The backyard of the old lady Gongsun Yu was brightly lit, the troupe sang the stage, and the guests of honor sat around, eating snacks and drinking high-quality tea, shaking their heads and listening to the play.

Mr. Zhou saw the old lady from afar, so he took Zhou Xue through the crowd quietly. The people who were disturbed to listen to the play looked up and saw that it was Mr. Zhou, and they all greeted him warmly. Mr. Zhou nodded his head all the way and kept walking in the direction of the old lady, even so, he walked almost a cup of tea.

"Old lady, I'm here to congratulate you on your birthday, I wish you a longer life than Nanshan, and a longer life for the pine crane. Mr. Zhou finally arrived at the old lady's side, tidied up a little, and greeted the old lady with a smile.

"Ah, it's Mr. Zhou, disrespectful, disrespectful, you can hear my play, if you don't interrupt me, I don't know if it's thunder in the sky. Gongsun foolishly saw that it was Mr. Zhou, and he was full of smiles, not minding the age gap of forty years younger than him at all.

"I'm embarrassed to see what you said. Mr. Zhou held Gongsun Yu's arm with two hands, meaning that he didn't need to get up to greet him, and turned around to take the wrapped gift from his daughter Zhou Xue, and respectfully presented it with both hands, "Old lady, our Zhou family doesn't have anything to handle, a little bit of nourishment, don't mind." ”

"Ahh ”

"Give Mr. Zhou a seat. Gongsun Yu happily stabbed the young man next to him with his hand, and the young man had the opportunity to say hello to Mr. Zhou and Zhou Xue, got up and gave him the seat next to Gongsun Yu.

As soon as Mr. Zhou sat down, Gongsun Yu leaned over to him like a child, folded it with his fingers that were dry like pine branches, and motioned for Mr. Zhou to order a paragraph. Mr. Zhou was polite, resolutely did not order, and said that he would just follow along. Gongsun Yu then smiled and took the trick back, and his eyes fell on Zhou Xue's body.

"This snow girl of yours is really getting more and more out of place, and when I first saw it, it was only so big. After speaking, he stretched out his two hands and gestured, and laughed to himself, like an old child.

"Hello grandpa, I wish grandpa more and more energetic and happy. "Zhou Xue's mouth is as sweet as her appearance.

"Ahhh

"Brother Shengyan is two years older than me, and I am nineteen years old this year. Zhou Xue hurriedly replied.

"Yo, what a clever little ghost. Gongsun Yu looked at the two young people back and forth, his eyes full of joy.

Mr. Zhou saw that Zhou Xue and Gongsun Shengyan's eyebrows flashed together, so he took over and said, "Go, play with your brother Shengyan, and the old lady and I will listen to the play." ”

"Goodbye Mr. Zhou, goodbye grandpa. The two young men went away happily.

"I heard Brother Guangxiao say some time ago, you always want to settle the matter of the little family master on your birthday?" Mr. Zhou took a piece of pastry from the food box in front of him, and asked Gongsun Yu while slowly breaking off a small piece and putting it into his mouth.

"Mr. Zhou, you are not an outsider either, so I would like to hear your opinion. Gongsun Yu said with a smile.

"It's good, it's very good, the home can't be left without an owner for a day, it should be settled. ”

Gongsun Yu waved his hand: "Of course it has to be decided, but it's not as fast as Guangxiao said, within two months." I mean, who do you think is the most suitable among these descendants? ”

"This ......" Mr. Zhou stopped breaking the pastry and looked at Gongsun Yu hesitantly, "Do you really want to hear it?"

"Of course, you, Mr. Zhou, are well-informed, and your opinion is of course important. ”

"Don't laugh at me, I think it's good, Katsugaoka and Katsuiwa are two good children. ”

"How do you say that?" asked Gongsun Yu.

"Katsugaoka is the oldest and strongest among the right people, and it is said that the business of the money bank is also very good, but it is still not stable enough. And Shengyan, this child looks pure, very clean, generous and decent, the most important thing is that I think he is very protective of his family, you see when I come, as long as Shengyan is at home, he is basically with you. ”

"Hehehe," Gongsun Yu laughed a few times, obviously very satisfied with Gongsun Shengyan's company, "but what I'm worried about is that with such a big family, pure kindness alone is not enough." ”

"The palms and backs of your hands are full of meat, so I don't have to worry about this for you. Listen to the drama and listen to the drama. Mr. Zhou didn't go into further talk and looked at the stage seriously. This is the best position in the whole garden, and after a while, the two of them will listen attentively.

"Brother Shengyan, if I don't come to your house to play, you never go to my house, don't you like me to play with you?" In the night, Zhou Xue and Gongsun Shengyan stood next to the rockery, and the lanterns under the eaves were quietly lit.

"Isn't it good to come to my house, you have too many families, I don't know a few, your father is busy all day long, besides, I still have to accompany my grandfather, I have been in the silk business for more than two years, and things can't be busy." ”

"There are so many people, if you don't accompany you, there will be no one to accompany you?" Zhou Xue made a grimace at Gongsun Shengyan.

"Those are two different things, I accompany me, and others accompany others. Gongsun Shengyan was robbed of a sentence by Zhou Xue and was in a hurry to explain, but he didn't know what to say in front of Zhou Xue, and almost held back a big red face, fortunately it was night, otherwise he would definitely be laughed at by her again.

"Look at you, you're in a hurry. What a brother. "Zhou Xueling is sharp and unforgiving.

Gongsun Shengyan knew that he couldn't talk about Zhou Xue, so he broke a finger-thick bamboo from behind him and tied it up into the fish pond behind the rockery.

"Tomorrow is your grandfather's birthday, you are so filial, what gifts have you prepared?" Zhou Xue changed the topic.

"I picked two catties of tea leaves from the tea garden and roasted them myself, it tastes good, do you want to share a little with you?"

"I'm not an old man, I don't drink tea. And I don't like the gift of separating people. ”

"You said that people praise you for being knowledgeable, why are you so rude to me sometimes?"

"Because you're stupid, I like to play with fools. ”

After hearing this, Gongsun Shengyan threw away the bamboo in his hand, made a grimace in the dark, and suddenly rushed towards Zhou Xue, and said in his mouth: "The fool is here, the fool is here." ”

Zhou Xue fled with a smile, and the two chased one after the other, leaving behind a string of silver bell-like laughter.

Yusheng, the subordinate sent out by Gongsun Shengqiu, was about to walk close to the city gate, and the voice of the people gradually became cold. Yusheng reached the corner of the bluestone road, and then turned into a muddy alley from memory, which had no lights at all, and it seemed that it was not a place to live. Yusheng counted the gatehouses he passed by sideways as he walked, and walked to the twelfth room one foot deep and one foot shallow. It was a low, wood-paneled house, as dilapidated as the others, the only difference was that there was a faint light through the cracks in the door panels, indicating that there were people inside, but no human voices could be heard talking or moving.

"Knock knock. Yu Sheng confirmed that there was no one left and right, and then stepped forward and knocked on the door.

No one answered.

"Knock knock, knock knock. Yusheng continued to knock, and this time the force was a little more powerful than just now.

"Who?" finally someone in the room asked, and his tone was nervous.

"Friends. Yu Sheng replied simply with two words.

"What are you doing?" asked the room, this time in a slightly more relaxed tone than before.

"Find someone to mend the pot. ”

After saying these four words, Yu Sheng no longer moved, his hands drooped, and he stood quietly in front of the door and waited, and after a while, there was a sound of walking towards the door from inside the house, and then the old door latch was raised with a clang, the door opened, and a short middle-aged man stuck his head out of the crack in the door. The middle-aged man's scalp from the forehead upwards was shiny, I don't know if it was naturally bald or what's going on, his face was pitted like orange peel, and the stubble on his upper lip was tied like weeds on a deserted grave, and his appearance was extremely shrunk. He glanced at Yusheng in the dim light, and without saying a word, he retracted his head and slammed the door shut, but did not latch it.

After a few more moments, the door was opened by a tall, middle-aged man who seemed to be a normal passerby. The middle-aged man stood opposite Yusheng, and he didn't look at him carefully, but just asked angrily, "Where is the pot?"

Yusheng took the envelope out of his arms and handed it straight over, the middle-aged man took it and opened the envelope, walked a few steps into the house, found a place where the light could be seen clearly, spread out the letter and glanced at it, and then said to Yusheng: "It will be delivered tomorrow, no need to come to pick it up again." After saying that, he watched Yusheng come over, but did not step out of the threshold, and unceremoniously closed the door again when he was about to face each other, this time the latch fell inside.

Although the weather was not cold, Yusheng, who was standing outside the door, passed through these few faces, and his palms were already wet with cold sweat. He trotted all the way out of the alley, not daring to turn his head, and finally ran to the bluestone pavement where he came, and only then did he have time to slow down, and stretched out his two hands to wipe his back and forth several times. He saw these two middle-aged men for the second time, but he still felt so infiltrated, and he couldn't tell the fear when he saw it. When passing by the small shop of the noodle seller, Yusheng remembered that Gongsun Shengqiu said that he wanted to bring a noodle man back, so he stopped and paid for a fat little doll noodle man, and held it all the way, thinking that he was almost thirty years old and still holding a small noodle man on the road in the middle of the night, he couldn't help but laugh at himself, and his mood was not as nervous as before.

"Eighth child, Gongsun's pot, can you not make up for it in the future?" In the room where Yu Sheng had knocked on the door just now, the short man with an orange peel face said to the tall man.

"What's the matter? What's wrong with the Gongsun family, the money of the Gongsun family is not money, it's a hot potato?" the tall man nestled in the corner smoking a cigarette pouch, and the pea-like light in the room could only illuminate his general outline.

"Have you forgotten the rumors?" said Orange Peel and laughed coldly, sounding like a torn rag.

"Rumors, rumors, I've heard it once in so many years, it's a rumor, it's not even a rumor. Besides, I'm not a cultivator, and I haven't seen any cultivators, so it has nothing to do with me. Last time, I burned down the silk village of Gongsun's family, and it wasn't that there was nothing. If the Gongsun family really needs to report to the official as rumored? It's all fucking rich waste. The tall man seemed to be quite dissatisfied with the rich man, and when he said the last sentence, his tone was heavy, and the smoke that came out of his mouth was much farther away.

"You're not a cultivator, but Lao Tzu is half of it, don't get me involved in such a thing as the Gongsun family in the future. Orange Peel got up and patted his buttocks, as if he was going out, and he didn't know where he could go in the middle of the night.

"Where are you going, six?" asked the tall man Orange Peel Face.

"Lao Tzu went to burn pillar incense. Orange Peel walked out without looking back.

"Burn a fart, hahaha, we don't even know who wants to make up the pot of the Gongsun family, and if it is burned, it will be burned in vain. Your incense is burned in vain, and the silk village of the Gongsun family is also burned in vain......" The tall man was obviously amused by the orange peel face, and his whole body leaned forward, revealing a distorted smile.