The Eighteenth Century of Xuyang in the Red Chamber

Baoyu came to Lin Mansion to find Xu Mo.

Xu Mo is now a Juren, so he no longer goes to Baoyu's official school to study. The family has arranged for him to go to the Imperial College to study in the early spring, because the Imperial College has not yet started, Xu Mo goes to Lin Ruhai to study every day.Xu Mo went back to Yangzhou to participate in the autumn festival the previous summer, and he didn’t come back until the end of the twelfth lunar month. The New Year’s Eve was even more busy. Baoyu finally had a holiday, and his mother and grandma kept him at home and didn’t allow him to go out. It was so easy. On the fifteenth day, school started again, and Baoyu thought that Xu Mo was thinking too much.After two or three days of classes, it was finally the rest day. I couldn't bear it anymore, so I went to Lin's mansion to find him.

Jia Baoyu can read well now, so seeing Lin Ruhai is not so embarrassing.He bowed to Lin Ruhai very politely, and reported on his study progress. Lin Ruhai was satisfied with what he heard, so he asked Guiming to take Baoyu to the inner study to find Xu Mo to play with.

Who knew that when the two went to the inner study, Xu Mo was not there, but Aunt Meng led the girl to change the curtains and curtains in the house—after the New Year, those especially festive embroidered covers should also be removed.Baoyu knew how different Aunt Meng was from his aunts Zhou and Zhao, so he saluted Aunt Meng politely and asked where Xu Mo had gone, and Aunt Meng told him that Xu Mo had gone to find friends in the east yard at the back. Seeing that Baoyu was still puzzled, Guiming, who led the way, smiled: "Master Mo returned to Beijing with a few masters who came to the south of the Yangtze River to catch the exam. Those students were all students taught by the master in Chongya. A friend of Young Master Yang, so he stayed at home to prepare for the exam. There were also six or seven Juren from Suzhou, who also brought letters from the village elders to visit you, and they also lived at home. The two groups of people happened to live in two courtyards. , are all from the south of the Yangtze River, more than a dozen masters gather together to discuss literature and poetry every day, and the master has been very busy recently, so after finishing his homework, Master Mo went to the two courtyards to the east to have fun."

If it was the year before last, when Baoyu heard that Xu Mo had gone to play with a group of candidates rushing for the exam, he would have turned around and left, and would come back to him later.But he is no longer the ignorant kid back then, so naturally he wouldn't be like that, he said to Aunt Meng: "Since he is a friend of Fourth Brother Xu, he must not be an ordinary person. I haven't seen him for more than half a year, and I think about it very much. It’s just that I don’t know these juren, so it would be inappropriate to rush over and disturb others’ preparation for the exam.”

Aunt Meng was overjoyed when she heard it: "What's wrong, you two are relatives at home, but they are guests at home, so what if you go to the back to find your fourth brother! If he is afraid of disturbing those If you are preparing for the exam, I will naturally take you out to play. I see, the weather is so good today. They are playing badminton in the yard in all likelihood, so they won't think you are noisy!"

What is badminton, Jia Baoyu really doesn't know, but it is definitely not something that can be described in a few sentences, if you want to know, just look at it yourself, don't ask any more questions at the moment, and bid farewell to Aunt Meng, let Guiming Take him to the back east yard.

After exiting the inner study room, one walks along the Chaoshou verandah and passes through a large yard that is being transplanted and repaired. After passing through another partition wall, one comes to a north-south corridor. There were two courtyard gates, so Guiming ran to the one nearer to the east and knocked, a young man opened the door after a while, Guiming asked if Master Mo was here, and the young man smiled and said: "So Second Master Bao has arrived, and Young Master Mo is here, so I'll report it right away."

After finishing speaking, he turned around and went in, Baoyu heard someone applauding in the courtyard, and then Xu Mo hurried out, sweating slightly on his forehead, his face was very rosy, and when he saw Baoyu, he smiled: "Half a year!" No, you've grown taller again!" After saying that, he affectionately took him by the hand and pulled him into the yard: "Come here, and I'll introduce you to some fellow villagers from Jiangnan." Xu Mo's words were really right, don't It seems that Jia Baoyu has only been to the suburbs of Beijing the farthest, but he is a decent Jinling native, so he is considered a fellow with these Jiangnan juzi!

Baoyu was happy when he saw Xu Mo. In fact, he was not very interested in meeting other people. Although he was not against the imperial examinations now, he also knew that these candidates must be very young. It would be strange if they could play together. Woolen cloth!But since Xu Mo wanted him to meet, he would naturally go to meet happily.

There were quite a lot of people in the yard, standing or sitting around a dozen scholars in cloaks, and there were some waiters around, filling up the small courtyard, but It was the Juren from the next door who also came with the book boys.A net was stretched in the open space in the middle, and two men in short jackets were running back and forth to slap a funnel-shaped thing surrounded by feathers. The snow under the eaves hadn’t melted yet. The two were sweating profusely.

The two players who played the game were very contrasting in appearance. One was six feet tall, with a black face and a strong body. His sleeves were rolled up high, revealing the tangled muscles on his arms. At first glance, he didn't look like a scholar at all, but a martial artist; The other one has a white face and a beard in his thirties. He looks very elegant, and his beard flutters when he runs. He looks much weirder than the previous one with a short jacket.

Baoyu followed Xu Mo to stand still in the courtyard, but saw the black-faced strong man suddenly put his racket aside and shouted: "I won't fight anymore, if I continue to fight with you, I will be exhausted to death." , it’s okay to run around to catch the ball, and I have to work hard to send the ball to you!”

The white-faced scholar said angrily: "You are so cheap and good-looking! You beat me when you have the ability to play bowling!"

The black-faced burly man smiled hypocritically and said, "It's such a pity that there is no fairway in the capital where you, Wang Baoling, can show off your golf skills, ha-ha-ha-."

"I've said it several times, don't call me Wang Baoling!" The white-faced scholar was furious. He rushed forward with his racket and was about to hit the black-faced man. The people on the side hurriedly tried to persuade him to fight, and someone laughed: " Don't bother trying to fight, what are you doing with them? One day, if you don't pretend to fight twice, whether they are fighting or scolding or loving..."

Xu Mo was telling Baoyu, "The one with the black face is brother Ai Da Ling Ai—" Hearing this, he burst into tears, and looked away dumbfounded, but it was a short man in gray who spoke, Xu Mo shook his head again and again: "Brother Kong's mouth is still so bad! You see, it's fine if you don't persuade him, and you add fuel to the fire..."

The man surnamed Kong stood up slowly, and smiled at Xu Mo: "No way, Ada Ling is just looking for it specially! Usually Hong Xiuquan fights with Xu Yang, but now that those two guys are not here, he I'm very lonely, isn't it just finding fault everywhere? It's no use persuading Wang Quanming for a while, and he's going to trouble someone else later! It's better to let Wang Quanming beat him up so that he can be honest for a while .”

The white-faced scholar who was robbed of his beat said angrily: "That's not true! You're usually a dog, but you've only left Yangzhou for a few days? I don't think it's just Xu Yang and The problem with Hong Xiuquan's absence is that Mrs. He didn't follow, no one beat him, and his skin is itchy!"

As soon as Mrs. He was mentioned, everyone suddenly realized, and laughed together: "No wonder, Darling misses his wife!"

Aida Ling was neither angry nor shy. He picked up the gown that was hanging on the side and put it on, and said with a smile, "Say I want a wife, don't you think so? I'm afraid I have to do it in my dreams? At least I can still watch Look at the little portrait of my daughter-in-law, where do you go to see it? I can only dream..."

Now even Kong Juren was angry: "You said you are disgusting, you are still excited, everyone come together and beat him!" Then a group of people cheered and rushed forward and crushed Aidaling to the ground.

Jia Baoyu stared dumbfounded at a group of scholars making a fuss like shrews in the street, and turned to look at Xu Mo, and sure enough, he had a horrible expression on his face: "Just get used to it, just get used to it, and there will be such a fuss every now and then... ..."

Xu Mo is really depressed, what's going on today, I wanted Baoyu to meet some serious and famous scholars, but why are everyone acting so curious today?Could this be what Xu Yang said, the pre-exam syndrome?But I didn't do this before I took the Juren exam. Is it because the difficulty is too low and the pressure is not enough?Alas, I must pay attention even if I go to participate in Chunwei in the future, don't become like this.

Fortunately, everyone returned to normal quickly, and came to say hello to Baoyu one after another.After all, Jia Baoyu is the young cousin of the Lin family, and his background is already known. Besides, he looks very good, and now he has enough ink in his stomach, and he still has confidence in talking to people, so everyone respects him. His attitude is really good. To be honest, Jia Baoyu has really changed a lot in the past year.He is a smart boy, once he figured out certain things, he would grow up at an extraordinary speed!In addition, his natural capital is not inferior to Xu Mo, so now in his class, Baoyu has already rushed into the ranks of those students who have worked hard for many years, and has become a representative of the top students.

Most of the time, growing up seems to happen overnight. Today's Baoyu is completely different from the playful kid who came to the government school early last year. He is now 13 years old, and he has completely looked like a teenager: The face is like the moon of the Mid-Autumn Festival, the color is like the flowers of spring dawn, the temples are like cut by knives, the eyebrows are like ink paintings, the face is like peach petals, and the eyes are like autumn waves.Although he is angry and sometimes smiles, he is angry and affectionate.You may not appreciate his overly gentle appearance, but you have to admit that this is a face that people can't hate from birth!He wore a moon-white brocade robe, without a crown, and only tied half of his hair on top of his head with a belt. Because of the cold weather, he wore a sapphire blue cloak, which made his face white as jade. You can't see half of the dandyism to your feet, and it will only make people feel pleasing to the eye.

Aida Ling smiled at Xu Mo: "It's really rare, it seems that all the spiritual energy in the world has been sucked away by your children! Needless to say, Xu Yang, even Hong Xiuquan dare not say he is more handsome than him now Well, it’s fine that you are not inferior to him as a cousin, and now a cousin of his who is wandering around is so decent! By the way, there is also Mrs. Lin’s daughter-in-law, who is also Xu Yang’s serious Cousin, she was admitted to Chunwei at the age of nine, and she was still No. 1. At that time, she really surprised all the scholars in Yangzhou..."

Before he finished speaking, Wang Quanming scolded him: "Shut up! Why did you mention Mrs. Lin's daughter when you are so good? Don't talk about Miss Boudoir from now on. This is not our Jiangnan, Miss Lin has to Going back to Beijing, it’s really not a good word to spread.”

Kong Juren also said: "Well, the atmosphere here is really bad. The girls are all locked up at home. Every family raises girls like raising birds. We are in Yangzhou, and we are talking about what new poems or poems the girls have written. How proud is it for that family to get the top few exams in the school? Now that the girls' talents are spread out, it has become an irregular thing, which is really unreasonable."

Adaling sneered: "Men are bastards, of course they are most afraid of women being sensible! If they make a mistake and tell their wife, isn't it going to cause a headache? It's best if women can't read, honestly, they should treat what they say as an imperial decree. That's good! Bah, bah, bah, I made a slip of the tongue just now, I must keep my mouth shut in the future, and you guys remind me a little more, don't let me accidentally mention things that shouldn't be mentioned... Damn capital, where is it? These shitty customs come from here."

Jia Baoyu suddenly heard people talking about Daiyu, and he was suddenly infatuated.To him, Daiyu was the most brilliant color in his childhood, even now that he has been with Baochai for so long, he still feels that he cannot compare with her in Daiyu's affection.When we parted that day, I thought we would see each other again in a year at most, but who knew that once we left, we never came back... Even my uncle returned to Beijing for a job, and he didn't bring Sister Lin back.

He really wanted to ask other people what that Chunwei female school was like, and he really wanted to ask what kind of person Daiyu's yang cousin was like. Is my cousin nice to sister Lin... What he didn't realize was that what he wanted to know most was, in the eyes of sister Lin, which one was better for her, he or that cousin Yang.But he still didn't ask anything in the end. Yes, sister Lin's matter should not be talked about casually outside.Even the people from Yangzhou, who are not relatives or relatives, know how to protect her reputation, how can I be inferior to these people?

Jia Baoyu finally knew a little about Daiyu's situation, but he couldn't help asking about Daiyu when he and Xu Mo went back to the inner study to chat, and Xu Mo told him.

Xu Mo heard Baoyu talk about Lin Daiyu's visit to the capital when she was a child, and asked, "You and my junior sister were also friends when they were young, right? I don't know what she was like when she was young... must be very naughty? She is also very naughty now, once I went for a walk in the garden, and saw her climb up the tree to catch the badminton, but she couldn’t get down, and the little girl below jumped anxiously... Later, I called my cousin over, and he continued below, letting her She just jumped off. The junior sister is fine, but when my cousin picked her up, she sat on the ground, twisted her ankle, and it was swollen for several days..."

"My cousin, I'm so used to my junior sister! Even my own brother is not so good. In addition to his good calligraphy, he is also good at drawing Western paintings. It's just that Western paintings are too labor-intensive. Paintings by outsiders. I just received some embellishing pens to write a few words for others! But I saw a few of his paintings, one for my aunt, one for the teacher, and the others are paintings Junior Junior Sister. Junior Junior Sister even made a point of showing off, saying that she is the only one in the world who can make Master Xu paint so many paintings..." When Xu Mo mentioned Lin Daiyu, his eyes lit up: "No wonder my cousin loves her, If it were me, I would also be willing to help her pick off the stars in the sky. I have never seen a more cheerful girl than her. She smiles every day. No matter how annoying things are, seeing her smiling face will forget everything gone."

Baoyu has gone crazy.

Is this sister Lin?

Sister Lin can climb trees?

Sister Lin likes to laugh?laughing every day...

But why does Sister Lin in his memory sit so quietly every day, why is she crying so much?Has her temper changed?No, no, no, it's not like this, she should be smiling every day!

Baoyu suddenly realized a problem that he had never thought about in the past. His sister Lin was not living happily in their house.

He raised his head blankly, but he saw the brilliance in Xu Mo's eyes, a brilliance he had never seen in Xu Mo's eyes before.He vaguely felt that something seemed to be slipping away from his hands.