CH 24

The chaos came too suddenly. They were still some distance away from the place of thunder and lightning. Separated from it by masses of people. They couldn’t see what was going on in front of them. After only hearing the scream, the scene was even more chaotic than before.

The tables and chairs of the noodle stand had been flipped over, and even the pinwheel stall next door had been overturned. The colorful windmills trampled on by countless feet, until they were no longer recognisable.

Fortunately, behind Zhao Su was a tall tree, he quickly retreated towards it with Zhu Yijun in his arms, using the tree trunk to block the people crushing in. But doing so caused him to be shoved a few times against it which was actually quite painful.

Feng Bao didn’t dare to lose sight of them, trying to protect the little princely heir; he’d also followed them over there.

Zhu Yijun had his head laid on Zhao Su’s shoulder looking out, he was frightened.

Screams and cries for help all mixed together, it only got messier.

Everyone was anxious to leave, so no one could actually leave.

The two guards who were with them had long been swept away by the masses of people.

If they left now, it would be even more dangerous, the best thing to do was to wait until things had calmed down.

Feng Bao looked extremely anxious, he scolded out loud: “Where the hell are the Warden’s Office of the Five Wards, and the people from the Shuntian Government office, how can this kind of thing happen during the Lunar New Year, this is really… Ah!”

He quickly stopped talking and didn’t continue on, but Zhao Su knew what he was trying to say.

It was indeed ominous.

For people of ancient times, winter lightning and summer lightning were rare occurrences. Frost in June was also an ancient grievance, so thunderstorms during the cold winter were also not a good thing.

The chaos continued on. They had the tall tree to bear much of the grunt, so they did not follow the crowd trying to run and the impact from the crowd was not too large. However, they did witness people being hit in the head and bleeding. Under these circumstances, even if they wanted to lend a hand it was impossible. Zhao Su and Feng Bao could only look at each other helplessly.

Feng Bao said very quietly: “If this goes on, the injured and the dead will just continue to mount up, this isn’t good.”

Zhao Su replied: “We can’t even leave, the only thing we can do is wait until the soldiers come to disperse the crowd.

“Susu, I want to go home…” The kid’s mouth slumped, and started to cry with sobs, tears and snot running all onto Zhao Su’s clothes.

“I want to go home! *Booohoo*….”

“Little Princely Heir, we will be leaving really soon, just endure it a little long.” Seeing Zhao Su’s plead for help, Feng Bao swiftly moved in to help coax the little child, Zhu Yijun gradually stopped crying, lying on Zhao Su, tears still hanging from his eyelashes, his nose was twitching.

Nearby there was someone who had been shoved, stumbling backwards towards them, Zhao Su quickly helped him, sparing his head from whacking into the tree trunk.

“Thank you, thank you!” That person quickly expressed his gratitude, he was a woeful mess.

Zhao Su took the opportunity to ask: “Xiongtai do you know what happened over there, we came late, and only heard the thunder.”

“Just now, the thunder struck the stone lion in front of the bridge, the lion’s head fell, and hit someone. I was not in the front, so I also could not see clearly. I saw everyone running backwards, as there are so many people, the chaos is increasing.”

The man shook his head and sighed, said something similar to Feng Bao: “Who could have expected on the second day of the year, at the foot of the Son of Heaven1, there could be such an incident, winter night thunder, it’s indeed ominous.”

Zhao Su couldn’t explain to them that it was just a relatively rare natural phenomenon. One could imagine though that this place was already in such a mess now and the bridge was naturally even worse.

The scholar saw that he could not leave for a while, so he stayed with them, chatting a little.

“This is my first time in the Capital, has this happened before here?”

Zhao Su shook his head: “Sorry, I’m a country bumpkin, this is also my first time in the Capital.”

It took about half an hour to finally get out of the chaos. Several people looked at each other with horror and laughed, all showing lingering expressions.

Zhu Yijun was quietly laid on Zhao Su’s shoulder, unbeknownst to Zhao Su he had already fallen asleep, his little face is quiet and well-behaved completely the opposite to when he was awake.

At this moment, Xu Shixing finally had the opportunity to introduce his friend: “Wang Xijue, courtesy name Wang Yuanyu, this is Zhao Su, Zhao Shao Yong. Shao Yong is also here for the metropolitan exam.”

Wang Xijue showed his surprise, looking Zhao Su up and down and then said: “Not even 20 and he’s already achieved juren?”

It is true that there are talents from generation to generation, a new generation replacing an old one, Ru Mo, we are getting old!”

Feng Bao coughed lightly and said quietly, “It’s getting late, Shao Yong, it’s time for us to take the little gongzi home.”

Zhao Su felt that the names of these two people were vaguely familiar, but could not think of how for the moment, and his thoughts were cut off by Feng Bao, so he no longer thought about it, anyway they were all here to take the exam, it wouldn’t be long before they would meet again.

On the second day of February, he was still in a sleepy haze when his body was violently shaken and someone shouted in his ears: “Shaoye, wake up, it’s yinshi, get up and get ready, today is the exam!”

Seeing Zhao Su open his eyes, still dazed and confused, Zhao Rong hurriedly brought a hot towel: “Was shaoye dreaming?”

“Hm.. I had a very confusing dream…” Zhao Su rubbed his head, took the towel and wiped his face.

In the dream, he is still in the past life with a cross-over into this life. One moment he was at home with his sister2 eating and watching TV, and then the next moment he was in the examination hall writing a never-ending paper. After waking up he was still having trouble discerning fantasy from reality.