The sky above Danzhou suddenly darkened. The black clouds above their heads were heavy like wet, dirty cotton or overheated cotton candy. They hung above everyone's heads.
But the people who lived by the sea were used to this kind of weather. They knew that there was still a long time before it started to rain, so they didn't panic. It wasn't like years ago, when Count Sinan's beautiful illegitimate son liked to run to the rooftops of the manor's courtyards and yell to the whole city, "It's going to rain. Everyone, put away your clothes."
"Young Master Fan, why don't you tell everyone to put away their clothes?" On the only main street in Danzhou Harbor, there were food and trinkets everywhere. The peddlers looked at the handsome boy walking through the crowd and joked.
Fan Xian smiled shyly and didn't say anything. He held the hand of a serving girl and walked into the manor, holding a piece of tofu in his other hand.
Everyone knew that this illegitimate son of Count Sinan was different from other young nobles. He liked to help the servants, especially the serving girls. They were used to it, so they weren't surprised.
It had been nearly six years since Fei Jie left Danzhou, and Fan Xian had grown into a calm and beautiful young boy.
Returning to the manor, Fan Xian asked the servants to take the tofu to the kitchen, then paid his respects to the ill Countess and tucked a piece of paper into his clothes. Only then did he return to his study. He took out the letter from his sister in the capital and placed it next to the paper. The expression on his face suddenly became interesting.
This year, the Emperor of the Kingdom of Qing had surprised everyone by changing the Qing calendar. The name of the year was the same as the name of the country. Although the civil officials and nobles in the capital didn't dare to express any opinions, they would always mutter a few words in a corner where no one was around. This was especially true for the pedantic literati. Whether it was the modern or the ancient literati, the old masters of the National Academy of Education or the novelists who ate porridge, they all began to voice their opinions in the articles submitted to the Eighth Bureau of the Overwatch Council for review.
After the change of the Qing calendar came the implementation of new policies. But the new policies seemed to be nothing new. They only regulated the governance of the officials. The only thing that struck the people as new was that in the first year of the Qing calendar, the palace suddenly issued an edict. The internal court began to publish newspapers.
Newspaper? No one understood what it was until the internal court actually printed the first piece of newspaper. Only then did everyone exclaim in unison. No one took it seriously anymore.
Because this newspaper was a product exclusively controlled by the royal palace, and the daily sample issue had to be approved by His Majesty himself before it could be printed, it was impossible to publish any articles that would cause trouble for the Empire.
After a few issues of the newspaper, which cost one silver coin each, were bought by the people in the capital who loved to try new things. Some of the nobles felt that they had been tricked by His Majesty. Was the palace preparing to build a new garden?
There was nothing of value on that thin piece of paper. It only wrote about various places of interest and biographies of people from the previous dynasty. On the side that took up the largest space, there were flower-like borders printed around it. They recorded the private lives of many officials in Jingdou, such as how the head of the Military Council was brutally beaten by his fierce wife, why the commander of the Jingdou Garrison was missing a front tooth, and so on.
There was also some gossip involving neighboring Northern Qi and Dongyi, but the officials of the Qing Kingdom only paid attention to their own matters. In the beginning, they could laugh and laugh. Later, when it was their turn, they knew the taste of losing face. They had wanted to make trouble for the newspaper, but the Emperor was behind them, so they could only reluctantly give up.
The newspaper had a small print run. There were only two copies in all of Danzhou. One of them was for the Count's estate.
When Fan Xian stole the newspaper that the servants were talking about from his grandmother's room and hurriedly scanned it, he was unable to control the expression on his face. He opened his mouth wide and wished he could stuff his fist into it. What era was this? There was a gossip newspaper, and it was supervised by an imperial edict.
…
…
There was another new policy. The royal family had issued the Open Postal Act. Nowadays, postal routes were unimpeded. This way, the brother and sister could quietly communicate without fear of others finding out.
Fan Xian frowned as he looked at the newspaper in front of him. During this time, he had heard many things about the new policy from passersby. In his opinion, it was purely a product of the Emperor's mischief. But everyone knew that the Emperor had never been one to make trouble.
Fan Xian was not in the mood to change the world, nor did he have any interest in changing it. But when some aspects of the world had become similar to his previous world, he naturally wanted to know what was hidden behind these things.
After this awkward thought process, he still couldn't figure it out. He smiled bitterly and pushed the newspaper aside. He thought to himself, "Could it be that there's another person in this world who has traveled through time, and one who is especially ambitious?"
But none of this had anything to do with him. The letter next to the newspaper was inextricably linked to him.
In Fan Xian's memory, Fan Ruoruo was the one who was related to him by blood. Many years ago, he had spent a short period of his childhood in Danzhou. She was tanned and skinny, and she was not even as beautiful as he was.
He hadn't seen her for many years, and he didn't know what she looked like now. Had the sparse yellow hair on her head turned black? Had she become prettier? Fan Xian had even forgotten whether his sister should be called Fan Ruo or Fan Ruoruo.
"I really am not a good brother," he thought self-mockingly. Even though he had a strange soul that had lived two lives in his body, he was still that girl's brother in his blood, so he did not care much for her. Two years ago, when Fan Ruoruo started school, she often sent letters from school to Danzhou City. Fan Xian, on the other hand, spent every day practicing his powerful zhenqi, receiving hard training from the blind Wu Zhu, and revising the book on toxicology left behind by Fei Jie, rarely replied.
Fan Ruoruo should have been ten years old this year. Perhaps it was because of the horror stories she had read in her childhood, but for some reason, the young lady of the Count's manor was very dependent on her distant brother. She often sent letters to ask after him. In the first half of the year, her letters often expressed her longing for her grandmother and memories of her life in Danzhou. In the second half of the year, her letters only occasionally talked about family matters, and most of them talked about the boring days in the capital.
Fan Xian's finger lightly brushed across the letter, his beautiful face slightly worried.
The letter was written in his sister's slightly immature handwriting. She wrote about her recent life in the capital, and how she had entered a school that only girls from noble families could attend. Everything seemed to fit the trajectory that everyone like her should follow.
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