Nanling, Zheqi County.

The sky is clear, the flowers and trees are colorful, and the flowers and trees are like snow.

The horse's hooves come from the flowers, and the pink butterflies chase the dust and flutter.

The horse's hooves stopped for a moment, and Ruyi turned over and dismounted.

In the shop facing the street, the desks are displayed in rows, and the white xuan is spread out on the table, and the pen and ink on the table are still wet. Ji Xue is folding the rice paper on the table one by one. When I heard the horses' hooves outside, I looked up and saw Ruyi coming in in men's clothes from outside.

Ji Xue hurriedly put away the rice paper and stepped forward to present it to Ruyi. Ruyi stretched out his hand to take it, looked down at it, and asked, "Have all the people gone back?" ”

Ji Xuedao, "Not yet." After answering the test papers, they all went inside to drink tea -- the second helmsman was inside. ”

If the answer to the test paper was uneven, and □□ sheets were turned over in a row, there was no one who was all right, and I couldn't help but feel a little disappointed. Just as he was about to turn over again, he listened to Ji Xuedao again, "Mrs. Bu and Miss Chen came to look for you, sat for a while, and just went back - can you meet them on the way?" ”

Ruyi raised his head and said, "No." Is there something wrong with them? ”

Ji Xue said, "I didn't say anything—but I looked at it, and it seemed that I had come to curry favor with you because I suddenly learned your identity." Seeing that Ruyi didn't answer, she couldn't help but gossip and sighed, "It turns out that even if you are an official lady, not everyone is as beautiful as a flower......

Ruyi couldn't help but glance at her, and Ji Xue said, "It's not that it's not good-looking." But if you stand with our Second Highness, you will ...... "It will inevitably be overshadowed."

Ruyi raised her hand and gently tapped her head with the test paper, and said, "Mouthful." ”

Ji Xue's face turned red, covered her head with her hands, and said with a smile, "That's what I said...... You just don't care at all? ”

Ruyi didn't answer, only looked at the answer sheet in his hand. After a while, he instructed Ji Xuedao, "Don't alarm inside, let's quietly go to the compartment and listen to what these people are saying." ”

Ji Xue could only respond helplessly, "Yes, let's go!" ”

At the beginning of February, Ruyi's caravan had gathered in Nanling County - at the beginning of the siege of Taicheng, Xiao Huaishuo had all these people moved. Therefore, there was almost no loss of manpower in the helm, and Ji Xue also followed them back to Ruyi.

Ruyi allowed Xiao Huaishuo to hire talents in the caravan, which once demoralized the backbone members of the caravan. But as she gradually recovered, she appeared more and more to preside over the affairs of the rudder, and now the caravan was finally stable again.

It's just that the caravan has less than three or four out of ten of the men left earlier. There were two caravans that almost the entire team followed because the helmsman was poached by Xiao Huaishuo, and the rest of the caravans were also scattered. Fortunately, almost all the veterans of the early years of creation stayed, and only He Manduo temporarily stayed under Xiao Huaishuo to take care of some trivial affairs for him, and it was also convenient for the two sides to communicate and coordinate.

Ruyi reduced the earlier seven caravans to four, reorganized them, and recruited new men.

People who choose □□ in a hurry are not as good as they want to be, and they cannot be immediately useful. Therefore, it is a little overstretched to get things done, and the efficiency is not as good as before. Ruyi moved out of the Taishou Mansion, set up a few shops in front of Jiangdu in Zheqi County, and lived in person to preside over the affairs.

Fortunately, Xiao Huaishuo revealed Ruyi's identity in public the day before yesterday, and now Ruyi is walking around Nanling as the princess of Wuyang, recruiting people and handling affairs is much more convenient than before.

Of course, there are also inconveniences when her identity is revealed - for example, in the past few days, up and down the Nanling Mansion, all the female relatives with some heads and faces have to come to visit her, which makes her very disturbed.

It's okay for others, but the Chen family wants to marry their daughter to Xiao Huaishuo.

Before Ruyi's identity was revealed, they had let Xiao Chen and Xiao Huaishuo meet her a few times in the name of visiting Ruyi. Presumably Xiao Chen and Xiao Huaishuo have met face-to-face, and now she no longer rejects this marriage, but still has some faint expectations.

The girl was well raised. Simple, quiet, a little bit of the unique solitary height of a noble girl, clean, not stained with fireworks.

But such a simple little girl can't impress a teenager like Xiao Huaishuo at all. In terms of insight and consideration, they do not match. Xiao Huaishuo obviously only regarded her as a pawn in the hands of her father and brother, and he did not treat her as an equal.

If the Chen family asks Ruyi to help pull the strings, it is reasonable to refuse Ruyi. From the bottom of her heart, she is not optimistic about this marriage.

She simply avoided talking about it.

None of the interviews in the room stood out.

Ruyi only listened for a while, and knew that most of these people were not her fellow believers—most of them came to earn a living, or wanted to be the princess's doorman, or thought she was hiring a shopkeeper and a worker. They are not talents who can run business and do things.

Not long after, the second helmsman Li Dui also came out and learned that Ruyi was in the ear room, so he came to see her.

Ruyi asked, "Is there a favorite candidate?" ”

Li Dui shook his head with a wry smile and asked rhetorically, "What about the young master?" ”

Ruyi thought about it for a while, and said, "You take them to Jiangdu - Yingzhou has a new batch of cloth, and you can test them again." Whoever knows how to keep accounts, let them stay. ”

Li Dui said, "That's it." Then he asked Ruyi, "How is the matter over there in Busan?" ”

To the east and north of Busan is the ancient city of Guzi. The terrain is low and flat, and there are many lakes and swamps. The tidal flat Tingzhu is overgrown with aquatic grasses, and doves gather to inhabit, hence the name. The Guzi generation has many waters, and the terrain is fragmented and complex, and there are often water thieves. A batch of goods transported from Xuancheng the day before yesterday was robbed in the Jiuzi generation.

Ruyi went out early in the morning for this purpose.

When Li Dui asked, she said, "I have some clues." Later, I will call Boss He back, and I will talk to you about this matter carefully. ”

Li Dui said, "Do you want to call Boss He?" Is it necessary for officers and soldiers to be dispatched? ”

Ruyi nodded, "Yes." ”

Li Dui didn't ask any more questions, but said, "I'll take them to Jiangdu, and let's go and have a look?" ”

Ruyi really wanted to go to Jiangdu to have a look.

Zheqi County is the seat of Nanling County and an important town in the middle reaches of the Yangtze River.

Recently, due to the dispatch of large armies, the frequent allocation of sailors and grain and grass, there are often warships passing on the river.

From Nanling to attack the quarrying ferry to Jiankang, you can take both water and land routes. Xiao Huaishuo's subordinates are especially good at water armies, and they are sure that Li Hu is not good at water warfare, so of course he wants to regain the opportunity from the river.

Originally, this was the first major event of the Southern Dynasties after the fall of Taicheng. But because Gu Huai's attitude is unclear, the generals in the army are now in turmoil, and they are all figuring out and discussing Gu Huai's movements. The attack of the army that should have been imposing like a rainbow was also covered with a layer of gloom with an unknown future.

Fortunately, this impact has not yet reached the bottom soldiers.

And news also came from the east - the three counties of Wuxing, Wujun and Huiji formed an alliance with Xu Yi and jointly sent troops to resist Li Hu. Li Hu's momentum of sending a few hundred tired soldiers on the east road to accept a city has been stopped, and now the rebels and the allied forces led by Xu Yi are fighting in Yixing. Xiao Huaishuo took this opportunity to launch an attack from the Western Front, which was the right way to use troops. Therefore, although the army has worries, it has no doubts about this expedition.

-- Everyone wanted to win a battle as much as possible, to stop the momentum of Li Hu's expansion, and by the way, to deter those who were thinking about it and were ready to move in the rear.

Also because of the dispatch of the army, the inventory on Jiangdu was very strict.

When Ruyi arrived at the ferry, her merchant ship had just been checked and anchored in front of the port.

Li Dui arranged for the newly recruited people to take stock of the ship and check the goods.

Ruyi was about to get on the boat, but when he inadvertently looked up, he saw another boat coming on the river not far away.

The boat was small, floating between the vast river and the sky, like a leaf of reeds.

However, at the bow of the reed boat stood a very familiar young man, seventeen or eighteen years old, with a handsome face and a tall posture. He raised his head slightly, and held an extraordinarily long sword in his arms.

On the mighty river, in the square inch of the bow of the ship, to maintain this eye-catching posture, it is not only skillful posture, but also a tenacious high-pitched heart, even if it is very tired, uncomfortable, and unnecessary, it has to show off the pretentious heart for everyone to see.

Ruyi can't help but admit that every appearance of this young man can leave a particularly vivid and deep impression on her.

And every time he appears, it is at a very critical moment.

She ordered Ji Xue to come over and instructed, "Quietly send someone to tell Sù Erlang, just say that Gu Huai's son is here." ”

The young man also quickly saw Ruyi, and his eyes were clear. Before the ferry could dock, he jumped up. It was like a storm of water, and he came to shore with a few ups and downs—a gesture so dashing that one wanted to shoot him down with an arrow.

When he arrived on the shore, he only saw Ruyi alone in his eyes, and he stepped forward to greet him with a happy face, "I didn't expect to meet you here!" ”

The guard in front of Ruyi blocked him, but the young man didn't pay attention to it, and stretched out his hand to push Changge away. The guards beckoned to help, but he only spoke to Ruyi, "I heard that Jiankang fell, I thought you had fallen into the hands of the enemy." ”

If he was so happy and pure, he couldn't help but stab him, "You guessed accurately." ”

The young man was still pretending to be confused, "Are you really captured?" Did they say anything to you—"

Ruyi has never seen such a thick-skinned person.

The guards soon arrived and cut off the boy's left and right paths. Although they didn't recognize Ruyi, they knew that Li Dui was a close confidant of Xiao Huaishuo, the king of Linchuan. Then he asked Ruyi, "Do you know this person?" ”

The young man seemed to notice the abnormality, and his gaze swept around, and then fell on Ruyi's face.

There was a sly smile in his eyes - exactly the same expression he had before he forcibly pulled Ruyi into the water when he was in Jiankang last year and was chased by the Qiangren.

Ruyi decisively denied it, "I don't recognize him - he forced his way through, you guys quickly take him down!" ”