My father chose me to be his stand-in to teach in the museum, but it was not a temporary measure, but before he took charge of the family affairs, when my grandfather was still alive, he intended to train me as the heir of the "reading" of this "reading and farming" family. It was only because of the changes within the family that I was pushed into the school prematurely.

I have an older sister who is married. A younger brother, whose temper is quite similar to that of his second uncle, showed a stubborn nature at a young age, and it is obviously not suitable to be a candidate for Mr. Teach. If my father also has a secret selfishness, this is an example: my uncle's second son is very smart, but my father still chose me.

Reading and practicing calligraphy, needless to say, is doubly strict with me. Especially after my father had the idea of quitting, he became more and more strict with me, and the planks made of willow wood began to beat my palms, but the reason was that I had written a certain drawing of a word out of the willow body, or only stopped for a few seconds when reciting it. Most importantly, I was trained mentally and behaviorally, with the goal of being a role model for a future gentleman. "Be a teacher!" was the first thing he said to me every time he lectured me.

"Be a teacher—" said my father, "and sit upright, and be dignified." ”

I straightened my chest and straightened my waist with my knees together. It's really not difficult to do this, but the hard thing is to hold on. Before I finished writing the two big characters, my waist was sore, and my knees were separated, and I was caught off guard, and the willow board slapped on my waist and legs, and I immediately sat up straight, and I almost fell off the chair several times, and when I looked back, my father looked at me without distress.

"Be a teacher—" said my father, "and there is a trend." Walk steadily, not in a hurry or slowly. If the head is raised high, it looks arrogant, and when it is lowered, it is aggrieved. Looking at eye level, looking left and right looks frivolous......"

I began to pay attention to the way I walked.

"Be a teacher," said my father, "speak appropriately, and speak reasonably." Speak with up and down and left and right, not just to speak freely. Out of your own mouth, you must enter the ears of others......"

All these teachings, although very difficult for a person like me who has just turned seventeen or eighteen, can after all, after all, it can be tempered and gradually improved over a long period of time. What I couldn't accept the most was my father's arbitrariness and brutality in my choice of marriage.

The strict taboo against the opposite sex began when I put on muddy crotch pants. My father didn't allow me to play with any of the girls in the village at all, and he didn't allow me to listen to the sour stories between men and women that adults told when they were together. However, when I was just 18 years old, my father suddenly decided to marry me. He thought he had to do it before his son walked into the school before he could safely let me go to the hall. When a man without a wife enters the sacred school, there seems to him some kind of danger lurking.

What an ugly daughter-in-law my father married me!

Half a month after marriage, not only did I not move a finger from her, but I didn't even bother to say a word to her, except that I had to go into the wing room to sleep at night, I didn't even have the interest in entering the house during the day. But I don't dare to express any dissatisfaction, my parents' orders!

My father still saw my intentions, and one day, he called me into the upper room where he lived alone, with a ** look.

"You seem to be upset lately?"

"Nope. Father. ”

"I can see that. What's on your mind, you say. ”

"Dad, no. ”

"Then I'll say it - you're not satisfied with your insiders and think they're ugly, aren't you?"

“…… No. ”

I didn't dare to look up, and I couldn't hold back my tears.

"This is the person I chose for you. Father said. I didn't expect that. He said, "If a man is determined, he must first pass the beauty pass, and the female sex is more vicious than the flood beast, not to mention that the king of Shang died because of his praise, nor does he say that the king of Tang because of the noble concubine chaos of the dynasty, a person who wants to become a student, is lazy in women, indulges in lewd pleasures, and it is difficult to become a great weapon after all......"

I raised my head in surprise and glanced at my father, but under the stern brows, there was a look of sincerity and frank sincerity, which made me feel that I was too ignorant. When my husband established a country, settled down and became a student, how could he covet women! When I was 18 years old, I had never heard the truth of how to treat marriage, but my father gave me his first frank lecture today, and I realized the truth of life.

The father immediately turned his head and motioned to the mother. My mother took out a blue robe from the cupboard, gave it to me, and told me to change it. When I put on the blue cloth robe that my mother had sewn with her own hands, I suddenly felt a thump in my heart, and I felt that I had grown up all at once! Clothing is not only an external thing to protect people from the cold. After wearing the blue robe, there is a strange solemn feeling when I lift my feet and walk.

My father led me out of the upper room and stood in the outer room. On the square table against the wall, the tablet of the ancestors of the Xu family is respected, and the grandfather Xu Jingru left a half-length photo before his death, embedded in a nanmu frame, and placed in the middle of the table. My father lit the red lacquer wax with his own hands, inserted purple incense, bowed, knelt down three times, and then stood on the side of the altar and said loudly: "Incense-"

I took two steps forward, stood in front of the altar, took out five purple incense sticks from the incense stick, gently brushed them neatly, lit them on the burning candle, and carefully inserted them into the incense burner. After the reinsertion, I hung my head and waited.

"Bye-" my father shouted.

I clasped my fists and shook them.

"Kowtow—"

I knelt in front of the ancestral god tablet, kowtowed three times, and then raised my head and waited for my father to give the order.

My father took out a folded piece of white paper from his waist, unfolded it, and led me to swear to my ancestors:

"If you are not filial piety, you should be cautious and kneel in front of the ancestors. Committed to studying, spare no effort. Don't seek fame, don't seek vanity, don't indulge in lust. Only respect the sages, only seek accessibility, self-cultivation, glorify the ancestors, and pray for the protection of the ancestors......"

Father reads a sentence, and I repeat it, until it is finished. I stood at the table in a daze, terrified, not knowing whether to stand now or walk away. My father stared at me and said:

"Tomorrow, you go to the gym to teach!"

The ceremony in which I sat in place of my father was held in the Temple of Literature. It is the winter solstice solar term. On the temple platform of a single house, there is a clay statue of Mr. Confucius, the ancestor of Chinese culture. The cobwebs on the beams and the rat droppings on the ground were cleaned. Inside and outside the Temple of Literature, it was crowded with private school students and enthusiastic farmers. Yang Guinian, the most important and decent figure in Yang Xu Village, wore a cotton robe and walked into the Confucian Temple with the help of Yang Buming, the deacon of the school, and everyone trembled to get out of the way.

I stood next to my father, very uncomfortable, but there was a secret superiority in my heart. Here, in front of the statue of Mr. Confucius, there are all the leading figures of Yangxu Village, and I am also standing here. Outside the door, the snow was crowded with the clumsy but zealous farmers, who, after cleaning their houses, had all consciously retreated to the door when it was time for the official opening of the sacrifice.

Yang Buming presided over the sacrifice, first wax, then incense, and then in Yang Buming's chanting, all the villagers who participated in the memorial outside the house, regardless of the age and inferiority, all knelt down, fried noodles and dried fruits were placed in front of Mr. Kong in Yang Buming's recitation. In the entire Temple of Literature, the candlelight is shining, the purple incense is permeated, and the music and drums are playing, creating a sacred, **, solemn atmosphere.

Deacon Yang Buming handed a piece of red silk to Yang Guinian, and the supreme ruler of Yang Xu Village gave my father a red coat and rewarded him with honorable retirement. Yang Guinian pinched the red silk in both hands, put it on his father's right shoulder, and tied it diagonally through his chest and back under his left armpit. When I saw it, my father quickly knelt down, bowed deeply and repeatedly, and when he stood up, he was so excited that he burst into tears. This cold man actually shed tears. He bit his cheek bone to keep the tears from spilling out of his eyes. It was the first time I saw my father cry. In the past, I could not see a single smile or a tear from my father. The tears in his eyes showed something that he had never seen before, which was admirable and sympathetic. This stern father never induces sympathy and pity for him, and his countenance and eyes are always tough and majestic, which can only make people fearful, and no one can be pitied. Now, his face was like a crack in the cloudy sky, revealing a blue sky, and a weak and moving ray of sunlight poured down.

My father gave a few words of sincere thanks, and Deacon Yang Buming thanked my father on behalf of all the parents of the children attending the school and encouraged me to take office. Yang Guinian didn't speak, just nodded, which was the highest reward.

As soon as the memorial service was over, I walked out of the Temple of Literature with my father. As soon as he went out, the old farmer surrounded his father, pulled him by the sleeve, patted him on the back, stroked the dazzling red silk, and said inaudible words of gratitude to Dade. As I stood beside me, I was also very excited to receive the sincere encouragement of the old farmers, because the spiritual and moral peak set up by my grandfather and father in Yangxu Village was much more majestic than the power and property of the Yang family! From today onwards, I will take over my father and enter that school hall and become a gentleman who will be noticed by all ages!

Can that black chair and that black square drawer table sit firmly? It will take at least 20 years until it is handed over to one of my unformed descendants in the future, right? How easy it is to not make a mistake in more than 20 years, not to discredit the Xu family, not to leave a handle for the Yang family, and not to be kicked out of the school by everyone! If you want to get a good ending, you must be like your father......

The private school in the countryside also has a winter vacation, and the winter solstice solar term of the lunar calendar every year is the school day.

On the fifteenth day of the first lunar month, the private school started again. I put on a blue cloth robe, and the first time I went to the museum, I couldn't settle down. Walking out of the gatehouse carved with the words "Reading and Cultivating Heirlooms" in my house, it seems that this village alley has become very strange overnight, and those large and small trees in the streets, hugging the thick ancient acacia and the straight aspen, and the catalpa trees that bear long pods like garlic sprouts in summer, now seem to be looking at me, to see if my eighteen-year-old gentleman will walk like his husband! In those crowded gatehouses, someone is peeping at my ridiculous walking posture? From the street gate of my house to the school, I have to go to the cross of the street, and then turn into the south lane, the distance is not close! In any case, I have walked out of the street gate, and there is no room for retreat, only to walk forward. At this time, when I opened the dictionary when I was faced with a familiar word that I couldn't really pronounce, I thought of my father's walking posture. How many times have I seen my father walking in the alleys of the village when he came to school, and his instructions on how to walk were vague.

I raised my head, like my father, neither looking up nor lowering, my eyes were level, the base of my neck was on my head, I never looked to the left or right, and I tried to walk forward unhurriedly.

"Xingwa...... Not...... Mr. Xu ...... "Uncle Yang greeted me with a smile, and realized that he shouldn't have called me by my nickname today, so he immediately changed his words, and his face showed a look of apology for making a mistake, "Are you going to the museum?"

"Oh! yes. I immediately stood still, and gave a sincere answer to his earnest question, but when I did, I didn't know what to say. I immediately realized that it was not the right thing to stop, but to greet anyone, as my father did, and to greet anyone purely out of courtesy, just nodding his head and walking straight through...... I immediately turned around and left.

Walking into the black lacquered door of the school, in the three open tiled rooms, the students had already cleaned the classrooms, filled with square tables and stools that the students themselves had brought from home, arranged neatly, and around the desks sat students of great age differences, endorsing books in wahwawah. For seven or eight years before today, I had been sitting at the first table in the front left row of this school, just a few tunnels away from my father's desk in front of the window. This position was chosen for me by my father, and it has not changed from the first day I entered this school to receive my father's initiation, and until I will sit at the teaching desk in front of the window today. From the first day I played, I knew that my father was going to put me in the unobstructed area where his vision would be able to scan first...... Now, that position is occupied by the initiators who have just entered the school.

In addition to the new students, the classroom was full of acquaintances, peers, and classmates from the village who were classmates with me before the Spring Festival, some of whom were taller and stronger than me. I fully know how they and my father are mischievous, especially Yang Mawa and Xu Lian, who are as stupid as pigs in school, but they have all the tricks to do. As soon as I entered the door, I saw their mysterious faces, and I was a little frightened. Those ill-intentioned faces!

I immediately walked over to the square desk, oblivious to the strange-looking faces. I sat down in the straight-backed black lacquered wooden chair where my father had sit, and my waist seemed to be naturally straightened, and that's how my father sits. I recalled my father's work routine, sat down, arranged the four treasures on the table, wiped the table, and then opened the book or sharpened the ink in the inkstone. As soon as you hear an unusual noise in the classroom, you will turn your head, scan it, and wait for the whole school to return to a normal atmosphere, and then look down to read a book or practice writing.

My father usually reads first and then writes when he goes to school, and I should do the same, except today, when reading is hard to focus on, and writing is definitely better for stabilizing my mood. I dripping water on the stone inkstone used by my father, pinching the ink ingot with my three fingers and grinding it slowly. Grinding ink should also be like a gentleman's posture of grinding ink, not like those students below, the best posture is of course only the posture of the father grinding ink.

The ink is polished. On the corner of the table was a stack of squared lattice papers, handed in by the students, waiting for me to write block letters in those spaces, and then they would take them back and lay them out under the imitation paper to trace. I took off a piece of blank paper, pulled out a brush from the copper cap, dipped it in ink, and just wrote down a word, when suddenly I heard a cry in my ear:

"Brother Xingwa—"

As soon as my heart fluttered, I immediately turned my head sideways and saw the youngest son of the seventh uncle in my clan standing in front of me, smiling at me like a monkey: "Give me a shadow grid." ”

There was a burst of laughter in the classroom.

In the laughter, my face was a little hot, a little embarrassed, and a little nervous. After the schoolchildren enter the school, they should all be called sir, how can they be called brother according to the seniority in the village! But he is an enlightened student who has just entered the school, and he may not understand, or he may have forgotten the proper teaching of his parents before entering the school! I had no choice but to say, "You put it down and go!" He returned to his seat, and the laughter disappeared.

I turned my head again to write, and as soon as I wrote two words, another voice sounded in my ears:

"Mr. Blue Robe—"

There was a bang in my head, and in my ears came the sound of unbridled laughter in the school. I turned my head and saw a stupid smiling face, a half-silly older child in the village. The corners of his mouth were drooling, one hand was scratching his ass behind his back, and he was smirking smirked, and he was almost as tall as me, with his shoulders and arms, like a roof truss that didn't fit properly, loose and loose. This old student, who has been studying for seven or eight years, can't recognize more than 200 words, and can't play the "three returns" in the abacus, but he has a thick family background, and he is his father's only root in the top door, so he is soaking in the school. This fool, breaking his head, would not have given me such a nickname, and I immediately asked, "Who told you to call me that?"

The laughter in the classroom stopped abruptly, and there was a lot of anticipation lurking in the silence.

He ...... He doesn't call me by his name. Said the fool.

"You say—who is he?" I asked.

"I don't dare say it—he hit me!" the fool was afraid.

"I'll hit you first!" I said.

I touched the board from the table, and the willow board, which had been slid away by my father's hand, was in my hand, and I felt a little apprehensive in my heart, and I said without backing down, "Stretch out your hand!"

The fool's face changed instantly, a shadow of horror flashed in his eyes, and he hid his hands behind his back.

I pulled a left hand from behind his back and slapped a board, and the fool immediately bent down, covered his left hand with his right hand and cried: "Ma Wazi, × your mother! You taught me to call people 'Mr. Blue Robe' and let me be beaten...... Woowoowoooooooo......oo

I immediately stood up and looked at Yang Mawa, the "bad head" who secretly came up with ghost ideas to make trouble. If I don't hold this Yang Mawa, it will be rare for me to sit comfortably in this chair in the future. I ordered: "Yang Mawa, come ahead!"

Yang Mawa Hu did not lose his might, shook his head, and walked forward. Although he is not tall, he is not young, and he is also an old student. He bowed to me as if he were on an errand, and then stopped.

"Did you instigate him?" I asked.

"Nope. He replied calmly, prepared.

"That's you!" the fool glared, "you say ......"

"Who can testify?" Yang Mawa was unhurried.

"......," the fool glared urgently.

"Don't testify!" I couldn't bear this prank anymore, "Reach out—"

Yang Mawa held out her hand. A look of helplessness slipped through his eyes, and he looked at me or anyone nonchalantly, nonchalantly at the opposite wall.

I tapped the board, and the hand flashed downwards and came up again, without dodging or hearing the moans of the beater. I pulled another board, and my hand was still sticking out. I was a little angry, I wanted to relieve his anger after teaching him a lesson, but I didn't expect to get more and more angry. The hand that reached out to me seemed to be a rubber hand, and I couldn't hear the ** of the beater, let alone the cry for mercy, and I suddenly felt that the hand was demonstrating against me, and even contemptuous of me. The classroom was quiet, and not a single sound could be heard. I felt that the confrontation between the two sides was continuing, and I could not waver in the slightest, otherwise I would be overwhelmed and it would be difficult to get up. I didn't say anything, I didn't look at anyone, I just looked at the hand that struck. I remember that my father was like this when he played the board, never looking at the faces of the people who were beaten, and he didn't listen to their moans and begs for mercy, but only hit enough numbers to be beaten. I pulled five boards......

The fool suddenly fell to his knees, hugged my board, and cried, "First ...... Ma Wa asked me to call you 'Mr. Blue Robe', and I said you want to be a thug, and he said no, you and we are both studying together, and we can't beat hands. He told me to play with you, 'Mr. Blue Robe...... I won't ...... it again."

I seemed to feel that my arm was a little heavy and I couldn't lift it, and then I thought about it, if Ma Wa didn't open his mouth all the time, could I keep fighting?

The fool got up first, bowed deeply, and ran down, while Yang Marwa bowed politely and walked slowly back to his seat.

I sat down again, picked up the brush, and inscribed the unfinished shadow grid, but my hands were shaking. The first time I hit someone, I didn't enjoy the pleasure of beating people in my heart, but added a wisp of indescribable taste......