Chapter 30: Hole in the Wall
After walking out of the porridge shop, Su Xian felt a little bloated.
I only ate four of the ten steamed buns and drank two bowls of porridge.
Carrying the remaining six steamed buns, I slowly returned to my home at the end of the street. The sound of a stone mill turning came from next door.
He opened the door, put six steamed buns in the kitchen, walked up the creaking wooden stairs to the second floor, and pushed open the door of the study.
Since he had nothing to do, he decided to review his lessons.
"Relying on external forces to increase the sense of security and gain the ability to protect oneself requires careful planning." While tidying up the study, Su Xian was thinking about how to find a breakthrough from Tang Ju.
"But we can't lose our identity as scholars! Although the Daliang Dynasty is not a dynasty in history, the contempt chain of scholars, farmers, merchants and artisans still exists..."
The study was very simple, with a row of rickety bookshelves that looked like they would collapse with a slight poke of a finger.
The desk and chair were also old, and the table top was covered with a wooden board, which had many scratches and was uneven.
There is nothing else besides this.
"Why are there only these few volumes?"
Su Xian stared blankly at the only five scrolls on the bookshelf, and then he remembered that he had moved most of the books to the county school when it opened more than ten days ago.
Later, he took a month's leave from the Doctor of Classics and returned home, but did not bring the books back with him.
Su Xian casually took a scroll, sat down in front of the old desk, and slowly unfolded it. The familiar handwriting and the familiar smell of books filled his face.
The scroll was bought at a huge price, and the words on it were copied stroke by stroke by myself...Books are precious, and most students can only copy them by hand.
After watching for a while, Su Xian felt inexplicably restless. He was distracted and thought about the conversation between the girl and the man in black in Zuixianlou last night.
It concerns the Liao people!
"No, if the Liao people really go south to invade the border, they will most likely plunder the counties and cities of various states, and Leshou County will not be spared."
"Whether from my personal perspective or from the perspective of the overall situation, I must find a way to stop this!"
Su Xian closed the book and fell into deep thought. Although his eyes were fixed on the book, he did not read a single word.
He said to himself, "I am powerless right now, how can I stop it... Hey, wait!"
Su Xian suddenly stood up and paced back and forth excitedly in the study.
He only muttered, "I'm worried about how to find a way out from Tang Ju! Princess Lanling went to Youzhou to take charge, wasn't it because of the Liao people's matter? If..."
"Since you want to find a backer, why not go directly to Princess Lanling? I heard that Princess Lanling is extremely beautiful, known as the 'most beautiful woman in Daliang', and she is still unmarried..."
"No, no, Princess Lanling is too high up in my opinion now. I should deal with Tang Ju first!"
“…”
After careful planning, Su Xian couldn't help but clench his fists, thinking that this matter had great potential.
Tang Ju had gained benefits from Princess Lanling, so he would definitely not treat Su Xian unfairly.
After a while, Su Xian calmed down and frowned, "This matter is not urgent. There is still early time. Maybe I can...find a way to eavesdrop on their secret meeting."
Su Xian muttered to himself, left the study, came to the bedroom next door, walked to a wall, and looked up at the beams.
He remembered that when he was a child, he once climbed up the beam and sneaked into the neighbor's house through a small hole to play. The memory is still fresh in his mind.
Later, he was caught on the spot by his father Su Zheng, who spanked him and sealed the hole in the beam with blue bricks.
"Perhaps, I can reopen the hole in the beam." Su Xian stared at the beam with bright eyes, "When they have a secret meeting, I will hide behind the hole and eavesdrop."
"This way, I can avoid being discovered because there's a wall between me and them. I can evacuate at any time. It's perfect!"
Just do it.
Su Xian brought a wooden ladder, placed it on the wall, and climbed up using his hands and feet.
This wall is made of blue bricks because it has to bear the weight, and it is also shared with the next-door neighbor's house, which means that the other side of this wall is the neighbor's house.
A wooden beam several inches thick was inserted at one end into the blue brick wall. There was a small hole in the wall above the beam.
No one knew what this hole was used for. Su Xian guessed that it was caused by the laziness of the craftsmen when building the house.
When Su Xian was a child, he would sneak into the neighbor's house to play through this cave, but it has now been sealed with blue bricks.
There was a thick layer of dust on the wooden beams. When Su Xian touched it, his fingers suddenly turned black. He couldn't help but frown.
I tried to push the blue bricks on the beam, but found that they did not move at all.
"Is it this tight?"
Su Xian stood on the wooden ladder and tried many times, but found that he could not push it forward, let alone remove any blue bricks.
"That's strange. I remember the bricks on top were loose ."
The original owner's memory emerged. He was still a child at that time. If the blue bricks could not be removed, he would not have been able to make a hole and drill into the neighbor's house next door.
Su Xian's hands were covered with dust. He carefully observed the gaps between the blue bricks, and then suddenly realized: "It should be that later, when my father repaired the hole, he applied something similar to cement, which made the gaps fit perfectly..."
Coming down the wooden ladder, Su Hyun went to the kitchen to wash his hands.
I went back to my room and looked up at the blue bricks on the beams, and almost gave up.
"No, no, this matter involves the Liao people, it's a serious matter, and it's also the way I use to break through Tang Ju, I can't just give up like this."
Su Xian calmed down. Since the blue bricks wouldn't move at all, he would just use brute force to break them!
He gritted his teeth and made up his mind to chisel a hole in the wall!
Then he remembered that he had a neighbor on Jiaolou Street, a stonemason, from whom he could borrow a chisel and hammer for stonecutting...
A quarter of an hour later.
Su Xian returned with a chisel and a hammer, climbed up the wooden ladder, and began to chisel the wall.
…
Liu Huixiang's home.
The tofu that was just made today has taken shape. The master and servant came to the stinky tofu fermentation room and started to get busy.
At this time, the sound of tinkling came from not far away.
"Miss, listen, what is that sound? " Zhang Cuihua stopped what she was doing and listened attentively.
"It should be the government office repairing the city wall, right?" Liu Huixiang turned her head to look out the window. Because the county wall was behind the house, she only saw the blue bricks of the wall, which were solid and mottled.
"But the direction of this sound is wrong. Miss, listen, it's not coming from the city wall." Although Liu Huixiang's house has two floors, it is still too short compared to the city wall.
If the government was repairing the city wall, the sound must have come from "the sky".
Liu Huixiang was stunned for a moment, listened carefully for a while, and found that what Zhang Cuihua said made sense.
"From what I hear, this sound seems to be coming from..." Zhang Cuihua looked strange, "from the young lady's boudoir. Could it be that someone is chiseling the wall outside the young lady's boudoir?"
"No, I have to go and take a look." Zhang Cuihua stood up, her fleshy face looked very serious, with a hint of anger in it.
"Cuihua, don't let your imagination run wild." Liu Huixiang instinctively thought it was impossible and laughed at herself, "Even thieves don't dare to come to our house, so who would chisel our wall?"
"Besides, no one would do such a thing in broad daylight, Cuihua, don't think too much about it." Liu Huixiang said slowly.
"But Miss, this voice..."
"Repairing the city wall does not necessarily mean repairing the top of the wall alone. It may also be possible to repair the middle of the wall," said Liu Huixiang.
“That makes sense.”
Zhang Cuihua nodded, then stopped paying attention to the matter and concentrated on her own work.
