Since the princess was engaged, every festival, in addition to the regular rewards in the palace, Miao Shuyi and Uncle Li Guo's family also gave gifts to each other. At the end of the seventh year of Qingli, Miao Shuyi saw that I was getting older and the only person by the princess's side, so she handed me the task of sending the Zhengdan gift to the horse's house.

Although there is a one-sided relationship, the concubine Li Wei saw me and didn't say much, he was still very silent, Uncle Guo was not safe, and he rested inside, but Uncle Guo's wife Yang was quite enthusiastic, invited me to sit, let people make tea, sat down opposite me and asked long questions, stared at me for a long time and then smiled: "Liang Gaoban is a good talent, if you don't talk about it, who can see that it is a little yellow door?" ”

I couldn't cry or laugh, so I could only think that she was praising me, and after a while, I got up to say goodbye and left Li's house in a hurry.

Seeing that it was still early, I followed the address of Cui Bai that I asked last time. Originally, I didn't hope to find him, I just wanted to write down the location of his house, and I had the opportunity to come back in the future, but I didn't want to just come to the door of his house, the door suddenly opened from the inside, and a person strode out, with a wide robe and wide sleeves, and a scarf on his head, it was Cui Bai.

We were overjoyed to see each other. He hurriedly invited me in, and after greeting me, he took out his recent paintings, spread them out one by one and showed them to me, saying: "In the past few years, I have sent love to the landscape, and I have gained a little, if it is not exhausted, I am afraid that I will not return home at this time." ”

I thought of Qiuhe's incident, and I was worried that Cui Bai already had a family, so I deliberately asked: "Zixi travels the world, is my sister-in-law staying at home alone, or is she going with you?" ”

Cui Bai laughed: "I don't have any sister-in-law here, only a bamboo lady!" ”

I bowed my head and smiled. The Bamboo Lady is a summer bedding utensil, made of bamboo green scorn, or made of whole sections of bamboo, usually cylindrical, for people to hold and cool when sleeping. Cui Bai said this to show that he has not yet started a family.

"I have long intended to travel all over the world, and I have spent several years on the road, and I have only recently returned, so I have not married a wife yet." Cui Bai then explained.

I asked him again if he had a marriage contract, and he said no, so I put my mind at ease, mentioned Qiuhe, and asked him if he had given Qiupu Rong Bintu to Qiuhe, but he was interested in her.

Cui Bai also admitted frankly: "When I gave her this painting, it was indeed to express my admiration. But after thinking about it, I felt that this move was very reckless. I am just a cloth dress, there is no high-ranking official Houlu family lineage, and she is in the deep palace, I dare not hope to get married in this life, I just hope that she will not feel that I am abrupt because of the meaning of "wild goose hiring" in the painting, so that the painting will always accompany her, for me, it is enough. ”

I told him in detail about Qiuhe's favor to the emperor and queen, and was promised by today, and then asked Cui Bai whether he intended to take her as his wife, Cui Bai was very surprised, "If Miss Dong doesn't think that I have no merit and fame, and the humble room is cold, after she leaves the palace, I will marry her through the door." ”

I smiled and said that Qiu He will not account for external things, Cui Bai became more and more happy, took the pen and ink, and immediately wrote the grass post used before marrying the woman, and the name of the third generation and his birth date, and asked me to transfer it to Qiu He.

When I returned to the palace, I quickly found Qiu He, relayed Cui Bai's reply, and then handed her the grass post. Qiu He smiled and thanked him again and again, but then he was worried: "However, if you tell the official family abruptly that I want to leave the palace, will he agree?" ”

I thought about it for a while and suggested that she first tell the queen: "You have served the queen for so long, and she likes you too, and she will definitely think about you." Consult with her, and ask her to tell the official. ”

Autumn and did as he was told. Two days later she came to me, briskly and energetically, and it was clear that things were going well.

"I tentatively told the queen that I wanted to leave the palace," she told me with a red face, "and she was very surprised, saying that I was still young, and that something had happened at home, so I was in a hurry to go back." I said no, and then, she guessed at once, dismissed everyone, and asked me if I had ...... Interested in someone......"

"You admit it?" I asked her if she was in a good mood right now, and she would be worried about the consequences. If you don't listen to her answer, you can already think that she has never lied, and sooner or later she will admit it.

Qiu He said in a low voice: "I just buried my head, so embarrassed that I wanted to burrow into the ground." The queen comforted me and said that it was okay, and that if there was anything to do, I would tell her and she would help me as much as she could. I said something intermittently, and it turned out that she knew Cui Bai, and when she heard it, she laughed and said, "That person is indeed talented, and he is a good match for you." ’”

I was still a little apprehensive in my heart: "I know that you have had a relationship with Zixi, and the queen didn't say much?" ”

Qiuhe shook his head and said, "Later, she didn't speak for a while, silently not knowing what she was thinking. Later, when he looked at me again, he smiled and said, 'The most rare thing in this world is that two people are happy and have no worries.' You are a good boy, and I will fulfill you. ’”

Hearing this, I also breathed a sigh of relief for her: "In that case, she has agreed to let you out of the palace?" ”

"Agreed, just not now." Qiuhe said, "The queen said, because I have not reached the age when the palace maid left the palace in the past, and there is no major incident at home, if I am let out of the palace alone at this time, the rules will be broken, and there will be rumors in the palace." It's better to wait until next year's Qianyuan Festival, the official family was originally scheduled to let another group of palace people out at that time, and she would explain to the official family before, mention to him the promise of the year, and ask him to include my name in the list of people who leave the palace. ”

The Qianyuan Festival is April 14, and it is my birthday today, and it is only May now. It's been a few years, and it should be okay to wait a few more days. I congratulate Qiuhe, but I feel that her marriage has settled, and I am as relaxed and happy as a matter of heart, and what I have to do now is just to take the opportunity to send the Yuan Festival gift to the horse family and then pass the good news to Cui Bai.

"Waiji, what is it like outside the palace?" Qiuhe suddenly asked me with a smile, and said, "I entered the palace when I was four years old, and I had no idea what the castle of Tokyo looked like, except for the two red walls and green trees that I saw behind the curtain of the palace car when I went to a few gardens in the palace. ”

I didn't know where to start, and I didn't want to tell her that my previous trip outside the palace was like sleepwalking. That scene of the market folk customs and the prosperity of the world is like a long picture scroll, I look at it, but I feel that the soul is wandering outside, as if I can no longer integrate into it.

"After you leave the palace, you can go and see it yourself," and finally, I replied, "In the future, with Zixi with you, it will not be difficult to go wherever you want." ”

Every year on the fifteenth day of the first lunar month, the night of the Shangyuan Festival in Tokyo is always particularly lively, Emperor Taizong has issued an edict to burn the lanterns for five nights before and after the festival, and now the lantern time is far more than five nights, since the beginning of the first month, the lantern market outside the Donghua Gate has begun to open, and there are hundreds of large and small lanterns.

The most spectacular scene of the lantern market is in front of the Xuande Building, where there will be a large mountain canopy lantern, the story of the gods and goddesses is painted on the mountain wall, and the fingers of the puppets who are made into the shape of gods and beasts can come out of the water five ways, and the arms can also be shaken, and when the lanterns are lit, the left and right are golden and blue, and the splendid scenery is bright, and the landscape is smart. On the left and right city gates, each is tied into the shape of a dragon with a grass handle, and the cage is covered with a green curtain, in which tens of thousands of lamps and candles are densely placed, and the dragon body winds with it, and when the lights are intertwined, it is like a double dragon flying away. The rest of the giant dragon lanterns and flower-shaped lanterns are innumerable, and visitors are busy with traffic and cannot stop.

On the day of Shangyuan, today the palace dependents drove the Xuande Building to watch the lanterns, the palace Zhang Feng candle dragon lamp, brilliant and picturesque, strange and wonderful, vaguely like the grand occasion of the lantern exhibition outside the palace.

The eighth year of the Qingli calendar is a leap year, and there is a leap month. I am quite interested in watching the lanterns in the first month of the first month, and I want to put up the lanterns in the forbidden place on the fifteenth day of the first month of the leap month to reproduce the grand scene of the Shangyuan Dynasty, so I mentioned it to the palace relatives at a banquet at the beginning of the month.

Zhang Meiren applauded first, and all the ladies also agreed, and even the princess clapped her hands and smiled: "Okay, good, I haven't seen enough of last month's lanterns!" ”

The queen stood up solemnly and bowed up and down: "Shangyuan is an annual festival, there is no need to celebrate twice a year, and each time the lantern costs a lot of money, if you do it again, it is really extravagant." Your Majesty often warns us not to be extravagant, if the matter of the lantern spreads outside the palace, it will work up and down, and the people will hurt money, wouldn't it be even more contrary to Your Majesty's holy will? Therefore, the concubines had the courage to hope that His Majesty would take back their lives. ”

The smile before this seemed to be frozen by the queen's few words, his expression was slightly stiff, and he was silent for a long time before he smiled again, put his hands around the queen and said, "Thank you for the queen's outspokenness." I don't have to think about it, and I don't need to mention the matter of putting up the lamp. ”

On the fifteenth day of the first month of the leap month, there was really no special celebration of luck in the palace, and only the queen, princess, and a few close concubines were summoned to enter the Funing Palace, and the book was waiting for the flying white book written by Li Tangqing.

Feibai is one of the eight-body books, which began in Cai Yong, worked in Wang Xi's father and son and Xiao Ziyun, and flourished in this dynasty, with flat stroke lines, and a trace of white marks in the middle. In order to make the dry pen white, the strength must be strictly controlled in the writing process, and it is not advisable to expose the white place too sparsely or broadly, and the point in the stroke is the most difficult to work.

Today, I don't have much interest in riding and shooting bows and other things, I am only close to Hanmo on weekdays, especially good at flying white, seeing that Li Tangqing's flying white book is all selected with dotted words, a total of 300 points, and each word is written differently, 300 points have their own forms, I can't help but show the color of approval, pointing to Li Feibai and asking the princess: "Huirou, how is this word written?" ”

The princess was dumbfounded: "It turns out that there are so many ways to write the flying white point!" Feibai painted the shape of objects with dots, and he wrote these 300 points, which can be said to be exhaustive. ”

Today, he smiled silently, ordered to take pen and ink, and then picked up the pen and wrote a "clear" word, which was still flying white, vigorous and simple, three of which were wonderful, and out of Li Tangqing's three hundred points, and the onlookers were all amazed.

This word is written, and now the pen is not put down, but the two-finger pen is sent to the queen, and the eyes contain the intention of invitation.

The queen happily took it, picked up the pen with ink, and wrote the word "net" after the word "clear", and the handwriting was graceful, but the two points were different.

Everyone was impressed, and said in unison, but now they did not speak, smiled and walked behind the queen, leaned over slightly, held the hand of the emperor's ** pen in her right hand, and led her to move her wrist, and the cheeks of the two touched lightly here.

That point is like a whirlwind, even more than the previous five points.

After clicking this stroke, Jinshang did not let go immediately, You held the queen's hand and looked at her tenderly. The queen also looked at him, and the couple looked at each other and smiled.

The look on his gaze at the queen at this moment is something I have never seen before. In my impression, he has never looked at Miao Shuyi and other concubines with this kind of gaze. The word "gentle" is not enough to describe this situation, when he and the queen look at each other, their eyes are clear, their eyes are clear, as if they can reach each other's hearts, and the smile is so tacit, it seems that there is no deep meaning in it.

So, recalling what the princess said about the queen in the night language back then, I can't help but think that in fact, the queen may not be so "poor".

But then I remembered the incident of the girl who was in Nafan before, and he asked Miao Niangzi rhetorically, "You must have the surname Cao in all the relatives in the world", I was a little confused, and I couldn't understand his attitude towards the queen.

It seems that the queen has never been favored, and even the queen who wanted to be established in the first place is not her, which is not a secret in the palace.

Today's Yuan match queen Guo was elected by Zhang Xian's empress dowager, and he didn't like it very much. At that time, he favored another beauty, Zhang's family, and Zhang's queen favored Shang and Yang Ermei, and Guo Hou was resentful and had frequent disputes with the two beauties. Once, Shang Meiren had a resistance to the queen in front of Jinshang, the queen was furious, and stepped forward to criticize the beauty's cheeks, and now she covered it for the beauty, and Queen Guo couldn't stop it, and accidentally criticized Jin's upper neck. At that time, the Empress Dowager Zhang Xian had collapsed, and now she has no scruples, so she was angry and abolished, and the edict named Guo as the pure concubine, Yujing Chong Miao Immortal Master, gave the name Qingwu, and lived outside the palace.

The ministers objected to the selection of the successor among the existing concubines, saying that the concubine should be taken as the wife, and the concubine should be reversed, and it must not be allowed. Soon after the abolition, the edict hired Cao Bin's granddaughter into the palace, but it was not immediately sealed. At that time, Jin Shang was interested in a stunning beauty, the daughter of the Chen family, a tea merchant in Shouzhou, but the ministers were sparse one after another, and they were not allowed to "take the cheap person in the middle palace" today.

Chen's female father's name is "Zicheng", and "Zicheng Envoy" was originally the name of the official of the guard. At that time, Yan Shiliang, the eunuch of the Imperial Medicine Academy, asked him to see Jinshang and asked him if he knew what kind of official the Zicheng envoy was, but Jinshang said that he didn't know, Yan Shiliang said: "The Zicheng envoy is the name of the minister's slave official. If Your Majesty is the daughter of a servant, will he not be worthy of the minister's doctor? "Now I woke up, ordered the daughter of the Chen family to leave the palace, and finally chose the daughter of the family Cao as the queen.

"The queen's flying white was practiced after entering the palace," Miao Shuyi later told me, "and occasionally she had the opportunity to serve the official family to write, she watched silently with her eyes wide open, and when she returned to her cabinet, she practiced it day and night." One day, the official family passed by her residence and saw that she was practicing flying white in the room, and the words were also written freely and cutely. A few days later, she was proclaimed queen. ”

The affection of the emperor and queen was born in Feibai, so in today's view, the most touching place of the queen is when she is waving.

For the next three days, the queen stayed in the Funing Palace.

When I heard the news, I was a little happy.

Now that he is willing to accept the queen's advice, and he is getting closer and closer to the queen, then in the future, the queen will not refuse to mention autumn and leave the palace with him.

I have already conveyed Empress Cui Bai's reply before the Shangyuan Festival, and at present, it seems that everything is falling into place, and it seems that everything is progressing perfectly in that predetermined direction.

But for some reason, while still thinking like this, my heart suddenly "pounded" a few times for no reason.