A bellyful of bad water and a bellyful of ink

  Zhang's face turned red with shame and anger: "If you say that again, I'll have to ask you to leave!"

  Yang Cong hastily shook his head and waved his hand: "I didn't mean that, Zhang sister. Even if someone put a knife to my neck, I wouldn't bully you. I just remembered that in the past, I always slept with my sister, but after she got married, I've been sleeping alone..."

  Mr. Zhang looked at him and saw that he was almost in tears, so he asked: "Haven't you eaten enough yet?"

  "Well, eat another bowl and you'll be full." The young man swallowed his last mouthful of rice.

  He looked strained, obviously already exhausted, but seemed willing to stick around for a while longer with Zhang, even if it killed him.

  "If you can't finish it, then don't eat it."

  "Eat it down, eat it down." The young man hastily stuffed the rice into his mouth, but he couldn't swallow it anymore, and a bulge formed in his mouth.

  "What do you want to tell me? I don't even know your name." Zhang sighed.

  "Oh, right! I was so busy talking to Sister Zhang that I forgot to tell you my name. My name is Yang Tong, just call me Ah Tong. Yang Tong said with unclear articulation, "I actually came today to find Brother Zhen, can you help me pass on a few words to him... cough cough cough..."

  As he spoke, the rice in his mouth choked into his trachea, and he suddenly started coughing.

  Zhang handed him a glass of water, her tone laced with resignation: "No one's forcing you to finish it, just spit it out if you can't swallow. You're going to choke and then your family will blame me."

  Yang Cong drank the tea, and since Zhang Shi didn't drive him away again, he stopped putting things in his mouth. Hearing Zhang Shi's words, his expression became somewhat despondent: "I'm the only one in my family, and I can barely talk to the other servants."

  Zhang picked up the bowls and chopsticks on the table and said lightly: "Don't you have many sisters?"

  Yang Cong heard the words and burst out laughing: "Hehe, it's not many, Frost sister is the peony fairy of Baihua Building, and there's also a Bei'er sister from the Changsun family. The clothes on me were made by Bei'er sister."

  Zhang poured a cup of brewed tea and handed it in front of him.

  Yang Cong brought it to his mouth and sniffed it, furrowing his brow: "What kind of tea is this?"

  "Farmer's Tea."

  Yang Dang looked suspicious: "How can this tea be drinkable? I won't drink inferior tea, it'll give me diarrhea. Another day, I'll have someone send you a few pounds of top-grade tribute Longjing."

  "Keep Longjing tea for yourself, I'll drink this inferior tea. Drinking it every day, I haven't seen any diarrhea?"

  Yang Cong hastily picked up the tea and drank it all in one gulp, scalding his tongue to the point of near numbness, yet exclaimed: "Huh? I didn't expect a farmhouse tea to have such an exceptional quality, not at all inferior to the tribute Longjing, what good tea!"

  For his clumsy rescue, Zhang smiled and curiously asked: "How did you get to know him?"

  "Who? Oh, you mean Zhen Ge? Hehe, it was on the day when you were taken away by the people from Pei's mansion. I happened to be passing by your house and saw Zhen Ge chasing after a horse carriage. After asking around, I found out that you had been kidnapped, so I brought Zhen Ge to chase after you to Pei's mansion. If it wasn't for me distracting the guards at Pei's mansion, Zhen Ge wouldn't have been able to get in."

  Yang Cong told her in detail how he used horse dung to throw at the gatekeeper and paste the sign of Pei's mansion that day, with the only alteration being that he changed the person who came up with this idea to himself.

  Zhang listened with interest and burst out laughing, covering her mouth.

  Yang Cong saw the situation and became even more energetic, and he also scared the two human traffickers to death with Zhen Ming's help, and also told them about framing the Feng Mansion for this matter.

  Perhaps recalling what happened with the Five Grains King's shopkeeper, Zhang's expression turned somewhat strange, and she asked: "These ideas must have been thought up by him, right?"

  Yang Dang was caught lying by her on the spot, and his face couldn't hold up, he said with a smile: "I also have ideas."

  "This is also nothing worth boasting about, all are some bad ideas."

  Yang Cong hastily pushed it away: "The idea of ??the master is all thought out by Zhen Ge."

  "Did you come looking for him? I haven't seen him in a few days either."

  "It's actually nothing, my sister Frost said he stole her treasure, asked me to tell him, and let him return the thing intact within a limited time, otherwise she'll report to the authorities and search his house."

  "Did he steal something from your sister?"

  Although she rarely came into contact with people, she had also heard of the reputation of Mudan Xianzi and knew that it was difficult for ordinary people to see her at Baifa Lou.

  "Yes, Frosty said that what he stole was her most treasured possession, something that couldn't be bought even with money!"

  Yang Zong again mentioned the matter of letting him take him to the Baifang Building to listen to Mudan Xianzi play the tune, and when he talked about himself winning the fight, his face showed a rather complacent expression. Zhang Shi, on the other hand, listened with her eyebrows furrowed, seemingly speechless at the childish behavior of these men fighting each other to death for a woman.

  Yang Cong said, suddenly seeming to realize something, looked at Zhang with a suspicious expression: "Sister Zhang, why do you seem so familiar with Zhen Ge?"

  "Mr. Zhang said faintly, 'He often comes to my tofu stall to drink soy milk and likes to talk to himself. I ignore him, but he always finds something to say. After a few times, I got to know this person.'"

  Yang Dang was a bit skeptical, but couldn't find any flaws, so he said: "Sister Zhang, you can't get too close to him, he's not a good person, full of evil intentions!"

  "Are you full of good intentions?"

  "I'm full of ink! I've memorized the Book of Songs, Analects of Confucius and Mencius. Now I'm reading the Book of History, but there are many places that I don't understand. The words spoken by Pan Geng, Wei Zi and others, I don't understand a single sentence. However, my teacher praised me for being quick to grasp things, saying that I am a teachable child, a fine jade."

  Perhaps it was the first time he heard someone boast like this, Zhang couldn't help but laugh and said: "The Book of History records the secrets of the imperial family, involving state governance strategies, political affairs, and is not a textbook for ordinary people to understand and recognize characters. It's written for the future rulers of the country, the nobles and princes, so it's inevitable that there are some difficult words. At your current age, being able to read The Book of History is already remarkable. If you can memorize it strongly, in the future if you encounter things that match what's said in the book, you will naturally remember what's said in the book, and it will be self-evident."

  Yang Cong stared at her in surprise: "Zhang sister, how did you understand all this?"

  Zhang's expression became somewhat flustered, and he covered it up by saying: "When I was young, I followed my father to learn some characters and read some books."

  Yang Cong didn't suspect anything else, and happily said: "No wonder I felt an inexplicable closeness to Sister Zhang as soon as I saw her. In the past, Fu Lin sister also loved reading books very much, every night she would read until late at night before sleeping, and I would fall asleep in her arms. The fragrance of the ink on those books is still vividly remembered by me, so now whenever I flip through a book, I feel sleepy."

  "Is this habit of yours, sneaking a peek at others while they're bathing, also something your sister has spoiled you into?"