The day after the Little Cold Festival, it is the day when the eldest girl gets married.

Since the news spread that the eldest girl was going to marry Qin Jin with Gu Lu of the Wei Mu Mansion Signing Division, Huo Shiqi, the secretary of the Yixian County Yabing Department for fifteen years, and the son of the Huo family who had not yet recognized it on a formal occasion, suddenly became hot.

First, the three elders of the clan and a group of uncles and brothers, under the guidance of Huo Liu, knocked on the door of his house with apprehension and trepidation. The third grandfather Huo, who drove Huo Shiqi and his mother out of the house and occupied his family's property and mansion, scolded his eldest son in tears in front of the clansmen, and slapped his son four times; He also returned the title deeds to their owners on the spot. The second grandfather Huo, who is now in charge of the sacrifice of the Huo family ancestral hall, after persuading the third grandfather who did not know his son's evil deeds, and the two brothers recalled Huo Shiqi's father's various good deeds and virtues, and they couldn't help but cry sadly. He then told Huo Shiqi that the family hoped that he would be able to come back and revive the lintel of the Huo family in Yixian County. The specific approach is that they hope that he can re-name himself according to the genealogy - his current name is "Shiqi", which is inconsistent with the "Qi" generation of the Huo family of this generation, and the single name is noble, double name......

Huo Shiqi agreed to return to the Huo clan without thinking. Even if the Huo family never regarded him as his own family in the past twenty or thirty years, he never regarded himself as a foreign surname, and he was always proud of his surname; What's more, he promised his daughter to Gu Shaomiao, in addition to climbing and borrowing, it was not without the idea of returning to the family.

But he did not promise to change his name. He thought that his name and characters were taken by his teacher, Mr. Fan Lao, who was Lianniang's grandfather, one by one, and his mother also nodded too much, so he had no right to change it without authorization.

No one can argue with this reason. Even if Huo Shiqi does not come forward to argue, the yamen may also impose heavy penalties on these perpetrators of "rebellion against morality", the lightest punishment is "three increases", three times the amount of forced labor and taxes, and the heaviest punishment is "eighty rods, thousands of miles in vain, and wealth and no officials".

Although Huo Shiqi did not agree to change his name, the result of returning to his family still made the Huo family happy, and it seemed that Huo Shiqi did not mean to pursue the old accounts of the year, which taught most of them to secretly breathe a sigh of relief. When they walked out of Huo Shiqi's small courtyard, everyone had a feeling of raising their eyebrows, and everyone felt that this Huojiabao seemed to be about to be surnamed "Huo" again. Especially when they heard that Gu Shaomiao, the son-in-law of the eldest girl, was about to take over the Great Seal of the Yixian County Order, all the Huo family members thought that this was an excellent time for the family to prosper. They immediately threw themselves into the preparations for the marriage with unprecedented enthusiasm.

The best tailor in the county was immediately invited by the second master to make four seasons auspicious clothes for the eldest girl; With a wave of the third lady's hand, his house was on the two sides of the girl's river, and it was immediately divided into part of the dowry of the eldest girl; Other Huo family disciples either contributed or contributed to the renovation of Huo Shiqi's new courtyard, and even the well in the courtyard was re-paved with bluestone and erected a new hub along the way.

With the news that the incoming Gu County Commander is Huo Shiqi's son-in-law has gone away, and the leading figures in Yi County have also competed to visit Huo Shiqi, he is respected and flattered at the same time, but also feels a little impatient - he originally planned to take advantage of the holiday to organize his daughter's marriage to study at home to prepare for the exam, but now just sending an endless stream of guests to teach him to be busy from morning to night, there is no time to read. But others don't see it that way. According to the latest news from Yanzhou, the chief examiner of the Mingchun Mansion Examination is also the same year and best friend of Gu County Ling...... So more people came to visit Huo Shiqi again, and also brought gifts that could express their sincerity and respect, and later, even outside the state and county had scholars to post under the banner of "Huiwen".

According to local customs, five days before the big day, the elders of both men and women will sit together to determine the details of the marriage again, which is called "Jingli", which means "peace and quiet". Gu Shaomiao is already in his fifties, and his parents have passed away for many years, so his friend, the iceman of this family affair, and the current county magistrate of Yi County came to participate in this "Jing Ceremony". At the same time, the county decree also told Huo Shiqi a good news: in view of his conscientious performance over the years, the two government offices of the county government had submitted a letter to the Wei Mu Mansion, urging the government and the imperial court to grant him the official title of "service lang".

Disastrous! The Huo family, which has been in decay for decades, has produced two servants in succession in the past few years, and one of them is likely to be raised in high school! These events are connected together, which is enough to completely change the local political pattern of Yixian, and then think of the marriage between the Huo family and Gu Shaomiao, this change can even affect Duanzhou Mansion......

So on the day of the eldest girl's wedding, Huojiabao was as lively as the temple fair during the Spring Festival. Both sides of the official road leading to the north and south are crowded with ordinary people from all over the country to see the excitement, and they all want to see how the grand official marries his daughter-in-law. Huo Shiqi's house was also crowded with guests dressed in silk and satin, and they all congratulated Huo Shiqi on raising a good daughter and finding a good son-in-law. Huo Shiqi is better, he has dealt with these people for a few days, and knows how to deal with it; The seventeenth aunt faced this situation for the first time, looking at these rich people who were not qualified to come to Gu Shaomiao, she smiled so much that she never closed her mouth. Of course, these uninvited guests also brought some trouble, and Aunt Seventeen soon realized that the problem was not even prepared for the chairs and tea bowls for the guests to sit on, so she had to temporarily send someone to borrow them from relatives' houses.

The guests with heads and faces were all arranged to sit in the hall, and there were also some people who had no identity but could not be too slack in the side room, and some people who had no identity and no status but had a shallow relationship with Huo Shiqi, such as the side branches in the household, and the distant relatives of the seventeen aunts' mother's family who came to congratulate were arranged in the courtyard one by one. Fortunately, the weather was nice today, there was no strong wind, and there was a little warm sunshine, so sitting in the courtyard was not a sin. Thinking that there were still many people waiting for seats outside the door, the people sitting in the courtyard felt even more proud.

Shang Cheng also mingled with the poor relatives of the Huo family in the courtyard to eat the feast.

He gave two pieces of money and a horse of Shu brocade, and the weight of this gift was in the middle of the upper range among all the guests who came to the Huo family. He also followed the rules of his hometown, wrapped two boiled chickens with red brocade, and taught Lianniang to take it to the eldest girl, one by one, the red brocade pal means "red and hot", and the two boiled chickens wish the eldest girl an early birth of "auspicious".

With his Lianniang husband, as well as the gifts he gave, he could have sat in the wing, but I don't know if the person in charge was confused and didn't know his relationship with Huo Shiqi, or if the seventeenth aunt forgot about it because he was busy, and now he is indeed sitting with these people who only give a hundred and two hundred yuan to eat and drink.

He didn't know most of the people at this table, it seemed that these people were distant relatives of the Huo family, and he was not interested in mixing the topics they were talking about, so he drank with Liu Laozhu, who was at the same table, and Lianniang's brother Fan Xiang, and you drank a bowl of wine.

Liu Laozhu said little, Fan Xiang was not good at words, this wine was boring, plus Fan Xiang's wine was very shallow, three or five bowls of wine in his stomach, he immediately blushed and rubbed his sleeves and punched the people next to him, lost a few times in a row, and was grabbed by someone to pour two glasses, his eyes were spurting wine, and he said a sentence in his mouth: "...... Again...... Again! ......" and crawled on the table and snored.

Shang Cheng had no choice but to drink light and tasteless wine alone in the lively and noisy courtyard.

If it weren't for the fact that the host's family hadn't come to toast, he would have wanted to turn around and go home.

When Huo Shiqi came to toast, the table was already in disarray, and the residual juice and soup were flowing all over the table; Among the ten people sitting around the table, six of them were lying at the bottom of the table, and only Shang Cheng and another dealer from the outer village could still hold on. The two of them didn't say a word, nor did they say hello, they just looked at each other coldly, you do a bowl, I will follow a bowl......

"Fourth," Huo Shiqi came over with half a bowl of wine and spoke to the farmer first, "Why didn't your father come?" ”

The farmer hurriedly stood up and shook it, and said, "My father has a cold leg and is so painful that he can't walk, let me come to congratulate Uncle Seventeen on his behalf." As he spoke, he knelt down and kowtowed respectfully three times.

His move frightened Shang Cheng. Congratulations, congratulations, how can there be such a rule? He has been here for so long, except for the two times on the day he married Lianniang, he has never given such a big gift to people; Not only did he never give this kind of gift, but he hadn't even seen it twice, and he remembered that when he was suppressing bandits in Quzhou, the warehouse manager saw an official as big as the prefect of Quzhou, and he just bowed deeply.

Huo Shiqi first thanked the farmer for coming to congratulate him, and after drinking Xie Yi's wine, he asked: "This year's pension has been distributed last month, has your father received it?" ”

"Let Uncle Seventeen remember, this year's money has been received, and the full amount is three hundred and twenty wen."

Huo Shiqi nodded and said, "That's good......" He groaned and said, "If there is anything else, you can come to my house and spread a message, and if you can do it, I will find someone to deal with it, and if you can't do it, I will draft a document and ask Shangguan to deal with it according to the rules." Then he turned his head to look at Shang Cheng, and when he wanted to speak, he caught a glimpse of Liu Laozhu and Fan Xiang who were drunk on the table, and then looked around, his brows furrowed, and frost appeared on his face.

Shang Cheng saw the annoyance between his eyebrows, and knew that it was not his idea to arrange himself and Liu Laozhu Fan Xiang in the courtyard, and seeing that he was about to have a seizure when he spoke, he hurriedly took a step closer and whispered: "Uncle Seventeen, today is a good day for the eldest girl, don't be angry about these little things." One by one, they are also busy making mistakes. It wasn't a big deal for us to sit here......"

Huo Shiqi knew that Shang Cheng was not wrong, and now that Gao Peng was full of people, it was indeed not the time to pursue it, so he instigated his lips to think for a while, and said, "...... Then you have to explain clearly to your Uncle Zhu, I, Huo Shiqi, am not the kind of ungrateful person! I'll keep a seat for you when you come back, and you'll all have to come. ”

Shang Cheng nodded gratefully.

Huo Shiqi said this, but he didn't treat him and Uncle Zhu as outsiders. Twelve days after the marriage day, it is the day when the newlyweds return to their parents' home, and it is also the day of great joy second only to today, in addition to Huo Shiqi's close relatives, even if it is a family member like the second and third grandfathers, without Huo Shiqi, they are not eligible to participate, otherwise it is rude......

"I'll be here then."