After the big fool gets married

"Xuan boy is here!" Wu Dacheng put down the things in his hands, and walked towards the door.

Sun Guihua brought out two more dishes. Seeing this, she said sourly: "Nephew, look at how kind your uncle is to you. He didn't even forget to call you when he greeted his son. Now when he heard the voice, he went out to greet you again. .”

Wu Xuan came out from behind the screen wall, carrying a medium-sized box on his shoulders, and said, "The paper I bought in the city a few days ago is for Wen Tao to practice calligraphy."

"You boy, what else do you bring to uncle's house!" Wu Dacheng patted him on the shoulder, "Take it back later!"

Sun Guihua turned her head and saw the box that Wu Xuan was carrying, with the word Wuyan Pavilion printed on it.As if she wasn't the one who spoke harshly just now, Sun Guihua immediately put on a smiling face, "My nephew has already carried it, so I'll take it for Wen Tao. Come on, nephew, Doudou, come in quickly."

Wu Dacheng said: "I've bought the paper from Wuyan Pavilion, the cheapest bamboo paper costs three hundred coins a knife, such a big box must cost several taels of silver, it's too expensive."

Sun Guihua said: "This is my nephew's wish. Besides, why should you refuse something to Wen Tao?" She enthusiastically led Wu Xuan to Wu Wentao's room, "Come on, nephew, you Cousin is in the house."

Wu Wentao was putting books on the bookshelf, when he heard the movement, he clapped his hands, put the rest of the books back into the box, and greeted, "Brother Datang!"

"Hey!" Wu Xuan put the paper on his desk and said, "After dinner, I'll ask you some questions."

Wu Wentao smiled: "You still need to ask me for advice?" He did not forget Wu Xuan's feat of reciting "Book of Rites" backwards.

"Of course it does, you are a scholar who goes to school in the city!" Wu Xuan put his arms around his shoulders and left the room.

The dishes have been served, Doudou and Wu Dacheng and his wife are also seated.

Sun Guihua enthusiastically filled Doudou with a bowl of pork rib soup, and said, "Doudo, staying at the aunt's house is like staying at your own home, you don't have to be restrained to eat as you like."

Wu Xuan shook his head and laughed, the eldest aunt was the fastest and most natural person he had ever seen.

-

The five of them finished their lunch happily.Wu Xuan and Doudou went to Wu Wentao's room, and asked him about the scientific examination while helping him organize his things.

Wu Wentao said: "The county exam is usually in February, and the government will post an announcement on the specific time. There are five exams in total, and each exam is one day."

Wu Xuan nodded, consistent with what he read in the book.

Wu Wentao said again: "The county needs five people to bond, and one janitor to serve as a guarantor. Our village just has enough five people to bond this year, so we don't need to find outsiders. As for the crocodile, I plan to find Wang Xiucai—"

Wu Wentao glanced at Doudou as he spoke, and saw that Doudou didn't respond, and continued: "Wang Xiucai is the master of our Wujia Village School. He is decent and reliable, so he is the most suitable."

Wu Xuan snorted and did not object.Even though he was a former rival in love, he had to admit that Wang Xiucai's character was indeed good.Besides, they have to ask others for guarantee, so they are naturally not qualified to pick and choose.

Seeing that neither of them objected, Wu Wentao said, "Then it's settled. According to previous years' experience, after the fifteenth day of the first lunar month, the announcement will be posted. At that time, we will sign up together."

"Okay, I'll drive everyone to meet you at the academy." Wu Xuan said.

Wu Wentao gave Wu Xuan a few more books, which were the previous year's scientific examination questions given to the students by the academy.

"Thank you!" Wu Xuan said.You can't buy this stuff in bookstores.

-

With the scientific examination questions given by Wu Wentao, Wu Xuan and Doudou started their life of retreating and preparing for the examination again.

The days are fast approaching New Year's Eve.

Uncle and Aunt Tian both came to invite Wu Xuan to have a New Year's Eve dinner, but Wu Xuan refused.On the day of family reunion, the two outsiders will not disturb the family reunion.

Besides, although he and Doudou are only two people, they are also a family!

The two cooked a large table of sumptuous meals. Although the color and aroma were not complete, at least the ostentation was there.During the meal, Wu Xuan killed two large jars of white wine by himself, and then used the strength of the wine to pretend to be crazy and hugged Doudou for a kiss.Doudou was unexpectedly kissed several times by him.

In the early morning of the next day, Wu Xuan rubbed his hangover throbbing head and got up from the bed.

Wu Dacheng specifically told him that he was going to the ancestral hall to worship his ancestors at Maoshi this morning.

The current Wu's ancestral hall was built by Wu Xuan's great-grandfather, Wu Yeshuo. At that time, it was the former dynasty, and the status of the Wu's clan was above the common people, so the ancestral hall was also built in a very grand style.

When Wu Xuan arrived, the uncle and Wu Wentao had already arrived and were adding oil to the ever-burning lamp in front of the memorial tablet.It stands to reason that the eternal light should always be lit.But after this dynasty, the property of the Wu family was confiscated, and there was not enough financial resources for the ever-burning lamp, so the lamp became a point of celebration every year.

Wu Xuan stepped forward to help for a while, and then the third grandfather, Wu Sancheng and his son arrived.

These are the only people left in the Wu family's head branch within the fifth service.

The tradition of the Wu family is five generations and one clan. The last time the clan was divided was Wu Xuan's great-grandfather Wu Yeshuo.The five consecutive generations after the division of the clan are considered a big family, and everyone ranks together, and the eldest son of each generation is the eldest son of successor.

For example, the eldest son of the previous generation was Wu Dacheng, the eldest son of this generation should be Wu Xuan, and the eldest son of the next generation should be Wu Youying, the eldest son of Wu Wenxiang.

But something happened to Wu Xuan's generation.

The children in the family are all on the family tree at the age of seven.The year Wu Xuan entered the family tree, the patriarch was still Wu Xuan's grandfather Wu Jirui.Mr. Wu disagreed with Wu Xuan, a fool, as the eldest son, and directly deprived him of his ranking. Only the word "Wu Xuan" was written on the genealogy.

Wu Wentao's name is written in the position of the eldest son of successor.

Although Wu Dacheng couldn't bear it at that time, he couldn't change the old man's decision.All he could do was to reserve the name "Wu Wenxuan" for Wu Xuan on his household registration.

Now that Wu Xuan has recovered, Wu Dacheng is the happiest.He finally didn't have to bear the guilt for his second brother, blaming himself for taking away his son's eldest son status from his own son.

Today he called Wu Xuan here, apart from offering sacrifices to his ancestors, the most important thing was to change Wu Xuan's name on the genealogy.

"Why did you change your name?" Wu Xuan was surprised.

Wu Dacheng said: "Your achievements are accomplished, and you will be blessed forever. You are the eldest son of the literary generation, so you should naturally add ranking to your name."

"Achievement accomplished, culture blesses the future." This is a sentence in the Wu family book, which is used to rank their generations.When Wu Dacheng and his generation were born, they just caught up with the change of dynasty. In order to keep a low profile, the names were very down-to-earth and simple, and they did not strictly follow the genealogy.As a result, the new dynasty didn't care about these, so the next generation returned to the normal ranking method.

"Oh, so that's how it is." Wu Xuan nodded, "Then let's add it." In fact, it would be nice to add the word "文" in the middle of the name.From now on, he and Wu Wentao will sound more like brothers.And with this name, he saves himself from writing the characters again, and directly "my surname is Wu Mingxuan, and the name is Wenxuan."

Wu Dacheng solemnly took out the family tree, bowed in front of the ancestral tablet, and then crossed out the name of "Wu Xuan" written at the end of the family tree, and then crossed out the name of "Wu Wentao" written in the place of the eldest son of the descendant, and changed it to "Wu Wenxuan".

Wu Xuan saw it from the side, and asked curiously, "Why did you cross out Wen Tao's name?"

The third grandfather stroked his beard behind them, "Because when the eldest brother was the patriarch, he wrote Wen Tao as the eldest son. Now that you have recovered, naturally he will be crossed out and you will be replaced."

"Third Grandfather, what is the eldest son?" Wu Xuan had never heard of such a statement.

The third grandfather looked at him with a kind smile, "The eldest son is the successor of the next generation. If you become the eldest son, you will be the next Lizheng, and then the next patriarch."

"I, do Lizheng?" Wu Xuan pointed at his nose and asked in disbelief.

After Wu Dacheng changed his name, he also said to him: "In a few years, you will study by my side. When you have almost learned, I can also step back and give you the seat."

Wu Xuan: But I didn't have the idea of ​​doing Lizheng.

Forget it, there's no need to speak out now to dampen uncle's enthusiasm.After a few years, he won the Juren, or even the Jinshi, so the uncle naturally gave up this idea.

-

Throughout the first month, people in the village were visiting relatives and friends. Wu Xuan and Doudou had no relatives to visit, so they could only continue to study hard behind closed doors.

Wu Xuan didn't have high demands on Doudou, and only asked Doudou to recite classics.And he himself has already started writing policy articles.

Wu Xuan did remember many excellent articles in his mind.But it is someone else's, not his, and you must write it yourself to take the exam.He wasn't worried about the three exams for the scholar exam, but after passing the exam for the scholar, it was not just something to memorize.

The rural examination not only tests the meaning of the scriptures, but also tests poetry and essays.

After seeing the rise and fall of so many dynasties, and having read many books on people's livelihood, Wu Xuan thought he could put forward effective opinions on practical affairs.But the difficulty is how to express his ideas in classical Chinese.

After all, he is not a real ancient, and he has not been influenced by his elders and masters since childhood like the students of this era.The articles he wrote have obvious modern colors, the words and sentences are too straightforward, and the structure of the articles is not standardized enough.

His only advantage is that he writes beautifully.But no matter how good the handwriting is, it will definitely not work if the literary talent is too poor.

Wu Xuan scratched his hair in distress, selected an article with extremely gorgeous rhetoric, and began to copy it.

Let’s increase our vocabulary first!

-

In the 14th year of Jingyuan, the eighteenth day of the first month.

The county government posted a notice that the county examination was scheduled to start on February [-]th.

The next day, Wu Xuan borrowed an ox cart from his uncle's house, and took Wang Xiucai, Doudou, Wu Wenxiang, and a child from the same village named Wu Kun to the county seat.

They went to Zhiyuan Academy to pick up Wu Wentao, and they went straight to the county government office to sign up.

Because the five Jiebao members were all from the same village, and Wang Xiucai was the teacher of the school, the registration went smoothly.

February [-], the day before the county test.

Wu Xuan and his party arrived at the county seat ahead of schedule, and were going to stay at the Fusheng Inn, waiting for the next day's exam.

This Fusheng Inn is the closest inn to Gongyuan in the east of the city.The proprietress of the inn respects scholars and stipulates that during the county examination period, all students who come to take the examination will be free of charge until the results are released.

As soon as Wu Xuan and his party entered the inn, a clever waiter greeted them, "Are all the young masters here to participate in the county examination?"

Wu Wentao nodded and showed him the application form.

The staff enthusiastically arranged for them to go upstairs, saying: "All the rooms of Tianzihao have been vacated in advance, just to welcome everyone, please go upstairs!"

"Thank you!" Wu Wentao said.

"You're welcome!" The man led them up the stairs, and said, "The six rooms here are right next to each other, what do you think?"

Wu Xuan grabbed Doudou's shoulders and said, "It's fine for the two of us to live in one room."

The 11-year-old Wu Kun also looked at Wang Xiucai when he heard the words, and said, "I also want to live in a room with my master."

"Then prepare only four rooms!" Wu Wentao said.

"Okay!" Xiao Er said loudly.Guests are willing to squeeze to save a room, they are naturally happy.

At noon, students from Wu Wentao Academy also came to the inn one after another.

There are five county examinations, each of which is entered by roll call in the early morning of the day, and left after dark at night.Zhiyuan Academy is too far away from Gongyuan, and it is too tiring to drive here by bullock cart in the early morning.

Fusheng Inn is next to the Gongyuan, and it doesn't even take a quarter of an hour to walk there.

Not only is it close, but the accommodation and meals are also free, so most students choose to live in the inn.

Moreover, it is said that the proprietress also has a daughter who is as beautiful as a flower.Every year, the county examination will come to the inn, select some talented poor students, and donate gold and silver.