Luofu Noodle Restaurant opened and soon became the most famous restaurant in the southern suburbs of Luoyang, whether it is the taste of soup cakes or the taste of decoration, it is unique. The soup cakes they sell are at least twice as expensive as other stores, but the taste is not said, more importantly, there are many beautiful calligraphy and paintings on the wall of Luofu noodle restaurant, the brushwork is exquisite, the eyebrows are expressive, several calligraphy and painting masters in Luoyang rushed to prepare to kick the hall when they heard the news, and after careful observation, most of them chose not to act rashly, so as not to bring humiliation on themselves.

For the students, what interests them the most is the ten ancient characters on the second floor, these ten ancient characters are enough to prove that Liu Xiu said that the words are yang things are not groundless, at least at present, I can't find anyone who can read all these ten ancient characters.

Just kidding, several university scholars who have not done it in the Eastern View School Book and the Pentateuch have not done it, who still has the ability to do this.

There is also a rule in the Luofu noodle restaurant, you can drink and eat noodles on the second floor, you can also observe the text on the wall, you can copy it down and take it back for research, and there is pen and ink next to it that can be used at any time. If you can solve a word, you can enjoy a free meal, and at the same time, you can also note your name next to the word, so that you can make a name for yourself.

A few relatively simple words quickly made people note, and the remaining words were not written for a long time, silently waiting for the next master, and at the same time attracting groups of diners who came to observe. Of course, it is difficult to say whether they are aiming at the ancient characters upstairs, or at those bearded hostesses with bright eyes and delicate figures.

It's not for nothing that they came to make trouble, but when Zhang Fei, Liu Bei and others lit up the Langguan ribbon in their waists, they scared half of them away, and then their fists lit up, and they knocked down half of them, and then they were more peaceful. After the hussar general Dong Chong, the ruling Jinwu Song Feng, and the tun cavalry captain Gai Sheng came to the store to have a meal and left their own ink on the customer's opinion wall, there were basically no long-eyed thieves to make trouble.

So far, everything is normal, and the daily income is also satisfactory, so after the first half a month of busyness, Liu Xiu couldn't stand Cao Ying's repeated urging and came to Cao Mansion to give Cao Luan a physical lesson.

When Liu Xiu followed Cao Ying into the small building, Cao Luan was sitting on the second seat solemnly, and when she saw Liu Xiu enter the door, she was immediately ashamed, if it wasn't for the serious surname that Cao Ying had already told her about this matter, she might have been able to jump directly from the upstairs.

"I heard Mengde say, you are two years older than me?" Liu Xiu walked up to Cao Luan a little casually, raised his eyebrows, and said a little frivolously. Cao Luan's face tightened, and he was about to get angry, but he was stopped by Cao Luan with his eyes, so he had to nod shamefully and humiliatingly.

"Meng De and I hit it off at first sight, like brothers, if you don't mind, I'll call you big sister. When we met for the first time, I wore a silk fan, which was not a tribute, and I asked my eldest sister to smile. Liu Xiu owed, took out a fan, sent it to Cao Luan with both hands, and explained: "Actually, we Youzhou people call strange women like this when they see them, so don't mind too much." I'm just saying, we don't have to be so inhibited, just relax. ”

Cao Luan hesitated, but still took the fan. The fan is painted with a very casual pen and ink of a white goose swimming in the water, except for the red goose crown and the light red goose paw, the others are painted with ink, the composition is simple and casual, but it is a natural rhyme. A few lines of words were written on the side with a flowing line: goose goose goose, bending its neck to sing to the sky. The white hair blows the green water, and the red anthurium plucks the clear waves.

Cao Luan read it twice and then read it clearly, recited it for a while, with a light smile on his face, and praised: "Good poem." ”

Liu Xiuxin said, nonsense, the masterpiece of the first of the four masters of the early Tang Dynasty, can it not be a good poem. However, he is not here to discuss poetry with Cao Luan, and it is estimated that he may not be her opponent. The Cao family later came out with three Cao, who knows if it wasn't Cao Luan or not, if he also had talent in this area. He grabbed the moment of relaxation that Cao Luan showed when he tasted the verses, and took advantage of the gap to enter: "What's good? ”

"Natural, easy." Cao Luan raised her head, only then did she remember that the man in front of her was an outsider, and he was here to teach her how to please a man, so she couldn't help but be a little embarrassed, and the smile on her face immediately put away, and she recovered the expression of the spirit card just now.

"Naturally, relaxed, Mengde, the eldest sister is really a smart woman, and she grasped the true meaning of the poem at once." Liu Xiu didn't look at her either, turned his head to Cao Ying and said, "You and I might as well too." ”

Cao Ying smiled and signaled Cao Luan not to be too serious with his eyes. Cao Luan's face twitched twice, but he couldn't laugh. Liu Xiu raised his head and looked at her, as if he was smiling, Cao Luan was uncomfortable with him, instinctively lowered his head and turned sideways.

"Good!" Liu Xiu suddenly slapped his palm lightly and said to Cao Ying: "This is the posture, the most beautiful." ”

Cao Ying was stunned for a moment, leaned behind Liu Xiu and glanced at it, and his eyes suddenly lit up. At this moment, Cao Luan is dignified and a little shy, mixed with a little annoyance, his head is not straight and erect like usual, but slightly drooping, but his back is straight, his chest is erect, and the pointed chin echoes each other, forming a curve, and the side face looks very clear under the bright sunlight outside.

Sure enough, it's beautiful! It took Cao Ying a long time to come back to his senses, and patted Liu Xiu's shoulder hard: "Deran, it's really you!" ”

"No, it's because the eldest sister is a beauty, but she usually suffers too much about herself." Liu Xiu shook his head, smiled kindly at Cao Luan, who was blushing, and bowed down: "Sister, in fact, you don't need me to say anything more at all." You take this fan back and read it more, imagine that you are walking alone in the beautiful scenery of the Beibi Mountain, there is no one around, you can laugh if you want, cry when you want, chant poetry if you want, and do whatever you want. You'll find out that in fact...... Life is beautiful. ”

"That's ...... Just that? Cao Luan secretly breathed a sigh of relief, and felt a little incredible. For the future of the Cao family and the Song family, Cao Ying has forced her to suffer these days, making her walk around like an advocate every day, she endured unimaginable humiliation but still couldn't meet the requirements, and finally had to ask Liu Xiu for guidance. She thought that Liu Xiu would make her do something more unacceptable, but she didn't expect Liu Xiu to just let her read poetry and relax her body and mind.

"Okay." Liu Xiu nodded solemnly: "However, if you read the Book of Poetry, don't read Yahesong, just read a few articles." He hesitated for a moment, and then continued: "Do you remember Mao's preface?" ”

Cao Luan nodded immediately, although there are several sayings in the Book of Songs, but Mao's poems are the most widely circulated, everyone who reads the Book of Songs has read the preface to Mao's poems, which is also a model for interpreting poetry with Confucian etiquette.

"Forget about Mao Xu." Liu Xiu waved his hand: "No matter how beautiful the poem is, wrapped in such a big dress, it will also become a sacrificial vessel." ”

This time, not only Cao Luan was confused, but even Cao Ying was a little confused, he thought for a long time, and pulled Liu Xiu's arm: "Forget Mao Xu, how can you read poetry?" ”

"What are you talking about?" Liu Xiu couldn't help laughing, and asked rhetorically: "If you don't have Mao Xu, you won't read poetry, how can Confucius read poetry?" ”

Cao Ying's eyes rolled, it is true, Confucius deleted the poem first, Mao Heng wrote the preface, and there was a gap of several hundred years.

Liu Xiu patiently explained that Mao Xu is just Mao Heng's own view of poetry, not Confucius's opinion, this is just Mao Heng's family's words, and it may not be right, why do you want to listen to him? You should at least think about how Confucius himself viewed poetry. When did Confucius say that the words of the Book of Poetry are full of benevolence, righteousness, morality, etiquette, music, bells and drums? If you want to say that there is a song in Yahe, it barely makes sense, this wind is a song sung by the common people, what does it have to do with a set of etiquette and righteousness engaged in by those adults and gentlemen?

Confucius said that poetry can be exciting, complaining, grouping, contemplating, and can be rectified as much as you want, and there is only one requirement: thinking without evil. Whether it is happiness or resentment in the poem, it is the natural expression of human nature, and it is the original surname of people, so what is there to be ashamed of? You have to taste the lively nature in the poems, and even have a bit of wild life, instead of always thinking about benevolence, righteousness and morality.

Liu Xiu finally said that the current Six Classics are other people's Six Classics, not Confucius's Six Classics, and if you want to taste Confucius's thoughts, you should get rid of those things that future generations have attached, and experience the thoughts of Confucius himself. Further, you should appreciate the original meaning of the poem, rather than looking at what other people have to say.

"Have you ever loved someone but couldn't get it, and you could only think about it and suffer bitterly?" Liu Xiu asked Cao Luan. Cao Luan shook his head embarrassedly. Liu Xiu said, "So you can't understand what Guan Sui said about the taste of thinking about being convinced, tossing and turning, only those who have been in love with each other know that this is the truest portrayal of love for people, and there is no half-dollar relationship with what is sought for talent." ”

Cao Luan was speechless, feeling that Liu Xiu's words were not only like gibberish, but also like opening a new world. How could she not have been in love, which girl did not have a spring, just because she married Song Qi, she had to bury her feelings deep in her heart and force herself to forget. Now that Liu Xiuyi reminded her, she suddenly realized that she was just thinking about it at that time, tossing and turning?

"Well, that's all I think you'll soon understand the true meaning of the poem." Liu Xiu blinked, "Eldest sister, you better think about it first, I want to say a few words to Brother Meng De that you women should not hear." ”

Cao Luan got up embarrassedly, saluted Liu Xiu, and turned to leave.

"Well, that's right, why did you let her go?" Cao Ying complained. Liu Xiu waved his hand: "If you want to hurry, you can't reach it." Your sister is a natural merry, and she doesn't need too much preaching. If she didn't untie that layer of restraint herself, it would be useless to talk too much. ”

Cao Ying shrugged, remembering that there was no progress at all in his efforts some time ago, and he had to admit that Liu Xiu had a point.

"I'm going to talk about Song Qi." Liu Xiu walked to the door and looked, and saw that Cao Luan had already returned to his yard, so he turned back to Cao Ying: "I haven't been idle in the past few days, I have carefully studied Song Qi." ”

"How?"

Liu Xiu shook his head: "He doesn't deserve to lift your shoes." ”

Cao Ying's face froze, not knowing whether to be complacent or frustrated. In fact, there is no need for Liu Xiu to say, he also knows what kind of character Song Qi is, but Cao Luan is already married to him, what else can he do? He was silent for a long time before he said, "What does De Ran think? ”

To Cao Ying's surprise, Liu Xiu was not depressed by this result, but seemed very happy: "Mengde, this is not a bad thing, this is a good thing. He raised his hand and signaled Cao Ying not to worry: "If he is a very powerful person, then it will be troublesome." ”

Cao Ying raised his eyebrows, somewhat understood what Liu Xiu meant, and his eyes suddenly showed a light of hope. As Liu Xiu said, everyone has their own position, and different people will have different angles when looking at the same thing, and naturally they will come to different results. The so-called smart person is able to jump out of his own position and look at things from different angles, so that he can see more comprehensively.

Cao Ying obviously has such qualities. He relaxed his legs, leaned on the table casually, cocked Erlang's legs, clasped his hands together, his two thumbs kept turning in circles, his eyes flashed, obviously weighing the pros and cons.

Liu Xiu was not in a hurry, he knew that urging Cao Ying at this time would only backfire. Although Cao Ying in front of him is not the great annihilator in his impression, it does not mean that he is a loyal minister, between his family and the country, he must first consider his family. It is impossible for his ideas to be fully agreed with Cao Ying, on the contrary, he may be able to agree with Cao Ying's choice. He said impassionedly in front of Wang Chu, somewhat beautiful, righteous, and angry, if he really wanted him to pin his head to the waistband of his trousers and die for the big man, he didn't have that awareness.

Of course, he didn't want to be crossed by people crossing the river and tearing down the bridge, and he was cooking as a lackey, and he had a clear understanding of this. Not to mention that Tianzi is not a Renjun today, even if he is Renjun, he will not hand over his surname to him, there are too many such examples. Emperor Wen of the Han Dynasty is known as Renjun, didn't he also clean up Zhou Bo?

"What do you want me to do?" Cao Ying raised his face and looked at Liu Xiu with a straight face: "You have to understand one thing first, between the Shi clan and the Son of Heaven, although the Shi clan has always been at a disadvantage, the foundation of the Shi clan is not comparable to the Son of Heaven. The two party failures have made the Son of Heaven lose his heart, saying that he is a lonely man, but it is nothing more than that. ”

Liu Xiu understood what Cao Ying meant, such as today's son has to face two major forces, on one side is the eunuch who looks very powerful, and on the other hand, the scholar clan who seems to be down, the foundation of the eunuch is all pinched in the hands of the Son of Heaven, don't look at the eunuch's majesty, but the Son of Heaven really wants to clean him up, that is, an edict, the scholar clan seems to be down, but the foundation of the scholar clan is in the world of scholars, and it is impossible for the Son of Heaven to kill all the scholars in the world, if it is like that, he is equivalent to killing himself.

In this case, helping the Son of Heaven to deal with the Shi clan is far more risky than standing on the side of the Shi clan, in fact, Cao Ying has always wanted to stand with the Shi clan, but the Shi clan has always looked down on him. And Cao Ying has another choice, I won't help either, stand by and watch, his current situation is close to this.

But Liu Xiu needed his help.

Liu Xiu knew that he seemed to be successful in every step now, but this success was really insignificant, whether it was for eunuchs or scholars, he was not worth mentioning, and if he wanted to clean him up, it was just a matter of talking about it. If it really comes to that point, it is impossible for the Son of Heaven to have a direct conflict with the eunuchs or the scholars for him, and the greatest possibility is to sacrifice him.

Dowager? At most, a few days of sadness will pass.

Even if he could go further, so what? He has the insight to transcend this era, but transcending the era does not necessarily mean that he can win, Wang Anshi's failure to change the law does not mean that his method is wrong, practice has proved that his change is not wrong, the mistake is too advanced.

He can grasp the general direction, but he can't handle specific matters. If he is asked to be a county magistrate now, he is not as handy as Cao Ying. In those things, his advanced consciousness couldn't help much, just like when he was in Ningcheng, what really saved his life was his strong body and the martial arts taught by Dunwu, otherwise even if he brought a complete set of encyclopedias, he might be hacked to death by a pawn in the end.

The ruler is short, the inch is long, and the people are self-aware, Liu Xiu clearly knows where his advantages are, and he also clearly knows that it is difficult for him to do anything alone. If he says now, Cao Ying, you follow me, and I will ensure your glory and wealth, then the result can only be that Cao Ying politely sent him out, secretly scolded him stupidly, and then never interacted again.

Now only people like Yuan Shao say this, and some people will believe it, and no one will believe him when Liu Xiu says it.

In order to pull Cao Ying into his camp, he must give a reason that he can accept. Liu Xiu didn't answer Cao Ying's question, but asked, "What do you think is the biggest problem of the Han now?" ”

Cao Ying's brows trembled, his fingers twisted, and he muttered for a long time before he said: "The eunuchs are in power, and the scholars are centrifugal." ”

Liu Xiu laughed secretly in his heart, Cao Ying didn't tell the truth at this time, he was still playing sloppy with him, and using these non-nutritious words to perfunctory him. He shook his head and said word by word: "There are displaced people inside, and there are border troubles outside.

Cao Ying smiled slightly, didn't say anything, just waited for Liu Xiu's next words.

"Whether it's a homeless person or a border trouble, in the final analysis, it's one word." Liu Xiu raised a finger: "Money." ”

"Money?" Cao Ying frowned, and then smiled playfully: "It seems that Deran has really tasted the pain of having no money." ”

"I don't have the money to do it, so I can open a noodle shop and I'll be able to eat and drink in no time. But if the Son of Heaven has no money, things will be in trouble. Liu Xiu left the railing, walked in front of Cao Ying, and raised the corners of his mouth: "I remember that your father is a big Si Nong, right?" ”

Cao Ying blinked and stopped laughing. "So what?"

"The people of the world were exploited and their families were ruined, but Dasi Nong couldn't even get the money for the palace officials. People who really want to serve the country can't support it, and the only thing left is to treat being an official as a business to collect capital and profits. Liu Xiu raised his glass at Cao Ying and drank it all: "When the time comes, the displaced people will pour into Luoyang, and see that the dignitaries in Luoyang are living a life of drunkenness and dreams, what do you think they will think?" ”

Cao Ying's brows furrowed.

"I know that although your Cao family still has some money, compared to the Yuan family, you are actually too far behind. However, just as you don't hesitate to kill Jian Tu, but you still can't let others not see you as a eunuch, the exiles don't care who is more greedy and who is less greedy. Swords and soldiers together, all the dignitaries, whether you are a small nobleman or a big nobleman, as long as you are rich, your head will fall to the ground, there are no eggs under the nest, and the chaos of the green forest and red eyebrows is not far away. ”

Cao Ying took a deep breath, and it took a long time before he slowly spit it out, his face was solemn, obviously frightened by the prospect depicted by Liu Xiu. As Liu Xiu said, with swords and soldiers, no one can guarantee that they will be spared. Although the Cao family is not a rich family like the Yuan family, the chaotic people don't care about these, as long as they are rich, they will be killed. What is even more worrying is that the Yuan family may have the strength to protect itself, and it is even possible to take a step forward with the profound power cultivated by the fourth and third princes to change the dynasty, but the Cao family may not have that opportunity.

(To be continued)