Xu Chen and the others left the ancestral shrine of the Wan family, walking on the bluestone road when they came, for some reason, Xu Chen always felt that there was a peeping gaze around him, and he refused to leave for a long time.

Xu Chen realized something, turned his head, and looked around, but found nothing.

In the rice field not far away, Wan Shijun's grandfather changed into a coarse cloth shirt at the moment, standing in the field, looking at this place from afar.

When Xu Chen looked around, he happened to meet the old man's gaze, and the old man smiled slightly.

After Xu Chen saw it, his heart moved, and then he walked straight here, Lu Hao and the others glanced at each other, not knowing what they meant, so they had to follow over.

In the town where the ancestral house of Wan Wan is located, except for many houses in the center of the town, the rest of the place is arable land. The entire ancestral house of the ten thousand families looks like a wealthy family, and there is no difference between it and the ordinary town between the countryside.

Xu Chen walked to the edge of the field, in front of him was a rice field with shallow water, seeing Wan Shijun's grandfather holding his trouser legs like that, standing in the field with mud stains on his legs, Xu Chen smiled and signaled, then took off his shoes and socks, rolled up his trouser legs, stepped into the paddy field as if no one was around, picked up a bundle of seedlings tied on the ridge, and then bent down to plant the seedlings.

Xu Chen's movements are very rhythmic, the movements are not big, but the speed is not slow, a bundle of seedlings is gone after a long time, and the planted seedlings are lined up and neat, and this job is known to have been learned at a glance.

When Lu Hao and the others who followed saw it, they were puzzled, but the eldest brother had already done it, and they couldn't watch it, so they also took off their shoes and socks and went down to the ground.

Except for Lu Hao, the teenagers are all from a hard background, and although they are young, they have not done any less work in the fields. Even though Lu Hao is the son of the county, but his father is a child of a poor family, he has not forgotten to let Lu Hao go to the countryside to experience farm work since he was a child.

Wan Shijun's grandfather saw the teenagers burying their heads in the farm work, and after smiling slightly, he also lowered his head again and got busy.

As the sun set in the west, the golden afterglow fell on the fields, and when the last seedlings entered the soil, the boys stretched their already sore waists, which would have been more than just a sore back, if they hadn't been practicing.

Wan Shijun's grandfather also finished work, and after stepping on the ridge, he called to the teenagers: "Babies, come here!"

Xu Chen took the lead and walked over with his brothers. The old man's body was very strong, and after working on the farm all afternoon, he sat down under a tree at the edge of the field, picked up the clay pot beside him, took a few porcelain bowls, and poured a bowl of water for the boys.

After Xu Chen and the others took it, they roared and let out a long sigh of relief.

"Drink it slowly, so you can taste it. The old man sat on the ground and said to the teenagers with a smile.

"Does the water also have a taste?" Lu Hao asked.

"Naturally, everything in the world has its own taste, why can't there be water?" the old man replied with a smile.

"It's time to eat, come and eat something!" the old man called, and after saying that, he handed a bamboo basket from behind him, and lifted the white cloth, revealing a basket of green rice cakes inside.

Xu Chen smiled and nodded, walked over, and after cleaning his hands, he took out a few rice crackers from the basket and handed them to the brothers one by one, and then picked up a piece and ate it himself.

"It tastes good!" Xu Chen took a bite and praised.

"Then eat more!" said the old man with a hearty smile.

Xu is the taste of rice crackers is really good! sweet and glutinous. Or maybe it's just that the teenagers have been working all afternoon and their stomachs are empty. In short, it didn't take long for the basket of rice crackers to be wiped out.

Xiaoshi habitually stretched out his hand and walked towards the last piece of rice cake in the bamboo basket, but his hand had just touched the rice cake, and when he turned his head, he saw that his brothers had already finished eating, and then looked at the old man opposite, and then quickly retracted his hand and smiled wryly.

When the old man saw it, he couldn't help but laugh and said, "It's the old man's negligence, young people should eat more meat when they are growing up!"

"Come, get some meat!" the old man walked slowly toward the town with his head tilted slightly, and an old man standing quietly by the tree walked quickly towards the town, his movements were slow, but fast.

After a while, the man returned again, carrying a huge food box in his hand, which had several layers, and a full box of chickens, ducks, fish, meat, etc.

After the food box was opened, the fragrance wafted in, and Xiaoshi swallowed his saliva heavily, but he didn't dare to move, but looked at the eldest brother expectantly.

Xu Chen smiled, bowed slightly at the old man, and said, "Thank you!

"No, I'm too old to digest it!," the old man said with a smile.

Then the teenagers started to move, and after a while, the teenagers hiccuped contentedly.

"After finishing the work, it feels good to have a full meal!" Xu Chen said.

"Yes! Sometimes people's requirements are actually very simple, a spoonful of food and a scoop of soup are enough. The old man put on a tea cup in his hand, drank tea, and looked at the town not far away, where the peasants were finishing their work in the fields and walking towards their homes with the curling smoke.

Xu Chen also looked into the distance, Xu was worried a lot, and the tranquility and serenity in the countryside suddenly calmed down his heart, which had been in turmoil recently.

"Yes, a simpler life is actually not bad, and if you want more, you may not be happy!" Xu Chen's words actually yearned for this tranquility and serenity.

Regarding Xu Chen's young age to have such an idea of being born, the old man did not show the slightest surprise on his face, but replied lightly: "There are many people who know this truth, but few can do it. Most of them can't restrain the desires in their hearts, and even if they can control themselves, sometimes the environment forces him to fight. ”

"There is no way! There are only so many things, if you don't fight, you will starve to death, but once you fight for it, the contradictions will come out, and there will be a fight, and then there will be a long series of turmoil, pain, sadness, but helplessness!" Xu Chen's words seemed to be saying to himself.

The old man smiled heartily and said, "What do you want to ask?"

Xu Chen also smiled, and then really asked, "Wanjia seems to be a little different from other families!"

The old man smiled and asked, "Which one do you mean?"

Xu Chen lowered his head and thought about it, and then said, "It's different everywhere!"

"Hehe, it's okay, just say one thing when you think of it!" the old man smiled heartily.

"First of all, in terms of inheritance, the history of the Wanjia family is no worse than that of the seven clans and five surnames, but whether it was in the past or now, the Wanjia seems to be a little low-key. No!, it's very low-key!" Xu Chen asked.

The old man didn't answer directly, but also asked Xu Chen a question: "Then what do you think is the most important thing for a family?"

Xu Chen is not a child of a family, even if he is afraid that such a deep-seated problem is impossible to talk about without the experience of most of his life.

"Honor, spirit?" Xu Chen knew that the answer to such a question should never be such mundane things as land and money, so he only looked for it on the metaphysical level.

The old man shook his head and smiled, and explained, "It's an inheritance!"

Xu Chen thought for a moment, and asked with a head full of confusion: "Inheritance, living for the sake of living?"

"That's right, just live for the sake of living!" the old man smiled and nodded.

"That'...... Isn't that too boring?" asked Xu Chen.

"Hehe, it's not easy to live, it's rare to be able to live a good life, so why ask so much?" said the old man.

"But, how can they be willing?" asked Xu Chen.

Young people are not old men who are about to die, they are full of enthusiasm and have nowhere to release, how can they be willing to shrink into one place and only pursue that simple goal in their lives?

"This has to start with the birth of the family!" the old man took a sip of tea and brewed his words.

"In ancient times, the ancestors drank blood, and there was no family division at that time. But after all, people like to live in groups, and in the face of a harsh environment, only by uniting the strength of everyone can they find more food and live longer. From the first few people gathered in one place, to dozens or hundreds, tribes gradually appeared, and tribes became the standard for distinguishing acquaintances from strangers. ”

"The tribe is the beginning of a family, but it is far from a family. At that time, the festival was truly a common man, and the people of the tribe worked together and distributed the food equally, and naturally there were no contradictions and no strife. Later, some people were stronger, and they found more food, and when they were full, they had a lot left, while those who were weaker did not have enough to eat. The tribal chiefs would then distribute the surplus food from the able-bodied to the thin. Once or twice is fine, but after many times, the strong and healthy people have ideas in their hearts, and with their strong bodies, dissatisfied thoughts, and the power to change, this indisputable era will end sooner or later!"

"Later, the ancestors learned to plant, they learned to domesticate, and there were more sources of food, and although the number of people gathered increased, the surplus still appeared from time to time. So those who have a lot of money become relatively 'rich', and those who have no money to spare naturally become 'poor'. As soon as the difference between the rich and the poor came out, the kind of thinking that everyone was for the common will naturally disappear, and as the number of people increases, there are more strangers around whom they don't know, so suspicion and distrust will follow. At this time, the 'own family' with the same blood in the body is naturally much more credible than outsiders. ”

At this point, a new form of settlement based on blood ties emerged. However, the differentiation between the rich and the poor also led to the disappearance of the tribes, and some tribal chiefs took advantage of the situation to change the governance model, and then the state and the imperial court also appeared one by one. And those 'families' who already had an advantage in the original tribe have become the elders of the new state, and they have a lot of resources in the tribal period, and they naturally still belong to the rulers in the new state. Because the country at this time is more like a federation of tribes, and each tribe is composed of these 'families', so they can naturally be one step ahead of ordinary people. ”

"Governing the family with a family, and managing each 'family' well is equivalent to managing a country well, which is the 'patriarchal system' during the three generations. Subsequently, under the patriarchal system, each clan began to inherit and multiply, and continued to grow with the passage of time, and after a long time, it became a family, a wealthy family for generations!"

Later, the Qin Emperor ruled the world, abolished the feudal and county system, and the family pattern of a small country in the three generations period was gradually broken, and then the families and ethnic groups began to disperse in various places, multiplying and inheriting in the local area, without the prestige of the king's land, but let the family inherit for a longer time. ”

Except for Xu Chen, the rest of the teenagers obviously did not know much about the important historiography of how primitive society, slave society, and feudal society were transformed, and they could only listen to them as if they were listening to a book from heaven.

But Xu Chen had learned this before, and the old man's words seemed a little rough to him, much simpler than what Xu Chen had taught in his previous textbooks.

"So Wanjia's low-key is completely for the sake of allowing Wanjia to continue to pass on, giving up the short-term glory in exchange for the family to continue, right?" Xu Chen asked.

The old man nodded and said, "That's right!"

"Isn't that the same as a turtle with a shrunken head! Shrink your head in and sleep just to live longer!" Xu Chen didn't mean to sneer, he just made an analogy, but I believe that anyone who hears this will not like it in their hearts.

But the old man didn't mind, but smiled calmly: "That's right! It's like a turtle! A turtle lives a long time!"

"Live, just to live! To live for the sake of living!" ......Xu Chen couldn't evaluate the right or wrong of this choice, in fact, there was obviously no right or wrong in such a choice.

"What does the Wan family want?" Xu Chen still couldn't accept this statement that he was only alive for the sake of living.

"Wanjia's choice is always for inheritance, as for each generation will have some of their own ideas, when there is no danger to the inheritance, these self-ideas will also be integrated into Wanjia's actions, become a part of the contemporary Wanjia. The old man replied.

"So what does this generation of Wanjia want to do?" Xu Chen immediately asked, and then couldn't wait to add: "Also, what is this jade pendant, what is it for?"

"What you want to do, that's the business of the current head of the family, and the old man can't control it! As for what this jade pendant is, and what does it do? The old man doesn't know much about it! The jade pendant was also born four hundred years ago, but nothing has happened, and no one knows the role of this jade pendant. Since you have a relationship with it, you may be able to unlock the secret of the jade pendant here!"

The old man's words sounded very unreliable, but Xu Chen didn't say anything after listening to it, he actually believed him.

And as far as I know, it seems that every 20 families will inherit the position of head of the family once every 20 years, and why is this? The Son of Heaven in the Imperial City of Chang'an is now almost as old as the old grandfather, but people have no intention of abdicating at all, not to mention those officials who are already seventy or eighty years old still occupy their positions and refuse to step down. It is ...... that the heads of the Wan family have abdicated in the prime of life, but they have handed over the family to a young man who has just won the crown," Xu Chen then asked.

The old man smiled "haha" and said: "It's too child's play? Our sons and daughters of the Wan family are not so weak, and after so many years, isn't the family supported by these young people?

"Hehe, you seem to have exceeded the scope of cultivating young people, right?" Xu Chen said with a smile, Wan Jia's actions are clearly to complete the transfer of power, and it is not as simple as just cultivating young children.

"And it's impossible for the Wan family to find someone as good as Brother Wan and his father every time, right? If there is only one gentleman, how can it be good?

And the strange thing is that the old man did not like it in the slightest, and still patiently explained to him: "No! Although the head of each generation of the family has high and low ability, his ability is enough to be qualified for the position of the head of the family. And those ignorant children you said, there is not a single one in the Wan family!"

"How is this possible?" Xu Chen was shocked inexplicably.

A family without prostitutes? It's simply a green house without prostitutes, okay!

The old man smiled proudly, pointed to a house not far away, and said to Xu Chen, "Do you see there?"

Xu Chen asked, "Where is it?"

The old man replied, "The answer you want is there!"

"Uh...... Can I go and take a look?" Xu Chen didn't seem to know how presumptuous his mention was, but just wanted to find out clearly.

"Okay, let's go together!" said the old man, who stood up and led the boys towards the house.

The house is big, very big!

What Xu Chen saw was only a wall of the house, and now when he walked into the main gate, he found that the house was spacious.

As soon as you enter, you will see that the entire courtyard is divided into several parts.

"Well, this is where the babies live when they are born! The parents of the children of the family will stay here until they give birth. There are the best doctors and the best stable women in it. Of course, none of this is a good family. But when the child is born, until he reaches the age of three, his parents must always live here to take care of the child, and they themselves take care of the child! Not a single subordinate! Even the head of the house is not exempt, he can go to work during the day, and he must come back at night!"

Then, after the children are three years old, there will be a teacher at home to teach them together. There are many lessons, so I won't go into details! The key is to make them understand that they are all ten thousand families, and they are all one family!" the old man kept recounting.

"Hehe, is this useful? In the face of power, wealth, and desire, will there be fewer fratricidal?" Xu Chen questioned.

The old man smiled and replied: "The specific effect is determined by the course of the professor, so I won't say much about this! In short, after so many years, the children taught by these methods have not made any major mistakes." ”

"As for the inheritance of the position of the head of the family, there has never been a distinction between descendants in the ten thousand families, and it is possible for the school-age children of any ten thousand families. In addition, the position of the head of the family has never been a symbol of power, but a heavy responsibility, and each generation of these stinky boys, one by one, have been taught to be wild, and would rather go out to see the world than stay at home and keep the house!" the old man scolded with a smile, but his face was full of joy.

……

When night fell, Xu Chen and the others left the town, looked back at the lights of the ten thousand homes, and the brothers couldn't calm down for a long time......

At this time, in the ghost market of Wuyue Town, several black shadows were jumping in the night......