The carriage drove slowly on the official road, and I snuggled up to Bao Yuan, telling him what I had seen and heard in the past few days. He always smiled in his eyes, listened intently, and occasionally echoed a few words.

After talking for a long time, I only felt thirsty, and I was drinking water but I heard him say: "I heard that Rui'er's reputation has spread to the palace." ”

I didn't expect him to say this, until he was choked by the water in his mouth and almost out of breath, and it took a while to ease up, and he blushed and said strangely: "Yes, how do you know?" ”

"I heard about it by accident a few days ago."

"Brother, who did you listen to?" I wondered more and more about how famous a little singer and dancer like me could be in the palace.

"It seems that a literati who have seen you sing and dance happened to talk to the emperor......" He lowered his head and played with the folding fan in his palm, and asked for a while: "If the emperor orders Rui'er to enter the palace......"

I shook my head and stretched out my hand to cover his mouth, stopping his words, "Without Ruoruo, Rui'er will definitely not enter the palace." ”

"Entering the palace and becoming a member of the heavenly family, isn't it the dream of many women?" He stared into my eyes with a hint of inquiry in his eyes.

"I don't know what other people do, but I know I don't want that kind of life." The ancient palace is sparse, and the palace flowers are lonely and red. The white-headed palace maid is here, sitting idle and talking about Xuanzong. Rui'er thinks that she doesn't have the stomach to share her husband with others, nor does she have the wisdom and courage to compete with others. I stared at him intently and said, "Rui'er just wants a person who knows me, understands me, loves me, cherishes me, and sings with a dull life." Heavenly wealth has never been what I ask for, nor is it what I want. ”

"What's more, 'As soon as Houmen entered the deep sea, Xiao Lang was a passerby from then on.' How could I leave my brother behind? He was a little angry when he said that, and said: "Don't say that the emperor has intentions, even if he really decrees that I enter the palace, I would rather die." ”

He looked at me with complicated eyes, stopped talking, and suddenly hugged me tightly into his arms, and I felt a tremor in his body. Only when he was afraid of losing, he smiled and gently leaned on his arms, comforting: "Brother rest assured, Rui'er just promised my brother that he will never leave again...... he hugged me tighter, and I only felt that my bones were squeezed painfully.

In his arms, I don't know when I fell asleep, and I had a smile on my lips. When I woke up, it was dusk, and when I opened my eyes, I saw Bao Yuan staring at me gently, reaching out to stroke the messy hair on my face, and said with a smile: "Did you have a sweet dream, you smiled so sweetly." "Yes, I had a dream because I had you in my dream.

"Childe, Huanhua Xiaozhu has arrived." Wang Zhaoyuan called outside the car.

He took my hand to a simple and elegant courtyard in front of the courtyard, the courtyard is located on the bank of the Huanhua River, at this time the afterglow of the sunset reflects the clear river water, the river painting boat is dotted, the frost-resisting flowers in the courtyard are in full bloom in autumn, the fragrance of the flowers is lush, and the courtyard is fragrant.

"Do you like it?"

"Well, it's so pretty." I nodded in approval.

"Shall Rui'er live here in the future?"

"Doesn't my brother like Rui'er living in the music room?"

"I don't want Rui'er to be wronged again." He said bitterly, as if there was all kinds of helplessness and pain, and the handsome eyebrows were tightly twisted, but it also twisted my heart into a ball. I raised my head and stretched out my hand to smooth his eyebrows, stared into his eyes and said: "Since my brother went to Meishan Restaurant to pick me up, and spent so much thought for me, Rui'er has known that she was too willful and reckless in the past, and Rui'er has listened to her brother since then, but the things I agreed with Qin Niang should also have a good ending." ”

"Well, you have already redeemed yourself, and you are no longer the person of the Hibiscus Music Workshop. I arranged for Wang Zhaoyuan to help you in addition to the music membership. He pondered for a moment and said: "And this time you left the book and ran away, just to avoid a lot of trouble in the future......" What he meant, I understand, since his family knows that I am a person from Furong Le Fang, if I don't see me, he will naturally send someone to keep an eye on me, if I go back again, it will be tantamount to throwing myself into the net, and it will not be good if there is a dispute at that time. Hey, the times are stronger than people, and I am still fighting for the length of the situation.

With a light sigh, he agreed. Grandma, Rui'er has been privately engaged for life so far, do you think I'm right to do this?

Bao Yuan accompanied me into the house, and the house was full of clothes and food, and I thought about it for a long time. He sat with me and drank tea, and asked Ming'er to take care of me, and then took Wang Zhaoyuan away reluctantly.

Since then, I have lived in peace on the banks of Huanhua Creek, and Bao Yuan will come to see me every once in a while, and occasionally stay to eat with me. Wang Zhaoyuan has to come over every day, or send food, or send fat powder hairpin rings, or just send Bao Yuan to improvise a new poem or half-word to ask me to respond. The days passed quietly in the joy of waiting and a faint loneliness and longing, and when he was not there, I mostly looked at the window in front of Furong silently reminiscing about the bits and pieces when we got along.

I suddenly remembered that at dusk that day, I was sitting on my knees under the frost-resisting flowers, counting the boats on the river, and listening to the singer singing the song of leaving. But he unexpectedly appeared, and stood in front of me as if he had fallen from the sky, and his blue and white brocade robe overshadowed the hibiscus trees in the courtyard.

With a look of surprise on my face, I got up and asked, "Didn't you say you couldn't come here for a few days?" ”

He took out a jade flute from his waist and said with a smile: "I remember that Rui'er has not heard my flute play, and I always feel lost in my heart, so I have to come over." There was a childlike willfulness in his serious expression.

I chuckled when I heard this: "Just to play the flute for me, Baba is not afraid of being laughed at." ”

"On weekdays, I always feel that the flute I play is better than those guqin and chanting, but I haven't had the opportunity to show off in front of Rui'er, and today I just happened to make a new song, thinking about it, I still have to play the first one to Rui'er." He grinned, his eyes shining above the stars in the sky.

"It's shameless, how can anyone boast about themselves like this." I covered my mouth and smiled, but my heart was as sweet as honey.

He laughed, pressed me to the stone chair under the flowers, and played it in a leisurely manner. I have never heard someone who can blow the flute like that, the rhyme that curls out, people can't help but think of the fireworks outside Yangzhou in March, think of a lonely boat in the distance, and think of the tears scattered by plum blossoms outside the poem. On the Yanbo River, how much love, how much hate, how much farewell, how much sorrow? The old man said to the West, the lead Hua fell, the eyebrows were raised, and the flute was long-thinking.

Looking up and seeing him standing in the wind, his clothes were flying, his eyebrows and eyes were affectionate, and his heart was so stupid for the person in front of him with the sound of the flute, stupid, drunk, and crazy......

At the end of the song, he was full of smug face, smiling at my eyes, as if waiting for me to praise him. I pursed my lips in a bad way, and said sourly: "I made such a lingering tune for nothing, and I don't know who I wanted?" ”

He smiled and reached out to twist my face, gritted his teeth and pretended to say: "What a little thing with no conscience, obviously happy to say these sour things in my heart, see if I don't clean you up today." "Come and get me.

Laughing and chasing him under the tree, the final enemy was only his height and legs, and he was firmly trapped in his arms after a few strokes, and he had to beg again and again for a lesson, and he couldn't get any cheap.

The next day, Wang Zhaoyuan sent a copy of "Appeal to Love" (1), which was already a flower before it was finished.

Leaning on the embroidered couch to call the little maid, tired eyes asked plum soup.

The capital is quiet and the jade is smoking, thinking about the passing years, and it is easy to become injured.

Reminiscing about the past, the two looked at each other and added red makeup.

Ronghua is like snow, I want to laugh and laugh, and I hold Xiao Lang.

What an unreasonable person, he is embarrassed to call himself Xiao Lang, thinking of this, he has a little sorrow, will he come today?

It has been more than a month since I moved into the 'Huanhua Building', and it is close to winter, the days are short and the nights are long, and I feel that the pain of missing is flourishing. Early this day, Wang Zhaoyuan brought a message to say that Baoyuan would come over in the evening, I was full of joy, and specially asked Ming'er to buy fresh ingredients, and personally cooked some side vegetable soup that he liked on weekdays. All the delicacies on the table have been served, but he has not yet been seen. I had to recline in the chaise longue and look at the rhyme book he had found for me.

Looking at it, I didn't feel it, and I remembered the little talk with him that day. I once said that the "Wenjian Ji" performed in the Tang Dynasty, the "Cut Rhyme" by Lu Fayan in the Sui Dynasty, and the "Tang Rhyme" by Sun Yi in the Tang Dynasty are not comprehensive enough. He pondered for a moment and said casually: Then what is the difficulty of ordering the historian to compile the "Ancient and Modern Rhyme Meeting". I laughed and said that he boasted about Haikou, and he shaved his face to shame him, saying that the historian was not an ordinary person, but he only smiled and asked me to wait and see.

While thinking about it, I faintly heard the sound of pushing the courtyard door open, and I straightened my shirt with a smile and happily greeted the door.

"Brother......" I suddenly stopped, smiled, and froze.

(1) This "Appeal to the Heart" is a poem written by Leng Ke for Meng Baoyuan, not a poem by Meng Chang.