CH 11

Lin San? Servant selection contest? Lin Wanrong nearly fainted, I can’t even use my real name, and you want other people to call me Lin San? What kind of thing is this servant selection contest? Why would the servant selection need to be contested?

Uncle Wei can see through Lin Wanrong’s mind so he said with a smile: “Name is just a symbol. I believe you don’t want your name Lin Wanrong to appear on the list of servants of the Xiao Family, right? So, Lin San is more appropriate. As to what is the servant selection contest mean, you don’t need to bother too much about it. Just remember my words, you need to be the servant of the Xiao Family. However, it appears that many people also want to compete for this position. So you need to work hard, don’t let other people rob you of your job.”

Lin Wanrong then remembered that since uncle Wei was about to leave, his meal ticket will also leave with him. And from now on, he has to feed himself. According to this, instead of asking him to become a servant, was uncle Wei actually trying to give him a job? Unfortunately, although Lin Wanrong did not care too much about this stupid job, there were a bunch of other people who covet this job. If he did not try hard, maybe he could even fail on this test. That would be really embarrassing.

They make this competition just for selecting a few servants. I don’t know whose idea is this, but no ordinary people could possibly think of this.

When Lin Wanrong was still pondering, uncle Wei was already gone. When Lin Wanrong walked out of the door, he can’t even see his shadow. This blind old man’s pace is quite fast.

Lin Wanrong must face the reality, if he was a man of his words, he would do as he promised, to obediently go to the Xiao Family to become a servant there for a year.

In any case, this is just a year, I just need to muddle along like a pig in the pigsty. As to what the old man Wei said about the career, that’s just pure nonsense. If I go to the Head of the Xiao Family and said, boss, I want to make a career, they would surely beat me with sticks.

Thinking to this, Lin Wanrong’s mind relaxed a lot. As long as he went through that so-called servant selection contest, and then muddled along, he would be free of his promise after a year.

This so-called servant selection contest was the equivalent of a “Job Fair.” After thinking about the time when he was looking for work in a Job Fair, Lin Wanrong smiled, I better start thinking about how to earn money.

Today, Lin Wanrong has yet to heal from his serious wound so Lin Wanrong did not want to think too much about it. He will just stay at home and rest.

Uncle Wei left behind a small thatched house with a very simple furnishing. In addition to the two beds, there were also some classical books. Lin Wanrong casually flipped through them and found out that many of them were actually works of cultural significance. He did not know where could uncle Wei stole this collection.

At present, Lin Wanrong’s mood has stabilized. Now he began to get curious, so he opened those books. Although the literary style was ancient, the used character was traditional and he must read it from top to bottom, which made him dizzy just to look at it, but in order not to become this era’s “illiterate,” Lin Wanrong must hold himself as he struggled to understand all of those.

In Lin Wanrong’s world, after the end of the Qin Dynasty, Chu and Han battled each other. Afterwards, the hegemon Xiang Yu the conqueror committed suicide in the river Jiang, which ended the war. But in this world, Xiang Yu won the struggle. He chopped off Liu Bang’s head and established the powerful Chu Dynasty. Xiang Yu and Yu Ji then became the founding Emperor and Empress of the Chu Dynasty.

The history thus began to diverge. This proved that Lin Wanrong really came to another world. This world and Lin Wanrong’s original world existed at the same time. Just like a river, but with different branches.

Because in this place, Liu Bang was defeated, the historical development from that point was completely different than on Lin Wanrong’s world. For a thousand years after that event, the Dynastic strife continued unceasingly. After the Great Chu Dynasty, there were dozens of Dynasties until around a hundred years ago, the Emperor Zhao established the powerful Great Hua Dynasty. Prior to Hua Dynasty, there was the Song Dynasty. By chance, the corruption and incompetence of the Great Song Dynasty’s court were almost exactly the same as the one in Lin Wanrong’s world.

When Lin Wanrong passed through the space-time warp into this world, it also triggered a time reversal. So Lin Wanrong went back to around nineteen years of age, but his mind was still twenty-five years old.

In brief, not only Lin Wanrong returned back to nineteen years old, he also inexplicably came to this strange space, which can be said as a whole new world.

Lin Wanrong faintly felt that the mysterious event that he went through was perhaps the most important evidence of the existence of the parallel universe. Unfortunately, he could never go back. This unfounded thing has to be left for many Einstein-like geniuses to crack their heads to solve it.

Lin Wanrong sighed with emotion for a moment, afterward, he refused to think about this thing and continued to study history. The entire day, Lin Wanrong spent his time diligently reading those books. Lin Wanrong continued to linger in the sea of books. He was so focused that he even forgot the pain on his shoulder.

After a good night’s sleep, Lin Wanrong woke up the next morning to find the injured internal organs caused by Xiao QingXuan was no longer ached. And the purple shade on his shoulder also faded away. It was indeed exactly like what the old man Wei said, the poison was weak and unlikely to kill him.

He also did not know what kind of medicine that the old man Wei applied on his arrow wound, but the wound on his shoulder was already scabbed. It was like the sewed up wound on Lin Wanrong’s world. If he met with him again in the future, he would surely ask him some spare of it.

After he dressed up, he was quite satisfied with what he saw in the bronze mirror. Although there were still holes in his shoes, Lin Wanrong did not care. Because he also would not bother talking to people who judge other people by appearance. In fact, he disdained people like that. Not to mention his appearance, which absolutely not bad; he just dressed up a bit shabby.

After he went out of the house, he wandered around the street for a while. Honestly, Lin Wanrong was not too familiar with the City of Jinling. He only went several times to the Xuanwu Lake, which was not too far away from his residence. As for the direction to the Xiao Family house, that was unknown to him.

On the street, after eating two youtiao (deep-fried breadstick), and drank a large bowl of soybean milk, Lin Wanrong could not help but pat his full belly, In this world, there is nothing like these soybean and cooking products, they are genuinely cheap organic food for everyone. He easily left three copper coins to the seller, told him to keep the change, and then clamped his broken shoes as he walked away.

After walking for a few steps, he remembered that he did not know the location of the Xiao Family house. So he pulled the nearby uncle and said: “Uncle, may I ask—”

That uncle directly interrupted Lin Wanrong, and handed Lin Wanrong the thing in his hand: “You are going to participate in the Xiao Family servant selection contest, right? Here, this is the map to the location, only five copper coins. What, you want this for one copper coin? Little brother, you’re pushing too hard, that’s not even enough to cover the cost of production. This is at least three copper coins. Okay, okay, just consider this as ‘small profit but with rapid turnover,’ I’ll give you two of these for two copper coins.”

Lin Wanrong pulled out two copper coins and gave it to him. He then received two thin maps from him. After that, he asked: “Uncle, this Xiao Family servant selection contest is so ‘large scale,’ and there are so many applicants, is this work really that good?”

Seeing the two copper coins, that uncle started to open his chatterbox mouth: “Little brother, you must have come from the outside area. Alas, as you know, in these days, business is not that good. Xiao Family is one of the wealthy and famous household in Jinling City. Although in these two years, their businesses have declined somewhat, their baseline operation is still strong, and their treatment of their servants is really good. Even their lowest level servant have a monthly salary of twenty-five tael of silver, not to mention their mid-level and senior-level servant. Moreover, on New Year, they will receive bonuses, as well as generous benefits. Therefore, the number of applicants are endless. Let me tell you, today, from this morning till now, I received no less than a hundred people, there were all young men like you. There are also a lot of talented scholars who want to sign up just like you.”