The carriage drove slightly bumpy out of Changming Street, where the west gate of the General's Mansion was located, and traveled a little north, turning onto a major road. Qiuqiu heard the sound of selling and shouting outside, she and Ximen March lifted the curtains of the car together and looked out, only to see the front of the shops on both sides of the road, crowded next to each other but neatly and orderly set up many stalls, the vendors in front of the stalls from time to time made one or two shouts, most of them sold some daily necessities, shoes, hats, cloth shirts, and some simple toys and food. Most of the shops on the street are two- or three-story buildings, and occasionally some people stand on high places and look down. There is a pavement, mostly with a long yellow flag to write their respective signboard names, hanging on the eaves corner of the roof, Qiuqiu stretched out his head to look at the back of the car, only to see a yellow flag waving in the wind, very bright.

Before Qiuqiu could see enough, Yunhua suddenly stretched out her hand, pulled down the curtain, and whispered to her and Ximen, "Sit down." He was worried that the two children would be seen. Ou Jinshu said with a smile: "Brother Yunhua is too worried, and it's okay for them to take a look." Yunhua smiled noncommittally: "It's better to be cautious." As soon as he looked down, he saw the two children peeking out through the crack in the curtain, very curious about what was being sold outside. Yun Hua felt unbearable for a while, so he shouted, "Stop." Li Zhuoran was puzzled: "It's good, what are you doing when you get out of the car?" Yunhua didn't answer, only smiled at him, lifted the curtain and walked out of the car.

Ximen saw that Yunhua went down, and opened the curtain with a smile to look out, Qiuqiu remembered that Yunhua said that someone was worried about her and Ximen's affairs, and couldn't help but be a little worried about whether Yunhua would be in danger when she went out, and was thinking about it, when she suddenly heard Ximen cry out in surprise, she looked out and saw Yunhua with Chai Wu, walked to the front of a stall selling osmanthus glutinous rice lotus on the opposite side of the road, and took out a few pennies from the cuffs. Ximen said: "How does Uncle Yunhua know that I love this?" Before he finished speaking, he saw the peddler neatly cut two whole glutinous rice lotus roots into thin slices, and took out a huge dried lotus leaf to wrap it and handed it to Chai Wu.

Ximen let go of the curtain in front of Yunhua's turn for a moment. After a while, Yunhua got into the car. After he sat down, Chai Wu handed him the glutinous rice lotus wrapped in lotus leaves under the car and asked, "Zhang Gongzi, do you want to continue your journey?" Yunhua said: "Well, let's go." The carriage continued to drive forward, and Ximen March asked knowingly, "Uncle Yunhua, what are you holding in your hand?" Yunhua said with a smile: "I went down to take a look, and there happened to be a seller of osmanthus glutinous rice root nearby, so I bought it for you to eat back." ”

Ou Jinshu smiled and said to Li Zhuoran: "Brother Yunhua treats these two children like his own children. Li Zhuoran hurriedly glanced at her, and Ou Jinshu knew that he had lost his words, so he looked away. Not talking about any topic about their life experience in front of the two children was a tacit understanding that the people of Liuting had cultivated many years ago, and later even words related to blood such as "parents" and "descendants" were tried not to be mentioned. Qiuqiu took this episode into his eyes, but Ximen didn't care what Ou Jinshu said, only heard Yunhua say that the lotus root could only be eaten after buying it, so he hoped that the carriage could hurry to Xinghua Lane.

After two teas, the carriage stopped, and Bihu lifted the curtain in front of the car and said: "Zhang Gongzi, I said that the style has reached the entrance of Xinghua Lane, I don't know how far Qingpingzhai is going to go inside?" Yunhua said: "It's not far, let's get out of the car and walk forward." With that, he was the first to get out of the car, took out a piece of broken silver from his cuff, handed it to the handlebar and said, "Thank you for your hard work." The handlebar style is a spirited old man, he insisted on refusing to accept it, and said: "Son, please take it back, I am the handle on the west gate of the house, driving is the duty, even if it is to be rewarded, it is also given by the master and the young master, and you must not ask for guests." Li Zhuoran also got out of the carriage at this time, and when he heard the words, he said: "We are friends with your young master for eight worships, and we never treat ourselves as guests, so you old man accept it." As soon as he heard the handlebar, he thanked him again and again, accepted the broken silver, and went home.

At first, Qiuqiu thought that Xinghua Lane must be full of apricot trees, but it was half ginkgo and half banyan trees. Originally, in the Tang Dynasty, it was called Suyi Lane, but every year around May, it happened that the ginkgo tree would produce golden ginkgo fruits, and the banyan tree would also bloom full of fragrant acacia flowers, the pink flowers and the golden fruits were intertwined, very beautiful, and the people in the alley changed to call it "Apricot Blossom Lane", which has been passed down to this day. The group walked to the main gate of a house under the shade of a tree, and went up the five stone steps, which was a vermilion gate, with a brass door nail with a large cup mouth nailed to the door, and two door piers with auspicious clouds on the left and right. Qiuqiu saw that above the gate, a pitch-black plaque was hung, and three big characters were written very elegantly with a gold pen - Qingping Zhai.

Yunhua stepped forward and buckled the knocker. Li Zhuoran asked in surprise, "Is there anyone inside?" Yunhua nodded and said, "It's Uncle Feng and Aunt Feng, the Zhang family was afraid that this house would be deserted, so they asked a pair of servants from the family to come and guard it." Before he could finish speaking, the door removed the bolt from the inside and opened a crack. A man of about forty years old, wearing a homespun smock, looked out vigilantly, and saw Yunhua standing outside the door, his face was surprised, but he immediately said respectfully, "Young master, Miss Qiu, you are here." Then he opened the door wide and let the people in.

Yun Hua and the others crossed the threshold and walked into Qingping Zhai, Uncle Feng closed the door and said to Yun Hua: "Young master, I'll go and ask the person in my house to make tea, you go to the hall with you first and wait." So saying, he ran forward. Qiuqiu looked here and saw a stone tablet standing on the left side of the door facing east, which was engraved with Han Yu's "Original Road" in block letters, and there was a small room on the right side, which should be where Uncle Feng lived. Walked forward seven or eight steps, five stone steps down, around the shadow wall painted with the wind bamboo map, is the courtyard of Qingpingzhai, about five or six acres in size, the courtyard is lush, full of green, planted with exotic flowers and plants, vines and trees. The trees are either tall into the clouds, or they are strangely beautiful, each stretching, but the trunks are so thick that they need two people to hug each other to wrap around, and they seem to be a hundred years old. Walked forward dozens of steps from the flowers and plants, encountered a small pond, gurgling water flowed horizontally, turned from under the wall to the back, and there was a delicate stone bridge erected on it, on the opposite side of the bridge, is the main house of Qingping Zhai with the study and the bedroom and three side rooms on the left and right, and opened the arms to them in a squirrel.

Li Zhuoran and Ou Jinshu were full of praise for this courtyard from the moment they entered Qingping Zhai, and when they saw the main house and the wing room, they asked Yunhua if there was a house behind him, Yunhua smiled: "Then the kitchen, there is a bamboo garden behind it, planted with bamboo, and then you will reach the back door after passing through." There is a room at the back door, which is where Aunt Feng lives. Besides, it's gone. Li Zhuoran sighed: "It's such an exquisite house, I haven't heard you mention it before." ”

Yunhua also carried the bag of glutinous rice lotus wrapped in lotus leaves, and beckoned everyone to enter the hall to rest, while saying: "This is the outer courtyard of the Zhang family, I didn't come often in the past, after going up the mountain, I occasionally came to Lin'an to buy things, but I brought Xiaoqiu to come two or three times, but they only stayed for one night and left." Li Zhuoran heard him say this, and quietly asked: "Lao Zhang, have you not reconciled with your family?" Yunhua's smile suddenly became desolate, and he said softly: "It's not a matter of reconciliation, there are some things that can't be said clearly, I'll talk to you in detail at night." Li Zhuoran nodded and said, "It just so happens that there are some things in Qingzhou, and I also want to talk to you, let's drink and talk about it in the evening." Then the two of them went into the main house together.