Jiang Yue was quite satisfied with her exam. Her arithmetic performance couldn't still be C, right?
When she returned home, the kitchen was steaming with steam. Nie Zhao didn't know what was stewed in the pot, and a strange smell of meat lingered in the yard. Nie Zhao was sitting in the hall counting money.
These five hundred coins are for Jiang Yue's expenses in the first half of next year. Three hundred coins are for household use, so there won't be much left. As the New Year is approaching, she still needs to collect more money to make new clothes for her.
"Third brother! Third brother, what's stewed in the pot? It smells so good!" Jiang Yue ran over and circled around him before she put her book bag away.
Nie Zhao frowned and ducked away, facing the light and re-planning the expenses: "See what's being stewed. Go away."
Even if she could keep some, it wouldn't be enough. Jiang Yue was fifteen, so she had to save some dowry for her.
Jiang Yue ran to the kitchen and opened the lid of the pot. There was something white in the pot. She couldn't recognize it, but it still smelled good. So she ran back and asked Nie Zhao what it was. Nie Zhao still held it. Copper Coin, thinking about Jiang Yue's dowry, did not answer, but asked her: "When do you want to get married?"
When Jiang Yue heard this, her face fell. She squatted next to him, her tail drooped like a puppy, her eyes drooped, and she asked softly: "Third brother, you don't want me anymore? Don't want me, I don't want to." Leave you, Third Brother, as long as you don’t drive me away, I will follow you all my life.”
She will never find someone as good to her as Third Brother. Has she been disobedient recently and made Third Brother angry, so he wants to marry her off quickly?
Nie Zhao breathed a sigh of relief. Since she was not in a hurry to get married, it was still early and she still had to save up for the dowry: "I don't want to drive you away. Stop thinking about these things! Let's eat!"
He flicked Jiang Yue's forehead, put away all the money, and got up to serve her rice.
Jiang Yue squatted on the ground and looked at his back as he left. The sleeves and hem of his clothes were obviously shorter, and he was still wearing the same clothes as the year before. She couldn't help but feel a little lonely hugging her shoulders.
In fact, if the third brother wanted to marry her off early, she also understood that it would be very expensive to raise her. She had to eat a lot and had to go to school. She didn't do well in school and she didn't want to gain face for him. In order to raise her, the third brother , She didn’t even make new clothes. If she got married early, she wouldn’t have to go to school and could still go out to work. The third brother would be much more relaxed.
But after getting married, can I still live with my third brother? She really didn't want to leave her third brother.
Nie Zhao never ate the food he cooked, so he gave Jiang Yue a pot of pig brains, a pot of red beans and rice, and a plate of dry ingredients, and asked her to eat them slowly.
There were very few things that Jiang Yue couldn't eat, but this white and unclear soup really made her feel irritated. However, she was afraid that Nie Zhao would be disappointed, so she closed her eyes and pinched her nose and ate it all, and then hurriedly ate it with rice. Choking, afraid of spitting it out.
"Have you eaten all the pig brain flowers?" Nie Zhao was surprised.
When Jiang Yue heard that it was pig brains, her face turned blue and white, and finally she couldn't bear it anymore and rushed out to vomit.
On her way to the city, she saw a man in ragged clothes dying by the roadside, with his head pecked open by a vulture, and his white brains leaked out. This left a shadow in Jiang Yue's heart. She couldn't see or eat such a thing.
Nie Zhao didn't expect that there were things in the world that she couldn't eat. Was it so unpalatable?
He went into the kitchen and took a bite of the leftovers. The blood film on the pig brains had not been removed during cooking, and it was particularly fishy. Nie Zhao couldn't help but retched a few times and chose to throw them away.
Indeed, one shouldn't be complacent about cooking. He didn't eat it before, so he wasn't sure how bad the food would be. But now, it's time to buy a few cookbooks and improve his cooking skills.
The academy’s transcripts came out very quickly and were released the next day.
Jiang Yue has always been good at Rites and Music, with all grades being A and She Yu B, but for that number, she did not get a C this time. Unexpectedly, she got a D, which is worse than a C...
In the entire Qingyun Academy, there were two people who were taking the exam, one was her and the other was Li Baoyin, who was sitting with her.
The two fell in love with each other and stayed together for two years as classmates in Qingmiao Class B. At first, Jiang Yue was ranked last, pushing Li Baoyin to the second to last. Li Baoyin only ranked A in Sheyu and B in the Book of Rites and Music. , she was a D in arithmetic. Later, Jiang Yue's grades got better, and she returned to the bottom.
Generally, when a gentleman criticizes Jiang Yue by name, he will definitely bring Li Baoyin with him; when he criticizes Li Baoyin, he will also bring Jiang Yue with him. The two of them actually feel a certain sympathy for each other.
After school, the two of them didn't dare to go home, holding their report cards in hand. They squatted in the small garden in the most remote part of the school.
Jiang Yue's round head almost dropped to the ground and she remained silent. Li Baoyin was also silent. After a while, she suddenly flicked the report card and said in a deep voice: "You said I should change this Ding into B with a red pen." How about it?"
"Isn't this a lie?" Jiang Yue buried her head and sighed.
"Forget it, it's pointless to talk to people like you... Why are you crying?" Li Baoyin was startled by her and said in a panic, "I haven't cried yet, why are you crying? My family has been there for four generations. You are a second-class Jinshi. I, Kao Ding, are disgraced to our ancestors and will have a bloody butt when we go home. Your third brother won't beat you, so why are you crying?"
When she said this, Jiang Yue cried louder. She would rather the third brother beat her, otherwise she would feel even worse.
"Did Nie Zhao hit you? I have long said that he is not a good person." Li Baoyin sighed.
"Why three three but not six?" Jiang Yue asked crying.
Li Baoyin pondered: "I got six, why didn't I get six? Did the teacher make a mistake?" She looked down at her test paper, with a deep look in her eyes, and solemnly said, "I also wrote a six. The teacher must have made a mistake. Tomorrow we will Go find him and ask him to change our grades."
Jiang Yue nodded heavily, finally wiped away her tears, and parted ways with Li Baoyin.
As soon as she returned home, she found that the atmosphere at home was particularly solemn.
The door was wide open, and her third brother was sitting in the main hall with a serious look on his face, his forehead supported by his palms, looking like he had a headache and was in great pain.
Before Jiang Yue could express her condolences to him, he asked, "Are the results out?" His voice was weaker than before.
Jiang Yue thought about going to her husband to correct her grades tomorrow, and stammered: "No, no."
"You stutter when you lie. My husband came here just now and said that you passed the D-level exam."
Jiang Yue's eyes widened and her mouth opened wide. It was unbelievable that her husband had actually come to the house?
"Tell me, you have a total of A, B, C and third grades. How did you get Ding? My husband came to tell me that he suggested that you drop out of school. It is not about studying. Ding and other students are in arithmetic, and they are still clamoring to go to the accounting office every day. Apprentice?" He pulled out a board from behind and wanted to pull her head away.
Jiang Yue was so frightened that she trembled all over. She glanced towards the ground, her long eyelashes trembled, and big crystal tears fell from her white cheeks like pearls: "Third brother, you really want to hit me. Really? Just hit me. If you hit me, I will feel better."
She obediently stretched out her hand.
Nie Zhao couldn't bring himself to move anymore. He had no energy left. He sighed softly, stepped forward to wipe her tears with the back of his hand, and said slowly: "If I don't hit you, I won't hit you. Why did I hit you? You didn't mean it." , when did I really hit you?"
He had been beaten so many times when he was a child. When he first came here, he thought he was going to be beaten as soon as he raised his hand. To be honest, he thought it was annoying to be cowardly at the time, but now he thinks about it and it's pitiful.
The less angry he was, the more Jiang Yue shed tears. She pressed her forehead against his chest and rubbed her tears against him: "But I really didn't do well in the exam."
"It's okay if it's not good. Take out the paper and let me take a look."
Jiang Yue took out her D-level test paper and put it on the desk. Nie Zhao had a splitting headache from looking at it. No wonder her husband wanted to persuade her to quit. She got ninety-eight of the one hundred questions wrong.
Prajna's mood has improved a bit recently, and he no longer has sleepless nights. He rarely lies in bed early, covering his head with the quilt, as peaceful as a corpse.
Suddenly there was a suppressed questioning from next door: "What is the score of three three?"
"Why is it six? Tell me again what is the value of three and three?"
He opened his eyes suddenly, his expression indescribable.
I had heard that Jiang Yue was extremely poor at arithmetic, but I didn't expect that it was so bad?
But someone like Nie Zhao, who has been a proud man since he was a child, and has never gotten below the A-level even though he always played truant, probably cannot understand Jiang Yue's pain at all, tsk.
"Why not six?" Jiang Yue grabbed the pen holder and scratched the paper with her fingertips, feeling out of breath, "Three and three, isn't it six?"
Nie Zhao thought Jiang Yue was crying so pitifully half an hour ago that he couldn't bear to hit her. Now he was so angry that he coughed, covering his heart, and gritted his teeth: "Who told you to calculate like this? I cut you into three sections, and each section was cut into three sections. Can you tell me how many sections you have been cut into now?"
Jiang Yue whispered: "Ninth Dan."
"So what's the score of three three?"
"six!"
"Several?"
"Nine!"
Nie Zhao felt relieved: "If you don't understand it in the future, you will just think like this. Do you understand? Memorize the Nine-Nine Songs three times tonight."
Jiang Yue nodded.
Nie Zhao's slender fingers were illuminated like white jade under the lamp, and Jiang Yue followed his fingers to look at the next question.
The clock in the city that had been silent for a long time suddenly struck four times.
If it weren't for national mourning or war, the bells would never ring. For a moment, the city seemed to be awakened by the sound of bells, filled with the sounds of roosters, dogs, and people's shouts.
Nie Zhao also subconsciously stood up, stood outside the door with his sword in hand, and asked Jiang Yue to pick up the box containing the money and pack her own clothes.
After a while, the sound of clouds and the sound of horse hooves came from outside. The official shouted while beating the clouds:
"The queen collapsed——"
"The prince died——"
It's not a war, it's news coming from the capital, and the city is quiet again. After all, who is the queen and who is the prince has little to do with them.
Nie Zhao seemed to hear a rumbling sound all over his body, like a mountain falling, and he subconsciously held on to the door frame.
Compared with Leran's invasion, the death of the queen and the prince was of far-reaching significance. This showed that the queen's party in the court suffered a disastrous defeat, and the eunuch Huang Xian covered the sky with one hand. There must be big changes in both the central and border areas.
Prajna also sat up from the bed, his heart was thrown high and could not fall to the ground.
Your Majesty is the fifth son of the late emperor. The heir apparent was tragic in those days. Except for the original prince and his family who were imprisoned and burned to death in the East Palace, all the other four princes died, including the sixth prince who had the greatest hope of seizing the heir. The fifth prince, a mediocre man who devoted himself to alchemy and was addicted to spiritual practice, took a huge advantage and ascended to the throne.
Unfortunately, due to taking too many pills, he was nearly 40 years old and had only one child. He was born to the Gu family, who was born as a fisherman. Because of this son, Gu family successfully became the queen.
Compared to the emperor, Empress Gu was obviously more ambitious. She restrained her political power and pursued drastic changes. Unfortunately, she came from a humble family and had a weak foundation. She did not have many supporters in the court, and was constrained by Si Chen's words, so she was stretched everywhere. .
When Jiang Yue heard the commotion outside gradually dying down, she walked out and saw many emotions in Nie Zhao's eyes that she couldn't understand.
"Starting from tomorrow, every day at midnight, I will watch you strut in the courtyard for an hour. From now on, you will practice martial arts with me."
Nie Zhao spoke seriously. Jiang Yue knew that this matter was probably very important, so she nodded obediently.
