Walk into the door, a Zhu Lou of up to three zhang in front of you is coming, the momentum is majestic and magnificent, the eaves are green tiles, flashing with jewel-like luster in the sun, although the Song Dynasty is also strictly hierarchical, but the other side is more tolerant, do not care about the act of trespassing, the powerful mansion sees many high-rise buildings, although the colorful building of Cao Mansion is magnificent, but it is far less than the six crane hall on Cai Jing's house, the six crane hall is as high as four zhang and nine feet, people walk under it, look at it like ants.

Although Cao's house is also nominally three into two courtyards, but the density of the house, there are thousands of rooms, the alleys in the house are vertical and horizontal, extending in all directions, if no one leads the way, it is easy to get lost in it, today's banquet is placed in the atrium, that is, it is located in the colorful downstairs, divided into the main hall in the building and the auxiliary hall outside the building, and there are hundreds of tables of banquets.

Li Yanqing belongs to the younger generation, and he has no illustrious family background, nor is he a high-ranking official of the imperial court, of course, he can only sit in the deputy hall, which is divided into two districts, east and west, with forty seats each, mainly considering that men and women are divided into seats, although they are divided into two districts, but in fact they are still connected together, but women sit in the west, and men sit in the east, so that they can look at each other, which is convenient for choosing a good son-in-law, or the lover can be affectionate.

The Song people are still more tolerant of marriage, as long as they are in the same circle, if they are happy with each other, they can often achieve positive results, for young men and women, outings or various holiday gatherings are opportunities for men and women to communicate and cultivate feelings.

But this kind of family banquet is often the time for parents to see their son-in-law, or when parents see their daughter-in-law, or when both parents meet, as long as the conditions are not too poor, they will generally be happy and satisfied.

"Yanqing, your seat is here, it's still early to leave the seat, although you can walk around the mansion at will, as long as the door is not locked, you can go in!"

Cao Sheng found his place for Li Yanqing, but he was too busy, so he left first.

Li Yanqing sat down in front of his seat, the Song Dynasty popular Eight Immortals table, a table seats eight people, and a table in the main hall only sits four people, Li Yanqing sat down in front of his seat, and his name was on the sign in front of him.

It's still early, and there are basically no people in the seats, only a few old people sitting together chatting, and the others are waiters or servants who are busy setting up the dishes.

Li Yanqing stood up and walked along the main road to the east, just now he saw a large garden in the east, and there were many young people there.

Li Yanqing is also renting a house these days, so he is more interested in a house, a petty official like him can only rent a house of three or five acres at most, compared with the huge mansion of 300 acres in Caofu, it is simply a heaven and a place, and Caofu cannot be compared with Cai Jing, Wang Hao and other powerful ministers, let alone with the royal palace, just from the residence, Li Yanqing feels his insignificance.

The architectural style of the Song Dynasty is different from that of the Tang Dynasty, the Tang Dynasty pays attention to simplicity and grandeur, while the architecture of the Song Dynasty has two characteristics, one is to be extremely delicate and beautiful to show the new unique appearance, and the second is to pursue gardening, and the architectural style of the Song Dynasty can be vaguely seen from the Canglang Pavilion in Suzhou.

Li Yanqing walked all the way to the east, only to see that the houses on both sides were all golden nail bead households, green tiles and eaves, red pink mud walls on all sides, and two carved railings and jade masonry, just like the fairy cave mansion.

Walking across a nine-curved bridge, he entered the large garden in the atrium, this large garden covers an area of about 20 acres, the Cao family introduced a small river from the Jinshui River, meandered through the entire mansion, and re-injected into the Jinshui River, but the house is full of aura because of the river, the green grass on both sides of the river, the weeping willows are luxuriant, in spring and summer, all kinds of precious flowers and trees are purple and red, although it is August now, but the golden osmanthus is in full bloom, and the whole mansion is filled with the rich fragrance of osmanthus.

The banks of the small river are dotted with various pavilions and pavilions, and small gardens are distributed among them, it is autumn at this time, young men and women are staying outdoors, a group of people gather together to laugh, they are all children of meritorious families, they are very familiar with each other, it is easy to play together, basically they have formed their own circles, but Li Yanqing does not know anyone, can only walk slowly, enjoy the scenery in the garden.

"Brother Li Xian..... Li Yanqing! ”

Li Yanqing stopped, he clearly heard someone calling him, and when he turned around, he saw Cao Xingzheng running up panting.

"It turned out to be Brother Cao!"

Li Yanqing stopped and said with a smile: "Isn't Brother Cao directing the vehicle outside?" ”

"I just received a new task, and Uncle Seven asked me to accompany my virtuous brother."

"Your seventh uncle?"

"Didn't I enter the mansion with you just now?"

Only then did Li Yanqing understand that Cao Sheng was the seventh child, and he couldn't help but laugh and said, "You have seven uncles?" ”

"Just seven." Cao Xuan scratched his head and sighed, "Hey! Having seven uncles means that there are a whole bunch of younger siblings down there. ”

Li Yanqing saw that he was quite interesting, and asked with a smile: "I wonder if Brother Cao has a table?" ”

"Not yet! It will only be after the weak crown next year, you can call me Xiao Saburo, and everyone in the house calls me that. ”

"I don't have either, you call me Yanqing."

Li Yanqing looked at the young men and women in the garden, and he asked a little strangely: "There is a sentence I don't know whether to ask or not, today's banquet, it seems that most of them are young people, what is the reason for this?" ”

Cao Xing glanced at him strangely, and asked with a smile, "Is Yanqing married?" ”

"I have a concubine in the family, but I haven't married a wife yet."

"Then it's right for you to come here, our families often meet, or birthdays, festivals or something, there will be such a party about every six months, everyone takes turns to be the east, called the Magpie Club, in fact, it is to create an opportunity for young men and women to meet, to put it more popularly, it is a blind date, now I understand!"

Li Yanqing suddenly realized, no wonder all the men and women looked good, it turned out to be a blind date.

Cao Xing said lightly: "The reason why our meritorious families can continue for a hundred years is unity, and the basis of unity is marriage. ”

Li Yanqing also understands that the Song Dynasty was dominated by civil officials, with a powerful civil official group in the front, and a group of imperial power and foreign relatives in the back, these meritorious families lived in the cracks, and if they wanted to maintain their social status, they could only unite to form an influential group, and marriage was their inevitable choice, which was not the same thing as the gate valve family of the Sui, Tang and Northern Wei dynasties, but the situation forced them to unite.

However, under the impact of the fall of the Northern Song Dynasty, the social class changed drastically, whether it was the royal family, relatives, eunuchs or these meritorious families, only the civil official group was dominant, and Qin Hui was the helmsman of the civil official group at that time.

Li Yanqing nodded, "I can understand!" ”

Cao Xing saw that he understood, and his heart was also happy, and he smiled again: "Actually, we are not so closed, the first choice of every household is Jinshi, and if you can't grab Jinshi, you can only consider your family and wealth. ”

Li Yanqing also felt that there was a serious problem, and hurriedly warned him in a low voice, "You are not allowed to publicize that I am not married, I just came to the banquet and left after eating and drinking, but I have no other ideas." ”

"Don't worry! I will never go out and preach. ”

Cao Xing's eyes narrowed into a slit with a smile, how could he publicize it to the outside world? This kind of good thing should be done first by the Cao family, and he began to search quickly in his mind to see which of his sisters could impress Li Yanqing better?

"What about Gao Zhong and Brother Pan?" Li Yanqing suddenly remembered Cao Xing's two good friends.

"They.... Where did they go? Cao Xing was a little absent-minded, he was still thinking about the two younger sisters he had finally chosen, which one was more suitable?

After walking around the garden, Li Yanqing was also a little bored, so he asked with a smile: "Are there any fun games here?" ”

Cao Xing's eyes rolled, and he suddenly remembered something, and said with a smile: "There is a game that suits you very well, you come with me!" ”

Cao Xuan took him and walked in the direction of the back house, "This is ..... Do you want to go to the back house? Li Yanqing saw that the direction was a little wrong.

"If you don't go to the back house, you can't enter the back house, let's go to Wentang!"

Li Yanqing vaguely guessed that it must be related to reading.

When they were about to arrive at the back house, they saw a group of noble ladies walking out of a blooming osmanthus forest, and they were talking and laughing towards them.

"Oops!"

Cao Xuan suddenly saw his mother, he didn't dare to dodge, so he had to stand on the side of the road.

Cao Xing's mother, Pan, is the eldest daughter-in-law of the Cao family, and her main task today is to accompany a group of noble ladies. ”

"Yo! I haven't seen him for half a year, Xiao Saburo is getting more and more handsome, I heard that he has already married the youngest daughter of the Shi family? ”

"I got married at the beginning of the year, and I officially got married after the New Year."

"What a pity! I think Saburo and my daughter are a little more compatible. "The ladies are gossiping, and they are all praising Cao Xing.

Pan Shi was overjoyed when he heard this, and stepped forward to ask his son, "Why is San'er here?" ”

"Back to the mother, the seventh uncle asked the child to accompany the distinguished guest."

'Honorable guest! Pan Shi was slightly stunned, looked up at Li Yanqing next to him, and saw that he was very young, I don't know which one he is, and he can't call him a 'distinguished guest'.

"This Yanai is ......"

Li Yanqing was pretending to admire the osmanthus flowers, but the elders paid attention to him, so he had to step forward and bow down, "Junior Li Yanqing see his aunt!" ”

"It's you!" Suddenly, a shrill voice rang out from among the noblewomen.

Li Yanqing knew something bad, he had seen Gao Shen's wife just now, so he pretended not to look at the osmanthus flowers, and now he was still recognized by others.

He raised his head, only to see Mrs. Gao's eyes widened, looking at him with a face full of surprise, he had to smile bitterly, and bowed again, "Junior, see Madame!" ”

Mrs. Gao has always liked Li Yanqing very much, but Li Yanqing's blind date was stupid and made the blind date fail, and later after Mrs. Gao found out the truth, she was extremely angry with Li Yanqing in her heart, but her daughter and son-in-law were rescued by Li Yanqing in Tangyin County, so that she was full of gratitude to Li Yanqing, and her emotions for Li Yanqing in her heart were very complicated, annoyed, regretful, grateful, disappointed, all kinds of emotions mixed together.

When Cao Xuan's mother saw that her aunt knew Li Yanqing, she smiled and asked, "Second aunt knows this Li Yanei?" ”

"How could I not know him, he is the Jinshi Tanhualang of last year's imperial examination." Mrs. Gao said stupidly,

The crowd of noble ladies suddenly exclaimed, this young man was actually Jinshi Tanhualang, and immediately several noble ladies surrounded Li Yanqing and asked, "Has Li Tanhua married a wife?" ”

Cao Xuan was in a hurry, and without waiting for Li Yanqing to speak, he pulled Li Yanqing out of the encirclement of the noblewoman, and said repeatedly: "We still have urgent matters, aunts, I'm sorry!" ”

He didn't bother to greet his mother, so he pulled Li Yanqing and ran, "Run!" I'm saving your life. ”

"This little Saburo, how can he be in a hurry, he doesn't understand any politeness, I'll teach him a good lesson when I go back, and let him give everyone a sin for the guilt." Cao Xing's mother was a little embarrassed on her face, and hurriedly apologized to everyone.

Mrs. Gao looked at Li Yanqing's back, but said meaningfully: "I guess this Li Tanhua hasn't married a wife yet, Xiao Saburo is afraid that we will rob our son-in-law!" ”

'Brush! ’

Dozens of pairs of **** apricot eyes lit up at the same time, and they all looked at Li Yanqing's back.