Roselle Peony

King Liang was always angry, and Lu Shangqiu could tell.He didn't know where he had offended the prince again, when he left the contest, the prince's eyes seemed to tear him apart.

Not only could he see it, but he could also feel the prince's anger.That night, he was pressed on the bed by the prince and piled endlessly. The process was rough and he suffered a lot.

The next day, his hands and feet trembled, his legs couldn't be closed, and he couldn't walk on the ground at all. Naturally, he missed the wonderful riding and shooting competition.

***

On the second day, the riding and archery competition was held at the Royal Hunting Garden in the north of Luoyang City.There are ten contestants, the top five in yesterday's ring competition and the top five in the previous written test.

The hunting garden has a large area, and there are five fixed targets and ten moving targets. Candidates need to shoot five steel knives at the fixed targets and ten feathered arrows at the moving targets within the specified time. Full marks; and what is even more difficult is that the whole process must be completed on horseback.Therefore, horsemanship, accuracy and ingenuity are compared in riding and archery, and brute force is not of much use.

There was only a whistle, and the door of the stables creaked open, and ten fat and strong bay red horses were led by the eunuchs for each contestant to choose according to their ranking in the ring competition.

The top eight official candidates all performed well, and the best result was that someone hit all five steel knives and eight feather arrows.

Then it was the turn of the No.2 monk Huishu.

Don't underestimate this monk Huishu, he learned hunting from his father since he was a child, he is a good rider and archer, and he is very familiar with horseback kung fu. In addition, he himself has practiced under Shaolin Xuanming's sect for ten years, and he has obtained the true teaching of Xuanming. His inner strength is extraordinary, and his lightness kung fu is amazing. He only missed one moving target in the whole process, and hit one more feathered arrow than the best official judge.

Everyone watching the battle couldn't help talking, and the generals also looked at this Shaolin monk with admiration.

The last one to play was Wu Daniu, the winner of yesterday's ring.

Wu Daniu chose the strongest horse, and everyone had high hopes for him.It's a pity that this man is a rough warrior. He once learned how to ride and shoot. He boasted that his horse was rebellious that month. He didn't listen to Wu Daniu at all. The steel knife made two hits by chance, but the feather arrow missed one. When he was about to leave the arena, he was thrown off his back by the horse and dragged around on the ground in front of everyone, disgraced and embarrassed.

The champion of Jin Kewu took the average score of the three items. Wu Daniu came last in the riding and archery test and lost to Huishu. .

Everyone held their breath until the eunuch called out the test paper results.

"Luozhou Juzi Huishu scored lower in the written test, and Yongzhou Juzi Wu Daniu scored second in the written test. With two wins in three rounds, Luozhou Juzi Huishu won!"

There were enthusiastic cheers from all around, and everyone was delighted that Monk Huishu had won the veritable champion of martial arts.

The empress was also very satisfied with the outstanding performance of the champion of the new science and martial arts, and appointed him as a captain of the Luoyang City Guard in court, and her subordinates were in charge of the [-] cavalry guards in the city to defend the imperial capital.

***

Monk Huishu received the award and walked back happily.He couldn't wait to tell his brothers and sisters the news - especially that senior brother Hui Yuan who had bet with him.

It was precisely because of monk Huiyuan's cheap talk that he bet that he could not even pass the martial arts written test, so he ran to Luoyang City to take the martial arts written test in a fit of anger.What he didn't expect was that he originally came for the exam for fun, and he was ready to accept it as soon as he was good, but he became addicted to playing.

Just as Huishu stepped into the threshold of Shaolin Temple, he saw monk Huiyuan running all the way towards him, panting and saying: "The abbot is looking for you and wants you to go to Luohan Hall immediately."

Hui Shu thought to himself, the abbot must praise the young monk for winning honor to Shaolin Temple.

"Sinister, kneel down." Abbot Xuanming reprimanded, "You know your mistake!"

Seeing that the master's face was livid, Hui Shu was so frightened that he "thumped" and knelt on the ground: "I don't know where I made a mistake, so I ask the master to explain it clearly."

Xuan Ming looked at the stunned apprentice in front of him, and shook his head: "Since you have been enshrined by the imperial court, I, Shaolin, will never accept you as an apprentice again."

When Huishu heard that his master wanted to drive him away, he panicked immediately, crawled up to his master and begged, "Master, don't drive me away, this disciple really wants to be an official!"

"Master, please don't drive the younger brother away. It is the disciple who used aggressive methods on the younger brother, so he ran to participate in the martial arts." Monk Huiyuan also knelt down to plead for the younger brother.

Huishu grabbed the master's trouser leg and shook it desperately: "Yes, yes, this disciple originally planned to report the situation to the Holy One tomorrow. The Holy Majesty is the Son of Heaven, and he is reasonable. He will definitely understand the disciple and allow the disciple to resign."

"What a crime! Huishu, don't you know that this is the first martial arts competition of the Great Zhou Dynasty? My Shaolin Temple has been favored by the court for generations, so now I want to fight against the court for you!" Abbot Xuanming sighed, "If you dare to resign , even if you don’t give the Great Zhou Emperor face, not only will your title be lost, but also the achievements I have accumulated over generations in Shaolin will be ruined by you.”

"Master, please don't drive me away." Knowing that she had caused a catastrophe, Hui Shu wept bitterly and begged bitterly.

"Huishu, now that you are no longer destined to be a Buddha, as a teacher, you will be punished with a hundred sticks and expelled from the school. You will never be allowed to enter the Shaolin Temple again. I hope you will be loyal to the court and serve the country wholeheartedly from now on."

***

The news that Huishu, the champion of the new martial arts, was expelled from Shaolin Temple, expelled from the school, took his real name and changed his name to Yang Shu, quickly spread in Luoyang, and became a topic of discussion among people after dinner.

"Hehe, his surname is Yang, so he is really Brother Yuan." Lu Shangqiu guessed happily that he had long felt familiar with Huishu's stick skills, and his affection was the Yang family's sword skills taught to him by his father Yang Chengwu.Brother Yuan is promising, he actually won the champion of martial arts, thinking that he was only a top five in the imperial examination back then.

The love letters he wrote to Brother Yuan over the years have never been sent out, one letter is kept in a small iron box together with the iron clay plastic handle, and it is piled up with his pile of belongings in the utility room in the backyard of the palace. inside.In the morning, he found the backyard and found it, so he took it back and hid it in the corner. When he had time, he took out a letter to review his memories.

Today is the [-]th birthday of King Liang, and many servants outside have been making arrangements in a hurry, but King Liang should still be receiving congratulations from the Queen and other royal families in the palace at this moment.

"Master, Daddy sent me to look for you."

The boy's voice came from behind, Lu Shangqiu hurriedly put away the letter and put it back in the box, saying: "Your father came back so early?" He followed Wu Chonglie out of the room.

There is a birthday banquet at the prince's mansion, and all kinds of people want to run over to get acquainted with the prince, so there is an endless stream of guests, both famous and unknown want to come in, but only those who are invited can enter the mansion , the rest of the people can only eat flowing water seats outside the door.

The housekeeper carried the birthday gifts in and out, but Xue Wen, the housekeeper, was too busy alone, so Liang Wang ordered Lu Shangqiu to go to the door to welcome the guests with Xue Wen.Firstly, Lu Shilang has nothing to do when he is idle anyway, so he would not neglect him too much by arranging some work for him; secondly, he can also declare to the guests that he, the prince, owns Lu Shilang.

In fact, Liang Wang also had a pimple in his heart. He always regretted taking Lu Lang to watch the martial arts competition.At that time, Lu Lang's violent reaction when he saw the little monk made him feel sour.After all, Lu Lang was in the prime of his life when he was weak, and he was not confused as a prince, he was a generation older than his little lover; he could give Lu Lang gold, silver and treasure, and glory and wealth, but after all, the age gap was here, and he was worried about time. For a long time, it is hard to guarantee that Lu Lang will not feel that there is a generation gap between them and turn to seek a partner of his own age.

Xue Wen held a long scroll of parchment in his hand, drawing out the list of guests one by one.Lu Shangqiu moved to the door and stood still, like a puppet, and bowed his head when he came.

Prince Ding Wuyou and Concubine Ding and Princess Taiping Li Yiyue have been invited to sit inside, and most of the officials from various provinces and departments have already arrived.

After a while, the servant sang: "Shangguan Wan'er, a talented person from Neishe, congratulated the prince on his birthday. The gifts are a tree of red coral from the East China Sea, a night pearl from the South China Sea, and a box of Hetian Nuanyu jewelry."

Wan'er stepped in, followed by four servants, carrying a box as tall as a person.Lu Shangqiu thought in his heart, Wan'er was so generous, she gave so much, the jewelry box is not needed by the prince, it must be used to curry favor with the concubine.

Shangguan Wan'er was not served by a female officer today, but was wearing the most popular Hu skirt in Luoyang nowadays, exposing a pair of white jade shoulders, showing her daughter's charm even more.She happily stepped into the door, and saw that Lu Shangqiu was standing at the door to greet the guests, she put away her smile for a moment, and didn't even want to say hello to him, and went straight inside.

Lu Shangqiu had already stretched out his hand to bow to Wan'er, but she didn't want to see him at all, so he had no choice but to withdraw his hand embarrassingly.

His relationship with King Liang is already an open secret. Many people came in as if they were looking at monkeys. It made him very uncomfortable to look at him more; Shangguan Wan'er, who is a confidante, saw her and ignored her as if she was an enemy, so she became even more disheartened, and simply changed places with Xue Wen, pulled a square stool and sat down, hanging her head, just Draw out the guest list.

Suddenly, a familiar name jumped into his eyes.Lu Shangqiu thought to himself: Maybe I made a mistake, the prince is not familiar with him, so it must be someone with the same name and surname.

When he was in a daze, he only heard his servant sing: "The military inspector Yang Shu congratulated the prince on his birthday, and the gift is a purple gold bowl."

The moment he raised his head, the man just stepped in.

The two looked at each other, and Lu Shangqiu seemed to be nailed to the stool and could not move.

The afterglow of the setting sun cast down, shrouding him in his tall shadow.

At this time, Yang Shu had changed into a straight cyan military military uniform except for the monk's ring scar. He was burly and heroic. Fang was just as sharp as a knife, and the shadow of the boy with the blunt head could be vaguely seen in his eyebrows and eyes.

In the past ten years, it was the first time that Lu Shangqiu saw the person he had dreamed of so closely.The germinal seeds of that year have already taken root in my heart with the passage of time. At this time, even if there are thousands of words, they all melt in my throat. I don't know where to start, and I can only murmur the word "Yuandi" from my lips.

Yang Shu didn't seem to recognize him, bowed to the two people at the door, and left with the servant who led the way.

Lu Shangqiu stared at him blankly until the figure turned a corner and disappeared.