When Du Jinning was in class, Yan Cen was standing in front of a house in the city, looking at the gate with his eyes open.

It didn't take long for a little guy to come out and say to Yan Cen: "Young Master Cen, the old lady said, no." ”

Yan Cen's expectant eyes dimmed suddenly.

He came early in the morning, and stood here for almost an hour, so Yinzi begged the acquaintance to report, but Yan Songtao still refused to see him.

On a cold day, he stood here in the cold wind for an hour, and he felt that there was no heating in his body, and his feet were cold and stiff like his own.

But in order to show his sincerity, he gritted his teeth and decided to stand for half an hour.

He stuffed a piece of silver and said to the little servant, "I'm still waiting here, please ask Brother Ah Qiang to report it for me again in half an hour." ”

This time, the little guy who saw Qian was open-eyed didn't dare to take his money anymore, so he waved his hand again and again: "Don't, don't, the old lady said, if I bother him again, he will punish me to kneel here for a day." ”

As he spoke, without waiting for Yan Cen to speak again, he turned around and walked quickly into the gate.

Yan Cen looked at the Yan family's mansion, only to feel that his whole body had fallen into the ice cave, and there was no place from the inside to the outside that he didn't feel cold.

In the middle of the night, he dragged his heavy steps, left the Yan family's mansion, walked a short distance to the west, entered an alley, and returned to his dilapidated courtyard.

Before I could open the courtyard door, I heard the cry of the child next door. Yan Cen's hand as he pushed the door tightened, lifted his robe, and walked quickly towards the door next door.

The door next door is hidden and opens as soon as you push it. When he entered the door, Yan Cen saw his five-year-old daughter sitting on the ground, her hair was messy, and there were muddy footprints on her clothes, raising her head and opening her small mouth to cry. Two other children surrounded her, one grinning at her, the other swearing in disgust. On the steps of the main house, a woman stood leaning against a pillar, knocking melon seeds indifferently, watching her two sons bully his daughter.

Yan Cen only felt that the blood in his heart suddenly surged to his head, he kicked the wooden board with a "bang", making a loud noise, and then strode into the courtyard, went straight to his daughter, picked her up, and glared at the woman: "I give you three coins of silver a month, and this is how you brought my daughter to me?" ”

The woman was bumped into this situation by Yan Cen, and there was a moment of panic in her eyes. However, she quickly calmed down and sneered at Yan Cen: "Children are playing at home, Master Yan should not take it seriously." As she spoke, she slapped her eldest son on the back and scolded: "I asked you to take your sister to play, what are you doing to make her cry?" ”

The woman's eldest son, who was now seven years old, could already see that his eyebrows were high and his eyes were lowered, and he had been told by his mother, so he immediately argued: "It is not me who bullied her, but she herself wrestled and cried." ”

"Master Yan, you see, it's really none of our business." The woman smiled at Yan Cen again.

Yan Cen is not stupid for waiting to read.

He pointed to the shoe prints on his daughter's clothes and asked the woman, "What is this?" ”

The shoe print, depending on the size, was the one on the seven-year-old boy's shoe.

When he mentioned this, his heart tightened, and he quickly rubbed his daughter's back and asked her, "Sister Yin, does it hurt here?" ”

When Sister Yin saw her father coming, she stopped crying anymore, and only gasped together. Hearing her father's question, she shook her head, thought for a while, and pointed to her wrist and said, "It hurts here." ”

Yan Cen pulled up the sleeve of her small jacket, and saw two finger prints of different shades.

Yan Cen only felt a wave of anger rushing to his head. He held back his anger and asked his daughter, "Who got it?" ”

Sister Yin pointed at the big boy: "Brother Alin." ”

When the woman saw that something was wrong, she quickly pulled her son behind her and smiled at Yan Cen: "Misunderstanding, misunderstanding." She wrestled, Brother Lin went to pull her, and she used more force, and the child's skin was as tender as water, which was just a blue mark when she touched it. Push his son again, "Hurry up and apologize to Uncle Yan and Sister Yin." ”

"Yes, I can't help it." Alin stuck his head out from behind his mother and timidly apologized to Yan Cen.

Yan Cen took several deep breaths before suppressing the fire in his heart. He didn't say a word, hugged his daughter and left.

The people who live in this alley are all side branches or distant relatives of the Yan family. Some of their ancestral homes are here, and some have moved from other places and are attached to the Yan family to live.

Yan Cen's family is the former, and the one just now is the latter. The male owner of his family is the younger brother of the concubine of the Yan family. He entrusted his sister's blessing to work as a partner in a shop under the name of the Yan family.

Such a person has not achieved enough, but has more than enough failure. If Yan Cen beat and scolded his wife and children today, that person would definitely go to his sister to cry. If the concubine blows a pillow wind in the man's ear again, I am afraid that there will be no hope for Yan Cen's matter.

Yan Cen hugged her daughter home full of grievances.

As soon as he entered, he was shocked. I saw that the old lady who had been paralyzed in bed actually crawled into the yard.

He hurriedly put down his daughter and helped the old lady up, seeing that she was in good spirits and was fine, he couldn't help but blame: "Mother, why don't you lie down on the bed and climb out to do something?" ”

"I listened to Sister Yin crying over there this morning." Yan's mother looked down at her granddaughter, "Is there anything wrong with Sister Yin?" ”

"It's okay, it's just that Alin has been bullying her." Yan Cen said.

Yan's mother let out a long sigh, took her son's hand into the house, and lay down on the bed: "I used to take good care of Sister Yin'er, but since yesterday, when I saw that you lost your errand, the family didn't have a face, and the nose was not a nose." You say, how did this man's face change so quickly? ”

Yan Cen smiled bitterly: "It's not that I have no income, I'm afraid I can't afford to give money." ”

Yan's mother crawled on the ground, her hands were covered with mud, and she didn't dare to pull her granddaughter's hand, but only asked her where it hurt, and when she shook her head, she put her mind at ease, turned her head to Yan Cen and said, "It's not a way to go on like this." You should hurry up and ask the seventh aunt at the entrance of the alley to tell you a mother-in-law. ”

Yan Cen's wife died in childbirth more than half a year ago, with one corpse and two lives, and a good boy was also stillborn. Yan Cen was only surrounded by an old lady paralyzed in bed and a five-year-old daughter, who needed to be taken care of very much.

Originally, he was a showman, and he was a gentleman in the academy, and he also had an income of six taels of silver a month, which was quite a lot in the eyes of the ordinary people. He was not very old, but twenty-three or fourteen years old, and although he was thin, his eyebrows were still beautiful. If you marry another stepfamily, there are many people who are willing to marry.

But he is a scholar, and he is not willing to stop there, and wants to continue to seek fame. If he does not marry within a year of his wife's funeral, this is a etiquette law, and others can not follow it, but he does not want to leave a stigma, so he keeps dragging it out.

For the sake of his mother and daughter, he also bought slaves and hired domestic helpers, but the people he met were either lazy or greedy, and he spent money to make his mother angry, and his daughter neglected to take care of him. The woman next door said that she was willing to help, so he sold the man and resigned, and entrusted the family business to the sister-in-law.

It's okay at first, the sister-in-law next door takes care of Sister Yin quite dedicatedly, cooking for Yan's mother three times a day, taking a bath and turning over, and helping with laundry and cleaning up the house. But I don't want Yan Cen to lose this errand, and people will change their faces immediately.

Yan Cen had to seriously consider marrying.