After the child finished drinking the goat milk soup, he licked his lips and continued to remain silent.
Xue took the initiative to bring another bowl and told him with a cold face to drink slowly and be careful of the heat.
The child looked up at the snow and continued to bury his face in the bowl like a puppy.
Lin Zhi next to him just drank from the pot, like a greedy dog.
After drinking another bowl, the child touched his stomach and said, "That's enough." However, Lin Zhi had no idea of moderation. He put down the pot with regret until Zhu Xiang said that they had to leave quickly, otherwise the city gate would be closed.
Zhu Xiang first helped the child clean his face which was covered with a circle of milk whiskers, and then threw a handkerchief to Lin Zhi: "Don't wipe your face with your sleeves. It's a bad hygiene habit and will teach your child bad habits."
Lin Zhi muttered: "You live a more refined life than I do... Okay, the carriage is ready, let's go."
Zhu Xiang held the child in his arms again, turned around and said to Xue: "Don't worry, I will definitely scold her when I see her!"
Xue pursed her lips, bowed to Lin Zhi and said, "I will entrust my beloved to Mr. Lin."
Lin Zhi joked, "Zhu Xiang, your wife doesn't believe you!"
"Hmph." Zhu Xiang glared at Lin Zhi and walked out the door angrily.
Lin Zhi followed with a smile.
After watching the two leave, Xue let out a long sigh and told the servants to clear the table.
Zhu Xiang carried the child into the carriage and asked the child's name on the way.
Maybe because he was still too young, the child just closed his mouth and shook his head without answering.
Zhu Xiang introduced himself, and Lin Zhi took the opportunity to laugh at Zhu Xiang's miserable situation of knocking on his own door when he was so sick that he was a limp bone.
Zhu Xiang didn't want to tell his young child about his dispute with his mother. But Lin Zhi was quick to speak, so he didn't stop him.
Then he thought, although he felt sorry for the child, given the relationship between him and his eldest sister, if his eldest sister didn't want the child, he would definitely give the child to someone else to raise.
Confucius was right. How can you repay kindness by repaying evil with kindness? Moreover, I am full of inappropriate thoughts. If I force myself to raise this child, it may bring disaster to this child in the future.
There is no shortage of kind-hearted people to adopt healthy and young boys at any time. It would be more appropriate for the Lin family to give this cheap nephew to another reliable wealthy family.
Therefore, regardless of whether the child could understand Lin Zhi's words, he should at least tell him the reason why he could not adopt the child.
The child's expression was dull and it was unclear whether he understood what Lin Zhi said.
The carriage soon fell into an awkward silence, and even the lively Lin Zhi could not help but shut up. Soon, the only sounds in the carriage except for the shaking of the carriage and the clatter of horse hooves were the breathing of the three people.
Lin Zhi closed his eyes and pretended to be asleep, the child also closed his eyes, only Zhu Xiang was staring out the car window, distracted.
After two wise rulers had governed the State of Zhao, Handan had already become a prosperous city with an area of thousands of square kilometers and tens of thousands of households.
It was just that when Zhu Xiang first entered Handan City, it was during the last one or two years of the reign of King Huiwen of Zhao, the father of the current King of Zhao. At that time, although Handan was prosperous, there were many people wearing Hu clothing and swords on the streets, and few people wearing fancy clothes and jewels.
After King Huiwen of Zhao died and Queen Wei of Zhao took over the government, Handan did not change much. After Queen Wei of Zhao passed away, the changes in Handan became faster and faster, and a trend of extravagance gradually emerged. Every time Zhu Xiang went to the city to deliver goods from the farm to the Lin family, he could see these changes with his naked eyes.
The carriage seemed to have run over a rock on the road and shook violently, shaking half of the window curtains down.
Zhu Xiang did not lift the curtain and began to close his eyes and rest.
About an hour later, the carriage stopped next to a private mansion.
The door of the mansion was wide open, and people were coming and going to transport items. Lin Zhi gave the guard a look, and the guard stepped forward to ask about the family.
"This family? They moved out several days ago, and now this house has been bought by my master." The old servant who was in charge of moving the things answered, "Are you looking for the previous family? My master doesn't know either. We bought the house from the boy, maybe he knows."
When Zhu Xiang got off the carriage holding the child, he just heard the old servant's answer.
The child grasped Zhu Xiang's clothes with his thin hands and turned his head suddenly to look at the old servant.
His bright eyes were instantly filled with tears, which flowed out of his eye sockets in large drops. With each tear, his eyes dimmed a little.
The child had cried hysterically at Zhu Xiang's house before, and Zhu Xiang thought he was going to cry again. But the child just stared with his empty eyes wide open and shed tears quietly, without even making a sound of crying or sobbing.
Zhu Xiang's heart skipped a beat, and he quickly pressed the crying face of the child into his arms. He took a few steps forward and found the neighboring family who were looking in to see what was going on. "Father-in-law, do you know that family?"
As Zhu Xiang asked, he took out a few knife coins from his sleeve pocket and stuffed them into his father-in-law's hand.
The old father-in-law who was watching the fun put the knife coin into his sleeve and said, "I understand. It was so lively when that family was here. How could I not understand? Let me tell you, the merchant who originally lived there always made a loss in business and was so worried that he wanted to sell the house. Then he suddenly married a rich widow and started to show off all of a sudden."
Zhu Xiang: "?" A rich widow? Could it be that the rich businessman my sister married died, and my sister inherited his estate and raised a young man
My father-in-law couldn't keep secrets to himself, and after getting the money, he had no psychological burden to gossip about other people's families. He immediately started talking a lot.
When he started talking, other neighbors came over to chat with him, and without asking Zhu Xiang for money, they told him all about the family's situation.
"I don't know what good luck that family had. The new widow they married is beautiful and rich, but unfortunately she has a stupid son."
"Yes, that child was making trouble every day and threatened to kill the businessman. Is that child two or three years old? He can't even walk steadily, but he's so violent!"
"What can such a young child understand? Someone must be whispering in his ear."
"Maybe it's the clan of the wealthy businessman that the beautiful widow married before? She took away so much money, her late husband's clan would definitely not be happy."
"You always say that the child is bad, but I think he is quite pitiful. He was quite sturdy when he first moved in, but when I saw him a few days ago, he was skinny and dirty, like a wild child on the street. I heard that his mother no longer cares about him, and even the servants in the family despise him."
"Of course I dislike it, who wouldn't dislike it?"
"But it's still quite pitiful. What does a child know? He's so young, just teach him well. How can a child be born obedient?"
"That's true. To put it bluntly, it's because the widow ignored her young son after marrying her new husband."...
The neighbors chatted with each other, and finally they gathered together to chat, completely ignoring Zhu Xiang.
Zhu Xiang carried the child away from the crowd that was gathered together chatting and returned to the carriage.
He already understood the general situation, and how to find Chunhua next could only be entrusted to Lin Zhi.
Zhu Xiang looked down at the child in her arms. She didn't know if she understood what the group of people said, and her tears stopped flowing, but her expression was very dull.
During the Warring States Period, there was no bad custom that widows could not marry. On the contrary, because the mortality rate of pregnant women during childbirth was extremely high, widows who had given birth to one child were very popular among the people.
Chunhua may have married a new man with her former husband's inheritance after her former husband died. She was rich, beautiful, and had given birth to a son. The neighbors all envied the businessman for marrying a good wife.
As for the little boy who resisted his stepfather, a naughty child who was always shouting for war and killing, even if people had some sympathy for him because of his young age, after his mother cried and complained outside several times, people around him did not have much sympathy for him.
Zhu Xiang didn't know the full story, but he was skeptical of what his neighbors said.
How could the neighbors know what was going on in the mansion? How loud could the child's scolding be heard by people outside the door
The bad reviews about the child must have been spread by the family themselves. Some of them were true and some were false... Anyway, he had a deep hatred and prejudice against Chunhua, and he did not believe that Chunhua was an innocent victim in this matter.
Chunhua could abandon her child to herself, whom she had abandoned and almost killed, and she also had a condescending tone in the letter, without any sense of guilt. This behavior proved that Zhu Xiang's prejudice was probably not prejudice.
"I was really abandoned, wasn't I?" The child rubbed his swollen eyes and finally uttered a choked voice, "She thought I was troublesome and didn't want me anymore."
Zhu Xiang patted the child's head and said, "It's not you who is in trouble, it's her. Your mother is not a good person, don't doubt yourself for the bad things she did. I was also abandoned by her before, and it's not the first time she has done such a thing."
The child didn't say anything.
Zhu Xiang originally wanted to use his own experience to comfort the child who finally realized that he was abandoned. But perhaps the child was too young and did not understand Zhu Xiang's comfort, and his expression did not show that he was comforted by Zhu Xiang at all.
Zhu Xiang was in a great headache. He didn't know how to comfort this child who was much younger than he was when he was abandoned.
Fortunately, after a while, Lin Zhi returned to the carriage, breaking the awkward atmosphere in the carriage.
"They have been gone for three or four days. I have sent people to look for the child." Lin Zhi said, "They left the child at your door after three or four days. She is really determined to abandon the child. Let's go back first. I will tell you when I have further news."
Zhu Xiang lowered his head and said, "Thank you, sorry for the trouble."
Lin Zhi patted Zhu Xiang on the shoulder and said, "Why are you being so polite to me? If you really want to be polite, I'll come to your house to eat meat next time."
Zhu Xiang forced a smile: "Okay, you don't need to bring meat, eat at my house."
Lin Zhi said happily, "It's settled."
He looked at the child in Zhu Xiang's arms: "Do you want to adopt him?"
Zhu Xiang sighed: "When I see him, I always think of myself back then. I'll ask Xue. If Xue agrees, I'll adopt him. I'll put Xue's feelings first."
Lin Zhi laughed: "Other families all value offspring and inheritance, you are really weird."
Zhu Xiang said: "I have always been very confused, have you just discovered it now?"
Lin Zhi said: "I discovered it a long time ago. But there are some strange parts, so let's change them." For example, he values other people's lives too much and is unwilling to go to the battlefield.
Zhu Xiang smiled bitterly: "Change it, definitely change it, it's changing now."
Lin Zhi laughed again.
Zhu Xiang sighed.
After Lin Zhi finished laughing, he comforted him, "Although you have to change those strange things to become an official, it's okay if you don't change them. My father and I can protect you. It's not bad for you to be like this now."
Zhu Xiang just smiled bitterly and said thank you without saying anything more.
He adjusted the position of the child in his arms. The child closed his eyes again, as if he was tired of crying.
Lin Zhi looked at the child in Zhu Xiang's arms, his eyes full of pity: "If Xue Ruo doesn't want to raise him, I will take him home today to raise him temporarily, and slowly find a family to adopt him, so that you and your wife won't quarrel."
Zhu Xiang muttered, "Xue and I never quarrel."
Lin Zhi laughed, "Yeah, as soon as Xue raised her voice a little, you started to apologize timidly. You have no courage at all."
Zhu Xiang shut up and pretended not to hear.
Xue had been waiting at the door with her clothes on, sewing shoe soles. When she heard the sound of the carriage, she dropped her needlework and went forward to greet them.
When she saw Zhu Xiang coming down with the child in her arms, her face immediately turned dark.
"When we arrived, Chunhua had been gone for several days." After Zhu Xiang entered the room, he briefly told Xue what had happened.
Lin Zhi knew that Zhu Xiang would probably lose face in front of Xue again, so in order not to embarrass his good friend, he deliberately avoided him and waited in the carriage outside the door for Zhu Xiang and Xue to finish their discussion before calling him.
Xue frowned: "Then?"
"Then, then..." Zhu Xiang said with a smile, "I think this child is quite pitiful, can we..."
Before Zhu Xiang finished speaking, Xue interrupted him loudly: "My dear! Do you still remember what Chunhua did? Your parents died of overwork, and you fell ill due to grief, but she took away all the family property and left. She was unfilial to your parents and unfraternal to you. You still want to raise her son after seeing such an unfilial and unfraternal person?!"
Zanghuo is a derogatory term for slaves, and it was a very vulgar swear word in that era.
Xue was so angry that she cursed. Zhu Xiang, who was covering the ears of the child in his arms, immediately nodded and apologized: "It's my fault, it's my fault, don't be angry. People usually say that nephews resemble their uncles. He looks too much like me and was abandoned like me, so I can't help but empathize... No, no, we won't raise Chunhua's child. I'll let Lin Li take him away..."
Before Zhu Xiang finished speaking, Xue grabbed his arm and said, "Wait, what do you mean by nephew resembles uncle? Is there such a saying?"
"Ah, yes." Zhu Xiang was stunned and explained, "The child is a piece of flesh that fell from the biological mother, and should look similar to the biological mother. It's just that there is a difference between boys and girls. Unless the boy looks like a girl, the child will definitely look more like his biological mother's brother with the same father and mother."
"Let me take a closer look." Xue snatched the child from Zhu Xiang's arms and looked at the child's face carefully for the first time.
Before she knew that the child was born by Chunhua, she had been feeling dissatisfied and had never taken a good look at the child's appearance.
The child was forced to look directly at the snow, a look of horror on his face.
"It does." Xue's expression softened.
She put the child on the ground, squatted on the ground, looked the child up and down carefully again, and turned the child around a few times.
The child looked at Zhu Xiang for help.
As soon as he showed this expression of seeking help, Xue burst out laughing: "It really looks like him."
Zhu Xiang was puzzled: "Xue, are you... not angry anymore?"
Xue said, "I won't be angry because he looks like you."
Zhu Xiang was a little scared when he saw Xue's mood change so quickly.
"That's good. That's good. I'll take him away now." Zhu Xiang tried to pick up the child and was hit on the back of his hand by Xue.
Xue protected the child and said, "I will raise this child."
Zhu Xiang looked a little silly: "Ah?"
Xue explained, "He looks like you. We will raise him and he will be our son in the future. My dear, I want to raise a child who looks like you."
Xue raised her head with a serious expression.
Zhu Xiang's face instantly turned red. He also squatted down and said embarrassedly: "Well... Well, then, we will raise it."
Xue smiled happily. She stroked the child's hair gently and said, "Come, call me father and mother."
The child glanced at Xue, then looked at Zhu Xiang who was looking at him expectantly, and his lips moved, making an inaudible sound.
Xue turned the child around and said to Zhu Xiang, "Why are you so quiet? Come on, call me father."
The child first lowered his head and clenched his fists, then suddenly raised his head and shouted in a crying voice: "I am the great-great-grandson of the King of Qin, the son of Prince Yiren, the grandson of the King of Qin! I don't want to recognize anyone else as my father, I can't recognize anyone else as my father!"
After shouting, the child, perhaps because he had received too much stimulation today, his little body softened and he fainted.
Zhu Xiang caught the child and was dumbfounded.
The couple squatted on the ground and looked at each other.
Xue said in a trembling voice, "Liang, Liangren, what did he say? He is talking nonsense, right? No, no, no, maybe I heard it wrong."
Xue kept rubbing her ears, her face full of disbelief.
Zhu Xiang opened and closed his mouth and made a series of "ababa aba" sounds for a long time before finally squeezing out normal words: "Ying? Ying Zheng? My nephew is Ying Zheng? ! ! My sister is Zhao Ji?! No, my sister's name is Chunhua! ! ! "
Zhu Xiang held his fainted nephew in his arms, his eyelids fluttered, and he also fainted.
Oh my God, my nephew is Qin Shi Huang Ying Zheng. No normal person can bear this surprise!
Dizzy, dizzy, grunt...
"My dear! My dear, why are you so dear!"
Xue let out a soprano-like scream, which scared Lin Zhi, who was eavesdropping at the door, so much that he kicked the door open and rushed over.
After a brief period of darkness, Ying Xiaozheng came to the room again.
The room was not big, with only a wooden table and a cushion inside. A shadow of a middle-aged man was sitting in front of the table, supporting his chin with one hand, and sleeping with his eyes closed.
The man wore a Tongtian crown and a plain black robe. Only his red skirt was embroidered with black and green patterns. He looked very simple.
Ying Xiaozheng walked to the middle-aged man and knelt down. His head, which had been a mess, quickly became clear and wise.
At the same time, his eyes gradually became sad and painful.
I don’t know when it started, but every ten days, Ying Xiaozheng would come to this room after falling asleep and see the shadow of the man taking a nap with his eyes closed.
As long as he gets close to the man's shadow, his mind will immediately become as smart and clear as an adult's, and he can "read" the man's memory fragments.
This man is his "future self", who has already ascended the throne as king, unified the world as emperor, and is now touring the world as "Qin Shi Huang".
Ying Xiaozheng was ecstatic at first, thinking it was a divine power bestowed by God. But soon, he discovered that this might not be a blessing, but a curse.
There was a clepsydra on the table. Ying Xiaozheng could stay in the room for half an hour each time. During this half hour, he was knowledgeable and quick-witted, thinking that he could do anything.
But when he left the room and woke up in reality, all that wisdom receded like the tide, and he turned back into the ignorant child who was less than two years old.
The traces left by the tide in the child's mind not only did not make him smarter than other children, but made him more stupid and reckless.
Children are always prone to being arrogant and complacent, and they always think they can do anything as long as they have a little ability.
After Ying Xiaozheng left the room, he immediately turned into such a self-righteous and stupid child.
He no longer just obeyed his mother's words, he no longer believed the careless lies of adults, he no longer endured obediently when he encountered unpleasant things;
He advised his mother to keep herself clean, he threatened the merchant who had an affair with his mother to weigh his mother's status and his own, he reprimanded the servants who took advantage of his young age and insulted him;
So he was slapped hard by his mother who was angry and ashamed, and then the merchant had sex with his mother in front of him to mock him, and then the servants began to deduct his living expenses with the connivance of their master;
Then his temper became more and more irritable, and it became increasingly difficult for him to get along with the people around him.
Ying Xiaozheng kept telling others his identity, but everyone laughed at him for his wild imagination.
His father had already abandoned him and would not take him back to Qin. His current status in Zhao was even worse than that of an ordinary commoner, because commoners would not kill him to vent their anger because of the discord between Zhao and Qin.
Even his mother said so, and conspired with the merchant to escape so as not to be implicated by him.
Ying Xiaozheng overheard this and after entering the room with the shadow of his future self in his dream, he realized that his stupidity had pushed him to the brink of life and death.
There is no way a child under two years old could survive on his own, and staying with his mother was the only way for him to prove his identity as a member of the Qin royal family.
At this time, he could only show weakness to arouse his mother's kindness in order to avoid death. Only then could he return to Qin in the future to continue his dream of doing great deeds, and even do better than himself in his dream.
But once he left the room in his dream, all of Ying Xiaozheng's careful considerations turned into a child's fear that his mother was going to abandon him, and his behavior became even more hysterical.
Thus began a vicious cycle, and his biological mother became even more disgusted and afraid of him, and even hired a witch to exorcise the evil spirit for him.
Ying Xiaozheng was once very complacent. Since he already knew the future, he would definitely be able to change the future, change the detours, pain, and betrayal that his "future self" had experienced.
For example, he can definitely change the harm his mother will cause to him.
His mother was so good to him now, as long as he was good to her and strictly screened the people who approached her, his mother would not abandon him even if she had a male lover in the future.
Ying Xiaozheng didn't care that his mother had a male lover. He only cared whether his only mother could treat him as well as she did now.
He did change the future, too—he was abandoned in the present.
"I'm sorry, but I can't seem to be you anymore."
Ying Xiaozheng cried and apologized to his future self, his body hunched over and curled up into a small ball, leaning closely against his future self, as if he was relying on his only relative.
Zhu Xiang, who was awakened by a basin of water poured by Lin Zhi, squatted at the head of the bed, frowning and looking worriedly at Ying Xiaozheng who was crying in his dream.
Oh my God, my nephew is not an ordinary human cub, he is the cub of the First Qin Emperor!
The First Emperor!!!
Zhu Xiang felt extremely jealous towards his elder sister Chunhua.
How can this person be so lucky? Good people don’t live long, but evil people live for thousands of years, right?!
Zhu Xiang, with a sad face, was holding a bowl of steamed eggs with lard, and kept fanning the baby Qin Shi Huang under Xue's speechless eyes, trying to use the aroma of the food to pull the baby Qin Shi Huang back from the nightmare.
Ying Xiaozheng was actually awakened by the fragrance.
He opened his eyes while crying, his stomach growling: "Hungry..."
Zhu Xiang laughed: "Eat when you are hungry."
Ying Xiaozheng climbed up from the bed swiftly, picked up a small wooden spoon, and started eating the steamed eggs from the bowl that Zhu Xiang was holding.
The smooth steamed egg melted in his mouth, and Ying Xiaozheng squinted his eyes happily.
As for crying and saying sorry in the dream, he had obviously forgotten all about it while enjoying the delicious steamed eggs with lard.
After all, he is not the First Emperor, but just a cub of the First Emperor who even walks unsteadily.
(End of this chapter)