Chapter 1 Starved Scholars Lied Old Daoists
Hiss! So cold!
What's going on? Is the heating broken?
No, why is it so dark! Why am I asleep?
Bai Fan slowly opened his eyes, and what caught his eye was not the dazzling array of bookshelfs, but a wall, to be precise, adobe wall!
This? Where is this? I raised my head with difficulty. A triangular roof, a few sparse purlins and a curved beam. The ones that scattered on the purlins are clearly the world's first building material that the poet Du Fu most admires - thatch!
After counting carefully, there were seventeen holes on this roof with an area of less than fifteen square meters, and you could directly see the blue sky outside through the holes!
Thatched hut? The ragged thatched hut? No, it seemed like I remembered something, and I stood up in an instant! But then my eyes turned dark and I immediately fell backwards, and the back of my head hit the wall again. Bai Fan, who had just woken up for less than five minutes, fainted again!
This time it seemed that there were more things in his mind, some fragments, or memory fragments, a weak figure, who was only a teenager, with a hungry and yellow complexion, but he exuded a sense of perseverance and indomitableness!
As if I saw myself, the figure smiled at me and then slowly turned into fragments all over the sky until it disappeared and couldn't see it!
Bai Fan wanted to scream, but he couldn't make any sound!
I felt one fragment after another hitting my head, and I was like a puppet, completely losing my ability to move independently and could only passively accept it!
A figure who is about thirty years old with a vicissitudes of face? Bai Da, an old soldier in the army! I feel like I am very familiar with it. It seems that this is the father of that figure!
A traditional hand-written version of the Analects of Confucius with broken wrinkles and yellow pages, and a white sentence: Just read and study hard! Others, dad will do it!
Memory fragments hit Bai Fan. He seemed to have passed the life of a boy. This boy was also named Bai Fan, fourteen years old!
His father Bai Da was an injured and retired old mansion soldier in the Tang Dynasty Army. He participated in the Battle of Luoyang and Hebei throughout his life. He returned to his hometown of Baijiagou, Sanyuan, and took his ten-year-old son Bai Fan to depend on each other!
Bai Da, who had fought for a lifetime, knew in his heart that he had been confused for a lifetime and could not let his son follow him. He gave up all his family expenses (two taels of silver), and exchanged a broken book with a down-and-out scholar. From now on, he would not let his son do anything when he got home, and just read and read!
His son Bai Fan was obedient and learned to read a book of literacy with a Taoist You Fang for a few days. He could read this book. In this way, he spent three years reading this book, and he didn't know how many times he had read it!
Unfortunately, my old father Bai Da suddenly fell ill last year. According to the doctor's words, overwork has caused illness and recurrence, and there is not much time left!
He spent all the savings of the Bai family for his father's treatment, and even the 200 acres of land rewarded by the court were sold by the scholars for 190 acres! However, Bai Da still left!
Before leaving, Bai Da looked at his son, which was a complex and difficult to explain, with relief, hope, worry, and reluctance...
A scholar who was powerless to tie a chicken buried his father with the help of his neighbors!
There was no surplus food at home, so I had no choice but to go to the mountains to learn hunting and collect wild fruits for a living!
A scholar who has been studying the Analects of Confucius for three years does not know how profound his knowledge is, but he has a strong body and would rather die than accept the gifts of others!
This is what he said to others! Others say that this kid is stupid in studying. Can the villagers watch you starve to death?
In fact, the scholars knew in their hearts that they were poor families and everyone was short of food. If they ate other people’s, they might have lost a bite of life-saving food for the winter!
Three years of sage books have not been read in vain. All your backbone, or the great aura, has appeared around this weak body!
After reading the scholar's life, Bai Fan also felt a lot of emotion. This person has something that makes him admire, but he also has something that he disdains. So what about a kind and gentleman? Is it right to starve himself to death?
I sighed in my heart and understood my situation. I had traveled through time, probably the legendary soul-piercing, and I came to Bai Fan, a stubborn scholar with the same name and surname!
He said to himself: Brother! Don’t worry, go away, be reincarnated in a wealthy family in the next life and study hard!
After waking up again, it was already an hour later. Bai Fan stood up with difficulty and looked around.
It’s really a house with nothing, a broken window with wind, a thatched hut with seventeen holes on it, two decaying wooden doors, as if you will fall off the next time you open the door.
Below his butt was a dirt bed built by his father, with a thin layer of thatch on it, and the inner part was the book "The Analects of Confucius" that was about to be turned into pieces!
Looking at the light outside the window, it should be noon at this time. It was the thick white snow that had just finished yesterday. If it weren't for this cold winter, the scholar Bai Fan would not have been starved to death. It was this heavy snow that a life would have left quietly under the storm of hunger and cold!
It was the eighth year of Wude in the Tang Dynasty, and the world was settled. I don’t know how many people in the world were like scholar Bai Fan who were swallowed by this ruthless heavy snow?
Before I could feel the world, the hungry sound made Bai Fan come to his senses!
Let’s solve the problem of this first meal first. You can’t just arrive at a new place and starve to death again!
Slowly got off the soil bed, wrapped the thin torn clothes on his body, put on the pair of shoes that were all holes, opened the door, calmed down, bravely took the first step towards the outside world!
I am not that nerd Bai Fan. I am stupid in my studies and can’t borrow food? Can’t I go to the city to make a living? No matter how you say it is, you are a person who reads and reads!
No! Working for others, isn’t it just selling yourself as a slave in this era? That’s not possible!
I was thinking about the way to survive one by one, and I kept walking in the snow on the village road one step deep and one step shallow!
There are only twenty households in Baijiagou, and all of them are surnamed Bai. They are all ancestors. They are all family members who have not given their blessings. However, they are all poor and poor people. They finally have a little wealthy Bai Da who has returned from the army. Now that his son Bai Fan is in a downfall again!
I was thinking a lot and slowly walked towards Sanyuan County. Baijiagou was about fifteen miles away from Sanyuan County. It was snowing day. It was probably at least two hours to walk over with my thin body. It took me an hour to call me here!
Bai Fan, who had just walked out of the entrance of the village, saw a quick figure in his eyes. He was dressed as a Taoist, and hurried towards this side from the distant avenue. Looking at this direction, he should be heading towards Baijiagou.
Bai Fan stood still and began to look at the Taoist man from afar. He was wearing a dark green Taoist robe. Although it was simple and unpretentious, the fine workmanship also showed that his value was quite good. He had three long beards, elegant face, wearing a wooden crown on his head, and holding a piece of dust in his left hand. Looking at the wrinkles on that side, he was about fifty years old and had already lived a long life in this era.
Chapter completed!