But the bright moon shines on the ditch

Extra* Anan and Ah Yao

During the Spring Festival of that year, Xu Zhong took his family back to his hometown to celebrate the New Year. Since I moved to Jingdezhen, the old Yaoli house has been idle for many years. Fortunately, the ancestral temple is still there, and it is cleaned every day. It can be occupied after a little tidying up when I return.

Hearing that someone was coming to the house, Ah Yao hurriedly changed his clothes. When she went out and looked at herself in the mirror, she realized that the maid had combed her hair into the same bun as when she was not married. At first glance, she looked really fresh.

But she doesn't like to deceive herself. She is clearly a woman, and she is still a young woman living at home. And because her father needed to pretend to be drunk in front of the eunuchs, many affairs at the entrance of the kiln were gradually transferred to her hands. She often went out and could hear a lot of gossip about her.

At first, she was still unhappy, but after hearing it too much, it was just the same old rhetoric.

Just say it, don't make her lose any weight.

Turning around the picture screen in front of the main room, she saw the young man sitting quietly by the window and raised her lips with a smile: "Anan?"

Anan put down the book and turned his head to look at her.

The woman wears a green dress and a light red coat with a few flowers embroidered on the mirror. She has a high bun and a jade hairpin. She is plain but not dull. There are two pearls hanging under her ears, which complement her cheeks. Round and cute.

The young man's assessment was blunt and abrupt, without any emotion.

Ah Yao twisted the handkerchief, and his heartbeat stopped for a while. It took him a long time to recover, and his voice was a little calmer: "I am three years older than you. If you don't mind, just call me Sister Ah Yao."

People in the market do not have many rules, and since she is a woman, there is no need to pay attention to the protection of men and women. However, Anan was not too close. He just called her Miss Xu and called herself Xu Chengzhi. Anan was a nickname given by her family members.

The implication is that she is not allowed to call Anan.

Ah Yao curled his lips and muttered in a low voice: "Why are you more stubborn than Brother Ah Qian?"

"What did Miss Xu say?"

"It's nothing." Ah Yao looked at the scenery outside the window. Winter has a calm and self-possessed beauty, and asked him, "Have you visited my garden? This summer, a batch of flower seedlings were transplanted from the clouds and water, and A Qian The lotus pond that my brother loved during his lifetime has not bloomed yet, would you like me to take you around?"

"no need."

"You don't want to see it?"

"No."

"Why then?"

Anan reluctantly raised his eyelids and glanced at the woman in front of him, his eyes falling on her girlish bun.

This was not their first meeting. When his brother passed away, he had lived in Hutian Kiln for a few days, and he had also seen this young lady from the Xu family, who was supposed to be his brother's fiancée, keeping vigil with his mother all night, crying until her eyes were red and swollen. He expected her to be unhappy. The elder brother should be affectionate.

Unfortunately it backfired.

Not long after her brother's accident, she proposed marriage and went to Qimen. While he was still sighing at how quickly she moved, he heard that she had divorced. He simply couldn't imagine that marriage was child's play? How, how could she be so careless? For a moment, I didn’t know whether I should be happy or sorry for my brother.

Looking back now, my mood at that time was somewhat subtly complicated.

After all, she was meant to be his sister-in-law.

Ah Yao saw him looking at her bun and guessed what he was thinking, with a bit of embarrassment on her face: "Don't get me wrong, this was done by the maids. They were afraid that I would stay at home and become an old aunt, and they were looking forward to my second marriage. Woolen cloth."

There were a lot of relatives coming and going in the house during the Chinese New Year. When there were more people, the girls became more active. "I found out it was already too late. I was afraid of neglecting the guests, so I didn't go back to comb my hair again."

"Second marriage?"

Anan's attention was suddenly attracted.

Ordinary women are shy when they first get married, but she is good at it. She talks about it casually when she gets married for the second time, without any embarrassment. His expression is also very magnanimous, and he also has a faint boldness that is not afraid of anything.

Ah Yao raised his eyebrows: "What, I can't do it?"

"of course not."

"Then what do you mean?"

"I..." Anan was a little embarrassed by her questioning, lowered his head and murmured, "I, I thought you and my brother..."

"You think we are in love and our love is stronger than gold?" Ah Yao chuckled, his voice clear, "You are wrong. Brother Ah Qian only thinks of me as his sister."

This time, without waiting for Anan to ask again, Ah Yao cleared up the misunderstanding on his own, "At first I thought I liked Brother Aqian, but later I realized that it was not the love I thought I had.

When Brother Aqian was still here, the whole town said that I was his fiancée. Everyone said so, and naturally I thought so too, but do you know? Brother Aqian never agreed. It was just a way for my father to keep him in Hutian Kiln.

As soon as he died, I got married in a hurry. The stories said that I was heartless and ungrateful. I could only use Brother Aqian and not be sincere. But how could they know that without the blessing of Brother Aqian, Hutian Kiln was like a piece of loose sand and could be destroyed at any time? danger. In order to protect me, my father married me despite knowing that Zhou Ya was not a good man. I, a woman confined to the inner house and unable to do anything, couldn't even say no.

Zhou Ya always had a grudge against me because I spent a night with someone to save my father, and the Hutian kiln was in decline. She beat, scolded and insulted me at every turn. She welcomed a prostitute into her house less than a month after we got married. Why should I want such a person? Stay with him? I'm really angry and it's too late. If Pei Qiu hadn't helped me, I might still be in the fire pit now. "

"Liang Peiqiu?"

Ah Yao nodded naturally.

Anan's head is bigger.

According to the rumors he heard, Liang Peiqiu was of course a bad guy who did all kinds of evil. However, this name appeared repeatedly in his brother's notes, and now it appeared in the mouth of Miss Xu, who was supposed to be an old enemy. It seemed that he was not as rumored. So, what exactly happened?

Back then, my brother died in the kiln by jumping into the fire. When the kiln was stripped bare, what he held in his hands was only a handful of ashes mixed with various dust, dregs and debris, and nothing else. Personal belongings.

He thought that his brother lived in poverty, and the only things he cherished were boxes of letters in boxes and cages, all of which were left to him, and there was nothing else worthy of being buried with him.

He has heard too many explicit stories about Xu and Liang, and he also wants to know some "not this or that" stories, but who else in the world can tell him?
When he met Ah Yao, he saw hope.

Anan couldn't help but wonder: "What kind of person is Liang Peiqiu? Can you tell me?"

"You want to know?"

"Ah."

"He is my outsider. Aren't you curious why he helped me reconcile?"

"I..." Of course I was curious.

The young man has a cold temperament and rarely shows a bit of embarrassment, which makes him look particularly stupid. Ah Yao deliberately teased her and said in a long tone: "You can know if you want to know, just ask me and I will tell you."

Anan opened her eyes wide.

Ah Yao laughed loudly: "So you're not always upright. Why do you sit in the room like a little old man all day long?"

"I want to study." "I heard Shi Nian said that you only started studying because of brother A Qian?"

Anan was silent for a while, and after a while he said: "Yes, and no."

He had been naughty since he was a child and had never studied seriously. His elder brother found him a private school and could not keep an eye on his homework. So he spent three days fishing and two days drying nets, and having fun in the fields all day long. It was already when he really started studying. It's too late, my brother passed away that year, only three years ago.

He plans to quit this year and take the county examination first. If he passes successfully, he will take the government examination, the college examination, and if he is lucky, he may be able to take the provincial examination three years later.

But these are all his plans, and he doesn't know if he can pass the exam. Due to the limited conditions in the countryside, he failed to find a good teacher, so he could only study harder, rely on his father and brother's notes, supplemented by thinking, and draw inferences from one example to another. The more I read, the more I think, and many things that I didn’t understand before are solved, and I can gradually understand them.

"Well, in order to prevent you from sounding like a little old man, I will tell you this out of kindness, but you must not tell anyone these things."

Anan saw that her expression had dropped, and the person who seemed playful and naughty at first suddenly became serious, adding a bit of incomprehensible depth to her, and his heartbeat suddenly skipped a beat.

So one afternoon later, Ah Yao told Anan everything that happened after Xu Zhiliu's death.

Anan listened very carefully and did not miss every detail related to his brother. As Yao talked, he felt sad.

During these days in the countryside, women from the Xu family came to chat with her from time to time. In addition, she was not a quiet person, so she became familiar with those women. Occasionally, they would mention the child from the branch of the Xu family on the other side of the river, saying that he was He has the temper of a dog, and even a few cows can't hold him back if they cause trouble, and he is extremely stubborn.

A few years ago, when the eldest son of the family was out in the countryside, my mother was paralyzed all day long, and she never missed a day's rations. Later, the boss died outside, and my mother also left, and the house suddenly collapsed. I thought that the boy would become more lawless if he had no one to control him. Who would have thought that his temper would change and he would start studying.

I read in the morning and in the evening. Occasionally, someone was crossing the river at night and thought they were seeing ghosts when they heard voices. Later, I found out that it was the boy reading under the moonlight. His neighbors pitied him for being so lonely, and they usually had a lot of help. They often used him to scare their disobedient children, saying that when they were naughty when they were young, their family members were killed because of him. Now they regret it so much that they have to rely on studying to rehabilitate their family.

Every time he heard those people talking about him, Ah Yao couldn't help but be curious to see the former overlord and see if he was different from a few years ago.

She could never forget the first time she met Hutian Kiln. The boy gave her a profound sense of alienation and sharpness.

Once when she was passing by the river, she saw a broad figure walking home. Someone called him from behind. He didn't say a word or look back. He was really cold and hard.

Another time, on New Year's Eve, the fireworks were blaring non-stop, and she couldn't sleep. She quietly went to the river to get a boat to cross the river, and suddenly heard the sound of reading. The young man's voice was clear and had a calming power. As she listened, she fell asleep to the sound of the book.

Sometimes standing quietly by the river, looking at the sparse lights on the other side, she seemed to be able to imagine him reading at night. Xu Zhong has lamented more than once that the two brothers look alike, but compared to Xu Zhiliu's inner Liang Zang, who is gentle on the surface, Anan is more like a sharpened knife without any disguise.

If nothing had happened, without the initial stigma and frame-up, without Xu Zhiliu's kneeling, would he still be the hunky boy who once went up mountains and rivers to catch birds and walk dogs?

When she thinks of him, she often thinks of her carefree, innocent and ignorant self.

When she first married to Qimen, she shed tears every day and missed everything in Jingdezhen. She often called out brother Aqian's name in her dreams, thinking of the man who lost a leg for brother Aqian and fainted with his sick and disabled body. The woman in the awning boat in the lotus pond couldn't help but burst into tears. She envied her, admired her, but didn't dare to be her.

Zhou Ya thought that she could not forget her childhood fiancé, so she scolded her for being unfaithful, locked her in a room, and punished her to copy women's rings. She had to recite the Seven Rules for a Woman every day to prove her loyalty to him, but he still felt it was not enough and insulted Xu Zhiliu over and over again, venting his incompetence by stepping on him in the mud.

Occasionally, he would sit with her in the courtyard and tell her about the old and new things about Jingdezhen.

She wanted to hear it but was afraid to hear it. She lived in fear. How could she get pregnant in such a situation? Less than half a year later, Zhou Ya was dissatisfied with her and suspected that she had lost her virginity a long time ago, so he added another crime to her.

She couldn't tolerate it anymore, so she had a big quarrel with Zhou Ya, and went home to visit relatives despite her servants' obstruction.

At that time, she suddenly understood many things.

The criticism that was once raised on that bastard was later raised on Xu Zhiliu and Liang Peiqiu. If she is unfaithful, those criticisms, speculations, and delirium will also be added to her, and she will be gradually worn away by the world and become a numb body.

This is the way the world is. If it is not in line with the rules and ethics, it is wrong.

She began to understand the bastard she had never met.

When his brother had a bright future, he was of course reduced to worthless. When his brother became notorious, he became the object of their pity and lamentation. After understanding that kind of world, she even wanted to meet him to see if he was the kind of brat they said he was, and to confirm whether he was the one who tripped her up.

She said in Yunshuijian that she wanted to go home, but Shi Nian thought it was inappropriate, but Liang Peiqiu said she could help her.

Brother Ah Qian has always had a good taste and rarely makes mistakes when looking at people. Liang Peiqiu is indeed not a kind person. The most important thing is that she is a woman like her.

Liang Peiqiu walked around and found out all the dirty things about Zhou Ya's cockfighting and lackeys going in and out of brothels and incurring a lot of debt. She used this to come to her home and force him to sign a release letter. From then on, she regained her freedom and felt relaxed.

While she was shocked, she was also deeply attracted by Liang Peiqiu's freedom and ease. Women are allowed too, right?
She asked Liang Peiqiu: "If I never marry, can I inherit the Hutian Kiln?"

Liang Peiqiu said: "You can inherit Hutian Kiln whether you marry or not."

"Really?"

"real."

"it is good."

She vaguely had a goal, but before that, she had to do one more thing.

At that time, the family was still discussing where she and her husband would go. Jingdezhen was still not at peace. Hutian Kiln and Anqing Kiln each had their roles in retreating from the rapids of the times. She saw that they were taking a path that might be unconventional but was one that Xu Zhiliu had never walked before, and she envied that ideal and warm direction. But after all, she was a woman. How easy was it to pursue a family fortune?
The Xu family has been a single household for four generations, but Xu Zhong's generation has only one daughter and no sons. A fortune teller had long said that the Xu family's children had little income, but the Xu family didn't believe it. They spent their whole lives filling the backyard without giving birth to many more children. Fortunately, the men in the Xu family have business acumen and have maintained the family business to this day, saving up a fortune of nearly a hundred years. Zhong took over and didn't encounter any big storms that he couldn't overcome.

He is an only son and has no children. The yard is clean and there are not many brothers and nephews in the clan. Most of the relatives who usually move around are in the suburbs of the city, which is also inconvenient. At this time, in order to prevent the only daughter from falling into the enemy's sword The only one who can rely on the wronged soul is the branch of the Xu family far away in Yaoli.

Xu Zhong finally had no choice but to send her back to the countryside.

When she got there, she finally got her wish. Although it was only for a short period of less than a month, she soon found an opportunity and returned to Jingdezhen.

No one knew what she was thinking, and she didn't know when it came to her mind. Maybe when she was forced to copy the female rings again and again, the seeds of rebellion took root and sprouted somewhere in her body?
She was no different from an ordinary woman. She was raised in a boudoir since she was a child and was taught to be a good wife and mother. She waited for her parents to tell her to marry a matchmaker. During the more than ten years she grew up, she was ordinary most of the time.

If anything, the only difference is that she has read a lot of books. In addition to simple elementary school education, she also read "Strange Stories of Heroes" and loved ghost stories most. Xu Zhiliu collected a lot of "Liao Zhai", "Shadow Talk", and "Yu Yu Qiu Leng Lu" and gave them to her. Hold it and look through it.

Xu Zhiliu often advised her to be careful with her eyes. She said yes, but turned around and peeked again. He was helpless and once asked her why she liked to read ghost stories.

She said in a grown-up tone that everything she yearned for was there.

He asked her: "Aren't you afraid of ghosts?"

She said: "What are there to be afraid of ghosts? Ghosts are simpler than humans."

"Then what do you yearn for? A simple world?"

"No, I yearn for a different world."

After all, she doesn't follow the rules at heart, right? She doesn't like female precepts, hates the world, hates etiquette, and hates rules. But she lives in this world and is wrapped up in these things. She can only secretly release some rebellion, pretentiousness, and do things that seem outrageous but reasonable.

She was forced to marry, followed the world's ways, found out that he was true and hypocritical, and managed to betray the world's ways. When she arrived in the country, she decided to obey her father's orders, avoid cholera, live in isolation, and keep to herself. However, a certain seed in her body did not die, and even rekindled in a peaceful day.

One day, she mustered up the courage to cross the river by boat under the moonlight.