June in the second year of Taihe of the Tang Dynasty is the hottest time of the year, and the noon sun scorches the earth, as if it is on fire. Pen × fun × Pavilion www. ｂｉｑｕｇｅ。 infoThe streets and alleys that are usually bustling are empty at this time, and occasionally pedestrians who are in a hurry to do urgent business pass by in the sun. The guy in the shop also lost his mind to attract customers, and lazily leaned in the shadows under the porch, chatting with each other. An officer on a horse roared past with a group of soldiers, raising a puff of smoke and dust, and the choked guy coughed, and when the group of soldiers walked away, the guy "spitted", spit out the scum in his mouth, and scolded: "I'm going to die, a few days ago, there was just a fire burning next to the West Market, and I just tossed back and forth like this, and I don't know what to do." ”

"What do you know, the fire has burned dozens of houses," another said in a low voice: "I have a cousin who works as a servant for Dali Siqing, and I don't know how many people have been taken there recently." ”

"What's going on?"

The man's finger pointed to it: "I heard that something big happened above, King Yan fell, I don't know how many officials are involved this time." I think they seem to have gone to Anxingfang, and this time I don't know which one is unlucky. ”

The shopkeeper's shouting and scolding came from the store, and the guys quickly shut it up and returned to everyone.

At this time, the cells of Dali Temple were crowded with convicted people, and compared with the men's prison in the east, which was crying and cursing to the sky, the women's prison in the west seemed much quieter, and only a few women's intermittent whimpering sounds were heard. Si Ying sat on the thatched pile of the women's cell, his eyes closed, his hands gesturing something, his expression serene and serene, incompatible with the filthy cell. Sweat ran down her cheeks, but she didn't seem to feel it.

The head of the women's cell came in with a cart, distributed food one by one, walked up to the girl, and shouted, "It's time to eat." ”

Si Ying opened his eyes, walked to the prison door, took a bowl of gruel, a piece of dry bread, looked at it, and asked, "Auntie, can you give me another piece of cake?" ”

The female cell head sneered: "Oh, son-in-law, do you think this is your mansion?" You can eat as much as you want, it's a prison. This is already good, you ladies and ladies each have a private room, you go to the opposite side to see where those white wives and daughters are closed. She was right, this cell is dedicated to the wives and daughters of officials who have committed crimes below the fifth grade, they are temporarily detained here, and their husbands will be judged before deciding where they will go, compared to the cells of the people of Guanpingtou, the conditions here are much better, each cell is separated by earthen walls, and the cell head is also a woman, so there will be no bullying by the male cell head jailer.

Si Ying smiled, and no longer pleaded, just walked back with the food, put the bowl and plate on the ground, straightened the placket, knelt in front of him, and began to eat. There was an indescribable elegance in the way she served the bowl, as if the coarse food was a delicacy at the feast.

The female cell leader couldn't help but look at her a few more times, and muttered: "It's strange, I didn't eat or drink a few days ago, how did I figure it out today." After that, he continued to give food to the next prisoner.

After a while, the female cell head came to collect the dishes again, and walked to Si Ying, the empty dishes were neatly placed at the door of the cell, she looked at Si Ying, and found that she continued to close her eyes there, gesturing with her hands in the air, and said, "Isn't it crazy?" Si Ying didn't seem to hear, his eyes were still closed, and the movements of his hands did not decrease.

She raised her eyes and saw some things hanging on the wooden fence of the cell, which were actually thatched insects, birds, etc., and said angrily: "These things are not allowed to be hung in the prison, not to mention that you are made of these things when the thatch is made for nothing, and you will not cry with me if you have nothing to sleep on in the future." He reached out and pulled those things off.

Si Ying suddenly opened his eyes and said: "My girl told me that the old Zhang family at the east end of Xinglong Street in Xishi specializes in this, and she used to make it to sell subsidies for the family. "At this time, it is the prosperous age, twenty dollars can buy a bucket of corn, although a few dollars is nothing, for these female cell leaders who can't get any oil and water, no matter how small the mosquito is, it is meat, her movements involuntarily softened, and she untied those small pendants and put them into her cuffs.

Si Ying closed his eyes again and continued to start the gesture.

Liu Peiwen kept looking at the girl in the opposite cell, a few days ago, the girl's family was sentenced to exile in Shudi, I don't know why, her family is gone, and she is still here. The girl continued to weep until yesterday, when she suddenly stopped crying, and began to tidy up her cell, and took the thatch and made a straw rope, and tied her hair into a weave, and put the pile of thatch in order, and put aside the crumbs and clods of grass scattered on the ground, and hung small things out of thatch, and wiped her face with a soaked handkerchief that she had saved. The cell was filthy, and no matter how tidy it was, it couldn't be clean, but for some reason this girl and her cell made her feel different all of a sudden.

A few rays of sunlight fell into the narrow window on the wall of the cell, allowing Liu Peiwen to see the girl's eyebrows clearly, the most striking thing was the pair of black and white eyes, between the expectations, the flow of waves and colors, as if containing the aura of heaven and earth, the corners of the eyes were slightly upturned, and the two black eyebrows were obliquely hooked, but they were not the kind of curved thin eyebrows that were popular nowadays, but thick as ink paintings, with a high and broad forehead, losing a little low eyebrows and gentle gentleness, but it made her eyes appear more deep, the bridge of the nose was high and straight, after a month of torture in prison life, The chin is a little pointed, but it can be seen that she is not a melon seed face, but a goose egg face, which just reduces the hardness of her eyebrows, mixed into an indescribable wonderful temperament, such a appearance does not fully meet the standards of the current dignified beauty, nor is it a soft and charming posture that makes people reverie, but it has a touching beauty, which is unforgettable at a glance. At this time, the girl's hair was pulled up, and her slender neck outlined a graceful curve, making her not tall look graceful and straight.

Liu Peiwen felt that her behavior was very different from that of other female prisoners, and for a while she forgot to complain about her misfortune, and involuntarily began to observe her secretly.

Sure enough, this girl has a new trick today, since the morning, I saw her fingers moving rhythmically, Liu Peiwen finally couldn't help asking: "Little sister, can you really play "Plum Blossom Introduction"?" ”

Si Ying heard the voice, opened his eyes, and showed surprise: "Yes, exactly, my sister knows that I am playing this song just by my fingering!" She leaned over to the cell door, opened her eyes wide, and examined the woman carefully by the light from the cell's skylight. This woman has thin eyebrows and fine eyes, but it gives people a clear and comfortable feeling, Si Ying remembers that she was already here when she came, just sitting like a dead wood every day, as if she was imprisoned because her husband was convicted, her mother's family also came to see her, Si Ying also vaguely heard her family say to her, let her be patient for a while, the two families are trying to dredge up the relationship and get people. The jailers were also very polite to her, and it should have been the family who made the money. It's just that she has never said a word since she entered here, and she doesn't change the clothes sent by the family, and when the headband is broken, she lets her hair fall loose and doesn't comb it.

Si Ying had nothing to do, so he practiced the piano music taught by his husband before, but he didn't expect that the woman on the other side, who had never spoken, would suddenly speak, and he didn't expect her to see her fingering at once.

"When I was at home, I played it a lot, and as soon as I saw your fingering, it seemed to match the rhythm of this piece, so I tried to guess it." Liu Peiwen said with a smile.

Si Ying got up, gave her a salute, and said: "Everyone listens to the music and debates, and my sister admires the music when she sees the finger debates." I don't know my sister's surname? ”

The woman was a little surprised when she saw that Si Ying had not forgotten the etiquette, and she took a half-salute sideways, and said with a smile: "If your surname is Liu, you can call me Peiwen." What do you call your sister? ”

"It turned out to be Sister Peiwen, a good name, the little sister's surname is Gu, the name Xuan, the Xuan of the daylily, the word Siying." The girl said.

"Gu ...... This...... Welcome ......" The woman muttered her name and asked, "Ling Zun is ......?"

"My father is a river." Si Ying said.

Liu Peiwen suddenly said: "It turns out that you are Gu Xuzhou's daughter......" The words came out, Liu Peiwen paused in embarrassment, and as if to explain, he said: "Mr. Yushan is a famous family of gold and stone, and his husband has admired his name for a long time, but he has never had the opportunity to meet, but he didn't expect to meet his sister here." "Mr. Yushan is Si Ying's father's number, he has done nothing in the officialdom, but he holds a noble idle position, but he is obsessed with gold and stone rubbing, all kinds of calligraphy and calligraphy, and facsimile, is the identification of the collection of everyone, Mr. Yushan's name can be regarded as well-known in the collection of Chang'an.

Si Ying felt that Liu Peiwen's reaction was strange, but he didn't ask more, only smiled: "It's finally fate with my sister." ”

Liu Peiwen's tone returned to normal: "It turns out that my sister has words at such a young age......"

"Yes, I went to school as a girl when I was a child, and my father gave me the words." Si Ying smiled: "I was born in the first year of Xingping on the twenty-eighth day of the lunar month, that day is the beginning of spring, and will welcome the year, my father Su Mu Northern Wei Li Harmony is a person, and I like his "Shu Shen Fu" that sentence 'The tree moves in spring and moves, and the grass greets the year and flowers', Xuan is vanilla, so my father took Ying as my word. Si Ying told the origin of the word, but what she didn't say was that her father also set a family affair for her that year, the family surname Lu, and her family is the same surname as Wu County, the two families have a good family, that person is three years older than her, and he is a famous county school at a young age, when his father came to Beijing, he happened to meet him with his father to visit friends in Chang'an, and he was full of praise at first sight. But things are unpredictable, and what happened later turned out beyond her and even her parents' expectations...... Si Ying thought of his distant relatives, and his face couldn't help but darken.

Liu Peiwen saw that her face was not good, and thought that she was about to feel nostalgic for her life experience, so she hurriedly diverted the conversation and asked: "Just now you said that you are studying women's school, but the women's school you are talking about is the 'Taiping School Palace' founded by Emperor Zheng?" ”

"Exactly, it turns out that my sister also knows ......" Si Ying accepted her sadness and smiled at Liu Peiwen.

Before he finished speaking, he heard a "hum" from the cell next to Liu Peiwen, and a sharp voice said in a weird voice: "Who doesn't know there, I heard that there are some women who are not worried about the room...... No wonder your family is ...... harmed."

When Si Ying heard this, her heart sank suddenly, she didn't know what was going on, and the adults wouldn't tell her what was going on, she only knew that on the day of the accident, she was a guest in the courtyard of King Yan, accompanying the county lord of Xiangyang, the daughter of King Yan...... An instinctive sense of fear rose from the bottom of her heart, and she couldn't help but shiver.

From that day on, her world changed all at once, from the elegant and delicate boudoir to the dark women's prison, and her fate was like the June sky, one moment the sun was shining, the next was cloudy. She really wanted to be like when she encountered troubles before, she threw herself into her mother's arms and coquettishly, closed her eyes, and opened them again, all the problems were solved, and her mother was always smiling calmly like that, even if it was a big difficulty, as long as she had her mother by her side, it didn't matter, but now no matter how she closed her eyes and opened them, there were cold walls in front of her. She vividly remembered the day when the jailer pulled her away from her mother, and the last thing that held her back to the world collapsed. She had been at a loss for the rest of the day, hoping that her mother would come back soon, until yesterday she finally accepted the fact that the whole family had left her, and now she was the only one left here.

Hearing the woman say this, and thinking about what had happened these days, she realized that the whole thing was far beyond what she could understand at her age, what kind of big case it was, how could her own family be implicated, why the whole family had been exiled, and she was the only one left here......

What does the woman in the cell next to her know? She didn't have time to pay attention to the man's obvious malice towards her family, and only wanted to get the message she wanted from her words.