Two days later, the Imperial Garden.

After all, it was the queen's invitation. Although the invitation is written at the right time, at the beginning of the year, most of the ladies of each family have already arrived. （1）

The Chu State is close to the north, although it is not as good as the flowers of the Jin Kingdom in four seasons, but at the time of the handover of this late spring and early summer, it can be regarded as a hundred flowers competing for beauty, and it is warm and varied.

Subtle and elegant such as Junzi orchid, smiling, iris, Qionghua, gentle and brilliant such as rhododendron, brocade, weeping begonia, charming and graceful such as peony, peony, fragrant fragrance such as the moon season, tulips, arrow lotus and so on, all bloom in this imperial garden, bursts of floral fragrance also attract colorful butterflies to fly, nostalgia fluttering.

Especially around the strings of low-hanging wisteria, there are butterflies dancing, like a fairyland.

Danluo people know that the queen is a wisteria. When the word boudoir was in the middle of the year, the name of the boudoir was the wisteria pavilion, and the porch in front of the courtyard was planted with the wisteria rose, and there was a poem as evidence of the folk at that time:

Gloom contains evening pity osmanthus, and the spring light knows wisteria. Knowing that Qingming is self-sufficient, the color will still be drunk.

The good wind gently leads the cigarette in, and the nectar is only and purple condensation. Every time the flowers are fragrant, Danluo is only Deng Zhongcheng. （2）

It is said that the wisteria of the Xiangfu is entangled, and the beauty is drunk and delicate.

Since marrying into the royal family, the emperor and queen are happily married and very affectionate. Emperor Shengzhao is also for the empress, along the center of the imperial garden pavilion, along the three roads that extend outward in a radial shape on the three roads built a rattan trellis, now all the vine trellises are full of green rattan, falling strings of light purple flowers, looking extremely ethereal.

Under the flower stand on one side, the eldest princess was pulling a fourteen or fifteen-year-old girl and saying something happily.

Qianhua is dressed in red as usual today, the silk around her waist is tied into a bow, and a small white jade ring falls, her clothes are slim and slender, and she looks like the whole person is concave and convex, but she is charming and playful. The fiery red color even more shows that her complexion is deceitful and delicate.

And the girl who was affectionately holding her hand had a goose egg face, looked a little shy, and a slight smile would reveal two shallow dimples. She is wearing a pink spring shirt, although she does not have the dazzling appearance of Qianhua, but she also reveals the delicacy of a small jasper, which is also a unique charm.

This person is none other than the granddaughter of the prime minister who was just crowned Princess Guning by Emperor Shengzhao the day before yesterday, the niece of the queen, and the cousin of the eldest princess Qianhua, Deng Ningjia.

"Jia'er is very beautiful today. Qianhua looked the pretty cousin in front of her up and down, and joked with joy on her face, "I don't know who can have such a blessing and marry you, a little girl, and go home." ”

Deng Ningjia's little face turned even redder when she heard this, and she glared at Qianhua shyly, "Cousin, you are talking nonsense again, making fun of me like this, be careful that I ignore you." ”

After that, he pushed away Qianhua's hands and turned his head, pretending to be ashamed and angry, but the scarlet clouds on his face were even worse.

Seeing this, Qianhua smiled even deeper, but when she came across from her, she had a bitter face.

I only heard her take Deng Ningjia's hand and sigh coquettishly: "Good sister, are you really willing to ignore me?" I thought that I hadn't seen it for so long, and my sister must be as happy to see each other as I am, but now it seems that my sister has no skin and no face, and she is amorous."

When Deng Ningjia heard this, he hurriedly shook his hand and said: "Sister Qianhua, it's not like this, I came so early today, I must be happy to see you, don't misunderstand, right" As he spoke, he was about to apologize to Qianhua, but when he saw Qianhua's face holding back a smile, he suddenly understood, "Okay, Sister Qianhua, you actually tease me like this! I'm going to beat you!"

Seeing this, Qianhua dodged to the side, relying on herself to be a little taller than her, held Deng Ningjia's wrist in her arms with her backhand, and begged for mercy: "Good sister, it's my sister who is wrong, I shouldn't tease you like this, we sisters haven't seen each other for so long, so we can talk about it today." ”

Deng Ningjia also accepted it when she saw it, nodded sweetly, and took Qianhua's arm. The two of them affectionately gathered under the flower stand on the side to say some private words of their daughter's family, and from time to time there were a few foolish laughter.

And the ladies of the official family also took this opportunity to talk and laugh and whisper. The whole Imperial Garden is charming and colorful, and the people are more fancy than the flowers.

Since ancient times, this has been the case, men in the court or split, in addition to embroidering and raising fish, is to follow the wind direction of the front hall, carefully help the husband, father and ancestors to maintain the relationship in the rear. Enjoying flowers and feasting, gossiping and homely, this role is not lost to those great men who call brothers and sisters, and talk about wine.

The role of the pillow wind has always been impossible to ignore.

And the people invited by the queen this time are all the daughters of officials of the third grade or above, no matter who leaves a good impression, it is beneficial and harmless to the career of the officials in the family. With this in mind, all the women in the garden made great efforts to cater to them.

When Luan Ge came with six taels in his arms, what he saw was a lively scene of a happy family. The breeze blew, and the smell of fat and pollen was very pungent. I couldn't help but sneeze even six taels.

She is still wearing a light green spring shirt today, and she only wears a simple jasper hairpin in her hair, which is plain and elegant, not ostentatious but not unconventional.

Everyone was busy talking with acquaintances or new acquaintances, and they didn't notice the arrival of this low-key third princess.

Luan Ge didn't care, he found a place upwind and sat down, leaned diagonally on the pillar behind him, and helped Liuliang follow the clean long hair.

Teasing the six taels in his arms, Luan Ge looked at the prosperity in front of him with interest, but he was thinking about Shu Yang in his heart.

This is already the third day, why hasn't he come back yet? Yunyang Mountain to Danluo he only took half a day to arrive, this to Xinfeng, although the journey is more than half farther, but it should not be that there is no news today. Isn't something wrong?

But then I thought about it, in this world, Shu Yang is the current master of Yunyang Mountain, who can think about him? Thinking like this, the tension in my heart slowly calmed down.

Luan Ge didn't know that the reason why Shu Yang came so quickly that day was because he couldn't help but worry on the mountain, so he thought about going down the mountain to see her, and happened to bump into her paper crane on the road, and pushed the boat down the river.

At this moment, I heard a person dragging a sharp voice and saying loudly: "Queen Mother, Concubine Zhen Mother has arrived--"

The noisy crowd instantly fell silent, and from the direction from which the sound came, the people under the wisteria trellis consciously retreated to both sides, leaving a path in the middle for the mother of the country in front of them, who was painted with gold and phoenixes, and the people behind her.

"I've seen the queen's mother, Concubine Zhen's mother. All the ladies greeted each other in unison and bowed.

As usual, it is a queen and a concubine. It seems that the imperial concubine lived in the palace without accident and did not respond to the appointment.

And the people were not surprised. After all, the concubine is famous for her indifference and quietness.

Luan Ge also consciously got up, stood next to the wisteria trellis on the side, and half-bowed his head and hugged his fox.

The queen was dressed in a phoenix robe, her eyebrows and eyes were delicately drawn, and the two nine-tailed steps on the left and right of her hairline also swayed with her leisurely steps, shining in the sun.

And Concubine Zhen behind her is dressed in a plain brocade snow veil, only wearing a light makeup, with a little cinnabar between her eyebrows, but she looks like a pretty girl with two or eight flowers, and she seems to have a sense of elegance of flying immortals outside the sky. Especially when everyone is dressed up today, it makes her even more extraordinary.

The limelight actually suppressed the jeweled queen alive.

Everyone had just saluted, but they heard a crisp voice: "Queen Mother Jin An." I've seen Concubine Zhen. ”

Along with her voice, there was also a shallow and thin voice: "I've seen my aunt, Concubine Zhen." ”

Needless to say, it was Qianhua and Deng Ningjia who sat aside just now to talk about some private words.

The queen beckoned to the two of them, motioned for the two of them to lean over, and pulled the two of them left and right before saying, "You two, you don't know how to go see me first, don't you have me in your eyes?"

Although Deng Ningjia is the queen's niece, but when she thought that her grandfather told her when she was leaving, that the person in the palace was her aunt and the queen, she was a little flustered when she heard this, and hurriedly bowed and said: "Auntie forgive me, Jia'er"

Before he finished speaking, he was snatched by Qianhua and said: "Queen Mother, I have to pull Jia'er to speak, you know that she is timid, don't tease her." The tone was full of the little daughter's coquettish gesture.

The queen smiled and nodded at her: "You are the most elf! Don't you make a joke with me?" ”

After speaking, the queen suddenly remembered that there were all the ladies beside her, so she clapped her hands and said, "Look at my memory! ”

The combination of grace and power shows the mind and majesty of the mother of a country.

As she spoke, the queen swept her eyes over everyone, until she saw Luan Ge standing quietly under the flower stand on the side, and then continued:

"I invite you to come here today, just to enjoy the flowers and chat. The husbands and fathers of all the ladies and ladies are all the ministers of the humerus of my great Chu, and they contribute to the country in the front hall, although we and other women cannot interfere in politics, but at least we must handle the relationship between the family and the concubine, and only when the rear is stable and harmonious, can they have no scruples. Today's flower appreciation, you don't have to be restrained, just feel free to do so. It's just that although the flowers in this imperial garden are also famous, there may be a lot of them in your home, so the flowers in this garden are not rare. Therefore, what we really invite you to see today is a flower tree that I got the day before yesterday. ”

As soon as the queen said this, everyone was talking about it, curious about what kind of rare thing it was.

======

(1) Ancient timekeeping. In the Northern Song Dynasty, each hour was divided into two parts: "beginning" and "zheng", and the twelve hours were divided into twenty-four, which were called "hours". The twelve hours are not for the son, the ugly, the yin, the mao, the chen, the si, the noon, the wei, the shen, the unitary, the xu, and the hai. At the beginning of the morning, it was 9 o'clock in the morning, and it was 10 o'clock in the morning.

(2) Adapted from the poem of the Tang Dynasty poet Yang Juyuan [and Du Zhongcheng West Zen Temple to see the flowers]