ragginovel Chapter 94 On the River
Chapter 94 On the River
Ten days later.
On the dock.
Yang Silang, Zhu Tong, and Wang Daniu waved to the crowd from the boat.
After passing the imperial examination, Yang Silang had been away from Gongzhou Prefecture for more than four months to avoid the messy people who came to curry favor with him. Logically, his home should have been quiet by now.
Everything in the provincial capital has been taken care of.
Having mastered the Five Harmonies Fist, and having successfully completed the pursuit, I have earned merit and can now enter the provincial capital's martial arts academy once a month to further study and learn martial arts.
Most importantly, Tong Renyuan's attitude towards sparring is getting worse and worse. He can't even keep up with the time it takes to drink a cup of tea. In recent days, he has been avoiding sparring with Yang Silang, citing backaches or other pains as excuses.
Since he could no longer improve his skills by staying in the provincial capital, Yang Silang decided to leave and go home.
To be honest, after being away for more than 100 days, I've started to miss my family. I've received a few letters from my older sister, who said that things have changed a lot at home, but I wonder what they look like now.
After discussing it with Zhu Tong and Wang Daniu, the three of them immediately agreed.
Wang Daniu had become a Copper-Skinned Warrior and couldn't wait to show it off to Xiong Shan and Li Erhu. Otherwise, all the suffering he had endured to become a Copper-Skinned Warrior would have been for nothing.
Zhu Tong has already mastered the current stage of the Mountain Shaking Fist; the rest is a matter of gradual practice and cannot be rushed.
All three wanted to go home, so they booked a boat and bid farewell to the Tong family.
Tong Renyuan breathed a sigh of relief, as if he couldn't wait for the three of them to leave.
Only Tong Baisui was truly reluctant to part with them. After the three of them left, a bunch of junior disciples in the martial arts school were all obsequious to him, and there wasn't a single person he could talk to with peace of mind.
The three of them boarded the ship early this morning.
Tong Baisui sat on the sedan chair below, waving goodbye to the boat above with reluctance, until the sails disappeared into the distance and the boat was no longer visible, before he finally looked away.
Inside the cabin.
The three of them had just sat down.
Wang Daniu exclaimed "Eh!", stood up and looked around, and found that many parts of the cabin had been repaired, and the interior layout was strangely familiar.
"No way? Have we gotten ourselves on a sinking ship again?"
He was muttering to himself.
The cabin door opened.
"Distinguished guests, please take a short rest..." The boat captain said half a sentence, but when he saw the three people's faces, his smile froze.
Yang, Zhu, and Wang were also somewhat embarrassed.
Good heavens, they've actually boarded that same dilapidated ship they used to take the martial arts exam!
"Three distinguished guests..." The boat captain said with a bitter face, almost in tears.
The three of them also looked unwell.
The memory of that time with the toad was just too vivid.
Even if they had to do it all over again, no one wanted to go through it again. If things went wrong, the entire crew would have to feed the monster.
The boatman gave a sheepish greeting and slunk away.
"This trip should be relatively safe, right?" Zhu Tong asked nervously. Last time, there was Ma Qianli, but this time, Qianli Ma didn't come along.
Wang Daniu patted his chest.
"Last time, I wasn't a copper-skinned warrior!"
"This time I'm in! What's there to be afraid of!"
Yang Silang laughed heartily.
"We're not that unlucky. It won't happen to us every time. Don't worry about it."
"Just like Da Niu said, the three of us have undergone a complete transformation, our strength has greatly increased, and if there really is a water demon, we should consider it a windfall!"
With Yang Silang as their pillar of support, the two finally calmed down.
The three of them curiously went out of the cabin to take a complete look at the ship. Sure enough, it was the same ship from before, with traces of wooden repairs visible everywhere. The old and new wood were mixed together, making it very conspicuous.
In addition, most of the original crew members have been replaced, presumably because some were too scared to continue sailing.
Some crew members who had experienced the ordeal firsthand trembled at the sight of the three; but others were overjoyed – with these three protecting them, they feared no monsters whatsoever.
The three of them walked around for a while and then returned to the cabin to rest.
Bored, Yang Silang took out "The Record of Encounters with Demons" from his pocket to read. He had been busy with his schedule for the past few months and hadn't read this otherworldly version of Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio for a long time. Now was the perfect time to pass the time.
This time, Gu Zhuzi told a short story.
There was a scholar who disliked reading but had a deep passion for painting. Even after starting a family, he repeatedly failed the imperial examinations. Fortunately, his ancestors left him a vast fortune, enough for him to live comfortably with his wife and daughter without worrying about making a living.
His wife was originally from a respectable family, but she was too strict. She forbade him from painting and forced him to study diligently. She was very strict and demanding.
The scholar was troubled. One day, he secretly painted a picture of his family of three. His wife discovered it and he thought he was going to get a good scolding. But to his surprise, his wife only muttered a few words.
From then on, the scholar opened up a new world. He discovered that as long as he painted people, or more precisely, as long as he painted his wife, he would not be scolded.
So he came up with a novel idea: he pretended to read every day, but actually he was painting portraits, mainly of his wife. Of course, the wife in his paintings was more perfect; she was the wife of his imagination.
Seeing how beautifully her scholar husband had painted her, the wife couldn't bring herself to criticize him, but she only allowed him to paint one picture a month.
The scholar had a sudden inspiration: he prepared two scrolls each day, one half-finished, to appease his wife's inspections, and added a couple of strokes each day to make it look presentable.
Another portrait of his wife could be completed that same day, and then hidden away.
After a year, he had accumulated a room full of portraits of his wife, almost overflowing with them. In the paintings, his wife was depicted as gentle, dignified, considerate, and compliant.
In reality, his wife was getting annoyed by his habit of drawing himself over and over again every month. One day, she said that he should stop drawing himself and instead draw flowers and plants instead.
The scholar was furious.
He actually fell in love with the wife in the painting, and cried alone in front of a room full of painted wives, wishing that "you" could come to life and truly be my wife.
He cried until he was exhausted, then fell into a deep sleep.
In my dream, a voice said, "As you wish."
When he woke up again, he found that all the portraits in the room had turned into blank sheets of paper. He was terrified. Suddenly, there was a commotion in the backyard, saying that his wife had fallen into the water.
After a lot of trouble.
The lady was rescued and woke up, and suddenly her personality changed. She spoke gently, was kind, and treated him very well. She was just like the wife in his dreams.
The scholar asked his wife tremblingly whether she was a real person or a paper doll.
The lady answered frankly that she was the wife in the painting, and that the scholar had summoned and created her by accumulating immense power of his longing. As for the real wife, she had already suffered a calamity in the water, and it had nothing to do with her.
The scholar was frightened, but as he spent more time with the woman in the painting, he found her to be just like a real person. She could eat and sleep, and even their intimate moments were incredibly harmonious. She had a good personality, and eventually she even bore him a son. She was no different from a real woman.
He felt that this was not bad.
There's just one thing.
In the painting, his wife follows his every other trait, but like a real wife, she forbids him from painting anymore, saying he should study hard.
The scholar won the wife of his dreams, but in the end he couldn't keep his greatest passion and didn't live the life he wanted. He lived a very depressed life.
He sighed deeply, wondering why even his ideal wife, whom he had created, could hinder his painting.
Gu Zhu Zi's final comment: "Is the wife in your painting just a paper doll you created to replace her?"
Yang Silang clicked his tongue in amazement. It was the first time he had ever seen a story in a book where the monsters didn't harm people but instead lived peacefully as wives and mothers. It was this scholar who was a bit clueless. The world is truly full of wonders.
Of course, the demon in the painting did not harm the scholar, but it is still doubtful whether the real lady was killed by the demon or drowned.
After drifting on the river for more than ten days, nothing unexpected happened this time.
On that day, the ship successfully docked.
Yang Silang and his group disembarked, climbed the steps, and went home.
To avoid attracting attention, we deliberately did not disembark at Moon Bay Wharf this time.
Meanwhile, Yang and Wang returned to the alley entrance, and both of them opened their mouths wide.
The Yang family originally consisted of two courtyards, one large and one small, combined together. The houses were made of wood with blue tiles, and the beams, pillars, and walls were all made of wood. In short, apart from the blue tiles on the roof, everything else was made of wood. Such courtyards were inexpensive.
But now, the original location of the Yang family is surrounded by tightly laid water-polished blue bricks, and the door is made of black lacquered hardwood, which is three feet higher than the neighbor's house. There is also a martial arts champion plaque hanging on it, and a row of hitching posts stands outside.
hiss……
Wang Daniu gasped and looked at Yang Silang blankly.
"Fourth Brother, have we come to the wrong place?"