Lamp Flower Smile

The lantern festival is not over yet, and the lantern viewing in Shangyuan will not be turned off until the eighteenth day of the first lunar month.

Lu Zhuo passed through the crowds of people, and a mountain of lanterns appeared in front of him.

It's not right to call it Dengshan. It turns out to be a whole small street. A long string is stretched above the head, and it is decorated with countless lanterns made of gauze and silk. Under each lantern hangs a small red strip, with black letters written on the red strip. If anyone guesses the lantern riddle correctly, he will take off the note and go to the old man sitting aside to exchange it for a piece of silk candy.

It's for kids.

Those gauze lanterns hung overhead, illuminating the whole street red and bright. Countless people walked by and it was very lively.

There were several children walking in front of Lu Yun. They were a pair of sisters. The elder sister was about twelve or thirteen years old, and the younger sister was younger, only about five or six years old. The little girl jumped to get the lantern above her head, but she couldn't reach it because she was too short. The older sister reached out to hold the lantern, lit the lantern, and carefully looked at the red note decorated under the lantern.

"What is it written?" my sister asked anxiously.

"The half-opened sparse plum branches are in full bloom -" my sister read out the words above.

The little girl looked confused, but her sister smiled happily, tore off the red note and pinched the tip of her nose, "I know, this is the word 'sensitive'!"

"Let's go, I'll give you some candy!"

The two sisters happily squeezed into the crowd, and their figures gradually disappeared. Lu Zhu was looking a little lost when Pei Yunying's voice came from beside him, a bit casually: "Lu Min is your real name?"

She suddenly came back to her senses and said softly, "Yeah."

"Does it mean 'sensitive to things but cautious in words'?"

"no."

Lu Tong said calmly: "It means 'cleverness and agility can be relied upon but not relied upon'."

Pei Yunying's eyes moved slightly.

Lu Yan lowered his eyes.

The three children in the family, Lu Rou, were named "Rou Er Li". Her father wanted her to be gentle and thoughtful.

Lu Qian was named "a modest person, the handle of virtue". His family hoped that he would be humble and polite and not blindly arrogant.

Because she is the youngest and the most pampered in the family, her temperament is unavoidable and she always likes to play tricks, so her father chooses her as her intelligence. He hopes that she will be smart and agile, but not arrogant and down-to-earth.

When she was young, she actually didn't like the word "sensitivity" very much. She felt that there were so many nice-sounding and beautiful words in the world, but her father was knowledgeable and knowledgeable, but he chose to give his three children such mediocre and devoid of characteristics. Therefore, in the past, I would rather others call me by my nickname "戈戈".

Zhuo, Yuanri, is different from others as soon as you hear it.

Later, she followed Yun Niang to Luomei Peak. Yun Niang never asked her name before she died, and only called her "Xiao Qi". When others asked her when she was going down the mountain, she only said her name was "Lu Huan", as if saying "Lu Min" meant she had failed her parents' expectations of her, just like the person who picked up corpses to test medicine on Luomei Peak. Lu Huan, who framed people for murder in Shengjing City, is not the same person as Miss Lu San from Changwu County, who loved to laugh and play, and was the daughter of her parents and Cheng Huan.

Self-deception.

"I still prefer your current name." The person beside her said, interrupting her thoughts.

"Tongtong," he pondered for a moment, then said with a smile, "it feels like a resurrection of the beginning."

Lu Chen's eyelashes trembled.

He actually guessed it.

Also, his people are well informed. Since we know that her birthday is on the first day of the year, we can naturally guess the meaning of her nickname.

Lu Chen didn't speak. Pei Yunying thought for a moment and said, "Doctor Lu seems to have read a lot of books."

Nowadays, there are official schools for both men and women, but only those nobles can afford them. In ordinary private schools, unless it is a wealthy family, such as the master who hired Wu Xiucai as his daughter's teacher, most ordinary people cannot study - studying is also very expensive.

Lu Yan slowly walked forward with the flow of people: "My father is a teacher. He believes that girls should study more to avoid being deceived in the future. He taught me and my sister personally."

Their father always made them study.

It happened that Lu Zhen hated reading the most when he was young.

She didn't understand the use of studying. Studying could neither make money like doing business, nor could it be eaten as two steamed buns when she was hungry. Even in the scientific examination, very few people in Changwu County passed the examination. What's more, she can't become an official like Lu Qian.

The aunt next door smiled and teased her: "Three girls, you must listen to your father's words, study hard, and become a talented woman in the future. Your mother is only liked by your father because of her good poetry."

Lu Zhuo looked at his mother who was drying clothes in the distance suspiciously, and flatly denied: "No, my father likes my mother not because she can write poems, but because my mother is good-looking!"

The neighbors laughed, but the mother blushed with embarrassment and came over to chase her with a wooden stick: "You damn girl is talking nonsense again!"

"That's what it is!"

At night, she hid under the quilt and watched her mother mending old clothes under the bedside lamp, and then asked: "Mom, why do you want to study? I don't like reading."

The mother stopped her sewing, thought for a moment, and replied: "Reading is like taking medicine. The more medicine you have, the more powerful it will be."

"Read more, you can solve your doubts."

"Clear the confusion?" The young Lu Zhu curled his lips, "If I have any confusion, I can ask my father, sister, or second brother."

"You," her mother smiled and pointed at her forehead, "when they are not around you, if you have something you don't understand, you can find the answer in the book."

"Why aren't they with me?" Lu Yan was not satisfied with this answer. He turned over and muttered: "As long as my sister and brother are here, I don't need to study."

At that time, Lu Zhen thought like this. She believed that for every problem in the world, her parents, brothers and sisters would find the answer for her. All her confusions would be solved. She didn’t have to do things she didn’t like, and she didn’t have to read books she didn’t like. .

And her family will always be there for her.

Until they arrived at Luomei Peak with Yun Niang.

For countless nights, she tossed and turned, the pain of being treated as a medicine man, the loneliness of living alone on the top of the mountain, Yun Niang's malicious laughter, and the longing for her family turned into countless thick and dark hazes, woven into knots. Net, covering her in it. I always feel that my sanity will fall apart at the next moment, and I always feel that I can’t survive the next moment.

During those difficult days, she suddenly remembered her mother's words.

"When they are not around you, if you don't understand something, you can find the answer in the book."

She couldn't see the future at a loss, and she didn't know when it would stop. On days like that, she picked up the book.

There are many books in Yun Niang's room.

Most of them are about poison classics and pharmacology, and a few are about book history and economics. She could read the words, but she didn't understand the meaning, so she could only read on. In this way, day after day, year after year, I gradually understood the meaning of the book.

She didn't know whether reading could solve her doubts, but in those years, reading helped her pass a lot of time, making those days of panic and helplessness not so difficult.

My mother must have never imagined that the little girl who didn't like to study the most in her family and would hide her homework and throw it into the pond and lied about it being stolen would later read so many books in the mountains and learn so many principles.

The person beside him said: "Your Majesty is very insightful."

In the Liang Dynasty, most fathers of ordinary families believed that their daughters’ families did not need to study, and they could just embroider and make needlework at home.

Lu Yan smiled faintly: "It's a pity that it's of no use."

Pei Yunying paused slightly.

"My sister is much better at studying than I am," Lu said. "The articles she wrote were sent to my second brother's academy, and my husband also praised her. If she was a man who could do physical education, Changwu County would have been a long time ago." He got the top prize. But he was still cheated to the point of death."

"Our family is all scholars, but if you look at the ending, it's still the same."

Lu Chen smiled, with a hint of self-deprecation in his smile: "Studying can change your life. It's just a saying that poor people deceive themselves. The most useless people in the world are scholars."

When she said this, her tone was calm, as if she had seen through the world and was tired, and maybe there was a little hatred for her own powerlessness.

Reading is like the numbing powder that people drink when they are tortured by illness. It can temporarily relieve the pain, but it cannot make the pain disappear.

"I don't think so."

A young man's voice suddenly came from beside him.

"Sheng Jing seems to be the only one who can study "Liang Chao Lv" so thoroughly."

As if being hit by something, Lu Zhu subconsciously raised his head.

The young man looked down at her with a smile. The soft light of the gauze lamp hanging above his head jumped into his eyes, creating a deep and shallow warmth around his figure.

Even his eyes softened.

"Not everyone can kill people under my nose without being discovered."

He smiled and stared into Lu Chen's eyes: "Doctor Lu, you are very powerful."

Very...awesome?

Lu Chen was stunned.

Not teasing, not sarcastic.

Pei Yunying's tone was serious.

People were coming and going around, and young people in black boots and bright clothes looked at her with a smile, and there were bright lights all around.

Sincere, without any hint of hypocrisy.

After a moment of silence, Lu Chen was about to speak when he suddenly noticed that Pei Yunying's gaze was fixed somewhere behind her, with a strange look on his face.

What did he see?

Lu Chen subconsciously wanted to turn around, but as soon as he moved, Pei Yunying held his shoulder down, without waiting for her to react. A shadow covered him, and Lu Zhen's cheek touched the cold skirt of the other party's clothes.

Pei Yunying stood in front of her.

The crowds coming and going didn't look at this side more than once. During the Lantern Festival, there were many lovers wandering at night.

Lu Zhen was almost wrapped in his shadow, with his head pressed against his chest. From such an extremely close distance, he seemed to be able to hear the other person's soft but powerful heartbeat, beat after beat.

It is particularly clear in the surging crowd.

I don't know how much time passed, but the hand holding her became weaker.

He let go of Lu Chen.

"Who did you see just now?" Lu Zhuo turned around and looked behind him. There were tourists on the Flower Street beside him. There was nothing suspicious about him.

Pei Yunying's sudden action was most likely due to someone else seeing him. The moment he pulled Lu Huo in front of him, Lu Huo did not ignore the coldness in Pei Yunying's eyes.

"A person you don't want to see." Pei Yunying smiled nonchalantly.

There was no answer to Lu Zhen's question.

Lu Tong pursed his lips, not liking the feeling of being kept in the dark.

Perhaps sensing her concern, Pei Yunying took a step back, looked down at her, and suddenly said: "Doctor Lu."

"how?"

"The Qi family is checking on you."

Lu Zhen's expression changed and he stared at him without saying a word.

"Only Lu Rou was found, not to your level." His tone was very calm, like a casual reminder, "But in the long run, it may not be exposed."

When he said this, Lu Chen understood.

People in the Grand Master's Mansion might be suspicious of the Lu family, or even of "Lu Min" who had not been heard from for many years, but they would not be suspicious of her, Lu Yun, for the time being.

Just because in name, Lu Shen is just a common medical girl from out of town, the doctor of Renxin Medical Center, and has nothing to do with the Lu family in Changwu County.

But if she wants revenge, once she gets close to Qi Yutai, her identity will be exposed sooner or later.

Pei Yunying was reminding her.

"I understand." Lu Yan said, "What else can the Qi family do?"

Pei Yunying raised his eyebrows and stared at her for a long time. Seeing her frank expression, he finally said with a smile on his face: "You are not pretending to be in front of me now. You are broken, aren't you?"

Asking him for information so blatantly, without any cover-up.

"Didn't Mr. Pei say that we are in the same group?"

"Not anymore."

Lu Chen laughed lightly in his heart.

When they didn't know her identity, she was injured and bought and sold at the hospital, and she was said to be a "gang". Now that they know that she is here for revenge, they look like they want to clear the relationship immediately to avoid getting into trouble.

The son of a noble family is accustomed to weighing the pros and cons.

I was cursing in my heart when a familiar voice came from far away: "Girl! Girl!"

Lu Zhuo looked back and saw Yin Zheng on the other side of the crowd standing in the crowd in front of the theater, waving vigorously to her. When he saw her, he smiled and walked towards her through the crowd with his skirt in hand.

It's very close to the theater. I think Yin Zheng and the others found out they were separated from her, so they came to the theater specifically to wait for her.

"Your friend is here." Pei Yunying also saw Yin Zheng.

Lu Yan turned to look at him, it was time for him to leave.

His eyes paused on the toad lamp in Lu Chen's hand, then moved to Lu Chen's face, and finally said: "The spring examination in March, I wish Doctor Lu all the best."

Lu Zhuo nodded: "Thank you for your good words."

Pei Yunying didn't say anything, walked straight away, walked a few steps, then suddenly stopped and called Lu Zhuo.

Lu Yan asked: "What else can you do, sir?"

He was silent for a moment before speaking quietly: "There will be more dangers in the future."

"Doctor Lu," he said, "be careful yourself."

The man's figure disappeared into the crowd of people passing by. Lu Yan stood in the hanging lights until a voice rang in his ears, "Girl, I finally found you!"

Yin Zheng finally squeezed through the crowd and squeezed to Lu Zhu's side. She patted her chest and sighed, "After Acheng bought the dumplings, he turned around and said you were gone, which shocked me. Shopkeeper Du said you would wait for me at the theater to return the favor." I don’t believe it, but luckily he’s right.” After saying that, he stared at the toad lamp in Lu Zhu’s hand in surprise, “Where did this lamp come from? Girl, you didn’t even bring any money...”

"It was a gift from someone else." Lu Chen lowered his head and touched the toad's head. The green toad's mouth was so wide that it looked ridiculous.

"Oh." Yinzheng nodded without doubting that he was there, and looked around again.

"What's wrong?"

"Maybe I was blinded," Yin Zheng smiled sheepishly, "There were so many people there just now. I didn't see clearly. I only saw someone standing next to the girl. I thought it was Mr. Pei!"

…

"I just... seemed to have seen Prince Pei."

The canopy carriage drove past the bustling crowd. Someone put down the curtain in his hand and spoke softly.

"Master Pei?" The maid handed the warm stove to the person next to her and said softly: "Miss, can you see clearly?"

The woman sitting in the carriage shook her head slightly. Her jade-colored green leaf and cloud pattern embroidered skirt was embroidered with extremely beautiful embroidery of Luan Bird. The light from the lantern in the carriage fell on her face, making her snow-white face even more charming. She was as elegant and charming as all the noble ladies from Shengjing.

This is the couplet of Qi Hua, the richest man in the Taishi Mansion today.

Today, Grand Master Qi Qing has one wife and one concubine in his house, and all his children are sons and daughters from his second wife. After the death of his second wife, Qi Qing did not renew their relationship. The eldest son Qi Yutai now has a sinecure in the Ministry of Household Affairs, and the youngest daughter Qi Huaying is only seventeen years old this year.

Because Qi Liang had a daughter in his old age, and he pitied his younger daughter for losing her mother when she was young, he treated Qi Huaying with special pampering. The official family of Shengjing often said that Grand Master Qi himself was thrifty and diligent, but he was especially generous to his daughter. The utensils and clothes that Qi Huaying usually wears are extremely beautiful and beautiful, and the princess cannot compare with them.

For example, at this moment, Qi Huaying wanted to take a car alone to visit Dengxi. Grand Master Qi promised to comply with his daughter's wishes, but secretly ordered dozens of secret guards to follow the carriage to avoid accidents.

Qi Huaying held the heater in her hand tightly, her beautiful eyes full of thoughts.

The carriage passed by the lamp shed just now, and she curiously opened the curtain to take a look. She saw a familiar shadow there, which seemed to be Pei Yunying. He was walking beside a strange woman, lowering his head and talking to her.

At that moment, Qi Huaying's breathing almost stopped, and a burst of joy hit her heart. But when she looked again, there were only people and lanterns coming and going in the distance, and there was no trace of the person just now.

Is... am I wrong?

Qi Huaying himself couldn't make up his mind, his joy quickly replaced by disappointment, and a deeper doubt came from his heart. If it was really him, then who was the woman next to him?

The maid seemed to have read her thoughts, and pursed her lips and smiled: "Master Pei is so busy every day, and the young master has sent so many messages but has not been answered. How can he have time to visit Dengxi? The young lady must have misunderstood. .”

Hearing this, Qi Huaying tightened her hand on the heater and sighed with some regret: "Yes."

After being assassinated in Baoxiang Tower and being rescued by the Crown Prince Zhaoning, the Qi family should express their gratitude to Pei Yunying in both public and private matters, as well as emotionally and rationally. My elder brother works in the Ministry of Household Affairs and is interested in getting closer to the Pei family. However, the post has been posted many times, and the commander of the front department has been unable to find any free time and has never been to the Taishi Mansion once.

Qi Huaying felt a little astringent.

"Why are you sighing, young lady? Didn't the eldest young master tell you that the official affairs in front of the palace are already complicated. If you really want to see me, you only need to talk to the master..."

"shut up!"

Qi Huaying suddenly interrupted the maid's words, and the person beside him immediately fell silent.

"That's what you can say!" Qi Huaying scolded the servant sternly, looking away in embarrassment, but his face gradually turned red.

She was seventeen years old, and she was already old enough to choose a husband. It was true that her father had never told her about her marriage, but she interrupted him every time. It's really because none of the so-called young talents can catch her eye.

Except...except for that person.

Qi Huaying's heart skipped a beat.

There was silence in the carriage, and the maid sat aside with her head bowed, not daring to speak.

Qi Huaying bit her lip.

Perhaps, as the maid said, she should take the initiative to talk to her father.