Over the years, the beggar meeting has been arranged at the Dairi Imperial Village, which is located in the eastern suburbs of Kyoto. Covering an area of 1,000 acres, the village is lush with lush forests and small bridges that turn and turn, and the temperature is several degrees lower than that of downtown Kyoto, making it a good place to escape the heat. So at this time of the year, His Majesty the Emperor took the old lady, his wife and children, and everyone in the harem moved to this place to live, and by the way, he held a begging meeting to see which family had a girl who had a young adult and had fun.

The whole Huangzhuang is divided into several large parks, from the main entrance into is a row of corridors leading to the park and the hall respectively, the hall is a banquet hall that can accommodate 1,000 people, there are several exhibition halls and rest halls on both sides of the banquet hall, out of the hall is the main park of Huangzhuang, divided into East Park, West Park and South Park. The East Garden is a place for ladies and ladies to play in the garden, the West Garden is mainly a place for young masters to play, the South Garden is a forbidden area, and only royal people can enter, through the South Garden, there are rows of villages, all of which are temporary residences for the royal family who come to escape the summer, and there are a large number of guards guarding the periphery.

When the ladies and young masters who participated in the begging party arrived at the gate of the manor, a special maid came forward to greet them. In order to ensure the order and safety of the garden, the ladies are usually only allowed to bring a servant and a personal maid, and each young lady is only allowed to bring a personal maid, while the young masters are not allowed to bring a maid and a small maid, and the rest of the servants need to stay at the door to wait or go to the activities by themselves, and then come to the door to pick up their masters and leave after the beggar meeting. As soon as they enter the garden, each lady will have a maid in the garden always by her side to serve the needs of each guest.

When entering the park, the maid will check the invitation card of each family, and see that the family has a daughter participating in the competition, they will take away the competition works, and at the same time will give each lady and young master and young lady three small imperial beads, and the lady and the young lady have different bead materials, the ladies are usually gold, the young masters are jade, and the young ladies are pearls. The beads are engraved with the words year, month and begging, which are specially used to vote for their favorite entries during the audition.

After doing this, the maids in the garden will lead the ladies and ladies to take the young ladies and the underage young masters to the places that have been arranged in the hall and sit down, and the rest is the time for the ladies to talk. The ladies usually don't sit at their mother's seat, or stand behind their mother to make exhibits, or they go to the garden to play games together, and there are other seats during meals. The young masters often just greeted each other, and were directly taken to the West Garden Hall to rest, or to play in the garden. The adult young masters were generally not brought into the hall, but were directly led to sit in the West Garden Hall.

Because Ruan Anzheng reported the reference in the palace, the work was reported directly through the palace, and the other sisters were not old enough, so Zhao took his daughter and niece and directly took the bead flower into the hall.

When Zhao arrived, there was already a lady dressed in an ochre brocade dress, with a slightly plump face and a kind expression, but the corners of her eyes were a little fierce.

At this time, Mrs. Liang, Zhu, was talking to a handsome young man of thirteen or fourteen years old in a royal blue robe standing in front of her, and next to her stood a twelve or thirteen-year-old girl who looked very similar to her, with an oval face and a lotus-colored skirt.

When Mrs. Liang saw Zhao coming, she stopped talking to the young man, got up to greet Zhao, and happily asked the young boys and girls around her to salute Zhao, but it turned out that this was Mrs. Liang's second son Liang Wucheng and her daughter Liang Yi. Liang Yi has been living outside Tongzhou for many years, and is rarely in the capital, so everyone does not know him.

Zhao also smiled and pulled over his daughter and niece and introduced Liang Yi. Mrs. Liang looked at the little girls in the Zhao family, and couldn't help but praise: "Second Mrs. Ruan is really a blessing, all the girls raised are so outstanding, not to mention this appearance, even this demeanor is magnificent, and it is not something that ordinary people can raise." Saying that, she praised one by one, she especially liked Ruan Anmei's quiet and calm, and pulled her to ask a few more questions. But he was obviously indifferent to Ruan Anshu, who was standing on the side.

Liang Wucheng saw his mother pulling Ruan Anmei to ask, and a faint blush climbed up the tips of his ears, and when he saw Ruan Anmei's beauty and elegance, he felt a little ashamed of being wrapped in honey.

Zhao took her daughter on a blind date, and she saw a little meaning, she saw that the young man in front of her was handsome, polite, and couldn't help but add a little joy, so she also praised Liang Yi with enthusiasm in return.

Mrs. Liang shook her head and said with a smile: "Sister Yi has been raised in the countryside, and she has not seen much of the world. ”

When the little girl heard her mother say this about her, she was not annoyed, but she pursed her lips and smiled slightly, and showed two little dimples, which were very gentle and pleasant. The Ruan family sisters instantly liked her, so they responded in unison, "I should take care of each other, and I don't know who takes care of whom." ”

The young masters couldn't stay in the hall for a long time, and after seeing the ceremony, Mrs. Liang confessed and asked the maid to lead Liang Wucheng, who had already had red ears, to the west hall, and she continued to talk with the Zhao family.

While talking, some ladies came to the same table and the adjacent table one after another, and everyone greeted each other and praised the excellence of each daughter. The Zhao family is often very interested at this time, there is no way, her daughters are really good-looking, and they learn etiquette well, so whoever sees it has to praise a few words.

Among them, Ruan Anmei is the most favored by the ladies, and the Ruan family sisters are well-born, but they are too eye-catching to make people have a full sense of distance, not like ordinary families can suppress, only Ruan Anmei is beautiful and gentle, amiable to look at, and it is the age of looking at each other, so there are always ladies who come forward to pull Ruan Anmei to take a closer look, and then praise it.

When the time came, the works of the ladies had been placed in the exhibition hall on the side of the hall, and the entries were all placed in the glass display case according to the number, and there was a narrow-mouthed porcelain bottle outside the glass cabinet for each work, and everyone threw the beads they received into the porcelain bottle in front of their favorite entries.

Therefore, good works can usually receive a lot of delicate small beads, which will be directly given to the participating ladies as a souvenir. Therefore, many poor officials' families will put a lot of effort into letting their daughters do a good job in the competition, even if they can't get any good names, more beads can be a goal.

The whole voting process is about half an hour, and after six o'clock, the maids of the Huangzhuang will invite all the ladies and ladies to count the beads and flowers obtained from each work, and then submit the top fifteen with the most beads to the queen and the eldest princesses for review, and determine the leader and the top ten.

After throwing the pearl flowers, Zhao and the ladies all returned to the hall, and the ladies were bored, so most of them made an appointment to go to the garden together. The Ruan sisters asked Liang Yi to go to the East Park together.

The royal beggar will come with a wide range of people, from the royal clan, the top nobles, the imperial capital ministers, to the declining aristocracy, the Qingliu civil officials, the petty official group or something, many of the ladies are usually not counted in a circle, so the beggar will not be like the usual banquet, everyone will get together to play, but each found their own small circle or play games, or enjoy flowers, or swim in the lake to play casually.

There is an artificial lake in the southwest corner of the East Garden of the Imperial Garden, which is home to dozens of cranes, and is a famous crane lake in Kyoto. As soon as she mentioned yì, Liang Yi was also interested, she had never seen a crane before!

So the sisters of the Ruan family and Liang Yi asked the maid to lead the way, and walked towards Xianhe Lake together in high spirits. The manor was so big that a few people walked for a few quarters of an hour before they reached the bamboo forest where they could overlook the crane lake, and An Jin and Liang Yi were very excited to see the cranes flying around in the distance. Just wanted to continue walking, but was stopped by a somewhat surprised voice, and turned his head to find that it was the two sisters Zhao Minyuan and Zhao Minxi of the Zhao family and the two sisters Zhuang Lingxi and Zhuang Lingxia of the Zhuang family, who were coming from the other side of the bamboo forest. It was the fourth lady Zhao Minyuan who stopped them.

But it's clear that some people aren't surprised. That's the enemy who is very red when they meet!

Zhuang Lingxi glared angrily as soon as she saw An Jin, her eyes were eager to eat her, and the second sister Zhuang Lingxi next to her also looked at An Jin with displeased eyes, revealing a faint disdain and coldness, obviously Zhuang Lingxi did not black An Jin in front of her, or the Zhuang family just didn't like the Ruan family sisters.

An Jin glared back, she hadn't settled the account with her last time she fell into the water, and now she dared to stare at herself, she was not a bun. Although Zhao Chengyi also pressed Zhuang Lingxi into the water, An Jin did not admit that it was his business, and he must avenge his own hatred.

Ruan Anmei and Ruan Antong were also very displeased, last time Zhuang Lingxi was obviously at a loss, and he didn't apologize much, so he left directly, it was too much to see. Now dare to stare at An Jin, it's simple.

Zhao Minyuan saw that the atmosphere between the two sides was very unfriendly, and she regretted that she was a little embarrassed to see a few cousins and forgot about the stubble, so she hurriedly gave Zhao Minxi a look, and asked Zhao Minxi to step forward and propose to accompany the Ruan sisters to swim in the lake, but she claimed that her feet hurt and asked the Zhuang sisters to accompany her to sit in the pavilion. Zhao Minxi was not willing to flatter the arrogant Zhuang Lingxi sisters, although she was a concubine, she was also a serious lady in the Guogong Mansion, and she didn't look at the faces of the two sisters, so she happily went to the side of the Anjin sisters.

A few people walked around the crane lake for two more moments, they couldn't help but feel a little tired, the summer day was hot, although there was shade all the way, the body was inevitably a thin sweat, and they walked to a woodland with a good view of the crane and stopped, and saw a long table and a few stools under the shade of the trees, so they stopped to rest. Seeing that some of the cranes were shaking their wings, some were shrinking their legs, and some were fluttering twice, they were in high spirits, so they ordered the attendants in the garden to take some pen and ink snacks, and drew a few strokes while eating, and made fun of them together.

The little girls smiled smartly, their eyebrows and eyes were bright, and their spirits were flying, and they were indescribably eye-catching and cheerful against the sparkling lake in summer. But this scene deeply stimulated another group of girls passing by.

In front of this group of people passing by were four or five gorgeously dressed girls between the ages of ten and thirteen or fourteen, and behind them were seven or eight maids-in-waiting.