A Journey Through the Worlds of Film and Television.

Chapter 875 Small 3 Yuan

After leaving the prefectural government, Lu Cheng first took Zhen Yinglian to the street to buy some snacks and candied fruits that little girls liked, and bought her two new sets of clothes before taking her back to the old house.

Considering that Zhen Yinglian had forgotten her original name and the human trafficker only called her "girl", Lu Cheng decided to give her a new name.

On the way back, Lu Cheng casually asked, "Sister, since you don't know your parents' hometown and your real name, how about I give you a name first?"

Zhen Yinglian nodded timidly and didn't dare to speak.

Lu Cheng was thinking about what name to give him. He looked up and saw a boat girl picking lotus in a small river not far away. After a little thought, he said, "Lotus can be picked in the south of the Yangtze River. The lotus leaves are so lush and the fish are playing among the lotus leaves. How about I name you "Cai Lian"? "

Zhen Yinglian, which is pronounced as “zhen ying lian” in Chinese, means she has a miserable life and is pitiable.

In the original novel, Zhen Yinglian was named "Xiangling" by Xue Baochai. Ling means duckweed in the water, drifting without a fixed destination.

Lu Cheng felt that "Yinglian" and "Xiangling" were not good names, so he named her Cailian, from duckweed and lotus in the water to lotus picker.

Zhen Yinglian had been following the traffickers, so the traffickers naturally could not teach her to read and write, and she did not understand the meaning of the name Lu Cheng gave her. But when she saw the boat girl floating in the river, free and easy, humming a little tune, she liked it and nodded.

Perhaps because she was used to being beaten and scolded by human traffickers, which left her with a psychological trauma, Zhen Yinglian was not very lively. She seemed to be cautious everywhere, and looked submissive and obedient.

However, in order to sell her for a good price, the traffickers would not let her starve. Just like a piece of high-quality merchandise, they would take good care of it.

After staying in the old house for one night, Lu Cheng rushed back to Yangzhou City with Zhen Yinglian and several servants the next day.

After leaving Jinling City, perhaps realizing that she had truly gotten rid of the human traffickers, Zhen Yinglian became more active. She began to accept her new name and followed Lu Cheng, calling him "Brother".

After returning to the Lin Mansion, Lin Ruhai was a little curious when he saw Lu Cheng bringing back a little girl in her teens.

After learning the cause of the incident from Lu Cheng, Lin Ruhai also felt a little emotional: "This child is also unfortunate. She was kidnapped at a young age, and she has no relatives or parents. She has suffered the pain of wandering. Since she was rescued by you, it is also fate. How about this, let's keep her in the mansion so that she can be a companion to Yu'er."

When Lin Daiyu heard that Lu Cheng had returned from Jinling, she quickly came to the front hall from the backyard.

Seeing that there was a little girl following Lu Cheng, and that the little girl called Lu Cheng brother, and seemed quite friendly, Lin Daiyu felt a little unhappy, as if her senior brother was being taken away by someone.

After hearing about Cailian's experience, Lin Daiyu felt distressed again. She walked over and took Cailian's hand and said, "Sister, don't be afraid. From now on, you can treat this place as your home. Come on, I'll take you to pick a room to live in."

Lu Cheng immediately called Lin Daiyu over, and motioned Lai Shun to hand over a box of cakes, and brought it to Lin Daiyu: "Junior sister, these are the millet cakes, honey cakes, and five-spice cakes I brought back from Jinling. I don't know what flavors you like, so I bought some of them."

Lin Daiyu was delighted when she heard this and took the cake. "Thank goodness, Senior Brother still remembers me. I thought Senior Brother had a younger sister and had forgotten about me."

After saying this, Daiyu ran to the backyard, holding the cakes in one hand and holding Cailian in the other.

Somehow, these words with a hint of sarcasm coming out of Lin Daiyu's mouth didn't sound offensive at all. Instead, they seemed cute, lively and smart.

There were not many servants in the Lin Mansion, and Lin Ruhai did not like luxury, so Daiyu did not have many maids and servants serving her. Cailian's arrival did give Daiyu an extra companion.

Lu Cheng also intended to let Cailian follow Daiyu to read, write, and practice standing meditation to exercise the body. Every time he instructs Daiyu in her exercises, he also instructs Cailian at the same time.

Daiyu has been standing in the stance for nearly a year. Her body has been restored to health, and she has mastered the stance exercise completely. Her body stability has been greatly improved, and she no longer needs Lu Cheng's guidance.

Now, Lu Cheng has been teaching Daiyu simple steps to make her more flexible and coordinated, laying the foundation for learning boxing and kicking in the future.

When it comes to learning literature, Daiyu is responsible for teaching Yinglian how to read and write.

In the original novel, it was Daiyu who taught Xiangling how to write poetry. Lin Daiyu was also very talented in being a teacher. She told Xiangling not to pay too much attention to the rhythm and words, but to focus on the idea first. She told Xiangling to read Wang Wei, Li Bai, and Du Fu first, and then Tao Yuanming and Xie Lingyun, so that Xiangling could gradually improve and eventually get into the realm of poetry.

In fact, both Lin Daiyu and Zhen Yinglian are smart and clever people, and they are very talented in poetry.

Two months passed quickly, and in the blink of an eye it was time for the college entrance examination.

Compared with the county examination and the prefectural examination, the academy examination has much more content. It not only tests the classics, history and eight-legged essays, but also examines current affairs, that is, the understanding and analysis of current political affairs.

After that, there were tests on poetry and reciting the "Imperial Edicts".

Among these, the most difficult one is the eight-legged essay.

The content of the eight-part essay seems to be fixed in the Four Books and Five Classics, and it also has a fixed format, as if you only need to read it by heart. However, in reality, the topic of the eight-part essay is very flexible, and it may be a sentence or a few words from the Four Books and Five Classics.

An eight-part essay must have a topic introduction, a topic continuation, a lecture, an introduction, a topic ...

In the imperial examinations of the Ming and Qing dynasties, at least one-third of the candidates were eliminated directly due to format issues.

Some people say that eight-part essay is a word game, which is absolutely true. Eight-part essay is a word game with strict logic, which can only be played by people with high IQ and strong logical thinking ability.

Pu Songling, Wu Cheng'en, Jin Shengtan, and Wu Jingzi of the Qing Dynasty were all talented writers, but they all failed in the imperial examination. Pu Songling took the exam more than a dozen times in a row and finally gave up at the age of 51.

In fact, just like what Qianlong said in a TV series in later generations, the first purpose of the imperial examination was never to select talents for the country and educate the world, but to trap ambitious people. Let the smart people in the world enter the cage of eight-part essays, let them study chapters and sentences, and study the classics until they are old, so that those smart people will not have wild ideas or cause any trouble.

Moreover, the literati selected through the eight-legged essay examination in the imperial examination are both intelligent and accustomed to abiding by the rules. They are the talents that the country truly wants.

As for those literati who are full of talent and unwilling to follow the old ways, they will be regarded as heretics by mainstream thinking and will not be valued.

Lu Cheng sees these things more clearly than any other educated person in the world.

However, when a person cannot change the world or the rules, the first thing to do is not to be passive and withdrawn from the world, nor to be indignant. Instead, he should follow the existing rules and regulations, step by step, move up to the highest position, and become the one who makes the rules.

Of course, how many people in ancient and modern times have been able to go through this journey and still remember their original intentions?

The exam was held in August and the results were announced in September. Lu Cheng once again took the top spot without a doubt and won the honor of being one of the "Little Three Firsts".

Eleven-year-old scholars were rare to begin with, and with the title of "Little Sanyuan", Lu Cheng became known as the "little prodigy" in Yangzhou Prefecture and even in the entire Jianghuai area.

However, the Xiao Sanyuan was still Xiao Sanyuan after all, and the Xiucai had only achieved initial fame and had left the civilian class. He could meet the county magistrate without bowing. When facing officials, he no longer needed to call himself a commoner, but a student or a junior.

After successfully passing the college examination, there were still three years before the next provincial examination, so Lu Cheng was not in a hurry.

However, Lin Ruhai was more attentive to Lu Cheng's studies. Whenever he had free time, he would take time to teach Lu Cheng about his studies, and even had someone find excellent works from the examination papers of previous dynasties for Lu Cheng to refer to and learn from.

Not only that, Lin Ruhai also often took Lu Cheng to exchange academic knowledge with some literati such as the Yangzhou Education Commissioner, and asked them to guide Lu Cheng.

To be able to become a state's education commissioner, responsible for teaching and education in that state, one's academic level must naturally be high. First of all, one must have studied in the Hanlin Academy and become a "disciple of the emperor."

It can be said that Lin Ruhai used all the resources he could to support Lu Cheng's studies.

Lu Cheng would not disappoint Lin Ruhai. He was extremely proficient in Confucian classics, classics, history, and literature, as well as eight-part essays, poetry, and songs. Even in terms of music, chess, calligraphy, and painting, Lu Cheng was impeccable.

Although Lu Cheng did not fully demonstrate his abilities in music, calligraphy and painting, he only needed to show a little bit of his level to be enough to make many well-known calligraphy and painting masters and zither masters praise him and even feel inferior to him.

Writers all love fame, but in this age of information blockage, it is not easy to become famous. You need someone to admire and flatter you.

Lu Cheng had Lin Ruhai, a third place winner in the imperial examination, as his teacher, and he made friends with many Hanlin scholars and successful candidates in the imperial examinations throughout the dynasties. He was the first to gain recognition from the official mainstream crowd.

Afterwards, those Hanlin scholars and disciples of successive Jinshi scholars naturally had to give him some face and praise him.

This way, your reputation will become even greater.

If Lu Cheng can make unstoppable progress all the way, pass all the tests, and take first place in the provincial and metropolitan examinations, his fame will spread throughout the world.

Of course, compared to these reputations, Lu Cheng cares more about practical interests.

While studying, Lu Cheng was also concentrating on developing his own power, constantly expanding his manpower and raising money and materials.

As the Flying Eagle Gang continued to grow and became involved in more and more businesses, it naturally attracted the attention and hostility of various forces in the Jianghuai area.

The salt industry and water transport in Jianghuai are indeed very developed, but there are also many local tyrants here, and the forces from all sides are mixed.

With the rise of a big gang like the Flying Eagle Gang, it will naturally take a piece of the pie from others.

Some forces will suppress it openly, while some forces want to act secretly and assassinate the top leaders of the Flying Eagle Gang.

But how could those idle underworld forces and local tyrants compare to the organized, disciplined and well-trained Flying Eagle Gang?

For a time, in places invisible to ordinary people, the underground forces in the entire Jianghuai region began to reshuffle. Some local tyrants who had been entrenched in the area for decades or even hundreds of years collapsed or joined the Flying Eagle Gang.

In this constant struggle, the inner and outer hall members of the Flying Eagle Gang also received sufficient training. For those gang members who performed outstandingly, Lu Cheng would personally teach them martial arts and reward them with some medicinal baths and pills to strengthen their bodies.

Anyone who can enter the outer hall of the Flying Eagle Gang can learn sword techniques, stick techniques, or fist and foot techniques.

However, anyone who enters the inner hall can practice basic standing meditation and learn further skills.

Taking advantage of the Flying Eagle Gang's business dealings in various places, Lu Cheng also asked them to collect and stockpile some ironware, sulfur, saltpeter and other supplies.

At the same time, those members who have undergone ideological education and are most loyal to the gang, or some outstanding children of the Young Eagle Hall, will also learn some mathematics, physics, and chemistry knowledge, methods of making firearms, etc.

Every month, a large amount of silver was deposited into the Flying Eagle Gang's account, and a large amount of silver was spent, which was turned into various supplies and medicinal materials.

Lu Cheng had done this many times before and had already formed a complete set of procedures. He only needed to put the right people in the right positions and not worry too much.