It was a starry night.

The only dazzling light in Anping Town comes from the big mansion of the town's rich man, Wang Yuanwai. And the so-called rich people are actually nouveau riche. Since it is a nouveau riche, it is impossible to get rid of the unique "temperament" of the nouveau riche. This Wang Yuanwai was originally a poor boy born and raised in Anping Town, and his family was surrounded by walls when he was a child. His father was a complete gambler, and his mother was dead to his father and remarried early. The villagers looked down on him at that time, and Wang Yuanwai really suffered a lot when he was young. Later, the poor boy didn't know where he went or what he did, but in short, he made a fortune and became a rich man with a lot of money.

Once this poor man has money, he always wants to let others know and make others covetous. Especially let those who have looked down on you, oppressed you, and humiliated you know about it. So after Wang Yuanwai earned enough money, he immediately returned to his hometown. He first had the dilapidated house in his hometown demolished and a large mansion rebuilt on the original site. Then he led a few young and beautiful aunts, eight or nine children, plus a large group of maids, handymen, and servants, and lived a happy life as a rich man in the eyes of the villagers with great envy.

The mansion outside the king is really magnificent and splendid. This area alone is enough to make the residents of Anping Town jaw-dropping. After Wang Yuanwai returned to his hometown, in addition to demolishing his family's old house, he also forcibly demolished several nearby houses, and then built his mansion on this vast land. The gate of the Wang family is very magnificent, and the vermilion door paint and the bronze buckle handle with unicorn head are said to have been bought from the capital. On both sides of the gate of the house, there is a green jade lion with teeth and claws, each of which is worth thousands of taels. There are also two thick banyan trees in front of the door, which were also bought back for a huge amount of money and planted in front of the door, saying that they are used for feng shui in the town, which means that this family is thriving and endless. On the top of the vermilion lacquer gate, there is a plaque made of hundred-year-old good wood, on which two big characters are written with gold lacquer mixed with gold powder: Wangfu. The style of the interior of the palace is to imitate the Suzhou garden system, there are mountains and rivers, the garden is full of flowers and plants, and the long gallery turns thousands of times, quite an artistic conception. There are dozens of servants in the house, each performing their own duties. And Wang Yuanwai wears good silk and satin every day, walks around with a birdcage, and spends a lot of money at every turn, and a mouthful of gold teeth shines in the sun, showing the temperament of the nouveau riche to the fullest!

It is said that on this day, the king got a rare treasure, a night pearl the size of a child's fist. This night pearl is called the "Dark Night Morning Star", but it has a lot of origins. It is said that in the era of war between the princes, a fisherman in Laos accidentally caught a strange-looking big fish. In order to survive, the big fish spit out a bright pearl from his mouth and offered it to the fisherman in exchange for his own life. The fisherman thought to himself that this big fish had really become a fine, and this bead was probably the Neidan that it had been spitting into the moonlight for thousands of years. So the fisherman took the beads and released the big fish. Later, this bead was presented to the king of Liao. King Liao heard the story of the strange fish leaving beads to save his life, and thought to himself that this was definitely not an ordinary bead. In addition, this bead shines brightly in the dark and can illuminate a whole room, so the Liao King gave it the name of Wen Crepe, called "Dark Night Morning Star". Later, King Liao compared this bead to a divine object with a deep meaning, and the owner of the divine object is naturally a person recognized by the gods, and he is the pride of heaven. So the king of Liao relied on this bead as an excuse to send troops to attack the royal domain, and finally really became the emperor. After nearly a thousand years of changing dynasties, this "dark night morning star" also changed hands several times, and finally somehow it came into the hands of Wang Yuanwai.

Wang Yuanwai is a typical figure among the nouveau riche. When he first got the beads, he only used them for illumination. At night, when the jewel is placed in the dark room, the light shines brightly, and the whole house is illuminated as if it were day, and the whole town can be seen! Wang Yuanwai looked at this good lighting effect, even if his eyes were pierced and faint, his double chin still trembled with joy.

But it didn't take long for Wang Yuanwai to be worried. With such an unprecedented treasure in hand, if only you hide it, and others don't know it, how boring it is, how can you show your wealth? So after thinking and meditating for half a month, Wang Yuan finally made a news that made the palace and even the entire Anping Town extremely excited: he wanted to issue a "hero post", inviting all the talented people who love treasures, appreciate treasures, and collect treasures to come to his palace mansion to pay tribute to his "dark night morning star". As soon as the post was sent, all the people in the plaything world were not boiling. They have all heard of such a good baby, and they have gone to great lengths to find it, why did it end up in the hands of an upstart, isn't it a tyrannical thing? So the big and small people in the plaything world packed their bags, the rich ones brought enough silver taels, and the moneyless ones went to Anping Town with a heart that was unwilling to be "humiliated".

On the day when the established national appreciation of the "Dark Night Morning Star" came to the fifth day of the eighth month of the 21st year of Guangyan. On this day, Anping Town was crowded with people, and it was unprecedentedly lively. Anping Town was originally just a little-known town at the foot of the capital, but now so many people have come at once, which can make the residents of the town very excited. Women open their homes and sell baked flatbreads, fragrant tofu, fresh fruits, and pots and pots of boiled eggs to earn a little money. The small merchants and peddlers of good deeds even rushed to make a batch of copycat versions of the "Morning Star in the Night" and put them on their stalls, calling them "souvenirs". This idea actually made them make a small fortune, after all, there is only one "Dark Night Morning Star", and it can be considered a comfort to buy a fake one to go back. In this way, Wang Yuanwai's thunderous move purely to show off his wealth brought a period of unordinary life to the ordinary town, and for a time drove the tourism, service industry, non-staple food industry and small commodity industry here.

As expected, almost all the people who could come to the plaything world came. But to people's surprise, it is not nothing, that is, the fourth son of the Tang family is also here! Speaking of the Tang family, it is the first major gateway of the Great Zhou Kingdom. However, the Tang family is different from Wang Yuanwai, they are really famous families, hundreds of years ago they first made a fortune in Wulin by making drugs and medicines, and now they are all involved in medical halls, gold mines, antiques, salt transportation, restaurants, and dance shops, and they are really rich and rival the country. Tang Xinhui, the current head of the Tang family, and his wife Hong have four children, the first three of which are daughters, and only one son is obtained, which is the fourth son of Tang who is famous all over the world - Tang Bujing.

This fourth son of Tang was different from the rest of his life, and he only laughed and didn't cry when he came out of his mother's womb. He was able to write at the age of three, martial arts at the age of six, and at the age of ten, he was not only an all-round talent in civil and military affairs, but also a good hand at poisoning and medicine. At the age of thirteen, he won the championship of the Medicine King Conference, and the Valley Master of the Medicine King Valley was ashamed of himself. At the age of fifteen, he learned the art of antique identification, and after three years, he learned to succeed. It is said that on the day he left school, the erudite old man stroked his snow-white beard and sighed: "This son is gifted, by no means extraordinary, he has exhausted what the old man has learned all his life, if he is born one day, the future will be immeasurable!" However, it was this fourth prince of Tang who was known as "promising", but he didn't want to be born and enter the world, and he didn't want to do much. After coming down from the old man Zhizhi, he relied on what he had learned, and on the basis of the Tang family's family business, he opened an antique shop, a calligraphy and painting workshop, and even on a whim, acquired a popular Qinglou all over the country - Drunken Qingfeng. Now although Tang Xinhui is the head of the Tang family, in fact, all the business is taken care of by Tang Bujing, and he also has the final say in the huge Tang family.

As soon as the fourth prince of Tang entered the palace, the entire palace was boiling. I saw a noble son with a long body and a jade body, dressed in a dark blue brocade robe, the cuffs and corners were embroidered with bamboo leaf patterns with silver threads, the waist was wrapped with a white jade exquisite belt, and the jade eight treasures were tied with horns, and a piece of mutton fat jade with excellent water head. His face was like a crown of jade, the bridge of his nose was high, and his impeccable face was embedded with a pair of slender and shiny eyes. His eyes were so beautiful that they were as bright as the stars in the sky. There is a faint smile on the corner of the mouth like a dotted hair, which is both warm and alienated, which makes people unreal, and always wants to ponder it carefully.

He walked step by step, calmly and without getting dusty, as if the place he walked would give birth to bewitching red lotuses. The white tassels on the corners swayed gently with his steps. His eyes shone like the moon, causing the gold-carved and jade playthings around him to lose their color in an instant. When the maids, servants, young ladies and ladies of the palace saw Tang Gongzi, they were all overwhelmed, and they called out that there was such a handsome and beautiful man in the world. Behind Tang Sigongzi, there were four young girls in lake-colored clothes, each of whom was in a captivating posture. They have been following Tang Gongzi and are inseparable.

Wang Yuanwai personally came out to greet the fourth prince of Tang. I saw his fat body move quickly to the door, facing the noble son in brocade clothes and jade crowns, and the horizontal flesh on his face was squeezed out of shape by an exaggerated smile. He couldn't stop saying: "The old man didn't know that the fourth son was visiting, disrespectful, disrespectful......"

And the handsome Tang Sigongzi, who was mixed with a hint of bewitchment, smiled and helped Wang Yuanwai, and said cordially and politely: "What is Wang Yuanwai doing, it's really torturous to the younger generation." Recently, I heard that Wang Yuanwai was happy to get a treasure, so I went to take a look, opened my eyes, bothered the staff, and asked you to do a lot of Haihan. As he spoke, he tilted his head slightly and said to a waiting girl behind him, "Shadow, take out the gift that this son prepared for the king." ”

The girl called "Shadow" immediately took out a narrow brocade box and came out. She opened the lid of the brocade box, and saw that the inside was full of brilliance, dazzling everyone's eyes for a while, it was four beads of the same size. Wang Yuanwai was dizzy by the bright light, but he was still reluctant to look away, and only listened to the fourth prince of Tang continue: "These four are the pearls of the South China Sea carefully collected by the younger generation, all of them are round and full, and they are all of average size. Although it is also a treasure, it is much worse than the 'Dark Night Morning Star' outside the staff. This time, the younger generation is not good to visit empty-handed, so I picked these four beads and gave them to the staff. ”

"The fourth prince is so polite, so polite!" Wang Yuanwai looked at the four pearls of the South China Sea, and his jaw was about to fall with laughter. As Tang Sigongzi said, these four southern pearls cannot be compared with the "Dark Night Morning Star", but they are already rare treasures. He saw that the fourth prince of Tang was polite, extraordinary, and generous, so he looked at this young man who was in the limelight even more. He hurriedly waved his hand, made a gesture to invite you into the room, and said with a smile, "The fourth prince has worked hard all the way, please sit in the house, sit in the house." As he spoke, he didn't forget to greet the four beautiful girls behind Tang Sigongzi, "Also invite the four girls into the house to sit down and drink some tea to relieve the fatigue of the journey." ”

The four girls bowed to the king and followed their sons all the way, as if they did not touch the ground.

When all the guests had gathered, Wang Yuanwai went back to the house and changed into what he thought was the most decent clothes, and then the maids carried him out again. He greeted the full house with a smile on his belly as if he were pregnant with Rokka. He tugged at his collar, cleared his throat, faced the expectant gaze, and pretended to say: "Friends have come from afar to give the old man thin noodles, and the old man has thanked him in advance!" ”

As soon as these words came out, there were many dissatisfied gasps from the seats. Many people muttered to themselves in their hearts: This shameless old man who has no self-knowledge, really thinks that Uncle Ben is here to see him? If it weren't for the fact that he had the "Morning Star of the Night", which was known as the "Pearl of Ten Thousand Pearls", or that he used an eight-lift sedan chair to invite, Lao Tzu would not have come uncommonly! So there was an atmosphere of dissatisfaction in the air, only Tang Sigongzi, who was sitting at the front, still had a smile on the corner of his mouth. He fanned the folding fan in his hand one by one, and the white jade fan pendant hanging under the fan swayed from side to side with his movements.

Wang Yuanwai was still talking and talking. Probably because he felt that he didn't have many opportunities to show his face like this, so he seized the opportunity and gave himself enough face first. Today's speech was specially written by the most learned teacher in town. The gentleman wrote more than a dozen pages of content with enthusiasm, and Wang Yuanwai screened it several times and left the most essential pages. Then he locked himself in the study and memorized it assiduously for nearly half a month, which led to today's results.

This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, and it is bound to make a name for itself in front of these experts. Wang Yuanwai thought like this in his heart, and the smile on his face became more and more bright.