If I don't have money to go to college, I can only go to slay the dragon.

July 18, 1993. The wedding of Zian Man and I was held as scheduled, and the weather was perfect. The wedding day was a sunny day as expected, and the guests were packed with people singing and dancing.

My father asked Master Kanyu to plan his life beforehand. Master Kanyu said that the day of my wedding was as smooth as April 11, 1954. Next to me, my mother was tossing about changing into dragon and phoenix gowns. I asked a lot about why April 11th was so special. Master Kanyu explained to me that nothing happened that day, that nothing major happened in the world, and that there were no big people. His death, without breaking news around the world, has been called the most boring day in human history.

I asked why I got married on the most boring day. My mother patted the brocade hat on my head and said I was stupid. If I got married on that day, wouldn’t it be the only one in the world? Something big happened?

To be honest, I don’t believe in Kanyu very much, and I don’t believe in fate, otherwise I wouldn’t have gone against my father’s wishes and chosen the path of medicine. But the idea of ​​choosing a date for the wedding is just for celebration, so I choose to obey my parents. of painstaking efforts.

In fact, I was considered a maverick in my life before I was 23 years old, but I didn’t have much choice in the matter of marriage. My parents have always put a lot of pressure on me. In their eyes, men It is time to think about marriage after the crown is weak. It is unfilial to marry and have children after the age of twenty-two.

I resisted the pressure from my parents for a whole year, until my mother gave me an ultimatum one day after I came back from "hanging out" outside. She told me that she had arranged a blind date for me, and if I was not honest, If I go with her to meet other girls, I will never have to come back to this house again.

Filial piety comes first. I have never been able to defeat my mother, and I don't want to see her cry, make trouble, and hang herself. I agreed to the blind date and spent a day between the two points in the library and the courtyard to catch up. place.

To be honest, before I went there, I just ran away with a casual attitude. After all, I have never been very cold about blind dates. My parents’ orders to find a matchmaker are all clichés in my opinion. On blind dates, The man and the woman don't even have any emotional foundation, and the forced match-making only seems blunt. I prefer the idea of ​​love at first sight to the match-making (love at first sight was still fashionable in our era).

The blind date is held in a large courtyard, which means that the blind date is mostly from the orthodox family. Although it is unlikely to be from our family, the Sima, Zhao, and Zhu families are not considered outsiders. Each family has its own family. The children here have been running around all over the place since they were young, and I don’t necessarily know the person I’m dating.

I never thought that when I met this person, I realized that I not only knew this person, but I was extremely familiar with him.

The girl I have played with since childhood, who is considered a childhood sweetheart, is Zhao Yanman.

I met Zian Man a long time ago. It can be traced back to when I was copying "Kong Rong Rang Li" in the library. I remember that the first time I met her, she kicked the ball into the library. , knocking several books to the ground, causing her to hide behind the door in fear, afraid to come in, for fear of being scolded by the uncle guarding the library.

In the end, I took the initiative to pick up the ball and returned it to her. She timidly apologized to me at that time, and I am still impressed by her dirty little face. After that, the ball was kicked in a few times, and I picked it up for her as usual. After going back and forth, I got familiar with it, and then she took the initiative to invite me to play with her friends.

Qian Man is from the Zhao family. Compared to my own family, the relationship with my uncle over the years has actually made me closer to the Zhao family. I know many of the elders of the Zhao family, including Qian Man. My parents, I often receive red envelopes from their house during the holidays. My aunts and uncles keep making me rich every day so that I can buy snacks and firecrackers for the New Year. For this reason alone, I am very grateful to Xian Man. I always feel that my uncles and aunts are looking at me. He gave me such a big red envelope because he had a good relationship with Xian Man.

I am one year older than Yanman, so our recent relationship is just that we are classmates in the same school and at different levels. I am studying medicine and she is also studying medicine. We are even in the same school. I still remember seeing her at the door when the sophomore year started. Bao Xiaobao looked helpless and refused help from the enthusiastic seniors. If I hadn't come to the rescue in time, I'm afraid she would have been in trouble for the past four years.

When I celebrated my birthday before, Yan Man, who was still in school, took time off to come back and wish me a happy birthday. She also gave me a few ancient medical books that she bought on the cultural street. They looked very valuable. I asked her if Cheap, right? She waved her hands shyly.

It seems that what I said to my brother, "all my friends who we have met a few times come back to celebrate my birthday" is indeed a bit excessive. Thinking about it carefully, the relationship between me and Yan Man is more than just a few acquaintances. , it’s no exaggeration to say they are childhood sweethearts.

On the day of the blind date, Yan Man was wearing a knitted woolen sweater and a white cashmere hat. She looked very well-behaved and quiet. She sat next to her mother obediently, put her hands on her knees and secretly looked at the person sitting at the opposite table. As I sat there, I only dared to wave my hands quietly under the table to say hello.

My mother and her mother chatted so well that if we hadn't met for the first time, I would have called her "mother-in-law". This made her and I a little embarrassed. We are indeed familiar with each other, but it's also true that we are familiar with each other. I'm not familiar enough to be able to talk freely at a blind date. As a result, the first sentence I spoke could only be a dry question to her about how life is in college. She also dryly replied to me, "Brother Xingchu, I have graduated and am now unemployed at home."

I said it’s good to be unemployed, it’s good to be unemployed, but after I said a few words, my mother slapped me on the back of the head and refuted what’s so good about being unemployed. Are you as knowledgeable as you to keep a library? Zian Man is preparing to work in the Pharmacy Department, but it seems that you don't want to contribute to the clan after graduation, so you are too lazy to do it.

I'm thinking about belittling your son on a blind date. Are you really my mother? You are more eager for this to go south than I am, right? Unexpectedly, the person opposite me, Zian Man, quickly helped me smooth things over, saying that Brother Xingchu was lazy and lazy. Liezu said that he was a man with great ambitions and was very good at hiding his clumsiness.

It's okay if I don't say it. When I say it, I almost want to dig into the ground, because I don't even know that I have ambitions. But my mother and the mother opposite are both overjoyed. How can I put it in that sentence? Before I got married, my elbows turned outwards.

That blind date meeting went well, at least that’s what my mother thought. On the way home, she praised how sensible and well-behaved she was, and how she was a traditional good girl. Their family lacked such a daughter-in-law, so I No matter what, I have to get the vine.

I didn't say anything gloomily along the way. From time to time, my mind flashed to the dirty face of Xian Man holding a ball when she was a child, and from time to time, her shy and well-behaved look in a knitted sweater came to mind. When I got home, I didn't go into the house. My mother stopped me and said to me earnestly outside the door, son, you have to love someone who likes you, not someone you like.

At that time, I just told my mother that I wanted to eat snowflake cakes and wanted to go to Daohua Village for a run.

She didn't stop me, she just let me run away.

At night, when I came home with the snowflake cakes, I found that there were no lights in the yard. The only thing that was lit was the ancestral hall of my family. Curious about whether there was a thief in the house, but what kind of thief would steal the ancestral hall, I I crept over with Xuehuasu and found that it was my father standing in the ancestral hall. He held incense in his hand and bowed to offer incense to his ancestors. Then he asked me to come over and offer incense to his ancestors without looking back.

I used to offer the snowflake cake that was not yet warm in my hand to my ancestors. I held a stick of incense and bowed in an honest and learned manner. Halfway through the bow, I found that my father put his hand on my back. , until I straightened up, his hands kept supporting my waist, making me stand ten times straighter than usual, until I completed a whole set of rituals.

Although I didn't know what my father was doing, after I finished lighting the incense, I still cared about him and told him to go to bed early and prepared to leave. Before I was about to leave, my father stopped me and asked me what I thought of Zhao Yanman.

I really wanted to make a joke like I did to my mother, but when I turned to look at my father, I found that behind him were the tablets of my ancestors. Under the light of the chandelier above his head, his expression was very calm and there was no blame. He didn't complain, he seemed to be just waiting for my answer.

The answer I give is not annoying. Because I don’t hate Zian Man at all. She is a good girl. Just like what my mother said, she is a traditional good girl. Marrying a good girl into the family will only make others envious. I heard that there are countless good girls in college. Boys all wanted to chase her, but she rejected them all. She was as cold as ice cream, but at today's blind date, wrapped in that knitted woolen sweater, she was as docile as a sheep.

My father said that if you don't hate her, then you should marry her. The Zhao family has this intention, and so do I. Now it mainly depends on what you think.

I immediately answered, "If you don't hate it, it doesn't mean you like it!"

My dad said, what are your thoughts? Do you have anyone you like? If so, give me a name and I will make arrangements.

I was silent for a long time, standing in the ancestral hall without saying a word or moving.

My father turned around and told me in a normal tone that for more than 20 years, he had rarely asked me to do anything. Even when he asked me when I was a child, he gave up because of my strong opinion. I want to study medicine. He tried his best to silence some dissatisfied elders in the family. I didn't want to join the "Seven Stars" and work for the Orthodox, so he arranged for me to work in the library and live a leisurely life.

The Zhengtong family was very big, and the Li family was very big. It was easy to raise an idler, especially since this idler was his son Li Yuande.

So, he has followed my whim on so many things, so should I follow his ideas this time?

I wanted to retort, turn around and run away, but my father said again, "Xingchu, this is my father's request to your son."

I have never seen my dad beg anyone since I was born, this is the first time.

That night, we didn't talk much more and broke up late at night.

In the days that followed, the blind dates continued. It was more like a natural date than a blind date.

Sometimes I would invite Xian Man to drink tea in the courtyard and read in the library. Sometimes she would take me to walk along the leaf-covered paths outside the Forbidden City. Most of the time, she would make appointments with me more often, but on the contrary, I would seem to be much lazy. .

But as time went by, I got into the habit of looking up from time to time when I was sitting in the library reading a book to see if the girl in a knitted sweater would walk in at the door and ask me sweetly if I wanted to go out to play.

I am used to having another person in my life, and I am also used to having someone beside me making tea and studying ink when I am reading. When I am studying medical books and thinking about whether there is any solution to solve the problem in my mind, she even You can give me constructive suggestions appropriately and point me in the direction that I have overlooked.

Everything was very natural, maybe too natural. When she asked me on the catkins-fluttering bridge outside the Forbidden City moat that day if I wanted to marry her, I naturally said yes.

Everything happened so naturally and naturally.

She likes me very much, and I actually knew from the beginning that she liked me very much. I have never seen a person like another person so purely, without reservation, with everything written on his face. She is so kind, mature, gentle, and sensible, as if she was born to be my lover. But I know that no one is born to fulfill another person. This is not called love, this is called sacrifice - if I let her down.

I know she likes me and she knows I know. I asked her when she fell in love with me, and she said she didn’t dare to come in when she was kicking a ball into the library when she was a child. She peeked inside and found me sitting on the desk studying hard, and she fell in love with me at that moment. Now.

Then we got married, naturally.

The wedding was a Chinese-style wedding. The day in my memory was high-pitched and bright. Everything was covered with a light golden makeup. The girls' eyelashes were tanned to a snow-white color, and their smiles and singing melted and spread in the light.

Ten miles of red makeup, gongs, drums and suonas ring loudly.

The sedan chair put down in the main hall of the courtyard has a vermilion base, carved dragons and phoenixes, a phoenix crown, and a red gauze. The bride is helped out of the sedan by the matchmaker and her companions. On a sunny day, she is as beautiful as a jade screen. people came out.

We completed three prayers amidst the firecrackers. After the third prayer, the teasing entry into the bridal chamber made the guests laugh. My mother-in-law even whispered to my mother and the others, saying that she was afraid that she would not be used to sleeping at night after marrying her. Shili Hongzhuang also specially added the Qiangong Babu bed.

My brother shed tears for the first time at my wedding. He hugged me and said that the Li family will depend on you from now on. I looked confused and thought he was talking nonsense because he drank too much. Anyway, everyone drank too much that day. We talked a lot of nonsense, and Yan Man kept following me to help me stop drinking. She doesn't like drinking, but I have never seen her smile so happily.

At the end of that day, when I, Li Xingchu, introduced myself from now on, the unmarried words in the marriage column had officially become a thing of the past, and I felt a little sad, as if I had graduated or lost something.

Also, Li Muyue was not present that day.

The seat I left for her was empty from beginning to end. I don’t know where she went that day. Maybe she was busy, or drinking tea under the sweet-scented osmanthus tree, or depending on her personality, she was sitting under the tree. It's not necessarily true that the tree is puffing up clouds and mist. I can only wait with the best hope.