Lu Zhu stood up, wearing two different shoes, one was a red cotton shoe, and the other was a blood-stained boot.
Holding Jiuniang's hand, Luzhu's eyes were clear.
She knew that the person in front of her was the Son of Heaven, the Nine-Five Lord, and behind the Nine-Five Lord were all the adults above the clouds.
But Luzhu puffed up his chest, and there was no fear in his eyes.
"The daughter of the people, Zhang Ermei, was once a prostitute. Now she is a citizen and a merchant. The little girl paid business taxes and did good deeds. I don't owe you or anyone else, but I still paid taxes and did good deeds."
If I do good deeds, I don’t ask you, don’t despise me, I just ask you...please don’t do anything to Jiuniang..."
Tears rolled in Luzhu's eyes again, and the cold wind made her shiver.
Turning around, Lu Zhu looked at the Imperial Academy students who were kneeling on the ground, and suddenly picked up Jiuniang, his movements were so rough and so forceful.
Hugging Jiuniang's Luzhu, she began to turn around and look at every student, every student who bullied her today.
"Jiuniang, mother is a prostitute. She sold her body for money and food. This is a prostitute. This is mother. But mother, don't be afraid. Jiuniang, don't be afraid either!"
Jiuniang's eyes were filled with confusion and she wanted to jump off. She didn't know what the word "prostitute" meant.
Luzhu shed tears again, humiliated and unwilling, and shouted into the strong wind.
"I am a prostitute, my name is Lvzhu, but Jiuniang, her name is Jiuniang, she is not a prostitute, she is not a prostitute, she reads and writes, is there something wrong? What is wrong!"
"I, Zhang Ermei, just don't want Jiuniang to become a prostitute again, so I want her to study. I don't want to recite poems and write poems. Even if she knows a few more words, her husband's family will look down on her!"
The hoarse Lu Zhu used all her strength to shout out, shout out, shout out her grievances, shout out her inferiority complex, and shout out all her unwillingness.
"Jiu Niang is ugly, Jiu Niang's mother is a prostitute, yes, so what, because I am a prostitute, and because the prostitute's daughter is ugly, can you bully us wantonly? You are not as good as me, and you are not as good as a prostitute!"
Lv Zhu suddenly stretched out her hand and pulled open the front, revealing her young shoulders with a scar.
"You scholars, you officials, scold me and beat me. Look, look at this scar. It was from you. I can bear it. I really can bear it. You can beat me even if you don't give me money."
But if Jiuniang doesn’t succeed, Jiuniang can’t live like me!”
Jiuniang suddenly knelt on the ground in the snow, lowered her head and murmured.
"You insist on me, Zhang Ermei, being a prostitute, insisting on Jiuniang being a prostitute, do you insist on us being prostitutes from generation to generation? Why are you so cruel, Jiuniang, she just wants to study and know a few words, a few words
That's it, why, why do you do this..."
Tears fell into the snow, and Luzhu collapsed there, crying helplessly. The scarlet scar on his shoulder was so dazzling.
Jiuniang was also crying. She hugged Zhang Ermei's shoulders and called her, "Don't cry."
Among the crowd, a child suddenly rushed out, a child wearing a patched cotton jacket.
The guards wanted to stop him, but the child suddenly fell down, biting his lips tightly, and crawled in front of the emperor in embarrassment.
Huang Laosi gritted his teeth tightly and clenched his fists. Next to him was Sun An, who was wiping away tears.
"Your Majesty."
This child was only six or seven years old, and his face was red from the cold.
In the distance, an old commoner kept calling, but he was stopped in place by the guards, who kept kowtowing and begging for mercy.
The child turned a deaf ear and raised his head, looking at the emperor: "Your Majesty, look..."
The child stretched out a finger and wrote a word in the snow, a big, crooked word "人".
"Your Majesty, Sister Tao said, Your Majesty hopes that we can write. You see, I can write. This character is called person, your Lord's person."
The child bit his lip hard again, as if he mustered up great courage: "I beg you, if there is still a poor academy, can you please not tear it down? If I learn a few more words, I will definitely learn a few more
Words, please, let us learn a few more words."
"Academy...Academy..." Huang Laosi's face was full of hatred, his eyes were about to burst into flames. When he lowered his head, there was an extremely aggrieved look on his face: "The academy is not me, not the general, and not the person I ordered.
It's broken, you have to believe me..."
Huang Laosi knelt down and held back tears.
More and more children ran out, and their parents did not stop them.
The guards did not stop him.
This was the voice that Chu Qing wanted the emperor to listen to. The voice finally reached the ears of the emperor and his ministers.
These children knelt in front of the emperor, lowered their heads, and did not speak first. Instead, they first wrote the word "人" (人) in a crooked way.
The ground is full of human characters. This is a simple stroke, but many courtiers have forgotten how to write.
"Sister Bihua said we should read it out loud. From now on, we will not read it out loud anymore. We will read it quietly, very quietly, very quietly, and we will never disturb you again. I beg you, please don't tear down the academy again...
"
"My parents said that if you don't study, it will be harder to live than to die..."
"A few words, teach us a few more words, just a few words..."
"In one word, I will let you herd cattle for a year, okay..."
Children, don't know what reading means to them.
They only knew that last night, the elders, who were always looking gloomy, stayed up all night excitedly and told them stories. In the stories, there were warm houses, endless white-flour steamed buns, and clothes that could be worn all year round.
The clothes on my body, my parents said, as long as they read the book, they will live like the story.
They hope to enter the story, learn to read and become the characters in the story.
Before dawn, the Tao family's uncles took them away in a cart and took them to the western suburbs to study and write.
Their parents followed the carriage in the wind and snow, crying, laughing, crying with longing.
But as soon as I learned the word "人", a group of vicious people rushed into the academy, spoke words they couldn't understand, kicked over the desks, beat the teacher, pushed down the classroom, and arrested
people.
They know that they may never live the way they live in the story again.
But they are not willing to accept it, even if they are young, they are not willing to accept the story, but they are not willing to let their parents bend down again, with their backs hunched, no smiles, only tears.
Huang Laosi seemed to have something stuck in his heart. He wanted to kill people. He wanted to kill many, many people, many young people wearing Confucian robes.
"Sun An!" Huang Laosi almost yelled through gritted teeth: "Let the people, invite the people, I, I want to hear, hear what they want to say!"
The guards put down their sabers and stepped aside. The common people finally came over and immediately fell to their knees.
But apart from the wind, there was no other sound.
No one spoke, they just knelt there, hugging the child, like a zombie.
"My name is Chang Chengyou, your emperor, your king and father." Huang Laosi stood in the snow: "I want to know what you are thinking in your hearts and what you are saying. I beg you to speak out."
Huang Laosi bent down and bowed down to salute the people.
The common people remained silent, but no one took a look at the emperor.
Not even a glance, as if the words Son of Heaven, Chang Chengyou, and Father of the King had no meaning to them.
