Seventh Pagoda

After waiting, Shen Meifeng led Lan Rong into the carriage.

Thirty miles away in the suburbs of Beijing, there is a mountain villa called "Caiwei Villa". Every November, there is a "Seventh Spring Festival", which is the most grandiose.

Why is the autumn banquet named "Spring Festival"?

It's all because of the "Peach Blossom Spring Banquet" held in Jiangnan Hualou in March and April every year, which is very grand.

The princes of the aristocratic families in Jiangbei naturally did not fall behind, and went forward together to see the scenery of the south of the Yangtze River. Various flower houses in the north of the Yangtze River also rushed to the south of the Yangtze River to appreciate some novelties, and came back to teach the beauties of each family.

After the good times of spring in the south of the Yangtze River have passed, and the flower houses in the capital put what they have learned into practice, the "Seven-day Spring Festival" will be held, which has the meaning of fighting beauty across the river.

The seven-day spring festival, the first day is a flower fair, it is already a chilling autumn, but there are four seasons of flowers, the second day is a wine party, people who are addicted to alcohol travel thousands of miles, only hoping for occasional gains, and the third day is poetry Will, elegant scholars, sing and sing.

The fourth day is the tea party, burning incense and cooking tea, tasting tea and discussing Taoism. The fifth day is the Pearl and Jade Fair, with agate and pearls, gold and emeralds, all kinds of beautiful things.

The seventh day is the grand finale of the "Douchun Festival".

In the first six days, regardless of their status, they just wanted to have fun. If there is any fancy flower, wine and plaything, they can trade separately.

On the seventh day, however, it was very different. You could only enter with the "Xingfang Order" in hand.

From noble to humble, the Xingfang Ling is divided into seven grades: Jiangli, Baizhi, Zelan, Liuyi, Duruo, Xianghe, and Xueli. Each Xingfang Ling is made of a whole piece of white jade and carved seven times. The vanilla pattern of each grade corresponds to the courtyards of the seven grades.

According to the usual rules, prepare seven Xingfang Tokens for each grade, and start accepting reservations three months before the Douchun Festival. The seventh grade "Shuli" is worth a hundred taels of silver, and the value doubles for each grade , the first product "Jiangli", worth 400 taels of silver.

According to the current market price, one hundred catties of grain is calculated as one tael, four cents and six cents of silver, and the daily rations of a family of four for ordinary people are only one catty. Calculated in this way, one Jiangli order is enough for a family of four to eat 1000 taels century.

If the population of the capital was 40 in the eighth year of Heqing, one Jiangli order would be enough to feed the entire city for four days, and this was just a pass order.

In the first six days, there was a lot of traffic and there was an endless stream of guests coming and going. On the last day, only these 49 distinguished guests were left in the entire Caiwei Villa. The entourage was placed in the outer courtyard. Only one can be left anyway.

Each courtyard has a silver mask, and the corresponding vanilla vines are hung on the ears. Only the eyes and chin are exposed. At most, you can only tell which courtyard the guest belongs to, but you can’t see the identity of the guest at all. .

To this day, there will be no good-for-nothings who will go to find out what is going on.

The treatment of guests is so strict, and as the protagonist of the banquet, each flower house has a lot of troubles.

The first is the access token, the guest's Xingfang Token is divided into seven grades, and the Xingfang Token of Hualou has its name on each, and Shen Meifeng has a "Intoxicated Spring Breeze" token in his hand.

Then came the cross-examination, holding the roster of intoxicated spring breeze in his hand, and asked who, what, and when, he had to answer fluently, if it wasn't for the owner of Hualou, there must be mistakes in everything.

After passing this level, there is still an interrogation. In previous years, after the interrogation, it was considered a pass, but this year there was a sudden change.

No matter which flower house, after entering this Caiwei villa, all makeup, clothes, pearls, jade, and jewelry are all removed, and the hair is washed and bathed, not a single strand of hair is spared, and it is clean and renewed.

The clothes are the clothes prepared by the Caiwei villa, and the makeup is the makeup prepared by the Caiwei villa. Just say what pearls and jade jewelry you want, there is no Caiwei villa that does not have it all.

Shen Meifeng was reluctant to be led to take a bath and change her clothes, and she was in a very irritable mood. She was so busy doing this scene back and forth, it really ruined her heart.

How come there are so many moths this year?

Shen Meifeng thought about it left and right, and finally asked Lao Tao to find out.

Lao Tao has guarded the door of this Caiwei villa for 30 years. Although he has no power or power, if he is well-informed, he will be second, and no one will be the first. Shen Meifeng has always been kind to him, and asking for news is not enough Difficult.

"Who says it's not? This is the first time I've seen such a battle. Not to mention you, even the guests of the Seventh Academy, this year is not easy."

Lao Tao felt a little sad.

"The reason here is that I dare not say it outside."

Shen Meifeng answered solemnly: "Mei Niang saves the trouble."

Old Tao whispered: "Last year, someone died in the Seventh Academy..."

Shen Meifeng was taken aback, and hurriedly covered her mouth with an "ah".

Old Tao shook his head slightly reproachfully.

"As for who it is, it's not difficult to guess the movement in Beijing last year..."

Was there any important event in Beijing last year?

Shen Meifeng pondered for a while, then suddenly his eyes widened: "You mean—"

Lao Tao hurriedly stopped him: "That's right, that's right, whisper, whisper..."

Shen Meifeng lowered her voice: "How can such a person's whereabouts be leaked so far..."

Old Tao is used to shaking his head.

"This is not something I can inquire about... I only know that Jiangli sent a beauty to the courtyard that day. The beauty wore a Yongyi feather coat. I heard that the whole dress was made of vellus vellus, which killed thousands of people." , to make such a piece, it amazes everyone.

That night was fine, but three days later, that adult suddenly died suddenly at home, rumors that the fine fluff of the plumage coat was soaked in the wood beetle, and the onset of toxicity was slow and hard to detect..."

Shen Meifeng thanked Lao Tao, and returned to the middle courtyard with a lot of worries.

The outer courtyard housed people and servants, the middle courtyard housed flower houses of each family, and only two people were allowed to stay in the middle courtyard, and the inner courtyard was the distinguished guests of the Seventh Court who insisted on carrying out the order.

Lan Zhi was dressed up repeatedly by Shen Meifeng before, from the clothes to the makeup, he was exhausted and exhausted, now he is lying on the couch with his eyes closed, wearing a small piece of Shu brocade clothes, his head and face are clean and neat, not to mention how comfortable he is Cool.

Shen Meifeng was very worried, it's not that Lan Rong doesn't look good, he looks good in anything, but it's a pile of smokey clothes, it took so much effort, it's hard to find someone who can wear it.

She expected in her heart what effect Lan Zhi would have if she went out wearing this robe, but it was useless to say anything now...

Holding her breath in her chest, Shen Meifeng kicked over the coffee table.

Lan Zhi's long eyelashes trembled, as if she was frightened, Shen Meifeng felt a little unbearable for some reason, and quickly explained: "I...I'm angry!"

Lan Rong opened his eyes, but did not turn his head to look at her: "Why are you angry?"

Shen Meifeng babbled about the ins and outs, and just as she was talking about the inexplicable reason that her Luo Yi was affected, Shen Meifeng was annoyed, and Lan Wei suddenly raised her hand to stop her: "There is someone."

After a while, someone knocked on the door: "Sister Mei, is Sister Mei there?"

Meng Xiaodie!

Shen Meifeng's face was very ugly, she quickly ran to the bed, picked up a brocade quilt, and covered Lan Rong tightly from head to toe.

Then quickly put down the curtains, a layer of gauze curtains, a layer of brocade tents, and a layer of curtains covering the entire bed. After making sure that nothing could be seen, Shen Meifeng walked slowly to the door, and slowly responded through the door: "Which one?"

Meng Xiaodie said softly: "Sister Mei is really a noble person who forgets things too much. Xiaodie came to see her, is it convenient?"

Shen Meifeng replied decisively: "It's not convenient."

Meng Xiaodie smiled like a silver bell: "Oh, Xiaodie originally wanted to bring Ruyue to pay a visit to her sister, what a pity. Ruyue really admires Sister Mei, and when she heard that her sister is here, no, she hurriedly urged her I'll bring her here..."

Ruyue is Yihong Kuailu's new girl this year, and she has become Yihong Kuailu's gold-lettered signboard in just three months, Shen Meifeng is indeed interested.

She didn't believe that Meng Xiaodie would show her hole cards before the show started so honestly, but she believed in Meng Xiaodie's means, even if she didn't open the door now, if she really wanted to come in, there was always a way to get in.

Shen Meifeng opened the door readily: "Sister Xiaodie, please come in quickly."

Meng Xiaodie walked in first, followed by a shy little girl, with a melon-seeded face, willow-leaf brows, a small cherry mouth, and amused eyes.

Beauty is beauty, but compared to Lan Rong's style, it is really far behind.

After just one glance, Shen Meifeng's heart became inexplicably happy, and she no longer thought about her pile of clothes.

Even if it was wrapped in a piece of tattered cotton cloth, Lan Rong didn't know how many times it looked better.