Chapter 2: Princes and Ladies
"My son won the first place in the imperial examination!?"
Feng Shouli pinched Yin's philtrum and tiger's mouth hard. After she woke up slowly, she was stunned for a moment and stared at Feng's father. The first thing she said was confirmation. However, before Feng Shouli could answer, she heard the person who brought the good news repeat it again.
"Congratulations to Mr. Feng Qingping of your family..."
When Yin heard the person who brought the good news congratulating her again, her eyelids rolled up again. Seeing this, Feng's father hurriedly pinched the philtrum and the palm of the hand. After these two pinches, Yin finally accepted the fact that her eldest son had won the top spot in the imperial examination.
"Someone come quickly, the old man of the Feng family has fainted, and the second aunt of the Feng family is about to faint..."
Yin, who had just recovered, heard noisy and chaotic sounds in the courtyard. It turned out that she was not the only one who fainted because of the great surprise. Her son's grandfather, her father-in-law, and a close aunt also fainted.
Fortunately, a doctor who had been watching the excitement outside the Feng family with the crowd was pushed in, and the fainted old man and the young aunt also woke up slowly. After all, they fainted because of great joy, not because of any emergency.
"Congratulations……"
It took the third congratulations from the messenger to awaken the Feng family members who were immersed in joy. Father Feng and other Feng family members quickly distributed the prepared red envelopes to the people who came to express their congratulations. Even mother Yin came forward to help, because there were so many people coming to announce the good news.
"Take them all, all of them..."
Feng Qing'an, who had become completely invisible at the moment, watched his family busying themselves. At his age, he could not help much in the eyes of his family. He could only watch speechlessly as his mother Yin stuffed a red envelope containing more than a dozen coins into the hands of the two big shots, who were obviously extremely valuable at a glance.
Feng Qing'an already knew these two people from other people's discussions. One was the local county lord, and the other was the governor of Jiangyang Prefecture. But Yin was so happy at the moment that she didn't care about these things. She had to accept the red envelope even if she didn't want to, and forced it into the other person's hand.
These two important figures, whom the common people had never met, could only accept the red envelopes with a helpless smile. After all, this important figure had raised a scholar who won the top spot in the imperial examination with six yuan in the imperial examination.
“Tsk!”
Seeing this scene, Feng Qing'an smacked his lips, not knowing what to say. Even though his family now lived in a new house and wore brocade clothes, that was only a matter of the past year. Before his eldest brother took the imperial examination, their family was just ordinary people who managed to avoid starvation.
It was after his eldest brother Feng Qingping took part in the imperial examination that his family underwent earth-shaking changes.
After his elder brother won the title of Tongsheng in the county and prefectural examinations, the county rewarded him with twenty taels of silver, and the village also allocated five acres of farmland to his family. Their originally tight life suddenly became comfortable.
It was the first time that Yin was willing to buy some pork when it was not a festival or the New Year. It was the first time that Feng Qing'an ate pork outside of the New Year, and his eyes were filled with tears.
If he wanted to have some meat, he could only go to the wild pond in the village to fish for fish and shrimp. As for going into the water, well, since he was born, he had never let the water reach his waist. He would not go near any pond that was slightly deeper, and as for the big lakes, he would even avoid them.
After his eldest brother passed the imperial examination and became a juren, their family's life suddenly became prosperous and exceptionally well-off. The old house made of earthen bricks and thatched roof was demolished and rebuilt into a courtyard with blue bricks and red tiles and two entrances and two exits. It ranked among the best in Shili Fengjiagang, which had hundreds of households.
Because the family had more and more land, Feng's father, who had been farming for half his life, even went to the county to buy two cows, fulfilling his long-cherished wish. He went out happily every day and took a group of people to farm.
There was no other way. Suddenly, there were dozens of acres of additional farmland. Even if Feng's father was an honest and hardworking middle-aged farmer, he could not take care of so many fields by himself with two cows. He had to ask others for help.
Now, his elder brother has passed the imperial examination with the sixth place and become the top scholar. Feng Qing'an can hardly imagine what his family will be like in the future, because his elder brother is not even fourteen years old and there are too many possibilities.
Not to mention anything else, his elder brother has never married, let alone been engaged. Before he took part in the imperial examination, he was simply from a poor family and no one looked down on him.
But after he took part in the imperial examination, passed the exam and became a juren, his door was almost broken down by matchmakers from all over the village.
However, whenever these matchmakers came to his house, Feng Qing'an would send them away. If his elder brother had been engaged to someone and got married before he became famous, he would not have said much.
Now that his elder brother has achieved fame and fortune, what is he thinking of marrying his elder brother? Is the daughter of a wealthy landlord qualified to marry his elder brother? Get out of here as far as you can.
Feng Qing'an not only scolded the matchmaker , he even reasoned with his parents and appealed to their emotions. After all, in Feng Qing'an's eyes, the daughter of a wealthy landlord was not worthy of his elder brother. But if his parents did not think so, if they agreed, it would be useless for Feng Qing'an to curse them to death, even if his elder brother had achieved great success.
The parents' orders and the matchmaker's words are not just talk, but fortunately, his father Feng Shouli, although honest and simple, is not stupid, and his mother Yin, although fooled by Feng Qing'an, can hold her ground.
His elder brother Feng Qingping is seven times as handsome as him. Coupled with his status as the only top six scholar in the imperial examination, the princes and ladies in the capital must be fighting for him.
Although his family was a commoner family and not a good match for him, his poor birth and lack of background were not necessarily disadvantages in the eyes of some princes and nobles, but rather some kind of commendable strengths.
Thinking of this, Feng Qing'an couldn't help but smile on his little face. If his elder brother really brought back a prince or a noble lady, well, then his future life would be... Feng Qing'an imagined his wonderful life in the future, but before he could think for a while, he was interrupted by a noisy voice.
[Do you want to decompress it again? ]
"yes!"
Seeing the situation, Dayou didn't answer and kept asking. Feng Qingan, who had no expectations, replied casually.
[System files are being re-decompressed... Please wait! ]
"What a piece of rubbish!"
This was the tenth time Feng Qing'an had heard such an answer. He no longer had any expectations for this so-called system because it had been used up long ago.
When he was about one year old, he awakened his wisdom from his previous life. At that time, his physical development had entered the next stage and he was learning to walk unsteadily . On the same day, he discovered that he actually had a system.
Feng Qing'an had forgotten how excited he was at that time, but he was more impressed by the system's repeated disappointments.
Because this system needs to be decompressed, each decompression takes three hundred and sixty days. That would be fine, but what makes Feng Qingan particularly annoyed is that after such a long wait, all he gets in return is a sentence: File data is wrong, do you want to decompress it again?
Feng Qingan remembered that he had just grown his baby teeth at that time. After hearing the sound of decompression failure for the first time, he chose to decompress again without hesitation, but there was no doubt that the decompression still failed.
Time and time again, now, this is the tenth time. Feng Qingan has long lost any expectations for this rubbish. Nearly ten years have been enough for him to face reality.
Especially after seeing the various evil deeds of his fellow elder brother, Feng Qingan had already thrown this rubbish system aside. Isn't it better to cling to his elder brother's thigh than to rely on this rubbish?
Since his eldest brother was three years old, he has been recognized as a child prodigy in the surrounding area. The teacher personally came to talk to his parents about his admission to the village school. He didn't even have to pay tuition, and he was even provided with a meal at noon. This was mainly because his family was really poor at that time.
Under the light of his elder brother Feng Qingping, Feng Qing'an didn't even need to play dumb. As long as he didn't say anything too strange, even if he behaved like an adult from time to time and had an adult's thinking, no one would think he was abnormal.
Now no one takes him seriously. He is the top scholar in the imperial examination with six top prizes and he is less than fourteen years old. He is a brother of the same mother and he is smarter than his peers. What does it matter?
It would be better to say that it would be abnormal if there was nothing different from ordinary people. Born from the same mother and influenced by the literary aura of the top scholar, he should be smarter than ordinary people!