Bastards

Where there are people, there are rivers and lakes, and where there are rivers and lakes, there are fights.People's desires are endless. When they have nothing to cover their bodies and food, they only hope to be able to eat and wear warmth; Respect, enjoy the blessings of the world; when wine, sex and wealth are at your fingertips, you feel bored, and start to want to start a foundation, make your family permanent, and live forever, and pursue a deeper level of self-realization.

Every time a desire occurs, it is when the battle begins. You have to work very hard and surpass most of the similar groups around you to achieve your goals and gain a full and rich sense of satisfaction.But this sense of satisfaction doesn't last long, because you soon find that the people around you are no worse than you, so you have a new pursuit.

Every time a desire is satisfied, it is when the promotion jumps into another circle. The desire is endless, the circle becomes higher and narrower, and the goal becomes more and more difficult to achieve, but once achieved, the sense of satisfaction gained It will be unprecedented, and it will even shake your soul.

Of course, unless you are a lazy person who drifts with the tide and is a monk who beats the clock for a day, otherwise... there are all kinds of situations in the world, and fights, but every circle is the same.

At the height of the aristocratic family, the challenges and desires to conquer are far beyond imagination.

The Da'an Dynasty was the second country that was finally unified after 300 years of war. The time of the Yuwen clan before it was too short to be ignored. Therefore, this dynasty can almost be said to be the best era, or the worst era.

Because it is new, everything is waiting to be done, and rulers and followers can try various strategies for governing the country, and if they are not careful, they may create a prosperous world.Also because it is so new, there are all kinds of precedents. Once the superior is not strong, is constrained by various rules, and goes back...the wheel of history will be crushed mercilessly.

When it is time, people in the upper class should smell the smell and seek a way to survive. Unfortunately, some people can see this, and some people can't.

Yang Xuan's grandfather was a strong man. He determined to change after he came to power, and he did a good job. Unfortunately, he died too early. Once Yang Xuan's father came to power, the ongoing and planned government orders either stopped or progressed slowly, with an ambiguous attitude.Therefore, the old and new factions in the court are very disparate in strength, and there is really nothing to fight for. Most of the officials in the court come from aristocratic families.

This court hall is said to belong to the Yang family, but in fact it also belongs to the aristocratic family.

Among the aristocratic families, Wang Xie has the highest reputation.Because the ancestors strived to accumulate, because the new dynasty started from the dragon's merits, of course, there are also reasons for their own efforts.

But rankings are not static.

The aristocratic family has the same attitude towards the outside world, protecting the common interests, and internally they are constantly fighting openly and secretly. After all, everyone is willing to be the boss and command a group of younger brothers, and they don't want to be the one who is tired and tired, isn't it?

The Da'an Dynasty originally established Chang'an as its capital, and later moved the capital to Luoyang. Due to the short period of time, the importance of the two cities is almost equal.The Wang family is the leader in Luoyang, and the Xie family is in Chang'an.

The Xie family holds an autumn banquet every year, not because they are idle, to show off how much money they have and have no place to spend it... Well, actually there are still such things, but the purpose is definitely not just this one.

With this annual luxurious autumn banquet, they want to let the world see the Xie family's financial resources, demeanor, and high level of contacts. They also want to expand their circle of contacts and attract all talents that can be recruited.

Everyone in the Xie family must show infinite charm and courage at this banquet, attracting people's admiration and making people want to follow.

The Xie family had to test out the thoughts and political views of important guests, especially those who were close to the imperial power, whether they were enemies or friends, whether they would be close or far away in the future, and even...whether they should sell this unique piece of news to others.

The Xie family would also like to make a brief statement on their political views.

For example, if you want to change the way forward and break the inherent situation, can you find friends with the same vision?For example, the princes under the emperor's knees are now fighting each other and don't want to stand in line. For the princes who have almost no power, they can be a little colder and directly say that they are only "loyalty to the emperor". People, it's not good to be too direct.

They have to try their best to express their disobedience as "forced" and "angry but tolerant".These things of persecution and anger are best offended by Yue Wang's brainless pig teammates.And how to make this kind of thing happen, and how to deal with it... Is it difficult, what do you think?

In Chang'an, under the Xie family, the Zheng family is the largest. No one wants to be the second child in a thousand years. The Zheng family must want to replace him. Coming to the autumn banquet is definitely a friendly face, but in fact, they keep their eyes wide open, waiting for every suitable opportunity to deal with criticism.

In the circle, there was a Li surname who was separated from Longxi, and I don't know how far away his blood was. In recent years, the matter of supporting the King of Yue was almost on the plane.Holding the thought of 'As long as I don't stand up, the king of Yue is my enemy' and 'I'm a national treasure if I kill the panda', they stared at the Xie family's dark eyes, almost as if they were looking at a pile of fat.

Not to mention the big and small enemies nearby, Xie Jiaqiuyan, it is impossible to think that nothing will happen.

What the Xie family needs to do is to guard against death, block all flood attacks, maintain the majesty of the Xie family, and maintain the position of the boss!

They have to work hard all the time to be well-prepared, sleep long and hard, work hard, and work very hard to look effortless!

Think it's too much trouble and don't want to do it?Hehe, don't want to do this kind of laborious work too much, the Zheng family and the Li family are standing by and watching!Sitting in this position, if you don't want to retreat, you have to show your ability and strength!

……

The candlelight danced, and the facial expressions of the people flickered, making it look somewhat distorted.

Xie Yangao sat beside Wang Fu, his voice was high and low, sometimes he sighed, and sometimes he was full of energy. He finished what he wanted to say and what should be mentioned in a deep voice: "The most important official of the Xie family in the court is Brother She. Helpless brother..." He glanced at Wang Fu and sighed again, "Just like this old man Wang, he became depressed. I can't retreat from the Xie family. This autumn banquet must be a success!"

Cui Yu suddenly felt a heavy weight on his shoulders, the task this time...is very heavy.

"I've said everything I need to say. I'm entrusting you with a lot of pressure. You should think about it first." Xie Yan looked at the sky. Let's go to rest and go back to the mansion with the old man tomorrow."

It is indeed late.

Cui Yu picked up the little tiger who had been quiet for a long time and was sleeping soundly at his feet, and glanced at Yang Xuan, the two of them got up and left knowingly.

Wang Fu's mood was ups and downs all day, he was already tired, he covered his lips with his hand and yawned just now when he saw the two juniors going down, and looked in the direction of the figure that had disappeared under the moonlight: "Don't worry?"

"So what if you don't worry?" Xie Yan was open-minded, "This world belongs to young people after all... The sooner you let go, the sooner you will become a talent."

……

Wang Fu's house is not too big, but there is no shortage of guest rooms, but because the place is small, the layout is not very suitable, and it is a bit far away to prepare a guest room for a distinguished guest like Cui Yu and Yang Xuan.

The old housekeeper was annoyed, and said considerately: "The two old slaves seem to be close friends and have a very good relationship. If you don't like the distance, you can sleep in a room. The room is big enough, and the bed is wide enough. "

Of course Yang Xuan was willing to be with Cui Yu, but he wouldn't show it, he just looked at Cui Yu with disgust.

Cui Yu suddenly felt tense, worried that without him watching, this brat would get up and go out again in the middle of the night... So he immediately grabbed Yang Xuan's hand, smiled and looked at the old housekeeper: "Thank you, my room with him is enough. .”

The old housekeeper smiled and said, "The relationship between the two is really good."

Cui Yu smiled, and seemed to hear Yang Xuan's snorting voice in a trance, as if saying: Who has a good relationship with him!

If Yang Xuan felt uncomfortable, he felt even more comfortable.

The guest room is very good, with incense, warm quilt, big bed, green tent, everything is furnished, no matter the texture, style, color or shape, it is comfortable and eye-catching.

Cui Yu realized a lot of things in the conversation with Xie Yan just now, many of which were unexpected before, and his thoughts were mixed at the moment, and various thoughts passed in his mind.He actually wanted to talk to Yang Xuan and share what he had just gained, but it was too late, and the environment...was a bit inappropriate. He shook his head lightly, and after a brief wash, he hugged the little tiger and went to bed. go to sleep.

Yang Xuan... Of course, Yang Xuan also washed up in a serious manner, took off her outer clothes and shoes according to the rules, and went to bed.

However, as soon as he went to bed, before he said anything, he heard Cui Yu's soft, slow and regular breathing.

He fell asleep!

I can't tell what my mood is at this moment, it seems to be suddenly relaxed, and a little annoyed... Finally, it turned into a sigh.Yang Xuan covered Cui Yu with a quilt, and lay down beside him.

Because both of them are men, they don't want to sleep too much, so they didn't put down the green tent in front of the bed.Outside the window, the moonlight diffused in along the window frame and sprinkled on Cui Yu's face, making his skin more radiant and pearly.

Yang Xuan had been curious about Cui Yu's face for a long time, and wanted to try the texture, at this moment, she naturally reached out and touched it without hesitation.

Smooth, soft, tender.

There is a light and warm breath brushing against the palm of the hand, like a feather lightly fluttering...

Yang Xuan withdrew his hand 'whoosh', rubbed the palm of this hand with his free hand, feeling a little flustered in his heart, as if the itching flowed from the veins in the palm to the apex of the heart.

"Ow..."

The little tiger slept between the two of them, dreamed of something, lightly rubbed against Cui Mata and acted like a spoiled child, his tail was raised up and waggled, under the moonlight, his white fur was shining brightly.

"Hmm..." Cui Yu probably felt the little tiger move, but he didn't wake up, so he subconsciously stretched his hand to the side and rubbed it, just in time to touch the little tiger's head.

The little tiger didn't wake up either, but his coquettish behavior became smoother, his throat was "snorting", obviously extremely comfortable.

This one is big and small, and I don’t forget to say hello when I sleep!

Yang Xuan also stretched out his hand and stroked the tiger's fur.

The little tiger was sleeping stupidly, showing no sign of waking up, and even rubbed Yang Xuan's palm.

Warm, soft, and slightly slippery... It feels a bit like its owner's hand, but it's different.

Yang Xuan looked at one big and one small beside her, and unknowingly fell asleep too, without a dream all night.

……

After waking up the next day, Cui Yu and Yang Xuan were invited to the front hall to have breakfast with Wang Fu and Xie Yan.Wang Fu quarreled with Cui Yan for a while, and set the rules for the new apprentice. When and where to meet the old man every now and then, he was taught by the old man, hurt Xie Yan, and reluctantly touched the little tiger before letting him go. They leave.

Xie Yan didn't ask Cui Yu and Yang Xuan whether they had considered it well, and talked to their parents kindly and kindly along the way, until they arrived at the door, and said: If you decide to do this, just go to Xie Wen directly, and you don't need to go back to him.

Cui Yan and Yang Xuan nodded solemnly.

After returning to the familiar courtyard, letting the little tiger go out to play wildly, and sitting and drinking tea to relax for a long time, Cui Yu looked at Yang Xuan and slowly started talking.

He hinted at Xie Yan's words last night, and told Yang Xuan all he had learned.

Listening, Yang Xuan nodded and helped him add, especially the point he didn't see: marriage.

"Marriage is a very important part of the family's relationship network. This autumn banquet, there must be many girls of the right age, and there will be many wives. The Xie family also needs it." Yang Xuan reminded Cui Yu, "And on this, Easiest to make a fuss about."

Cui Yu almost knocked his head, how could he forget!How important this is!

He gave Yang Xuan a complimenting look.

Yang Xuan raised her eyebrows slightly, a little proudly.

"Mr. Xie's words are cryptic, but I always feel that he intends to transform the family and gradually approach the poor family of the non-noble family," Cui Yu frowned and thought, "so this time my concubine's body, Fan Lingxiu's businessman status, Xu Duohui's autumn banquet Works. What do you think?"

Yang Xuan nodded: "Mr. Xie is very discerning and knows how to make decisions."

Cui Yu agreed, summed up before and after, and finished what he wanted to say: "In any case, helping to organize the Xie Family Autumn Banquet is an excellent opportunity to make connections, show off your talents, and shine. Those who refuse are fools!"

"You can go find Xie Wen later."

"Ok!"

After finishing this matter, Cui Yu talked about his response with Wang Fu: "Do you understand everything I said and what I meant?"

The ink in Yang Xuan's eyes was flowing: "You want to tell me that it's not good to only use force to suppress when something happens. The solution is not only this one, but also demonstrate it yourself."

Cui Mata said with a satisfied face of "a child can be taught": "Not bad."

"There are many ways to explain things in the world. There are thousands of ways, and people are inseparable. If you want to employ people, you must first understand them, and then talk about controlling them. Threats and lures, coaxing and coercion are all methods. There are many people who know the way, and it is difficult to explain everything at once. , but different people, using different methods, can get twice the result with half the effort. And... For example, people like Wang Shanzhang have a noble character, are persistent and pure, and if you use coercion and coercion, you will not get the desired results."

Cui Yu's speech was slow, and he said each word slowly, every word was pearls, which can be described as well-intentioned.

Yang Xuan seemed to be touched, she hung down slightly, and there was a faint flash of light in her black eyes.

Cui Yu gave him enough time to digest, and after a long time, he asked, "How do you feel?"

Yang Xuan's long and narrow eyes narrowed slightly, and a wicked smile appeared on the corner of her lips: "It's very interesting."

"Don't you hate it?" Cui Yu reminded, "In terms of human nature, it's hard to win people's favor with my calculations. Sometimes I don't even say what I say from the heart. Everything is purposeful and hypocritical."

"But you know what you want."

Yang Xuan looked at Cui Yu with burning eyes: "You know your true heart, you are firm, calm, and will never change."

"Yes. The means are not important, as long as you clearly know what you want, regardless of wind and rain, thorns, or mountains of fire, you will not get lost if you go without hesitation." Cui Yu stared at Yang Xuan, his eyes were as clear as water, sharp enough to be scary, "You need to always remember that."

Yang Xuan frowned.

Cui Yu smiled: "What do you want to ask? Ask."

"It's nothing." Yang Xuan looked at Cui Yu, "I'm just curious...why did you teach me that?"

Cui Yu's eyes slightly turned up, and he smiled.

"Because--learn martial arts, sell to the emperor's family."

Yang Xuan's chest suddenly jumped wildly. He didn't know whether it was because of this sentence that sounded very special to him, or because of Cui Yu's overly bright and sly smile.

After the pun was overwhelmed, Cui Yu changed the subject, and the atmosphere immediately calmed down: "Scholars of my generation, who doesn't want to be an official? You must also want to, don't you? If so, just learn it obediently, it will be of great use."

Yang Xuan: ...

"I think you're good at observing, you're good at learning, and you're quite curious, why don't you give it a try?" Cui Yan pointed at the courtyard with his chin, and blinked at Yang Xuan, "Mr. Xie Jia, I'll leave it to you to conquer, how about ?”

Yang Xuan: ...

"Okay, I'll try."

"That's good." After sitting for a long time, and rested enough, even Yang Xuan had been educated, Cui Yu got up, "Let's go, let's go find Xie Wen."

……

Xie Wen probably got orders from his elders, and when he saw Cui Yu, Yang Xuan was very welcoming, so he brought out a bunch of files for them to read.

"This is the information of the major families in Chang'an, especially those who have grievances and quarrels with my family. You should read it first." After he finished speaking, he pointed to the next room, "If you read it, go there and get it. In the next two days , that’s all for you two, after reading it, let’s make plans for the autumn feast together. My mother will take care of things like washing utensils and cleaning things, buying decorations, setting tea and preparing vegetables, so we don’t need to worry about it.”

Cui Mata realized instantly.

Xie's family held a banquet, and the men were busy with the general direction, especially the various emergency plans, which looked simple, but actually required a lot of preparation. Those trivial tasks that required careful work were naturally left to the housewives.Xie Wen's mother is the wife of the clan, and if she is familiar with these things, she doesn't need their help, which saves worry and effort.

So in the next two days, Cui Yu and Yang Xuan entered the state of getting up early and reading materials late at night.

One of the reasons why the aristocratic family is strong is the network of relationships, the relationship between in-laws.There are layers of in-laws, distant ones, close relatives, distant ones, one careless, not even aware of offending someone and complaining.According to the teaching of the aristocratic family, the study of genealogy is the most important thing, even if a girl in a boudoir is not good at learning, she must memorize the genealogy.

This point is just in time for Cui Yu and Yang Xuan.

Cui Yu is the concubine of the family, and the family has no big background, so he knows little about these things. Yang Xuan left the palace since he was a child, and his father never thought of asking him to teach him these things, and these are very important if he wants to enter the court. .For many things, you can only find the correct way to deal with them if you know the ins and outs, the cause and effect, and why it develops like this.

Both of them are human beings, they are naturally thirsty for knowledge, they can skip meals or sleep, even Xie Wen is unmoved by worrying reminders.

The Xie family's collection of private treasures is not for anyone to see anytime, anywhere. If they don't seize the opportunity to memorize a lot, they will be more stupid than idiots!

Time slipped by little by little.

The preparations for the autumn banquet were carried out intensively and orderly. Cui Yu, Yang Xuan and Xie Wen and Xie Cong held numerous small meetings.Who is responsible for what, what may happen where, you need to focus on monitoring, show what method you use is the best, how can someone make trouble quickly and quickly find and solve it...

Cui Yu and Yang Xuan took time out of their busy schedules to drag Xie Cong to Fan Lingxiu's celebration banquet.It's one thing to celebrate happily, but it's also indispensable to make jokes and argue. The most important thing is to persuade Fan Lingxiu to attend the autumn banquet.

Xie Cong had posted an invitation to Fan Lingxiu earlier, but Fan Lingxiu felt that his identity was different, and he was uncomfortable looking for it in the past, so he didn't want to go.Now all the good friends came to invite him, and said that he needed help with something, so he naturally did his part, patted the table and agreed, and wanted to do both for the good friends.

Of course, at the celebration banquet that day, Cui Yu also received a large sum of money from Fan Lingxiu's books.

That night, Cui Yu was holding the silver bill, smiling so much that he couldn't see his teeth, he almost didn't want to sleep. Even the little tiger who has always been loved by him came to stretch his claws out of curiosity, and he slapped it seriously, and taught him seriously: "The Story of A Chou Stop it, you can use other things to play with, but this is not the only one. You can see clearly, the paper is hard, with a red stamp on it..."

Yang Xuan's long eyebrows trembled imperceptibly.

The good-looking rabbit actually likes this the most!But he doesn't seem to have much...

After thinking about it, his eyes gradually became firmer, it seems that he will have to make good money in the future!

As the autumn feast was approaching day by day and the tension became more and more obvious, there was finally news from Yang Xuan's end.

That night, Cui Yu didn't sleep well, and when he suddenly woke up, he saw Yang Xuan's dark face.

Yang Xuan's long and narrow eyes rolled with thick ink, as if he couldn't hold back the anger in his heart, he gritted his teeth: "Two! There are actually two ghosts!"

Such an angry look... Obviously, he knew who the ghost was, but he didn't catch it.

Cui Yu had no time to worry about the brat breaking the door, and immediately comforted him in a gentle voice: "Two are just two, what's so scary? Since you know your status is important, you need to be prepared for the possibility of your internal team being infiltrated. You just There are two insiders around me, and they were successfully caught out. How dare you say that you didn’t bury nails in other people’s places? The number is less than two?”

Yang Xuan pursed her lips tightly, her eyes flickered darkly in the dark night, with a hint of brutality.

"Don't worry, since we've caught him..." Cui Yan held his hand and shook it, with a warm and bright smile, "I'll catch him for you, okay?"

Yang Xuan's eyes slowly fell on the hands they were clasping, his expression was slightly relaxed, and the annoyance in his eyes still remained: "My people... didn't keep up."

Meaning, I don't know where these two people are.

The vast sea of ​​people, where to catch?

Cui Yu's eyebrows and eyes were curved, revealing a mouthful of white teeth, and there was a cunning in the slightly curved eyes: "The mountain people have their own tricks."