"And then?" Yun Shi murmured, "The first time, I was caught by your maternal grandfather and severely disciplined. Your maternal grandfather also punished me, making me write fifty large characters a day. How could I finish? My wrists were swollen, and I couldn't even hold a brush. I was stubborn and refused to yield or apologize, so I wrote while crying."
Yun Shi paused and continued, "Fifty characters on one sheet of Xuan paper, fifty sheets meant two thousand five hundred characters. Normally, that's the amount I write in five days."
Qi Zhenzhen felt sympathetic to Yun Shi's experience, not expecting her mother to have been so mischievous as a child.
"My fellow disciples who played pranks with me all hid far away, afraid your maternal grandfather would punish them too," Yun Shi went on to say. "I was so angry. They always called me 'little junior sister' in the past, but they abandoned me alone at a crucial moment."
"I argued with your maternal grandfather, saying they were all involved. But your maternal grandfather didn't believe me. He said that if I hadn't initiated it, those people wouldn't have done it. So, in the end, only I was punished."
Yun Shi's smile deepened.
"What I didn't expect was that that evening, Qin Lang secretly came to find me, carrying a large stack of papers filled with writing. And all of them were written in imitation of my handwriting. At first glance, even I thought I had written them myself. He apologized to me guiltily, saying he didn't want me to be punished. He also said that in the future, if I wanted to bully him, I could do it secretly, and he wouldn't fight back. He just couldn't stand others bullying me. He could accept me bullying him, but not others bullying him."
Qi Zhenzhen was surprised, her mouth slightly agape. If she remembered correctly, her mother had said Qin Lang was only six years old just now? At six years old, he was already so good at charming girls? Tsk, not only precocious but also exceptionally talented. His sweet talk was perfect.
"At that time, I was still angry, but I shamelessly accepted Qin Lang's kindness," Yun Shi said. "After that, Qin Lang remained outstanding, and I still had the desire to compete with him. But unconsciously, I was convinced by him. He was truly a very talented person. No matter what your maternal grandfather taught him, he could learn it in the shortest amount of time and master it. By the age of ten, his poetry and songs were already famous throughout Da Feng. Many people would collect his poems and compile them into books."
In this regard, Qin Lang was truly a favored son of heaven.
"At the age of twelve, he passed the Spring Imperial Examination, becoming the youngest Jinshi of that year. On the Golden Luan Hall, he was personally appointed as the third-ranked scholar by the then Emperor."
"A third-ranked scholar at twelve years old, unprecedented. For a time, Qin Lang's name became widely known. Many people speculated about when he would be appointed an official position and what heights he would reach in the future. But Qin Lang refused the official post. He said he was still young and not yet ready to enter officialdom. Afterward, he returned to the academy. Your maternal grandfather said he had nothing more to teach him, but he refused to leave the academy and even became a tutor there. The rise in reputation of Yun Kai Academy was inseparable from him. Many families sent their children to the academy for enlightenment, valuing the fact that he taught the introductory classes."
"Your maternal grandfather worried about his lack of ambition, yet he was also very pleased. His heart was in turmoil. Later, your maternal grandmother said that since he and I grew up together, it would be better to let us form a good marriage."
As expected, the relationship between Yun Shi and Qin Lang was not that simple.
But Qi Zhenzhen did not expect that they already had a marriage engagement at that time. Judging from the subtle expressions when Yun Shi talked about these things, she liked Qin Lang very much back then, and even now, he should be the one in her heart.
But what exactly happened to cause their life trajectories to change so drastically? A mere head of an academy, what grave mistake could he have made that led to the ruin of his family?