Annual Ceremony

Chapter 3 Beginning of Spring (Part )

Wang Xichen walked with heavy steps and met his brother Wang Xirui - the name of the eldest uncle of the Wang family. Every time Orange heard it, he had the urge to order the other party to do something, such as making a phone call or playing a song.

Orange followed the two Wang brothers with graceful steps and quickly gave an eight-character summary: The imperial examination is not easy, Xichen sighed.

This was Wang Xichen's second autumn examination after he obtained the title of scholar, and he failed again.

Wang Xirui patted his brother's shoulder and comforted him.

Wang Xichen's shoulders remained drooped, as if they were weighed down by a thousand pounds.

His elder brother and he were both successful candidates in the imperial examinations. At that time, everyone within a hundred miles envied the Wang family, saying that their family had a good feng shui...

Wang Xichen had originally planned to bring honor to the family together with his elder brother and third brother, but who knew that the feng shui seemed to suddenly realize that he had turned to the wrong family, and he ran away without saying anything -

First, the eldest brother accidentally broke his leg while traveling with others, which left him with difficulty walking. He could no longer continue to take the imperial examinations, and it was even difficult for him to have children.

Later, my father was demoted to Jiaying Prefecture, a wild area in Lingnan.

His performance in exams became worse and worse.

Wang Xichen was under so much pressure that when he was preparing for the exam some time ago, he even suspected that his eldest brother had broken his leg on purpose because he had had enough of the hardships of the imperial examination... After all, before that, his eldest brother had failed twice and his mental state was very unstable.

And his mental state can be seen from his suspicion...

Since he no longer had to take the imperial examinations, Wang Xirui had indeed relaxed visibly. He now worked as a teacher in a private school in Jinling City. With his knowledge and a lame leg, he was loved by his parents and brothers at home, and respected by students and scholars outside.

What made Wang Xichen even more envious was that whenever everyone mentioned his brother's disability, they would always sigh with true emotion that if Xirui had not been affected by this, he would have definitely obtained the title of Jinshi...

Whenever this happened, Wang Xirui would shake his head and sigh, and he would receive more affirmation and praise.

At this moment, Wang Xirui was still comforting his brother: "When we get to mother's place later, I will tell her for you..."

Wang Xichen nodded with a heavy heart. After failing the exam again, what he could not face most was his mother who wanted her to be successful.

Unexpectedly, after hearing this, his old mother just waved her hand disapprovingly.

Old Mrs. Dong told her son that this was nothing.

And the secret to making bad news insignificant is often other, even worse news.

Seeing that his mother was holding a letter sent back from Guangdong, Wang Xichen asked anxiously, "Did father get demoted again?"

"That's not the case." Mrs. Dong corrected, "This time he was dismissed from office."

“……”Wang Xichen and Wang Xirui were both shocked.

Orange, who was already lying down by the door, also understood. Oh, he was originally just demoted, but this time he was fired.

Old Mrs. Dong explained the matter in detail to her two sons.

The old lady had a strong temper and did not show much emotion. She just tied the headband around her forehead tighter than usual to physically suppress the blood vessels in her brain that were throbbing.

Let Mrs. Dong say that her husband is good in every way except that he is stubborn.

Wang Zhefu was born in a poor family. He studied hard and passed the examination. He did very well and ranked among the top, and was awarded the title of first-class scholar. Later, with the help of Emperor Yongzheng's special selection of talents, he was recommended by his teacher and appointed as the magistrate of Haifeng County, thus embarking on his official career.

It is worth mentioning that when Wang Zhefu was the magistrate of Haifeng County, he was dismissed for speaking out against his superiors. His position as magistrate was very short-lived.

After that, he worked as an aide to other people's families several times, and experienced ups and downs. It was many years before he returned to officialdom.

Xuanhua Prefecture is a good place. Wang Zhefu once served as the prefect there. However, due to political differences with his colleagues, he was framed and imprisoned for a time. Later, the case became clear, the guilty were punished, and Wang Zhefu was cleared of all charges. However, he was still considered to be too harsh and inflexible, and was suspected of being stubborn, so he was demoted to Jiaying Prefecture in Lingnan.

At this point, Mrs. Dong felt that her husband, at his age, should have been worn out by his temper, but who knew that he still did not stop making trouble even after going to Lingnan.

Wang Zhefu initially advocated the construction of academies, which was not wrong. However, the location of one of the academies was deemed to have destroyed the local feng shui, which attracted a lot of criticism. This was a precursor to the conflict.

In Jiaying Prefecture, people's belief in gods is extremely deep-rooted. Local officials spend a lot of manpower and material resources every year to build and repair various fairy temples. However, Wang Zhefu believes that money should not be wasted in such a barren place, so he strongly opposed this and wanted to build a college and repair water conservancy projects.

This tug-of-war of contradictions not only caused Wang Zhefu to offend local officials and dignitaries, but also aroused dissatisfaction among the people.

Wang Zhefu had a student who was an official in the capital. Not long ago, he was implicated in a party dispute. The local officials in Jiaying Prefecture took this opportunity to report Wang Zhefu's close relationship with him, exaggerating Wang Zhefu's mistakes in a case and stigmatizing him through the mouths of the people, which led to his dismissal. Mrs. Dong did not elaborate on the source of the party dispute, but the two brothers Wang Xichen had heard about the bloody and terrifying party dispute settlement in the capital...

The success or failure of the party struggles in the imperial court of the capital, even if it is just the slightest involvement, can become a catastrophic disaster as long as it is used by others to make a fuss.

The Wang brothers are fully aware of the seriousness of the matter. This time is different from the past. At such a critical juncture, there is absolutely no way they can use their connections to mediate and make concessions.

"It's good enough to be able to save my life..." The old lady sighed and said, "We'll talk about the rest later."

The old lady asked her two sons to write a letter to their father. Thousands of words can be summed up in one sentence: If you don't want your family to be broken up, just keep your tail between your legs, shrink your neck, and be content. Nothing else is better than that.

The entire Wang family was shrouded in a gloom because of this incident, and winter seemed to have come earlier.

But a four-year-old child doesn't understand these things, and the cat is the same, so Zhenyi and Orange's life goes on as usual.

Zhenyi's curiosity about the world grew day by day, and she was especially easily attracted by unknown things. For example, the dark rockery cave in the garden. The children around her said there was a ghost inside, but she had to carefully go in to find out what was going on.

Juzi thinks Zhenyi must have been a cat in her previous life. Of course, there is another possibility: a cat looks like whoever raised it, since this baby was raised by Juzi.

The empty and narrow cave without any ghosts soon lost its appeal to Zhenyi. Zhenyi began to like looking at the sky. The sky with no horizon was much more unknown than the pitch-black cave.

This winter, Zhenyi, who is still four years old, always likes to ask some questions about the sky -

"Why is the sky dark? Is someone blowing out the lanterns in the sky?"

"Why is it raining? Who is pouring water down here?"

"Where do the stars come from? Why don't they fall? Who picks them up one by one at dawn? Do they put them in a box?"

"..."

Chun'er always racked her brains when facing Zhenyi's eyes that became increasingly darker due to curiosity.

Fortunately, Yang Jinniang had a solution. She touched her daughter's fluffy hair and gently replied, "Things in heaven are all managed by the gods."

Zhenyi blinked half-comprehendingly. After A Niang left, she squatted down, put her hands on her knees, and asked seriously: "Juzi, are there really gods?"

Orange meowed, and Zhenyi seemed to be thinking about something.

This winter, in a small village outside Jinling City, many people contracted a strange disease and dozens of people died.

Zhenyi heard about this from the wife of the Qian family next door. Mrs. Qian felt very sympathetic towards those people. She said "Amitabha" for them, and then sighed and was confused: "Alas, I don't know what kind of punishment from heaven they have suffered..."

Divine punishment...So is it the gods who are in charge again?
Zhenyi didn't like this statement very much, but she couldn't say why.

That night, Zhenyi had a very strange dream.

In the dream, she wanted to move forward, but was blocked by a wall that appeared out of nowhere. She turned around and ran back, but another wall appeared. Then, such walls appeared on all sides, trapping her in them.

She gathered all her strength and pushed with her two chubby little hands, her cheeks puffed up and turned red with exhaustion, but she couldn't move it at all.

She could only think of climbing out, but when she looked up, she found that the huge walls were towering into the clouds, and the small sky surrounded by them was endlessly dark, with no moon or stars.

Zhenyi suddenly felt a huge sense of crampedness and fear. She stood there, shaking uncontrollably, while the walls continued to move closer and closer to her.

Until something furry and soft fell on her forehead.

Zhenyi suddenly opened her eyes and woke up from the nightmare.

In the dim light, a cat's paw was resting on her forehead, followed by a puzzled "meow".

"Orange..." Zhenyi turned over in a daze, hugged the big cat in her arms, wiped all her tears and cold sweat on it, and listened to the cat's purring before she fell asleep again.

Zhenyi had another dream, but this time it was not as scary. She dreamed of her grandfather, but she couldn't see his appearance clearly.

She had never seen her grandfather yet, but her mother told her that her grandfather would be coming home soon.

Like other children in the family, Zhenyi was looking forward to that day.

　Weekly update is here~
　　
　
(End of this chapter)