The small courtyard under Xiang Jiadian is at the other end of the town, but the town is not big. It only takes two or three quarters of an hour to walk from one end to the other.

It's not yet the day Tan Ting agreed to bring Xiang Yi back.

He didn't know why he transferred here. It was probably because the weather was too cold, or maybe Tan Jian was not up to par and couldn't even write an article about the students of Qingzhou Academy...

The crowds were surging.

The market in the twelfth lunar month is particularly lively. People selling lanterns, firecrackers, Spring Festival couplets, and New Year pictures on the roadside make the ground red, and even the faces of passers-by are filled with red joy.

Tan Tingben was embraced by the crowd and walked towards the other end of the town. However, when his eyes passed over the other side of the road, his steps suddenly stopped.

The person behind him almost bumped into him, but Tan Ting didn't pay attention. He was looking at the three brothers and sisters passing by while talking and laughing.

Xiang Yu on the left is wearing a sapphire blue robe, which still has the creases of ready-made clothes. It is a new dress, but the material is somewhat poor, probably because of the limited cost.

Xiang Ning on the right is thin and wrapped in two layers of cotton clothes. The outer one is also a brand new red jacket. The style is from a few years ago, but the girl is of average age and looks good in anything she wears.

The man between Xiang Ning and Xiang Yu finally changed out of his original plain clothes today.

It was a brand-new long coat in a lotus color. The pattern and style were not outstanding, but it fit her body perfectly. The slightly bright color made her face seem brighter.

When she was at Tan's house, she only had a few random hairpins and only silver hairpins. She had not worn the three sets of gold wire and pearl hairpins he gave her in the past two days.

But today she wore her hair in an unusual bun, with a bustling red plum hairpin on her temples.

Not sure what Xiang Ning said, she laughed, her red lips reflecting the red plum blossoms on her temples.

Inexplicably, Tan Ting stood still and stared at him for a few breaths.

The crowd around them was still surging like a wave, but the three siblings stopped briefly in front of a pastry stall on the roadside.

There were various types of pastries on the cart of the pastry stall. The stall owner introduced them to them, and they were all famous pastries from nearby prefectures and counties.

The stall owner said, ordering a yellow dim sum with a little red on it.

"This is the red cake from Qingkan County next door. It's delicious. Would you like some, sir?"

Xiang Yu snorted before he finished speaking.

"I will never eat Qingkan's dim sum."

He suddenly choked the stall owner, "W-why is this?"

Tan Ting was standing not far or near them and heard his unkind tone. .

"When I heard about Qingkan, I got angry all over, especially the Qinghan Tan family, especially the uncle of the clan."

The stall owner was completely confused about the situation, and he looked so confused that he didn't know how to answer the question.

Tan Ting, who was not far away, heard it.

He remained silent, staying more and more in the crowd.

His eyes fell on the man in lotus colored clothes.

She didn't see him, she just glanced at Xiang Yu and whispered "Okay".

"Why make yourself unhappy because of others?"

She said calmly, and then called Xiang Ning and Xiang Yu, "Let's go."

The three siblings turned and left.

The cold wind could not move through the crowded crowd, and Tan Ting felt the suffocation squeezed from all directions.

Her words kept echoing in his ears.

"Why make yourself unhappy because of others?"

Others...

Tan Jian felt that he was finished, and his elder brother's expression became even worse on the way back.

He waited tremblingly to be scolded, but the eldest brother kept his lips pursed and refused to say a word, and rode home in a muffled voice.

He didn't even know what happened to his eldest brother in the small town of Qingzhou, but someone who came back from Beijing sent a letter, and the eldest brother had no time to take care of him, so Tan Jian resigned without any danger.

It's a letter from Li Chengyun.

In his last reply, Tan Ting only briefly responded with two sentences about the Taoist around the prince. Unexpectedly, Li Chengyun mentioned that Taoist again in his reply this time.

The Huaining Li family where Li Chengyun belonged was not as powerful as the Huaichuan Li family, one of the four major families in the world, and Li Chengyun could not get more precise information.

But he guessed that the Taoist man might indeed have gone to investigate the case, because there were suddenly more officials in the court asking the prince to keep a distance from him, and some even said that the horoscope in Qintianjian was different, and that there was a demon on the sword pointing to cause trouble. Chao Gang.

That Taoist had been with the prince for some years, and he didn't want to suddenly cause trouble at this time.

Li Chengyun speculated in his letter that the Taoist priest might really want to cause trouble in the court, but no one knew where the Taoist priest was now.

Tan Ting remembered the concern in Li Chengyun's letter last time that the court and even the entire government and opposition might change in the next year.

The wind outside the window rattled the doors and windows. Tan Ting thought for a long time before writing a reply.

Qingzhou Xiang family.

Suddenly an escort came to deliver a message.

The news was brought to Xiang Yu. Xiang Yi watched Xiang Yu get the news from the courtyard and frowned. As soon as the escort left, he called him over.

"Did something happen? About my sworn brother?"

Xiang Yu nodded.

He lost contact with the pen and ink shop before, so he kept an eye out and asked the escort who went to Kaifeng to keep an eye on him.

The escort just now came to tell him that the pen and ink shop had been closed down by the government, saying that there were escaped prisoners fleeing here.

This is probably an excuse, but it is also true that the writing shop was closed down.

Xiang Yu asked Xiang Yi, "Sister, what should I do about my sworn brother?"

Xiang Yi was silent and looked up at the gray sky. Dark clouds were pressing down. It seemed that it was going to snow, but he didn't know that it would snow. When will it fall.

She asked Xiang Yu to stop staring at the pen and ink shop.

"My sworn brother had already cut off that road before the government sealed it. I think he had already prepared for it. In this case, we must not let anyone find out the clues and let him cause trouble for nothing,"

she said . , took a deep breath of cold air and exhaled slowly.

"I don't know where my sworn brother is right now, but if we need help from our siblings, he will appear naturally. We will do our best before it's too late."

Xiang Yu responded repeatedly, but Xiang Yi thought of something else and whispered. One sentence.

"The sworn brother may not appear by his old name. He may use another name, such as... Sheng Gu."

...

On the morning of the fifth day after Xiang Yi returned to Ning, Xiang Yu put on a bad face. .

Xiang Ning sat next to Xiang Yi, "Eldest sister, please go home and stay for a few days every few months. Eldest sister doesn't need to come forward. Let A Yu tell Uncle Tan."

The first two times, Xiang Yu was at Tan's house. The old man was rude in front of him, and the old man didn't say anything. Xiang Ning and Xiang Yu probably thought they could make some demands.

But Xiang Yi doesn't think so.

The first two times were because the Tan family uncle felt guilty for what he had done wrong, so Xiang Yu acted recklessly and didn't say anything.

It's just that he can tolerate Xiang Yu once or twice, but can he tolerate it every time?

Xiang Yi knew very well that her relationship with the Tan family uncle was not at all like this.

She told Xiang Ning and Xiang Yu not to talk nonsense, and simply packed her bags. She thought that although the Tan family uncle said he would come, he might not come. He might just send the steward over, but in any case, it would probably not be until noon. just came.

Unexpectedly, she had just packed her things and had breakfast with her brothers and sisters when the sound of cars and horses came outside the door.

Xiang Yu opened the door with no shame, and Xiang Yi saw a man in a brown robe.

He was not the only one who came, he actually brought Tan Jian and Yang Zhen with him.

The small town is about the size of a palm, and before the morning smoke has dissipated, a motorcade suddenly arrives, and it suddenly becomes lively, as if a girl is getting married.

Xiang Yi froze in the yard for a long time without saying anything.

Tan Ting, on the other hand, didn't know if he was used to her confusion and surprise, but he just pressed the corners of his lips.

No matter what, he hoped to slowly get closer to her, which was what he should do for her.

Thinking of this, his expression softened again, and facing her doubtful eyes, he stepped forward to take her home.

Tan family farm.

Ever since Tan Rong was deliberately frightened, Mrs. Zhao has been keeping her in the house, fearing that something else would hit her.

When the opera troupe came, she didn't go to Cui Restaurant to sing, and she didn't go to Anluo Temple to serve porridge, so that was all. Zhao had started a blind date for her a few days ago, and this time she actually got a few portraits of children from aristocratic families.

Tan Rong was a little shy at first when he looked at the portrait, but the more he looked at it, the more he looked like a dish.

These children from the aristocratic families all had dull looks, and only one or two of them had acceptable looks. Zhao felt that they were of poor background, so she put them aside, and instead picked the one with a plain appearance, with a look of satisfaction on her face.

Tan Rong was secretly depressed. The men in the script were all good-looking, but how come no one could stand in front of them?

She became increasingly bored and panicked, and said she was going to the farm to spend a few days.

Zhao naturally followed her, but asked her not to stay at the farm for too long, and to have fun for two or three days and then come back.

Tan Rong agreed, but she thought it wouldn't matter if she played for a few more days. She didn't expect that on the second night after arriving at the farm, she heard the roar of a tiger from the hilltop not far away.

She was not the only one who heard this, many people in the farm heard it, and everyone in the farm got up and picked up torches in the middle of the night.

There had been no tigers in the hills outside Zhuangzi for many years. Suddenly there was a roar of tigers. Tan Rong was so frightened that he didn't dare to sleep for half the night. He asked all the maids to stay with him.

Fortunately, she was fine all night. When dawn the next day, Tan Rong couldn't stay any longer. She quickly asked her maid to pack her bags and picked a few strong villagers to take her back home.

Who would have thought that not long after leaving the farm, when we reached the foot of the mountain, the roar of the tiger that had disappeared suddenly appeared again.

The bankers all held sticks, and Tan Rong was so frightened that she broke into a cold sweat.

But the tone of the tiger's roar changed within a few breaths, from ferocious to howling, and then the sound gradually became distant and quickly disappeared.

Bankers, look at me and I look at you. Some people speculated, "Did a tiger-fighting hero appear and beat the tiger away?"

When Tan Rong heard this, he became a little more energetic.

"Is there a tiger fighting hero nearby?"

None of the villagers had heard of it, "Maybe he's a passing hero?"

Before he finished speaking, a cry suddenly came from the mountains in the distance, and everyone looked over.

On the forest road not far away, I saw a man who looked like a young man helping a young man in a purple brocade robe slowly go down the mountain.

The young man had a slender figure, his hair was a little messy, his left hand was covering his chest, his body was slightly bent, but everyone saw that he was holding a sword in his right hand.

The cold light of the sword was overwhelming, but drops of blood fell from the red eyes on the sword.

In just a moment, everyone realized something.

Did this person use his sword to drive away the big insects in the mountains? !

Seeing this, the dealers hurriedly stepped forward to respond. Tan Rong stayed in the carriage for a while, but her eyes kept falling on that man.

The servants and farmers all helped the man over.

The man seemed to have been injured, his face was a little pale, and a strand of broken hair scattered around his forehead was swaying slightly. However, although his clothes were in a mess, there was no panic on his handsome face, and there was an unconscious smile at the corner of his mouth.

Either because he was tired or because his wound was hurting, he kept his eyes half-closed until he got close to the carriage, and then he slowly opened his eyes.

Tan Rong suddenly noticed.

The man's eyes were like peach blossoms, reflecting the skylight. His gaze happened to fall over. Tan Rong's heart skipped a beat and she hurriedly lowered the car curtain.

The farmers are already asking if he was the one who drove away the tiger with his sword.

He just laughed, nodded, and said lightly, "The tiger ate two of my swords. Although it ran away, it can't cause trouble. Don't worry."

Everyone in the farm couldn't help cheering as they listened.

Tan Rong was in the carriage, and the corners of her mouth couldn't help but curl up.

She could imagine the young man outside the car, how he could seriously injure the tiger with his outstanding swordsmanship, and how the divine soldiers descended from the sky to drive away the ferocious beast.

But she was too embarrassed to get out of the car and cleared her throat in the car.

The farmers outside quickly fell silent, and someone explained to the young man in a low voice, "This is the eldest lady of our family."

After hearing this, the man stepped back politely and said, "I'm disturbed."

He was so observant that Tan Rong couldn't help but said, "Thank you, brave man, for driving away the big bugs for us. It's really hard. I see that the brave man was injured. How about you go to my Tan family farm to rest and recuperate?"

A man's voice said . Chun Chun, "Thank you for your kindness, Miss."

Tan Rong asked as his heart beat faster in his voice.

"I wonder what a strong man is called?"

The wind blew the car curtain a little, and Tan Rong saw the young man's face through the gap.

There was still a calm smile on his lips, and he looked over with his peach blossom eyes slightly raised.

"My surname is Sheng, and my name is an old Chinese character."

***

"Marriage" is written by Fa Cai, from Jin Jiang Wen Xuecheng.