Chapter 318: Chapter 127 Lu Min_2
The neighbors laughed heartily, but Mother blushed with shame and came over with a wooden stick to chase after her, "You dead girl, spouting nonsense again!"
"It’s true!"
Come nightfall, she hid under the covers and watched her mother mend old clothes under the lamp beside the bed. She then asked, "Mother, why should one read books? I don’t like reading."
Her mother paused her needlework, thought for a moment, and answered, "Reading is like taking medicine; with enough medicine, strength comes of its own accord."
"Read more books, and you can resolve your doubts."
"Resolve doubts?" Young Lu Tong pouted, "If I have any doubts, I can go ask Father, ask Sister, ask Second Brother."
"You," her mother rebuked gently with a smile, touching her forehead, "when they are not by your side, if you have something you don’t understand, you can find the answer in books."
"Why won’t they be by my side?" Lu Tong was not satisfied with this answer. She turned over and muttered, "With Sister and Second Brother here, I don’t need to read."
That’s what Lu Tong thought at the time, believing that for every problem in the world, her parents and siblings would find her the answer, and all confusions would be effortlessly resolved, that she didn’t have to do things she disliked, and books she didn’t want to read could remain unread.
And that her family would always be by her side.
Until she went to Luomei Peak with Lady Yun.
Countless nights, she tossed and turned, unable to sleep; the pain of being treated as a Medicine Man, the loneliness of living alone at the peak, Lady Yun’s malicious teasing, and the yearning for her family formed dense, gloomy mists, weaving together and enveloping her. She always felt that at any moment, her reason would crumble apart, always felt that she couldn’t make it to the next moment.
In those trying days, she suddenly remembered her mother’s words.
"When they are not by your side, if you have something you don’t understand, you can find the answer in books."
In the future, which could not be seen clearly, with no idea when the anxiety would stop, in those days, she picked up a book.
There were many books in Lady Yun’s room.
Mostly about poison and pharmacology, with a small portion about history and classics. She could read, but didn’t understand them, so she had to force herself to continue. Day after day, year after year, she gradually began to grasp the meaning of the books.
She didn’t know whether reading could truly resolve doubts, but over those years, reading killed a lot of time for her, making those anxious and desolate days seem not so unbearable.
Mother certainly never thought that the girl in the family who used to hate reading the most, who hid and threw her homework into the pond claiming it was stolen, later read so many books and learned so many principles on the mountain.
The person beside her said, "Your father is very insightful."
In the Liang Dynasty, most fathers of ordinary families thought that girls needn’t read books, and that it was enough for them to do needlework and embroidery at home.
Lu Tong smiled lightly, "It’s a pity it’s of no use."
Pei Yunmeng paused.
"My sister read much better than I did," Lu Tong said, "Her essays, when taken to Second Brother’s academy, were highly praised by the teacher. If she had been born a man and entered the exams, Changwu County might well have already produced a top scholar. But still, she was deceived to the point where she lost her life."
"We are all a family of readers, but look at the outcome, it’s still like this."
Lu Tong laughed, her smile tinged with self-mockery, "The notion that reading can change one’s fate is just a deception for the poor to fool themselves. The most useless people in the world are readers."
When she said this, her tone was calm and undisturbed, as if she was weary of the ways of the world, perhaps with a bit of self-loathing for her own powerlessness.
Reading is like a dose of cannabis taken in times of illness; it can temporarily ease the pain but cannot make it disappear.
"I don’t quite see it that way."
Suddenly, a young man’s voice came from beside her.
"In Shengjing, it seems only you have studied the ’Laws of the Liang Dynasty’ so thoroughly."
As if struck by something, Lu Tong instinctively looked up.
The young man smiled and looked down at her, the gentle light of the hanging silk lamp above him leaping into his eyes, casting a layer of warm hues all around his figure.
Even his gaze softened.
"Not everyone can kill someone right under my watch and go undetected."
He stared at Lu Tong’s eyes, smiling, "Doctor Lu, you are very impressive."
Very... impressive?
Lu Tong was stunned.
It was not mockery, nor was there any ridicule.
Pei Yunmeng’s tone was very serious.
People flowed back and forth around them, with lantern lights flickering all about, as the young man in black boots and brocade garments smiled at her.
Sincere, without a hint of falsehood.
After a moment of silence, just as Lu Tong was about to speak, she suddenly noticed that Pei Yunmeng’s gaze had moved past her, fixing on a certain point behind her, his expression somewhat strange.