[Caiyun Kingdom] The beginning of people

The night before the imperial examination.

I can hardly believe that Zhong Jietong has been gone for more than three months.Time seems to have passed for a long time, but it seems like yesterday.

"I don't know how to add more clothes when I go out at night. The people around you are too careless. That maid named Qingzao, you dote on her too much." Kui Huangyi walked towards me, and took off his cloak to let him Give me.

"Qingzao is still young, besides, I let her go to bed today, so I didn't let her know that I came out, don't blame her." I put on my cloak, stood on the top of the city tower and looked in the direction of Guiyang Flower Street.The lights of the whole Guiyang city are gradually dimmed after nightfall, but the Flower Street is getting brighter as the night progresses.

Wait a little longer, I'm afraid it will be brighter.

"The defense is ready," Kui Huangyi crossed his arms and glanced at me, "Because we had already pretended to attack Huajie earlier, but now we don't need to make more moves to attract the opponent's attention."

"A pleasant surprise."

"Isn't it pre-planned?"

"...I'm not that good." Really.

Kui Huangyi snorted, "I think so too."

Hey.

"Give me back the official seal, you go back first." He looked at me shaking his head, and there seemed to be faint veins popping out of the forehead, "Zhang Zelan, you still suspect that I will not keep my promise and stop the gangsters in Guiyang?"

"That's not what I meant," Oops, I was too arrogant before, as if I offended Kui Huangyi, "I just want to see the end of the matter."

"...Do you want to follow me later?"

"...Can't you?"

"Of course not, you idiot, your brain is just an ornament. You can wield a knife or use a gun before saying this, so as not to have to divide troops to rescue you when it happens."

"...Sorry." I also understand that I will definitely be a hindrance when fighting and killing, just talking and watching, but, "Will you go?"

"This time the troops were dispatched based on the evidence from Yushitai. It involved the defenders of the capital, the Ministry of Punishment, and the government of Guiyang. I'm going to check it out so that I don't make any mistakes."

I interjected, "So as not to be robbed of the credit?"

"Is this still a question?"

"...That's not what I asked just now..."

He stared at me coldly, "Then do you have any doubts about my going to the scene?"

"When I asked Mr. Assassin to kill you earlier, I said I would pay 5000 taels of silver, but he said..." Do you want to say the exact words?I thought about it, and continued honestly: "He said that [-] taels would be enough for a civil servant like Mrs. Kui, who knows how to use three-legged cat kung fu. He also said, or just let me accompany him for a night. The price is so It's cheap..." So, Aoi-sama, for your safety, shouldn't you also consider not going?Speaking of which, I was very happy to say in front of his face that he knows only three-legged cat kung fu.

"Sure enough, you are an idiot. The average annual income of an ordinary farmer is only about 5000 taels. What standard do you use for your "cheapness"? Extremely luxurious." He suddenly raised one corner of his mouth, showing an extremely vicious expression "Give me 5000 taels, or one night of yours, don't you understand? It means that one night of yours is worth [-] taels. If you want to say that you are cheap, then I don't mind."

"According to this calculation, my night is equal to 5000 taels, which is equal to the head of Aoi-sama... Aoi-sama, don't you really feel that you are cheap?"

"The one who made me lose the most in the whole thing is you. The head of a seventh-rank censor in the black market is probably asking for about 1000 taels."

"...Are you trying to say that you are extremely valuable?"

"I just want to say that it's too much for the killer to exchange you for 5000 taels."

Hello.I shrugged my shoulders and said, "It's okay to put it this way, it finally let me know the advantages of women over men in this era." I can get Kui Huangyi's head in exchange for one night, I feel inexplicably I was overpriced myself.

"Go and try selling yourself in Huajie. If you can spend 1000 taels a night, I will give you the head of the item."

Too much.

etc.I rubbed my forehead, why am I discussing such a weird topic of how much my night is worth?Priceless, it is priceless.I raised my eyes to look at Kui Huangyi, and felt that the viciousness in his smile had increased by 80.00%.

"Let's go." He turned and left.

I bowed to his back and saluted, "Yes, please be careful, I wish you all the best."

Then I stood on the city tower and watched Kui Huangyi get on his horse under the city, and set off with the brigade.After the time for a cup of tea, a flood of flames ignited in the direction of Huajie, and the flames shot straight into the sky, baring their teeth and claws ferociously in the dark night.The sound of shouting and killing also came faintly.

Innocent people died, I think there will be.

I couldn't deny that my palms were cold at the moment, so I hugged my cloak tightly, closed my eyes, took a deep breath, opened my eyes again, and stared at the Huajie where the flames were blazing in the distance.

"Miss." The servant Wang Dali came up, "Do you want to go back first?"

"Do not."

"Can I report something?"

I turned my head back, "Well, yes."

He smiled and said, "Miss, I want to marry Min'er."

"..."

"Miss, I asked her about her wishes this time! Don't keep remembering that Yan Tian rejected me!"

"..." I just remember your infatuation with Yan Tian Ah Q.

"Miss..." Wang Dali rubbed the back of his head and said with a grin, "Look..."

"Yes, there is no reason to be inaccurate? At the age of thirty, you should find a wife. You have to treat her well in the future, you know?"

"Yes!"

"When do you want to get married?"

"How can those of us who have no parents have so many rules? Just have a meal and a pair of red candles. However, Mr. Zhong just started... so we plan to wait until the spring of next year to talk about it. Now we have to report to the young lady first. In order not to be said that the rules of the Zhangfu are not good, we servants go out in private."

I smiled and said, "Where does this come from? I am the only one watching the funeral, you don't have to follow. You have worked hard recently, so you should be happy. Our Zhangfu has not held a wedding for a long time. Dali, you If you don't mind, I will wait for the mansion to help you hold this wedding banquet. The affairs of the whole life should be handled carefully, and let others be happy and relax."

"Miss! Yes! Of course it's good! When I was a child, my parents and family members died in the war, and I was not sensible at that time. If the master hadn't taken me in, I would have gone somewhere! Of course it’s good to do it in the government.”

I patted Wang Dali on the shoulder, "It's fine if you like it. Min'er is still in charge of the sewing work in my room. If she doesn't have time to make the wedding dress, let her go outside to find the embroiderer to take over the work in the mansion. She first Concentrate on embroidering the dowry. The money for hiring people will also come from the mansion, so she doesn't have to worry about it."

"Yes! Thank you miss!"

We talked about the wedding for a while longer before Wang Dali withdrew.When I turned my head to look at Huajie again, the fighting there seemed to have stopped.

I froze for a moment, lowered my head, and smiled slightly.Wang Dali deliberately picked this time to say that he was going to marry Min'er, so that I could distract myself from staring at the bloody fire.

The temperature in his hand seemed to be returning gradually.

I exhaled, looked up at the night sky, and sniffed the smell of fireworks wafting from the wind.I turned around and went back to the room in the building, made tea, and waited quietly for Kui Huangyi.

With a squeak, Kui Huangyi finally pushed the door open and entered.

"Welcome back."

He came over and sat across from me, picked up the teacup in front of him, took a sip, and raised his eyebrows.

"Practice makes perfect." I smiled.Because I want to enter the field of tea, I have learned a lot about tea, and the tea I brew has also improved.

He glanced at me and drank the tea in his cup.

I saw the blood on his wrist.I frowned, "Master Aoi?"

"fine."

I sighed, "Do you want to play blood remonstrance at dawn?" I stood up to find the wound medicine, Kui Huangyi pointed to me, and I found the wound medicine in a cabinet in the room.

Kui Huangyi sat down, opened his sleeves, and there was a not-so-small wound on his right forearm, which was only roughly bandaged.I glared at him.He knew it was bad when the wound was infected.I went to get water to wash the wound clean, then sprinkled powder on it, and finally tied it up again with a bandage.Hey... I don't think there's a big problem with the procedure of treating the wound, it's just that the way it's bandaged... well, it's not very beautiful.

Kui Huangyi didn't say a word, but just stared at me expressionlessly.

"...Sorry." I smiled awkwardly.

He turned his face away and sighed softly, rubbed his forehead with his intact left hand, "You know how to needle and thread, right?"

"..."

"It's not for you to embroider," he tore off the headband on his forehead and threw it to me, "it's just a little mending. The needle and thread are on the left side of the cabinet just now."

He is familiar with the city tower.I went to get things and sat on the chair on the other side of the coffee table, and began to mend the torn hole in the headband.In the end, I returned the patched tape to him, "Master Aoi, I'm not a goddess." You can't demand perfection.

"How the hell did you grow up." He glanced at the headband, stared at me blankly again, grabbed the end of the headband and pulled it out of my hand.

"I haven't learned it. My mother died young, and my father didn't force me to learn it. There are people who do things at home, so there is no need to learn."

"..." He hesitated for a while staring at the headband, then sighed heavily, "Tie it up for me." His right hand had just been bandaged and it was inconvenient to use force.

I stood up and went around behind him, brushed his forehead hair, and tied the headband.I turned back to face him, stroked his forehead hair again, and smiled.The opening of the headband is on the side, and it's hard to see if it's blocked by the forehead hair.

"Have a good time?" His gray eyes fixed on me without moving.

"No." I touched my nose and backed away.

"There are many things that you have to practice to make perfect."

...I seem to be disgusted...

"Let's go and have breakfast." He pulled off his sleeves and stood up.

"Breakfast?" I followed him out.

"It's already this hour, do you want to go home and freshen up, change your clothes and headgear before coming out and wait for me to go down? If you want to enter the palace before the palace examination starts, you have to leave before the fifth watch."

"Well, I got it. Also," I looked sideways at him, "Master Aoi, if you want to laugh at me, you can just say it straight, without being stingy."

"No, that's enough. I don't want to call you stupid anymore."

"..." means I'm tired of stabbing me?

He went down from the tower and untied the horse from the stall, "Are you angry?"

"No. But I really don't need to learn those, I think Aoi-sama does."

"Not married anymore?"

"...You can marry without studying." I thought of Zhong Jietong who always praised me for my knowledge and never disliked me.

"Let's go."

"En." I waved to Wang Dali to let him go back first, then got on Kui Huangyi's horse, and followed him to the vicinity of Miyagi.

After simply eating breakfast at a stall, he returned the official seal to Kui Huangyi, and he went to court.I waited in the stall, eating snacks non-stop, waiting for the final result.But it's okay to be nervous, it's just a big drama that has been arranged.

I'm not an actor, not even a spectator.

When he came back, it was already noon.

"Nonsense." He glanced at the pile of food on my table and reprimanded me lightly.

I ate all the biscuits in my hand, and then I asked, "Is everything going well?"

"Liu Zhiqing, the servant of the door, and Chen Caizhong, the prime minister of Dali Temple, were imprisoned on the spot. Together with other officials on the list, a total of 240 and five members of the three families were tentatively executed. Others were also sentenced to beheaded, exiled, and demoted. People, and all the related Xinke Scholars were also deposed. Of course, there will also be female family members who will be confiscated into the government as slaves."

"yes."

"What? Didn't you ask me to rescue a lady who was not an official slave like last time?" He said slightly sarcastically.

"I don't know them." Kui Huangyi was talking about Xiao Gui, the former magistrate of Longqing County who was going to become an official prostitute.

"Don't eat if you don't want to eat it." He frowned and patted my hand that was going to get the meat bun again.

I took it right, "There is a proverb that says, eat what you should eat, sleep what you should sleep, and do what you should do even when thunder strikes." I saw this sentence from a short video on the Internet before crossing. Yes, I don't know what's going on, but I can't forget this sentence after I read it.

"Assassins, gangsters, and officials have all been pulled down, are you happy?"

"Who said that?" I smiled at him, "Master Aoi, who said that revenge is a pleasant thing?"

Gangsters and officials jointly attempted to control the results of the national examination, and used killers to get rid of scholars. The former made profits through the odds of gambling, and the latter wanted to obtain official positions for their own children. The case was finally settled after the joint trial of the three divisions. Down, and finally ended with more than three hundred lives.It was also after this case that the national examination system was reformed again, and the system of obfuscation of names was strictly enforced, so that no matter how famous the scholars were outside the country, they would ultimately depend on their on-the-spot performance, and the examiners no longer knew the names of the candidates when they graded the papers.

The palace examination was rescheduled because of this case, and finally it was successfully held again. Feixiang and the others all passed this test smoothly, and officially became new scholars.

Hong Lishen finally got together with Lily after a quarrel, and it is said that he directly tied Lily into the new house... The actual situation is unknown, but when I received their wedding invitation, everything was a foregone conclusion.I was in mourning, so I couldn't go there, even though Feixiang said it would be fine, I didn't show up, I just sent a gift, wishing them a happy marriage for a hundred years.Well... But in this way, Huang Fengzhu fell in love... I don't know if it was because he was over-stimulated, he started to wear the strange mask that Li Shen gave him, and even outsiders changed his name to "Strange Man" to laugh at him , he did not respond, and even signed the official document with the name of "Huang Qiren".In fact, I think that this young man who doesn't have much contact with me, but is extremely friendly every time, probably just doesn't want to cause confusion because of his face, so he puts on the mask.

Of course, the real reason is still unknown to me.After the assassination case in the national examination, I fell ill. I was so sick that I couldn't pay attention to outside affairs. Even when Zheng Youshun was sent to the dangerous Chazhou after the internship period, I couldn't personally see him off.

At the beginning of May, Mrs. Zhong finally set off to return to Heizhou with the coffin. I was going to follow, but I couldn't make it because of illness.The outward expansion of the Zhang family was put on hold for the time being. My father stayed in Guiyang to take care of me and took over the affairs so that I could concentrate on recuperating.

In this way, a summer has passed.

By the time I stood up again, it was autumn.

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