Mrs. Sha nodded slightly, holding a cup of fragrant tea in her hand, looking at the green tea in the cup with her eyes, and said slowly: "When I was young, I remember living in a big mansion. The house was built in the south of Wuyi Mountain, Fujian, and lived in more than 100 families of the same clan......"

When she said this, Murong Danyan's eyes widened on the side, and she said to Mrs. Sha: "Ah, it turns out that my sister is also from Fujian, and she also lives in Wuyi Mountain, so isn't she a neighbor with Xiao Lao Wu?"

She opened her mouth to speak, interrupting Mrs. Sha's words, which was rather rude. It's just that Mrs. Sha knew that although Murong Danyan slipped out of the house and wandered the rivers and lakes, after all, she was just a sixteen or seventeen-year-old girl, but she was not angry, and said: "The Xiao family is a big family in Wuyi Mountain, and our Fang family is just a broken family from outside, and we dare not compare." ”

Although Xiao Zhanpeng has always been proud, he didn't dare to take it calmly at this time, and hurriedly waved his hand and said: "Madame's words are serious, Xiao will never dare to make such a delusion." ”

Mrs. Sha smiled slightly and said: "This is the truth, how can we talk about delusion or not? Since Pangu opened the world, all dynasties have risen and fallen, and large families have been rich and noble for only three generations. Although our Sha family is large and has declined through several generations, it is also very ordinary. ”

Li Qiufeng heard that Mrs. Sha had this insight, and he was secretly surprised in his heart.

I only heard Mrs. Sha say: "At that time, the patriarch of the Fang family was a white-bearded old man, three generations higher than me, and we all called him the old lady. Every year on November 17, all the men of the clan go to the ancestral hall to worship their ancestors. The women of the clan are not allowed to step into the ancestral hall for half a step, because I am quite interested in what kind of people are enshrined in the ancestral hall. If I hadn't been afraid of my father's stick, I would have slipped in and had a look.

"My mother died after giving birth to me, and I have two older brothers and one sister at home. My dad only likes two older brothers, and for me and my sister, it's a bit so-so. But I don't care if he's good or bad for me and my sister, I play with my sister every day, and my life is quite happy.

"When I was six years old, I went to my family's private school. Like us, girls are just to recognize a few words, and Mr. is also talking about superficial books such as "Three Character Classic" and "Hundred Family Names". Only the elder brothers and younger brothers of the same clan will follow Mr. to learn the Four Books and the Five Classics. And after the girl studied for three years, she no longer went to private school, and concentrated on spinning and weaving to support the whole family.

"When I was nine years old, my sister was fourteen. That year, a few people suddenly came to the house, and they were very gorgeously dressed. A few aunts from the same clan came to my house to groom and dress my sister. Only then did I know that a year ago, the patriarch had made an appointment with a family surnamed Ma in the capital to let my sister marry the son of the Ma family, and this time someone from the Ma family came to pick up my sister through the door.

"Every thirteen or fourteen years old girls of the same clan will marry out of the Fang family, and I have long been used to such things. Because when those sisters got married, we children always got some sweets and snacks, and I was very happy at this time. But my sister hugged me and cried bitterly, and told me that she couldn't take care of me anymore and asked me to be careful. At that time, I was ignorant, how could I know the deep meaning of my sister's words? Dad was surprisingly kind that day, and when he saw my sister and I crying, he didn't get angry, but just waited on the side.

"I remember my sister wiped away her tears and said to my father: 'I know that marrying the Ma family is a family matter set by the patriarch and the old lady. I have also heard the aunts in other rooms talk about the Ma family, and I know that there are several elders of the Ma family who are on errands in the capital, and marrying the children of his family can protect the safety of our Fang family. But Daddy, you know it's a fire pit, and you still push your daughter into the fire pit, why?'

"Daddy listened to his sister's words, didn't speak for a long time, and finally suddenly burst into tears, whimpered and said, 'Baby, Daddy doesn't want you to go. However, the two daughters of your third uncle died of illness after they got married, and they left no sons. We have been friends with the Ma family for generations, relying on someone in his family to work on an errand in Jinyiwei, our Fang family has been safe and sound over the years, and there have been no incidents. Now the patriarch has named you to renew the strings of the Ma family's son, you, for your father, for the sake of the two elder brothers, for your sister, and the whole clan of 100 people, just, just go......

My sister listened to her father's words and didn't answer, but kept silently shedding tears. After a long time, my sister said to my father: "Father, my mother died early, and only my sister and I are left in our family." The two older brothers have always been taken care of by the clansmen, and I am not worried. But I don't worry about my sister, for fear that she, like me and the other sisters in the clan, will marry into those unsightly places and suffer. Daddy, I went to the Ma family, and I will do my best to protect the Fang family, just begging Daddy to find a good family for my sister, and don't let her marry some gentlemen like me and other sisters, and suffer from endless pain and torture, okay?'

But Daddy didn't speak, just silently. My sister took me in her arms again and whispered in my ear, 'Sister, when you reach my age, if they want you to marry, you must ask what kind of person you are marrying. If the other party is the son of a big family or an official family, you run away, and the farther away you are, you know?'

I nodded in confusion, and then watched as several aunts helped my sister out in her new clothes. From that day on, I never saw her again. When I asked about my father, he always said that my sister married into the capital and lived a life of fine clothes and food, so I didn't want to worry about my sister.

"Everyone in our Fang family knows martial arts. When I was six years old, I also began to learn martial arts with my clansmen. It's just that the elders of the clan who taught us girls martial arts didn't care. But my sister once told me that if you learn martial arts well, you can protect yourself from being bullied. I know that in this life, only my sister is the best for me, and I must listen to her words. So I practiced martial arts most seriously, and the more I practiced kung fu, the better I practiced, and later, even many men of the same clan were no match for me.

"It's just that as I get older, I slowly realize that there are some things in the Fang clan that are quite mysterious. For example, every year there are girls who get married, but they never come back. Every year, the men in the family also marry, but the people who marry are some ordinary women who are illiterate.

"I was thirteen years old that year, and I remember it was late autumn. I went up to the mountain with a few aunts and sisters of the same clan to pick tea, and when I came back, we put the tea leaves in the big house in the west courtyard. When I came back early that day, after packing up the tea leaves, it was not too late for my aunts and sisters to go to the pond outside the house to wash their clothes. I had washed my father and my two brothers the day before, and had no work to do, and on a whim, I went out of the house with some aunts and sisters, but instead of going to the pond with them, I slipped away halfway to the flower garden at the east end of the old house to see the flowers.

"It was late autumn, and there were no flowers left in the garden. Although I wanted to see the flowers, I knew it, but I just didn't want to stay in the house. Because it was so quiet, so frighteningly quiet. It's very quiet in this garden, but it's satisfying to hear the birds chirping.

"I sat on a stone in the middle of the flower garden, looked at the devastated scene in front of me, and thought of my sister again. When I was a child, she used to take me to this flower garden to play. At that time, I was very happy, and my sister was like an umbrella, sheltering me from the wind and rain. Now that I'm older, my little sisters treat me just like I did to my sisters. Only then did I deeply know how good my sister was to me back then!

"I thought about it, I don't know when, I actually shed tears. Later, I wiped away my tears, and was about to walk back, when I suddenly noticed two gray-clothed men walking around the flower garden, looking east and west, and walking towards the old house of the Fang family. I saw that these two people were sneaky and didn't look like good people, and they were light on their feet, and they obviously had martial arts, so they paid attention to it. So he quietly followed behind the two to see what the two wanted to do.

The two walked all the way to the vicinity of the Fang family's old mansion and discussed a few words in a low voice, but did not go to the main entrance, but went around to the back of the old mansion. I saw that these two people left the door and did not leave, but went around to the back of the house, and I felt that the whereabouts of these two people were strange, and they must have a plan against our family, so naturally they had to find out clearly, so they had been following closely behind. When the two men reached the back of the house, they looked around and saw no one, so they jumped over the fence with a light skill, and then jumped into the courtyard.

"I followed the two of them and saw one hiding behind a big tree in the backyard, while the other hurried towards the main house in the backyard. My heart sank, because the main room in the backyard is the residence of the patriarch and the old lady, this person walked towards the main house, did he want to be unfavorable to the patriarch and the old lady?"

When Mrs. Sha said this, she paused slightly, and then said to Li Qiufeng, Murong Danyan, and Xiao Zhanpeng: "I won't hide it from you, I have never had a good impression of the patriarch of the Fang family. This man is sanctimonious, and on the surface he is strict and fair, but he is only good to the men of the clan, treating us women as if they were nothing, and yet he wants to use us for the benefit of the clan. When I saw the man rushing to the chief's house, I was not worried that he would be bad for him, but that he would not be able to defeat him. I have such a little selfishness, how many people won't laugh?"

(End of chapter)