Reborn in the last years of Kangxi

Chapter 16
Time flies, a few years pass by in a hurry, and in a blink of an eye, it is spring and March again.

Jiangning, south of the city, Zaowang Temple.

I don't know how the incense here used to be, but now it is deserted, the clay idols with missing arms and legs are crooked, and the curtains are so dirty that they can no longer see their original color.On the altar, there was a tattered pottery bowl filled with half a bowl of soil, but inside were three sticks of incense that were as thick as fingers.The incense has been lit, and there is little smoke.In front of the altar, there was a chair with half a leg missing, and two bricks were placed on the missing leg.

Sitting on the chair was a burly boy, seventeen or eighteen years old, wearing a half-new silk gown, with a straw in his mouth, holding an imitation short-handled military knife circulating among the people, Looking at the direction of the entrance of the temple with the corner of his mouth, he sneered, making the face with a half-foot scar look even more ferocious.Behind him stood twenty or thirty teenagers of different ages, the older ones were eighteen or nine, the younger ones were twelve or three.Everyone's face was a bit stern, except for the handsome young man standing behind the chair.There was worry in his eyes, he lowered his head, and begged in a low voice to the boy on the chair: "Brother, don't use the knife, what if you get into a lawsuit?"

"Little brother, don't be naughty, do you want me, Zheng Huhu, to bow down and be a little boy? The big deal is to change your life, who is afraid of a ****!" the scar-faced boy said viciously.

"But mother..." The handsome young man wanted to say more, but was overwhelmed by the voices rising and falling from all around him.

"Second brother, don't worry, don't our fists be vegetarian? Hmph, it's fine if those boys don't come. If they dare to come, our brothers can't beat him to death!"

"That's right, we've been roaming around the South City for several years, and we're so carefree that we dare to post freely. It's not just for us to practice!"

"Birdman, he thinks our South City Tiger Gang is like the shit in the North City. He swallows it whenever he wants, and he doesn't even look at how big his dog's belly is!"

Just as he was talking, he heard the sound of horseshoes gradually. It seemed that someone was riding towards the ruined temple.

Although the young man said harshly in his mouth, he kept it in his heart.The Tiger Gang dominates the South City. Although there are three No. 40 members, the number of the North City Heroes Club that was wiped out seven days ago is no less than them.Wei Xin, the eldest brother of the Heroes Association, is the youngest son of the Wei family in the north of the city. The Wei family is the largest squire in Jiangning. In the fields outside Jiangning city, three acres out of ten acres belong to the Wei family.The Wei family's silk is directly supplied to Jiang Ning for weaving, and the son of Wei's parents is an official in the Weaving Mansion. How can his family's power be comparable to the children of ordinary people like them.

Outside the temple, four fast horses arrived in an instant.A few teenagers jumped off the horse, three of them were smiling, and the older one looked up at the sky in anger.Among the three smiling teenagers, two are eleven or twelve years old, and one is fourteen or five years old.Among the two younger ones, one is slightly weak, while the other is a tiger-headed tiger-headed one.The tiger-headed and tiger-headed man turned his head and smiled at the angry young man: "I would like to admit defeat, Wei Wu, since you have been defeated by my brother, you should be willing to be my brother's long-term follower. Although you are not a slave, you are signed With a contract, is there a slave who gives such a face to the master?" Although he was smiling, his eyes were a bit cruel, and he scolded at the end.

The young man who raised his eyes to the sky immediately turned pale when he heard this, and he didn't know what to say in a daze.

The fourteenth and fifth youth said solemnly: "According to the laws of the Qing Dynasty, since you have signed the deed, even your biological parents cannot interfere. If you disobey the master, you will be fined if you are killed!"

The angry young man's eyes were full of grief and resentment, but he had no choice but to bow, and said: "It's all because of slaves, please forgive me, Master, Second Master, and Master Gu!"

Another [-] or [-]-year-old boy who was slightly frail smiled and waved his hands: "Get up, you are all your own people, what do you care about! Cao Song, Gu Na, don't scare him anymore." I just felt funny in my heart, I'm afraid that if he didn't know the details and saw Wei Wu's grief and grievance, he would definitely think that he was a domineering dude, and Cao Song and Gu Na were his lackeys.

The angry young man was the little overlord who used to be invincible in the north of Jiangning City——Wei Xin, the boss of the North City Heroes Association.

The old man of the Wei family wanted to discipline his youngest son, but he was afraid of guilt. Every time he didn't wait for his son to get angry, his wife pinched his ears and begged for mercy.Wei Xin was fine when he was young, he just led a bunch of kids to fight.Now, as he got older, some unscrupulous ruffians began to instigate him to do some deeds of bullying men and women. Fortunately, the people of the Wei family kept a close eye on him, and nothing major happened.However, the whole Wei family did not dare to let it go any longer. If something really happened, not to mention the reputation of the Wei family, even Wei Xin's life would be in danger.

The eldest son of Wei's name is Wei Ren, and his style name is Fengyang. He has worked in Jiangning Weaving House.

Since Cao Yong moved to the outer court four years ago to "seek his own residence", he has begun to live a life of both civil and martial arts.In terms of Wen, he continued to study ethnicity; in terms of martial arts, in addition to insisting on exercising every day to strengthen his body, he also began to practice martial arts with several priests of the Cao family.The riding and shooting was taught by Cao Yin himself.Cao Yin originally didn't want his son to indulge in martial arts, but when he saw his new residence as "seeking his own residence", he knew that he meant "seeking others is better than seeking himself", he felt guilty and couldn't bear to criticize him.

What Cao Yong did was just to be able to protect himself in times of crisis. He exercised to strengthen his body, and learned swordsmanship and riding and shooting for self-defense.From running at the beginning to running with weights later, Cao Yong challenged his physical limit time and time again.Whenever he was physically exhausted, he would look at the plaque "seeking a home for himself", recalling the pain of losing his voice after being kidnapped that year.If he can't learn the art of self-defense, then he will have to rely on bodyguards to protect the courtyard in the future, and he will have to control his life in the hands of others, which he is unwilling to do.Thinking of this, he gritted his teeth and persisted.

The book still needs to be read, but Cao Yong has no idea of ​​taking the number one exam.In the three-year competition in the Qing Dynasty, hundreds of thousands of young students were tested for scholar, tens of thousands of scholar were tested for juren, thousands of juren were tested for jinshi, and hundreds of jinshi were tested for number one scholar.One chance in hundreds of thousands, although Cao Yong has a good memory, he doesn't have the confidence to make a stand-out stereotyped essay.Reading is only to increase knowledge and to disperse the exhaustion caused by physical exhaustion.

"Qiujiju" is adjacent to Cao's school grounds, besides Cao Yong, servant girls Huixin and Anxiang are waiting here.Hui Xin is the tortoise shell, and because she wanted to avoid the taboo of being named a treasure by the eldest maid in the old lady's courtyard, she changed her name.Cao Yong had asked her and knew that her real name was Feng Manlan, so he took "Huixin" from "Lan Zhi Huixin" as a new name for her.The tea crystal that was pointed out to Cao Yong by the old lady together with the tortoise shell, because Cao Yong thought she had a bad temper, he sent the third sister to Chunnuanju under the pretext that there were few people to wait on her.In order to prevent the old lady from pointing out her maid again, Cao Yong begged and made up Luomei, the little maid who helped Huixin.The old lady thought that Luomei's name was not good, so she changed it to "Dark Fragrance".When the front yard was tidied up, Cao Yong moved out from the old lady's yard with Huixin and Anxiang.

Cao Song from Xifu heard that his elder brother was learning martial arts, so he came here every day to follow his class.He was already tired of reading, but he seemed to prefer all kinds of sweating exercises.Knowing that Gu Na was at Cao's house, Cao Song even forced him to come over.Cao Yong was lukewarm about his nominal "accompanying reader" at first, and he was in no mood and had no time to coax this slightly awkward child.After learning about his marriage to his mother, and discovering the confusion and panic he inadvertently revealed, Cao Yong couldn't bear it.No matter what you say, you are still a child. After experiencing the death of your father and the marriage of your mother, and the situation of being dependent on others, it is normal to be a little awkward, so why bother with him.Thinking of this, he became more pleasant to Gu Na.

Although Gu Na is awkward, he is not a fool, so he can naturally understand Cao Yong's concern. Although he is still calm on the surface, he is gradually relying on him in his heart.

Cao Yong, Cao Song, and Gu Na went to the family school together, wrestled and fought together in the school field, and four years passed in a blink of an eye.Although the masters taught are the same, the three have different martial arts.Cao Song only practiced attacking, and fighting was faster than fisting; Gu Na only practiced defense, and rarely took the initiative to attack.Cao Yong is different from both of them, practicing both attack and defense.

At first, because of his young age and weak strength, Cao Yong couldn't even beat a nursing home.A year later, he was able to attack with ease in a guard, and he was able to win both in attack and defense.No one will let him because he is the son of the mansion, because every time Cao Yong competes with the nursing home, he will give out a few silver ingots as the lottery. We wash the smelly socks for half a month.

After another year, one against two, and in the following three years, the numbers slowly increased.Cao Yong's school life came to an end until a few months ago, when several nursing homes cooperated and were unable to keep Cao Yong.Being able to enter Cao's family as a nursing home is a bit of real skill at hand.Although Cao Yong doesn't have any miraculous internal strength or peerless martial arts, it is not easy to practice such a close-up kung fu with his flexible skills and sufficient physical strength.

After the school life ended, Cao Yong became a little confused and didn't know what to do for a while.Cao Song and Gu Na lost interest in wielding swords when they saw that Cao Yong didn't go to the school grounds.Cao Song spent the whole day in front and back of the street, looking for Youzi to be a "hero" and act as a "hero". Operation.

Because Cao Song didn't like to use the name of Cao's family, he suffered a disadvantage after a while, and was beaten up by the local ruffians outside.Cao Song loves face and refuses to let his servants help, so he just came to ask his brother to vent his anger for him.

Cao Yong felt sorry for Cao Song and wanted to try the skills of outsiders, so he went happily.Unexpectedly, one-on-one can easily defeat the opponent.Cao Song thought it was fun, so he accepted these people as his younger brothers and set the rules, so he returned the place to a clean place.

When the matter spread to Zhizao Mansion, Cao Yin and Zhuang Chang just treated it as children messing around and didn't take it to heart.Cao's tutor is there, Cao Yong's personality is restrained, and the two brothers have their own sense of propriety.

Not to mention a gang of hooligans fighting and fighting, even masters are not to be feared, because since Cao Yong died four years ago, two masters of the Cao family have secretly protected him, and nothing will happen.Only Wei Ren thought of his little brother, his heart moved, and he privately entrusted Cao Yong to teach Wei Xin a lesson.At that time, even if the mother wants to stop it, she can't.

Wei Ren is Cao Yin's capable subordinate, and he is very familiar with Cao Yong and Cao Song brothers.Although Cao Yong didn't want to be troublesome, Cao Song heard that he was going to teach the boss of the Heroes Association in the north of the city, so he was naturally eager to try and circled around his brother all day long.Cao Yong was so embarrassed by him that he agreed.In the three days before and after, Gu Na investigated the members of the Hero Club and the rules of their appearance and appearance, and formulated a corresponding "annihilation" plan.

On the ninth day of March in the 44th year of Kangxi, at the market in the south of the city, Cao Yong, Cao Song, and Gu Na came forward and led the Hero Club and a group to a deserted alley.A quarter of an hour later, the Heroes' Association disbanded, and the leader of the Heroes' Association, Wei Xin, signed the contract of selling himself after the defeat.

Although Wei Xin was impulsive and willing to gamble and sign the contract, but he thought that the hero he had relied on for many years would disappear like this, so how could he be willing, so he went home and gathered twenty or thirty thugs to protect the courtyard, and angrily came to find a place.As a result, there was no accident, the Wei family fell to the ground, and Cao Yong and others won.

When the commotion became too loud, the wife of the Wei family cried out that the old man of the Wei family had already obtained the letter from the eldest son, and knew that the other party was the young master of the Cao family. "Seriously ill", he sternly wants to enforce family law on the youngest son who "beats Mr. Cao" and "brings disaster to the family".Mrs. Wei didn't dare to persuade him any more, Wei Xin was frightened and honest, and obediently let his brother send him to Cao's house to be Cao Yong's long-term follower.

Wei Xin has changed from an arrogant and domineering young man to a long-term follower of a child younger than himself, and one can imagine the loss in his heart.In the Cao Mansion for a few days, when he saw Cao Yong chatting and laughing with his elder brother Wei Ren, acting like a close friend, Wei Xin knew he had been fooled.You know, but the Cao family's brats took the initiative to pick things up. After a big fight, he will suffer here. What "bringing disaster to the family" is nonsense.Thinking of this, he became angry and ran back home.

Although Mr. Wei was reluctant to let his son be a servant, he also knew that if he was allowed to mess around, he would cause big trouble sooner or later. He might as well be on duty in Cao's mansion for a few years.Therefore, he made up his mind, tied him up and sent him back to the Cao Mansion.

Before Cao Yong could speak, Gu Na had proposed that according to the "Law of the Qing Dynasty", fleeing a slave is a capital offense.In the end, it was Cao Yong who said good things, and only played [-] boards.Wei Xin didn't have the support of his family, and he was beaten again, so he had to obediently become a long-term follower, but in his heart he cursed these dandies for taking advantage of others.

(End of this chapter)