Chapter 37: Chapter 27 New Year_2
Translator: 549690339
In the town, other people’s wives and children help with the cleaning, so they tidy up the house by late morning and then spend the afternoon enjoying the festival with the family and the New Year’s goods their fathers and husbands bring home.
However, Lu Yuan is a bachelor and has no one to help with household chores.
So, after being busy all morning, he still had to work in the afternoon, tirelessly cleaning the house.
Fortunately, he lived alone, and there wasn’t much stuff in his house. Besides a few pieces of furniture, the kitchen was the only area that needed a lot of cleaning, as he cooked often and had many stains. It was relatively easy to clean up.
After an hour, he finished cleaning and dumped the last bucket of dirty water in the yard. Lu Yuan wiped his sweat and sighed with relief.
“Finally done.”
He turned and looked at the freshly cleaned room behind him, a smile appearing on his face.
Cleaning the house before the New Year, preparing for a clean and fresh start, actually symbolizes a beautiful wish – bidding farewell to the old, welcoming the new, embracing fortune and good luck. This is the simplest wish in everyone’s heart.
Through this round of cleaning, although a bit tired physically, Lu Yuan really felt that the gloom and frustration in his heart had been swept away along with the dirt he had cleaned.
“Although I am a traverser, whose soul is in a foreign land, I now have my own home, where I can make money by hunting and practice martial arts, and even enjoy longevity. Everything doesn’t seem so bad after all.”
He smiled, opened the door, and stared into the distant sky, his eyes deep.
After the “Little New Year,” it’s New Year’s Eve.
On this day, the New Year’s Eve night is celebrated.
In order not to feel so lonely, Lu Yuan and Sun Siwen agreed to spend the New Year together.
He took the wine and meat he had prepared in advance and two large food boxes and went to Mr. Sun’s home.
The reason they celebrate the New Year at his place is mainly because Sun Siwen’s house is spacious.
His family used to be minor landlords in the town, owning a hundred acres of fertile land, and they had a big house with ten rooms. But then misfortune befell on the family, and during his generation, their remaining wealth had to support his education despite failing the Scholar’s Degree examination twelve times.
You must know that the imperial examinations were not cheap, they were very costly.
They had to buy books to study classics daily, spend on ink, brushes, and paper for writing, and buy past examination papers to study before the examination, all while paying a hefty registration fee.
After all, the examination venues provided them with ink, brushes, and paper, and they needed money to buy them.
Oh, and the imperial examination also follows the ancient recommendation system. To register for the examination, you need at least two Scholars to jointly recommend you to get that qualification.
So, this recommendation fee is another expense.
“Brother Lu, you don’t know, but every year before the annual imperial examination, I buy the volumes issued by the education official. Each volume costs at least two hundred cents.
The education official is responsible for the studies of county students, and the annual county examination questions are all set by him and the county lord.
The examination volumes he issues usually contain some questions for the next year’s exam. So, which student aiming for official status would dare not buy them?
But the education official in our county is too greedy, and he issues as many as three to five volumes every year. Just buying those volumes costs a silver tale each year.
Add in the daily practice of calligraphy and examination of the volumes, the consumption of ink, brushes, and paper, and it costs at least two silver tales a year.
Enrollment fees for the imperial examination are 300 cents.
And because I fail to pass exams time after time, those other students don’t want to be associated with me, and no one wants to recommend me.
In order to obtain the examination qualification, I had to spend a silver tale to ask two old Scholars to vouch for me.
Every year during the imperial examination, there are also accommodation fees in the county town and gatherings with fellow students…”
It’s getting late, and Lu Yuan and Sun Siwen are drinking heartily.
Mr. Sun seemed to have drunk a little too much and looked flushed. He gulped down a glass of wine and slammed it heavily on the table, saying painfully, “Every year, I need to spend eight silver tales on imperial examinations and studying alone.
If you include the cost of food and drink throughout the year, it would be even more than ten silver tales. Yet I couldn’t make up the money and had to sell my family’s assets to maintain my studies.
I know how people outside see me – they say I’m ruining my family, and I’m incompetent.
Those fellow students who call me their brother act friendly on the surface, but they must be secretly laughing at me, despising me, and not wanting anything to do with me.
After all, who would appreciate someone who couldn’t pass the Scholar’s
Degree after trying twelve times?”
Sun Siwen raised his head and looked at Lu Yuan in front of him, a hint of gratitude in his eyes, “Brother Lu, only you are willing to truly be friends with me and willing to learn to write from me. In this lifetime, you might be the only friend I’ll ever have.”
Under the stare of sincere eyes, Lu Yuan’s face remained unchanged, but he felt somewhat guilty in his heart.
In fact, he wasn’t as sincere as the other party had said.
His main purpose in making friends with Mr. Sun was to obtain high-end information from him and to learn more from him.
Because as his study of the Liuyun Palm Heart Method deepened, Lu Yuan found that with his current knowledge, it was still somewhat difficult to fully understand this Mental Technique.
The main issue was the lack of understanding of various ancient texts, as well as some unique terms and allusions within this world’s Mental Technique. It was difficult to understand thoroughly based on his knowledge from his previous life.
In this case, finding a teacher with a deep understanding of ancient texts and a strong familiarity with various allusions became essential.
So for Lu Yuan, the wine and food he had brought to Mr. Sun over the past year were not free, but rather tuition fees.
In his opinion, their relationship could still be considered as one of wining and dining friends.
“I just didn’t expect Brother Sun to regard me as a close friend.”
For this, Lu Yuan didn’t know what to say.
Perhaps it was because the other party had suffered too much discrimination and disdain for a long time, which had affected his heart. Suddenly encountering a friend like himself who didn’t despise him and was easy to talk to, Sun Siwen might have quickly opened his heart to him.
“But having a true friend might not necessarily be a bad thing.”
Looking at the increasingly drunken Sun Siwen, there was a smile on his face.
Being alone in a foreign land, one feels even more homesick during the festive seasons.
How could Lu Yuan not feel lonely and isolated when he had traveled alone to this unfamiliar world?
The feeling that nobody in the world could understand him was not easy to bear.
Having another friend he could get along with now, though he might not be able to reveal the true secrets in his heart, simply drinking and talking in his daily life could alleviate the melancholy in his heart.
‘I’ll accept this friendship.’
As Lu Yuan muttered to himself, he heard Sun Siwen’s drunken, somewhat bewildered words.
“This time, I must pass the imperial examination and attain a Scholar’s Degree. I want to show those who look down on me that I, Sun Siwen, can also become a Scholar. I will also become a juren, a jinshi, and bring honor to my ancestors.
Father, Mother…”
In the midst of his drunken murmur, he fell asleep.
At this very moment.
Unbeknownst to Lu Yuan, the still night outside was suddenly filled with countless bright lights, followed by the continuous crackling sound of fireworks.
All the families who could afford it were now lighting firecrackers to celebrate the new year.
Unbeknownst to him, New Year’s Eve had passed, and it was now the New Year.
Lu Yuan walked into the courtyard and looked up at the vast night sky. The bright moonlight hung high above, casting its white radiance down, falling on the freshly-laid snow in the clean courtyard, reflecting sparkling white light, aazznng to tne eye.
“Lu Yuan, Happy New Year.”
He whispered a New Year blessing to himself and then, with a smile, picked up a bundle of firecrackers already prepared in the courtyard, lit the fuse, and ignited them.
The cracking sound immediately appeared in the courtyard, mingling with the festive sounds outside.
The peaceful and tranquil small town welcomed the new year.
A new beginning, a time for renewal.
“Has New Year’s Eve passed?”
Watching the firecrackers explode in the courtyard, Sun Siwen, seemingly awakened by the noises outside, also stumbled out, looking at the firecrackers and asked in a dazed manner.
“Yes, it’s the New Year.” Lu Yuan replied with a smile.
“Is that so?” Sun Siwen murmured, then looked at him and said with a smile,
“Well, Happy New Year, Brother Lu.”
Lu Yuan was taken aback, but then also smiled, “Happy New Year, Brother
Sun.”
This year, he wasn’t alone; he had someone accompanying him.
I am not lonely.
He thought to himself..