"The fourth brother has changed a lot, this dish hasn't moved much, you can eat some too."

Late at night, Guan Fengsheng greeted his wife and daughter, Tian Dayou and Li Shi had already said goodbye, and there were three men and three women in his family in the house.

"What's the use of changing? In the past ten years, it has been our turn again. ”

Sekida sighed in mourning.

Guan Fengsheng stopped his wife with a cold look, let the two daughters eat, and dragged Guan Tian into the inner room.

"You also know that this is a ten-year urge, Brother Li's family has fallen to the present, and the fourth brother is left alone, and this year I am the first to be the first in the round, no matter how I have to protect him and save his family's property."

Guan Fengsheng suppressed his voice and said to his wife.

"Why don't you protect him this year? Since Brother Li left, haven't you been protecting him for the past three years? Our family's paddy fields are gone, and there are only three acres of ration fields left, and it depends on you to work in the mine, how else can you protect him!? ”

Guan Tian's words were full of grievances.

"Three years? Three years is nothing, I have to protect him for the rest of my life! I, Guan Fengsheng, can live, it's all because of Brother Li's benevolence! Back then, he simply dragged me up like a son, not for me, how could the three brothers above the fourth brother die early? Brother Li is just like my old man! The fourth brother is my brother! If you sell me, you won't be able to repay this kindness! ”

Guan Fengsheng was excited, if there was a table in front of him, most of them would have been smashed by him.

"Yes! It's your brother! You have to promise Yun Niang to him, not to mention, but also to compensate him for our entire family! My brother was in the first place last year, and in order to finish the grain for him, he also sold the field, when will he pay off the favor of the Li family? Why is my life so bitter......"

Sekida finally couldn't help crying.

The two sisters in the outhouse heard wrongly, and after eating in twos and threes, they packed up lightly and retreated into their huts.

Guan Tian vented and calmed down.

"My brother can't count on it, and the rest of the village can be counted on without being collected and collected. Our family, in addition to this homestead, only those three acres of ration fields, how else can you protect him? Do you want our mother and daughter to go to my brother so that you can sell this homestead and dry land? ”

Guan Fengsheng muttered in his throat, it seemed that he really had this plan, and after thinking about it, he finally gave up. If there is no ration field, it is secondary, and if there is no homestead, even if their family is broken, even if they ignore his family, after this year, if they want to protect Li Shi again, they can't do anything, let alone marry their daughter.

"I still have a way, what Master Zhong mentioned before, as long as I agree, it will be a harvest of hundreds of taels of silver."

"No way!"

As soon as he said this, Guan Tian screamed in horror.

"No! If you put on Master Zhong's things, you will fall into it in this life! How did the Wu family and the Jia family end up in this field? That's not just about money! ”

Guan Fengsheng snorted and didn't speak again.

"Of course, we have to repay the kindness, but we also have to be able to afford it, this year...... Even if our family does its best to the last hand! ”

Sekida gritted his teeth and backed down.

"Don't move the idea of the ration field, without that field, we won't even be able to eat, and it won't sell for a few taels of silver. Mrs. Liu told me before, saying that Master Zhong has seen a foreign barbarian, and he likes the face of the second sister very much, if the second sister is ...... If you send it out, not only can you get some silver, but Master Zhong can also instruct Lai Yipin to collect less miscellaneous pies......"

Sekida dodged and said this very hard.

"Second sister? She's our own daughter! ”

Guan Feng was angry and didn't fight, and his palm waved, and it was about to fall on Guan Tian's face.

"Don't you want to repay the favor? Why, even my daughter is reluctant? ”

Guan Tian's stubborn face did not avoid that hand, Guan Fengsheng gritted his teeth, and his palm fell. His eyes flickered, as if he was seriously considering this option, and finally shook his head.

"No, no! The fourth brother likes the second sister very much, and this is not to his liking. ”

With a snap, Guan Tian's slap slapped Guan Fengsheng's face.

"The fourth brother is not your brother, he is your father!"

Outside, two figures crept back into another small mud hut.

"Your fourth brother is really so good, please let him let our family go......"

On the same bed made of hay, Guan Yunniang wiped her tears and said this to Second Sister Guan beside her.

"The fourth brother is so good to me, it's time for me to repay him."

Second Sister Guan said in a low voice, and the moonlight shone down through the cracks in the roof, reflecting on her deep eyes, flashing with a crystal halo.

"I really didn't expect that the original 'me' actually had the same aesthetics as the real me."

At night, lighting the oil lamp, Li Xi sketched on the paper with a brush while walking, and the delicate little face of Second Sister Guan also scooped up more memory fragments. The little girl has an abnormal appearance, she has been called "Little Fanpo" since she was a child, or he "Li Si" has a lot of protection, not only stopping everyone and not letting her be bullied, but also always reading and writing, no wonder the little girl regards him as a close relative.

But Li Xi couldn't imagine that there was someone whose aesthetics were similar to him, and he had coveted Second Sister Guan for a long time.

"Do you want to continue reading?"

Li Xi pulled back his thoughts, pondered for a moment, and crossed out the word "official" on the paper.

The road of the Qing Dynasty's official eunuchs was not so easy to follow, just take the lowest level of talent as an example. The college examination is held twice every three years, and if you pass it, you will be a talent, but on average in the whole country, there are only about a dozen people per county and each session. As for the content of the exam, Baguwen, that is not something he can calm down and study.

What's more, if he wants to take the road of the official eunuch, he can't guarantee that he can cover his surname, he is a reporter, and it's okay to pretend to be lurking with his surname for the time being, but if he wants to do the kind of "dead room" that has not bottomed out for ten years, it is not that material. Maybe he was in the Forbidden City, and when he was summoned by the emperor to see His Majesty, he couldn't help but rush up and strangled the Tartar Emperor to death.

But the road of the official eunuchs of the Qing Dynasty is also very easy to walk, money, and the real price. In the thirty-ninth year of Qianlong, the current price was 9,600 taels for Wupin Jingguan and 4,620 taels for Qipin Zhixian. The current price of the twenty-sixth year of Guangxu, the five products of Jingguan 2073 taels, the seven pins of Zhixian 999 taels, look, it is still a promotional price. Of course, this is just an official, and buying vacancies is another menu.

It's just that during this Kangxi period, selling officials has not yet been normalized, and Kangxi is only a temporary surname to donate, before leveling the three feudatories, and then governing the river for disaster relief, during the conquest of Galdan, he has sold petty officials such as county Cheng. Some of the systems are "donated", which can be qualified as prisoners. His tenant Zhong Lao Ye Zhong is in the upper position, has dozens of hectares of fields, several mountain farms, and also donated a prisoner, but he has never been to school, let alone the examination of people, what he wants is the identity of a prisoner.

It's still one word, money.

"So, let's go straight to ......"

Then Li Xi wrote "gold" on the paper, his eyes flickered for a while, and then crossed out again.

Money, he didn't have it, but God didn't treat him too badly after all, he had a gold mine!

If you remember correctly, the Jiguan Mountain gold mine that I went to interview before crossing over, whether it was the front mountain or the back mountain, was not discovered in the Qing Dynasty!

But as the saying goes, "the husband is not guilty, but he is guilty", and the gold mine needs a large number of people to pan for gold, with a poor man like him now, the gold mine is the moon in the sky, you can only look up, you can't open your mouth to gnaw.

You have to have a certain amount of strength to gnaw down that gold mine. So the question comes back, how do you get started? If you think about it along these lines, the gold mine is no longer an important thing.

"It seems that I still have to use my golden finger, but I don't know if I can really get my wish comfortably in this Manchu Dynasty."

Li Shi sighed and determined his direction, but he always had a faint sense of unease. This is not the Song and Ming dynasties, the imperial court is the imperial court of the Tartars, and it has an extra layer of precautions for the grass people. Once he opens the golden finger, in this era, it is like a thorn, and what kind of trouble it will incur, he can hardly predict.

"What big things can you accomplish!?"

Thinking of the word "Tartar", Li Xian was bold and bold, and tore all his doubts apart.

His mind was agitated, and he couldn't sleep all night, and when Li Xi was awakened by the sound of chickens crowing outside the window, he found that the sky was white.

Packed up the ghost-painted peach-like paper, Li Xian sighed that this brush was really not a suitable writing tool, and the sound of hurried footsteps outside the door sounded, and before he could react, the broken wooden door was pushed open, and a face wrapped in the morning appeared, it was Guan Yunniang.

Guan Yunniang's appearance can only be said to be one point more than upright, which will be because she is in too much hurry, and the flush is all over the place, and she looks vaguely more beautiful. But Li Xi didn't have the heart to appreciate beauty, and Guan Yunniang's face was frightened, as if something big had happened.

"Li Si, if you really pity the second sister, hurry up and save her!"

Guan Yunniang called his name unceremoniously, which made Li Xian's eyebrows rise, Second sister? What's wrong with her?

"In order to finish the grain for you, my mother is going to sell the second sister to Master Zhong, and take her to Liu Village to find Mrs. Liu early in the morning!"

Guan Yunniang's words seemed to have swung two sledgehammers, one in front and one behind, and slammed them on Li Xian's head.

"Finished food!?"

Li asked rhetorically.

"I'm not mistaken, you Li Si is a scholar, and you really don't know about fireworks. But do you really not know or do you not know? In the past few years, your Tianding silver, plus all kinds of miscellaneous pies, have all been shared by my family and my uncle's family! ”

Guan Yunniang was extremely sarcastic, and Li Xian almost slapped him on the desk when he heard it, not because he was angry at Guan Yunniang's mouth, but because he suddenly woke up, no wonder he calculated his own family background before, and he always felt a little problematic when he calculated it, as if he didn't feel too much pressure, it turned out that he forgot about the "imperial grain and national tax"!

Uncle Guan and Uncle Tian have been helping him with this for three years, which is too great. But just to help him finish the grain, he has to get to the point of selling his daughter, Li Xian suspects that this Guan Yunniang is alarmist, how much tax does he need to pay alone?

"My uncle took the first turn last year, and in order to finish the grain, he sold all the paddy fields. This year, my father had the turn of the first leader, but there was nothing to sell except for the ration fields and homestead land. In order to keep the skin of your family's ten acres of paddy fields, my father thought that his hair would turn gray overnight! When my mother took away the second sister early in the morning, he didn't speak again, Li Si, you are still a man, just squeak! ”

Guan Yunniang was so anxious that she couldn't speak clearly, but Li Shi heard more things.

Jiashou ......, in the Ming Dynasty, it was really going to break the family.