Records of the Lost Cases of Helaitang in the Ming Dynasty

Chapter 31 He Laitang

The two of them were hungry and hungry. When they saw the peach tree in front of a farmhouse in the village covered with half-grown green peaches, they swallowed their saliva alive. They thought they could survive the journey of more than [-] miles, so they tried not to act like thieves.

There was a small river beside the peach tree. Wang Heng stepped on the water bridge on the river, looked at the reflection in the river, and wiped the ashes on his face with the river water.

"Young Master, you've already fled and I haven't stopped you from being so beautiful." Xiaocai lost no time in complaining.

While Wang Heng took out clean clothes from his bag and put them on, he pointed at Xiaocai's face and said: "Here, here, it's all dust. You should wipe it off quickly and change your clothes. Poor relatives like us who come to enjoy the autumn breeze, You are still so disgraced, can you knock on the door of your uncle’s house?”

Wang Heng's grand uncle, Wang Yuanyu, was the right minister of the household department of the third rank at that time. It was rumored that he was about to join the cabinet as a second assistant. He was a Beijing official with a bright future.

When Wang Yuanyu was born, Mrs. Wu dreamed of a group of house sparrows chirping on the gate tower. The sparrows were of the same rank, which was a very good sign.Wang Yuanyu has been memorized since he was a child. He is a well-known child prodigy. He was selected as a scholar at the age of 13. At the age of 24, he was No. 4 in the Tianfu Township Examination. In the 41st year of Jiajing, at the age of 28, he won the Huiyuan Examination and the Palace Examination. Second place.

Xiaocai worriedly said, "What will happen if the eldest lady doesn't let us live in the house?"

The Wang family's third-bedroom ancestral home had already been given away by his father to the second-bedroom house in exchange for silver.

Wang Heng smiled bitterly and said, "I've thought about it a lot, but at the end of the day I can live in a cottage in front of my eldest father's tomb. I can still live with just three liters and five buckets of help from the clan."

Xiaocai almost burst into tears with laughter: "What a bad idea. The eldest master is the patriarch, and the eldest lady cannot ignore you."

Wang Heng said again: "When the time comes, you can go to your cousin's house. Sister-in-law Juan is in charge of the kitchen in the uncle's house. She is quite popular. She can always find you an errand job in the uncle's house. I'm still waiting for you." Relief.”

Wang Cai's cousin married the Gu family from the same village. When Master Yuan Yu was in Guibang, the Gu family joined the Wang family. Although they were slaves at this time, they were actually much more respectable than Wang Cai's family, who were still well-born.

Xiaocai thought for a moment and said, "So, I'm from a better background than you."

He grew up in a village near the Yangtze River in Liuhe. The Wang family in the west of the village was the king of Taiyuan. They owned nearly a thousand acres of paddy fields. There were people in the first and second houses who were admitted to Jinshi and became high officials.

Wang Cai's family belongs to the Wang family in the east of the village. They also happen to have the surname Wang. They are a small farmer with only a few acres of land.Before his father followed Mr. Wang San to Lanxi to serve as a minor official, he could only recognize a few words. Of course, he had no way of verifying his family's genealogy, so he only called himself his family to others.

When Wang Cai lived in the village, he would go to the waterside to cut goat grass every morning, and he would hear children of his age reading loudly in the Wang family's mansion in the west of the village. Before dusk came, he would cut goat grass again and stock up. The boy was still studying. At that time, he was young and didn't know why he wanted to study, but it was always good not to have to work.

So much so that I angrily thought in my heart, what can I do if I am born inferior to others?But the Prince of Taiyuan's family was a talented one, but Mr. Wang San was an anomaly. Relying on the power of a third-rank official, he still couldn't hold a position as a sesame mung bean official.

The two young men walked quite quickly, and walked from the fields to a slightly wider dirt road despite being hungry.Although Wang Cai still had some scattered money with him, the road was very remote, and he didn't even encounter a single wild shop.

There was a grain-drying field ahead. Several carriages were parked at this time, and there were many boxes and cages. A group of men and women seemed to be having breakfast.

A pot was set up on the drying ground, and a fat man got out of the pot and was pasting glutinous rice cakes on it. The fragrance of the oil overflowed.

Wang Cai whispered: "There must be straw filling in the glutinous rice cake."

Wang Heng couldn't help but swallowed his saliva and said, "It might also be bean paste filling."

Wang Cai smelled the fragrance and said, "It must be browned on both sides."

Immediately afterwards, their stomachs were bulging like thunder, and their eyes were on fire as they stared at the frying pan.

At this moment, a girl with willowy eyebrows and almond-shaped eyes walked towards her. Her coarse cloth coat and skirt could not conceal her graceful figure and natural beauty.

She smiled with endless kindness and said, "You two brothers are hungry. I'll ask Lao Li to stick some more for you."

After waiting for a while, Lao Li wrapped the cake in oil paper and delivered it. Wang Heng and Wang Cai hurriedly thanked them.

Lao Li smiled and said: "It's not worth it for the elder sister to give you the order. You don't have to thank me. This is the duty of a traveler."

Seeing that he was friendly, Wang Heng simply asked him for directions.

Lao Li said: "We are going to Huangdu Town, and we have to go south. If you want to go to Taicang City, you have to go east."

There are eight pancakes wrapped in oil paper, and they are both sweet and salty.

Relying on these few loaves, I walked for more than two hours. I was hungry and hurriedly entered the city gate in time for dinner.Taicang City is smaller than Lanxi County, and it took just one cup of tea to arrive at Wang Shilang's house.

This is a new house built by Wang's family in the city ten years ago. Currently, only the family of the family minister lives there. The population is quite simple, but the regulations are extremely grand. It is the leading mansion in Taicang City.

Only the Wang family lived in the whole street, so the people in the city called it Wang Yaqian.

As for the Wang family's ancestral home, it is in the countryside of Liuhe, more than [-] miles away.

The side door was ajar, and Xiaocai recognized that the person who came to see the door was his cousin's father-in-law. He felt happy and shouted: "Eunuch Fulin, you are old and rich."

Fulin raised his belly shyly, narrowed his presbyopic eyes and recognized him for a while, then said: "Oh, isn't this a young talent from the third room? Your master is back from Lanxi?"

Xiaocai pointed at Wang Heng and said, "I came back with the Seventh Young Master. I would also like to ask Eunuch Fulin to inform you that the Seventh Young Master has come to greet the eldest lady."

Although Wang Heng was a young boy, he was still the head of a serious family. Fulin did not dare to neglect him, so he bowed respectfully and went to the inner courtyard to report.

Within a short time, the mother-in-law came to take him into the outer courtyard. He walked through the hall and into the courtyard, with lush flowers and trees all the way to the three-room Baoxia Hall.

Zhu Shuren is about forty years old. She has a good face and is slightly fat. She is wearing a jade-colored Songjiang muslin jacket and skirt. She is leaning on a chair and flipping through her account books.She is the eldest daughter of the magistrate of Jiading County. She helped run the family before she got married and has a reputation as a capable person.

Wang Heng stepped forward quickly and bowed deeply: "Greetings to the aunt, Mother." In Taicang dialect, the aunt is called Mother.

"Qi Lang, sit here." Zhu Shuren glanced at her, and the maid moved a round table under her head, "Has the meal been ready?"

Wang Heng smiled awkwardly and said, "Not yet."

"Sister-in-law Chuanjuan has brought us some food. Let's eat here."

The Wang family is known as the descendant of Wang Dan, the famous Prime Minister of the Northern Song Dynasty. It has always been a family of farming and studying. It was after Wang Yuanyu passed the Jinshi examination that he really became successful. There were not many rules in his hometown.

"Your master is so confused. Why don't you send one or two mature people to take charge of the affairs? Let you two young boys go back to your hometown. There are hundreds of miles from Lanxi to Taicang." Zhu Shuren has always looked down on the uncle of the third room. He is greedy. Flowers are lustful, lazy and incompetent.

"This year we have a little brother and two little sisters. The eldest brother married his sister-in-law last year. There are only a few families in the family. I really can't send anyone." Wang Heng said with a smile: "It's a boat trip all the way. , and I haven’t walked a few miles. I am determined to take the imperial examination, so I should practice it. Besides, my nephew has not taken the boy’s examination yet. If I return home a day earlier, I will have a lot of time to review."

Zhu Shuren knew that the three houses were lacking everything, and she was alone in her family. Wang Heng was the third child in the family, and the seventh brother in the clan. His father did not care for his mother, so he only wanted to study and make progress.

She couldn't help but feel a little pity in her heart, and said: "The county examination is about to take place in half a year. You might as well stay here and let your elder brother give you some advice when you have free time."

Wang Heng's eldest cousin is the famous scholar Chen Yugong.

Because he was Wang Yuanyu's only son, he won No. 1 Jieyuan in the provincial examination and was framed for cheating for no reason. Although he won the first place in the reexamination, the officials' impeachment of his father Wang Yuanyu did not stop. Master Chenyu He did not take part in the Jinshi examination. He lived in the countryside and sang poems and paintings with famous people in Jiangzuo. He also wrote several southern opera scripts and became a famous artist for a while.

"That's good. I'm afraid my level is too low. Brother Chenyu will lend me a few books to read first, and then ask questions if I don't understand anything." Wang Heng suddenly felt guilty. Not only was his level too low, except for Mr. Wei His father had not hired a teacher for him at all during the year of his guidance. He had studied with several Meng boys for two years and three hundred thousand, but so far he only had a rough grasp of writing.

Zhu Shuren nodded and said: "That's fine. Your eldest brother is too lazy to socialize with others. Now he lives in Nanyuan Villa. His former study room, He Laitang, has not been used for several years after getting married. So he will live with you first. The bookcases where he started his career are all there, and even the notes he wrote are all there, you can read them by yourself, and ask him to read the articles to you when he comes back."

After Wang Heng finished eating, Zhu Shuren ordered Wang Chenyu's step-sibling Feng to send someone to clean the outer study again, put on clean bedding, and send Wang Heng to rest first.

He Lai Hall is not far from Baoxia Hall. Several sweet-scented osmanthus trees are planted in the westmost three rooms of the inner courtyard, which is probably a good omen for winning the title of Toad Palace. There is a moon cave door on the wall, and the entrance is the garden, where the lady of the boudoir lives. There are no male servants coming or going, so it is a very clean place.

The three rooms are connected, making it extremely spacious. Under the south window is a large huanghuali case with various dharma stickers stacked on it. At the other end is a Western water vase with a bag full of wood flowers, which is fragrant and pleasant.

Under the west window hangs a large picture of autumn mountains and red leaves, which is attributed to the owner of the Hengwu Room, probably Mr. Chenyu himself.

On the north side, there is a couch, with a sky-green mosquito net hanging on the bed.In addition, there are shelves full of books that reach the ceiling.

Wang Hengzheng expressed his envy for a wealthy and idle man like his eldest brother. When he saw the young man coming with his luggage on the veranda, the two looked at each other and smiled.

After traveling hundreds of miles, I finally achieved the first step of success.According to the plan Mr. Wei gave him, he had a place to stay and could study quietly. Next, he had to work hard to gain fame.

(End of this chapter)