The Red Mansions

Chapter 44

Qingshan Academy is located on an unnamed mountain in the southeast of the capital.

But now the mountain range stretching out from the mountains is not nameless, because after the Castle Peak Academy, it is called the Castle Peak Mountain Range.

The Qingshan Mountains meander to the east, and the mountains are steep, extending for hundreds of miles.

The academy is built on the hillside, with simple and elegant buildings stretching over hundreds of rooms, well-proportioned and elegant, surrounded by arched mountains, long streams, towering pines and cypresses, elegant and quiet, and a very beautiful environment. It is a resort for reading.

Jia Yun likes the cypress trees in the academy the most, especially the ones planted by the main road. I don’t know where I found them. They are all big trees that are as thick as five or six people. The crowns are dense and wide, like a big umbrella covering the clear sky.

Although the bark of the tree is mottled and old, it is full of vitality. The branches are tall and straight, and the huge branches are bent like wings, stretching left and right, like an eagle spreading its wings, and a golden rooster wants to fly.

Whenever the mountain wind blows, the branches and leaves shake like a ring ring, and you can still hear the sound of silk and bamboo.

It was almost evening when Jia Yun left home, and it was already dark when he arrived at the academy.

Even though it was night, the academy was extremely lively, especially at the foot of the mountain, it was like a small town, brightly lit, with everything you need to eat, live, play, and play, provided you had money.

Qingshan Academy seems to be different from other academies. In addition to majoring in Confucian classics, you can also learn other schools of knowledge such as Taoism, Mohism, Law, Soldiers, Ming, Yin and Yang, Zongheng, Zajia, Farming, and Fangji.

Therefore, although there are many students here, more people come to study, so that the permanent residents of the small town at the foot of the mountain have reached one hundred thousand people, which is larger than the population of ordinary county towns.

Jia Yun brought a salute, so she only took a few glances at the small town before heading up the mountain.

After going up the mountain, I entered the inner courtyard.

The inner courtyard is the real son of Qingshan Academy, and everything must be cultivated with care.

The outer courts are the schools in the small town at the foot of the mountain. They are godsons, and they are only used to make money, expand contacts and expand their influence.

A door separates two worlds.

After entering the inner courtyard, it is covered by countless towering giant trees, and the noisy noise outside immediately disappears without a trace. When people come here, their mood immediately calms down.

Jia Yun came to her dormitory and found that several other people who lived in the same room had arrived early.

Four people lived in one room, and the other three did not know each other when Jia Yun met for the first time.

All three of them were about the same age as Jia Yun, about fourteen, five, six, seven.

When Jia Yun opened the door and entered, one of them was sitting in front of the window and reading at night with candles, the other moved a small table and sat on the kang, eating vegetables and drinking wine, with a comfortable expression, and the other held a carved book in one hand. Knife, holding wood in one hand, carving something.

The room is quite spacious, nearly [-] square meters. The sleeping place is a kang platform with double bunks, and it is estimated that seven or eight people can sleep on it.

On the other open spaces, there are furniture such as desks, bookshelves, round tables and stools, towel racks, and wardrobes. There is a toilet behind the door, which exudes a faint air of anger.

"It was quite tidy when I came here yesterday, but now it's like a chicken coop!" Jia Yun thought.

When the three of them saw Jia Yun coming in, they all turned their heads and glanced, and went about their own business again. Maybe they had been notified in advance that there was a newcomer coming, so it was not surprising.

Jia Yun put down her salute, bowed her hands to the three of them, and said, "Little brother Jia Yun, I have seen you guys, and I hope you will take care of them in the future."

The other two were silent, only the fat man who was sitting drinking and eating raised his glass and said with a smile: "Don't be too polite, have you eaten? If you haven't eaten, come and eat!"

Jia Yun's expression froze, why is this different from what she thought?

Isn't it said that there are more etiquette among scholars?
Why are these guys all weird?

Seeing Jia Yun's puzzled face, the fat man laughed and said, "Don't worry about those two idiots, one of them is stupid in reading, and the other is a wooden man who fumbles around with a knife all day long, they are so boring!"

"You're not going anywhere normally!" Jia Yun thought to herself, without changing her face, she said, "Thank you, I'm not hungry right now, so I won't bother you."

As he spoke, he saluted with his hands, found empty wardrobes and bookshelves, and arranged the books and clothes he had brought.

Then, he looked at the heated kang, found an empty place, and threw two quilts and a pillow on it.

There are two quilts, one for spreading and the other for covering. When it gets hotter, the covering will be replaced with blankets.

After everything was put in place, Jia Yun was not in a hurry to communicate with her roommates. Instead, she took a washbasin, towel, soap, and Qingjin Confucian shirt, that is, school clothes, to the public dry hall not far from Suse, to take a shower and change clothes.

Taking a bath is quite cheap. You can take a bath with hot water for five cents. If you need to take a bath, you need to add twenty cents. Some masters cost thirty or fifty cents, and you need to add ten cents for bathing. ...

So, if you have money, you can live comfortably anywhere.

After taking a bath, she felt much more relaxed. Jia Yun went back to her dormitory, took advantage of the light from the room, washed her clothes in front of the well in the yard, and found a wooden pole to dry.

"Won't someone steal it?" Jia Yun was a little worried.

When he reached the door, he glanced back at his clothes that had been hung out to dry. He always felt that his heart was not at ease, and he went back again, thinking to himself:

"I'm so crazy. Do you want to use this to test human nature? Just evaporate the luck and take it back. It makes people feel uneasy to hang here, isn't it just asking for guilt?"

Thinking of this, he breathed a sigh of relief, so he stepped forward, took off all his clothes, the kung fu was running, and in the blink of an eye, white mist swirled around, and the clothes were as dry as ever in a moment.

"Isn't this great? From now on, just be careful and keep people from seeing it." Jia Yun thought to herself.

Carrying the clothes and washbasin back to the room, the fat man seemed to have added a few more dishes. Jia Yun asked curiously, "Are these dishes bought from outside?"

"Nonsense, if I don't buy it from outside, can I conjure it out of thin air?" The fat man rolled his eyes and replied.

After taking a sip of wine, he asked with a smile, "Did the patrol outside see it?"

"I see." Jia Yun put the things in her hands away, and turned her head back.

The fat man nodded and said: "They will patrol every quarter of an hour. If you need anything, just tell them. They will spare some people to buy it, but it will cost some money."

Jia Yun had nothing to do and wanted to inquire about various news about the academy, so she took out a jug of wine from the box she brought, turned around and sat down cross-legged opposite the fat man.

"Try this wine, it tastes good." Jia Yun said with a smile, and then asked: "Those patrols help run errands? How about the price?"

The fat man was not polite, took the wine with a smile, and replied: "The price starts from [-] Wen, and there is no upper limit. It depends on how much you buy. For example, I ordered this table of wine and vegetables from the Yingke Restaurant at the foot of the mountain. It cost five yuan. Two silver, and their errands will charge me another five hundred Wen."

Jia Yun was surprised and said, "Isn't the food and drink too expensive? And the errand fees are not cheap!"

"Hey, who will run errands for you if it's cheap? As for the food and drink, it must be several times more expensive than outside, but it's not bad to be able to eat such good food and wine in the academy." The fat man said with a smile.

Jia Yun saw that he was holding the wine jar and talking, but did not open it, so she quickly took it, lifted the lid with her own hands, and poured a glass each.

"This wine smells good, it's very fragrant!" The fat man took a deep breath and said with his eyes shining.

Jia Yun laughed loudly and said, "Drink more fragrant, this wine is for drinking!"

(End of this chapter)