Translator: Dj2203
Editor: Dj2203
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The girl’s every move was strange, and Zhuang Li was quite familiar with this strangeness.
He had a vague idea, and to verify it, he put on his outer robe, leaned against the wall, and slowly walked to the window to check on the boy.
This body was indeed very weak; after only a few steps, it was already panting heavily.
The boy immediately stood up, helped his brother to his seat, and then brought over the bowl of still-steaming medicine, whispering, “Brother, please drink your medicine quickly. Don’t be afraid of the bitterness. How can you get better if you don’t drink your medicine?”
The girl tried to persuade Zhuang Li with a lot of heartfelt words, but he ignored her completely; but as soon as the boy opened his mouth, he picked up the bowl and drank the bitter medicine in one gulp.
Seeing that his older brother listened to him so much, the boy didn’t say anything, but a happy smile appeared on his face.
Zhuang Li casually picked up a book piled on the corner of the table, opened it to read, then held his head and gritted his teeth to swallow the groan that was about to escape his throat.
Just as the girl had said, this body did indeed suffer from a headache that came on whenever it opened a book. And this problem was quite strange; it was perfectly normal most of the time, showing no signs of anything amiss, but the moment a book was opened, the headache would immediately flare up.
The words written in the book would turn into a swarm of tiny flying insects, flapping their wings and swooping down on his face. They would then fly into his eyes, ears, nose, and mouth, and burrow into his brain, gnawing at his brain marrow and causing him unbearable pain.
This problem was left behind by the original owner, but it still lingered in the brain of this body and was naturally passed on to Zhuang Li.
People often say they can’t read books because they get a headache as soon as they start reading. This was mostly said in jest and had no truth to it.
However, when these words were spoken by the original owner of the body, they had tremendous power.
Who would believe it if the words in a book suddenly came to life, turning into brain-eating worms and tormenting the reader to the point of wishing for death?
So right now, the original owner’s grandmother was standing outside the window, indirectly scolding him: “Lazy dog, get up right now! I raised you to guard the house, not to sleep all day! When I first brought you home, you looked so strong and powerful, but you’re just a pretty face, you can’t even catch a mouse. All you do is eat, drink, and sleep all day! Don’t I spend money raising you? If you don’t guard the house, I’ll beat you to death! You lazy dog!”
Zhuang Li peered through the crack in the window and saw a mean-looking old woman wielding a broom and fiercely beating a large yellow dog lying in the yard.
The big yellow dog howled as it was beaten and soon ran away with its tail between its legs.
The old woman threw down her broom, glared fiercely at the east wing— the room where Zhuang Li was— then spat on the ground and muttered, “Tian’er was right after all, neither of these brothers is any good! The second son spent over a hundred taels of silver to support their education. If that money had been used to buy land, our Zhuang family would have been big landowners long ago. Bah, two good-for-nothings!”
The old woman left, grumbling and cursing, but she didn’t lower her voice, even though she knew the two brothers were inside.
The boy massaged his brother’s temples while lowering his head with a look of shame.
It took Zhuang Li a while to recover from the intense pain before he picked up the book again.
“Brother, stop watching and rest,” the boy urged anxiously.
Zhuang Li ran his fingertip along the name written in the lower left corner of the cover and casually hummed in agreement.
After confirming that the original owner was also named Zhuang Li, he picked up the boy’s textbook and looked at it. He saw the three characters “Zhuang Jiuge” written on the cover. The calligraphy was very elegant and refined, yet it was also vigorous and strong. Considering the boy’s age of fourteen or fifteen, this calligraphy was already quite accomplished.
However, upon opening the title page, the annotations inside were an ugly mess, with every word crooked and blurred into ink dots, lacking both style and spirit, completely different from the original.
Zhuang Li raised an eyebrow, seemingly surprised yet also expecting it, and asked, “Does your wrist really shake when you write? Can’t you control it?”
The boy first blushed with shame, then turned deathly pale, and said in despair, “Brother, I really don’t know what to do. My wrist won’t obey me. I get so nervous when I write, afraid it will shake, but the more afraid I am, the more it shakes. If I were to take an exam with this handwriting, the examiner would really kick me out. I… I won’t be able to study anymore.”
The boy covered his face with his hands and sobbed softly. Afraid that the neighbors would hear, he quickly swallowed his pain and just silently shed tears.
Zhuang Li pursed his thin lips and quickly flipped through the manuscript on the table.
Strangely, as long as he wasn’t seriously studying, his head didn’t hurt at all.
Zhuang Li found Zhuang Jiuge’s old poems and compared them with her current homework. He shook his head and said, “Your handwriting used to be very beautiful. How did it become like this?”
“I… I don’t know either.” Zhuang Jiuge shook his head sadly.
“Could it be related to that person? When you’re writing, does she always say your wrist is unsteady and shakes badly?” Zhuang Li guessed.
After carefully recalling the events, Zhuang Jiuge’s pain was slowly replaced by anger: “Brother, it’s true! At first, my hands didn’t shake, but Zhuang Tian’er would come to watch me write from time to time, and when I was engrossed in it, she would suddenly snatch the brush away and make me get my hands covered in ink.”
“If I get angry, she will say in a righteous tone that this is how teachers in a private school test their students. If she can easily take the brush away from me, it means my wrist is not steady and I need to practice more.”
“I couldn’t argue with her, so I had to practice calligraphy even harder, but she always managed to snatch my pen when I wasn’t looking and said my hand was shaking. Later, later…” Zhuang Jiuge choked up at this point, and tears streamed down her face.
Zhuang Li completed the second half of the sentence for him: “Later, you were always concerned about what she said, and worried that she would suddenly appear and take your pen, so you gripped the pen very tightly. However, you did not know that the more you gripped the pen with your fingertips, the more your wrist would shake.”
“Over the years, your handwriting has become like this. Whenever you pick up a pen, your fingertips exert too much force, causing your wrist to tremble constantly. You can’t change it no matter what you do.”
“Yes,” Zhuang Jiuge nodded while wiping away her tears, and said with grief and indignation, “Brother, this is how I got sick, it’s all Zhuang Tian’er’s fault! I never would have thought of it if you hadn’t told me!”
Zhuang Li rubbed the boy’s head and pondered, “When I was in school, she probably often said some unpleasant things, didn’t she?”
Zhuang Jiuge was stunned for a while before saying in astonishment, “Brother, it really is like that! Before, when you were reading, Zhuang Tian’er would always suddenly pop up, point to a certain word in the book and ask you how to pronounce it. If you read it to her, she would repeat that word over and over again, making your head hurt.”
“You get annoyed by her noise and order her out, but not long after, she will come back and ask you how to pronounce another word. If you don’t answer, she will guess a pronunciation and repeat it a hundred times in your ear, like chanting a spell.”
At this point, Zhuang Jiuge suddenly clapped her hands, realizing, “Brother, that’s when you started getting headaches whenever you read! That damned jinx Zhuang Tian’er! She’s our bad luck!”
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