up straight and smiled heartily: "My name is not Hong'er, nor is my surname Xue, but my surname is Wang. My mother remarried, to the person who saved us...don't get excited, even if You are dead now, and I am not your son..."

Wang Mingsheng has always been known for being calm and introverted, hiding his secrets, and it was probably the first time he laughed so freely in front of people.

"By the way, you don't have to think that even if my official surname is Wang, I can still pass on the family lineage to your Xue family. Let me think about it. Yao Ji released the rumor that my official is as good as Long Yang back then, as if you ordered someone to do it. You really hit the mark, I don’t like women, that’s why I haven’t married for many years..."

He smiled and looked at the old man on the bed, seeing how shocked, disappointed and remorseful he was.

But so what?

He suddenly found that he was not as happy as he had imagined, and even this smile seemed too fake. He suddenly lost interest, flattened the corners of his mouth, brushed off his sleeves, and said, "Since Mr. Xue is fine, I will take my leave."

...

"I didn't, I didn't..."

"My lord, what are you talking about?"

Hearing this voice, the fog in front of Xue Tingxiang suddenly dissipated, and he woke up suddenly from his dream. In front of the eyes is this dark inner room again, Hu San's unattractive or even ugly face, the air is filled with a bitter smell of medicine, and there seems to be a decadent smell floating gently.

Xue Tingxiang moved his lips, but no sound came out.

"My lord, what did you say?"

Hu San was very anxious, and kept asking, but Xue Tingxiang couldn't speak at all. Hu San could only ask based on his own guess: "Are you thinking about the past? Don't worry, your words have been passed on to Mr. Zhang , he already knows that Lord Wang is your only son, and will follow your instructions."

Xue Tingxiang blinked his eyelids. Hu San thought he still had something to say, so he put his ear next to his mouth, but only heard one sentence: "I didn't..."

After that there is no text.

When Hu San anxiously looked up, he saw Xue Tingxiang's wide-open eyes and gray-blue face.

He moved forward to touch the other person's breath with shaking hands, but was so startled that he sat down on the ground.

*

The cold wind came in through the holed window paper, blowing Xue Gouzi's face coldly.

Shocked, he opened his eyes.

What imprinted in my eyes was a small room with blue brick walls and black tile roof. The walls were plastered with white ash, but it looked gray. The beams of the house are log-colored, and because there is no dust, they are bare/exposed. There are several bamboo baskets hanging on them. There seems to be something in the baskets, and they are covered with blue cloth.

He was lying on a kang with a half-new quilt covering his body. The quilt looked clean and tidy, but in fact the cotton wadding inside had hardened.

Facing his kang feet, there is a row of dark brown kang cabinets, with brass bare nails inlaid with hinged leaves and copper tassel handles, and simple patterns of auspicious clouds and flowing water carved on them, which look thick and generous. . Although it is nothing in a rich family, it is already a piece of furniture that can be sold in a peasant family.

There is no problem passing it down for generations!

This is what his father said back then, and his father was the best carpenter in the village.

Xue Gouzi felt his head hurt, as if he had been hit hard with a hoe. He wanted to support himself to sit up, but he was exhausted and fell back onto the kang again.

It was only then that he realized that he was Xue Gouzi, the eldest son of the second room of the Xue family. Because of something that happened, he couldn't think about it for a while, and he was so angry that he became ill for a while, and he had been sick for many days.

He is not Xue Tingxiang, that Xue Tingxiang is the person in his dream.

How could he be like that?

In order to prove that all that was just a dream, he raised his hand to look at it.

really! The hand in front of him was slender and fair, and he hadn't developed the muscles and bones that a man should have. He was only fourteen this year, how could he live to be over seventy years old, and die in the end.

Xue Gouzi let out a heavy breath, looked around again, and finally felt more at ease.

Someone was talking outside, and the voice came in through the cracks in the window.

"I'm talking about recruiting, it's not my aunt talking about you, look at what you are now, a girl who stays at home all day, and learns from those small traders to do business. That business is what you can do. Did it? Look at your fourth uncle, you can’t save a lot of money by running around outside every day, so don’t worry about it, and if you have that little time, you can help fourth aunt with some work!”

The voice sounded like a young woman, but the sarcasm in the words was too strong. It is said that appearance is born from the heart, and it is no wonder that Mrs. Sun has a mean face.

This thought flashed subconsciously in Xue Gouzi's mind, and then he was stunned. It's true that he hated Fourth Aunt, but why would he miss her so much?

Before he could figure out why, he heard the voice in his dream.

"Fourth aunt, I would like to help you with some work, but you also know that the dog has been ill for a few days, and the family gave a few pennies for the medicine at first, but after taking it for half a month, grandma said that the family The money is not in hand, so I stopped the medicine. Gouzi is my man, I can't just watch him be so sick, it's not impossible for the fourth aunt to want me to help with the work, or you can lend me some money to buy medicine, I Can I pay you back slowly in the future?"

The owner of the voice was a young girl, and the tone revealed a capable and crisp taste, mixed with a bit of teasing.

That's right, Zhao'er deliberately ran on the Sun family.

Mrs. Sun has always had a temperament of only getting in and out, and it is more difficult to ask her to give out a penny, let alone lending it to the two half-children of the second room.

Now there are only these two people left in the second room, the top door is only fourteen, but there is an older one, only sixteen, and it is still a girl's family. Every time Mrs. Sun heard the rumors from the villagers that Zhao'er, a dead girl, had made some money by doing some business, she would be full of disbelief.

What kind of business can this dead girl do to make money, but she digs three melons and two dates from the wild, and takes them out to trick the people in the city into exchanging a few pennies.

"Your fourth aunt has no money to lend you. Our family's money is all in mother's place. You don't care about mother's going!" Sun patted her buttocks, stood up and went into the house, too lazy to talk nonsense with Zhao'er.

"Since the fourth aunt has no money to lend me, and I don't dare to take care of grandma, I can only figure out where to get some money to get some medicine for the dog!"

Zhao'er's voice was very loud, so naturally she was speaking not only to Mrs. Sun, but also to Mrs. Zhao who was sitting in the main room.

Sure enough, Zhao'er entered the house with his front foot, and Mrs. Zhao stood at the door behind him and scolded Mrs. Sun: "You haven't cleaned the pigsty, so you're going back to the house to hold a corpse?"

Zhao'er curled her lips, lifted the door curtain and walked in, bumping head-on into Xue Gouzi's eyes looking at her.

Zhao'er came all the way to the south of the city, before entering the archway where Shen's house was located, he saw the two large flags more than five feet high erected in front of Shen's residence.

This is the Jinshi Jidi Banner, which can be set up only if someone in the family has won the Jinshi.

This fame flagpole is divided into two structures, the flagpole sandwich stone and the flagpole.

The flag buckets on the flagpoles are also exquisite. If you come from a serious imperial examination, you can stand up two flagpoles if you have passed the Jinshi in the palace examination. If it is the number one scholar, it will be the flagpole of three fights, and if there are members of the third rank or above in the clan, four fights can be set up.

There are two large flags in front of the Shen family's gate, one is three buckets and the other is four buckets. In other words, the Shen family once had a number one scholar, and had an important minister in the court.

Zhao'er, a country girl, knows this because her second sister told her when she came to visit her.

The main entrance, side entrance, and even the corner entrance were not accessible by Zhao'er's identity, so she made a long detour before arriving at the back entrance of Shen's residence.

The back door was ajar, and Zhao'er didn't dare to rush in, so he knocked on the door respectfully.

The door opened with a creak, and a round woman came out from inside, and asked her, "Who are you looking for?"

This old lady is just a doorkeeper, but she is also wearing satin gowns and jewelry on her ears and hands, which is enough to show the wealth of the Shen family.

The Shen family is indeed rich, and in this Xia County, it can be said that they are stomping their feet, and the county is about to tremble three times. The Shen Mansion here is the ancestral home of the Shen family, except for the Shen family's uncle and second master who are officials outside, the rest of the Shen family live here.

"Mother-in-law, I'm looking for Sulan. I'm her younger brother. I'm here to see her."

This woman's attitude is not warm, but she is not as inferior as a dog's eye. At least from this trick, it can be seen that the rules of the Shen family must be very strict. She asked Zhao'er to wait, then closed the door and went inside.

Zhao'er waited for a long time before the back door opened again, and a very beautiful woman came out from inside. I saw her radiant skin, phoenix eyes and vermilion lips, wearing a water-red jacket and a moon-white pleated skirt. A head of black and thick long hair was simply tied up in a bun, with a golden hairpin inserted into it.