Volume 2: Residence in the Capital Chapter 136: Zhao Garden was originally the Grand View Garden
Halfway down the mountain on the shortcut, Zhang Shou suddenly realized that in order to be alone, he had to help Wang Datou fish, so his late lunch was temporarily postponed. In order to avoid Wang Datou dragging Zhu Ying away, this lunch was ruined, and there was no way to make up for it for a while. He turned around and asked Zhu Ying, who was following him, "Yingying, are you hungry?"
"Of course I'm hungry!" Zhu Ying blurted out these three words without thinking, and then said with a bitter face, "But if we hadn't left just now, we would have run into that nagging Wang Datou, who might have urged us to return to Beijing right away! Didn't we have a meal outside in the wild when we were at your house? Can't we find anything to eat here? I still remember your cooking skills, Shou!"
How can I compare that time with now? At that time, I was prepared. That place was where a group of young boys in the village played and stole food. How can I conjure up food now? Do I have to make fire by rubbing two sticks together?
Just as Zhang Shou was thinking about this, he heard Ah Liu's familiar voice from behind him: "I have food."
Zhu Ying and Zhang Shou turned around almost at the same time, and immediately saw Ah Liu, who had silently hung behind them. Seeing the young man stretch out his hands from behind, with a paper bag in each hand, Zhu Ying quickly grabbed one and opened it to see that it was a bag of braised venison. She immediately narrowed her eyes in joy.
There is no doubt that the secret braised venison that the kitchen of Duke Zhao's mansion specializes in has always been one of her favorite foods.
When Zhang Shou took the other package, he couldn't help but glare at Ah Liu. If it wasn't broad daylight, Ah Liu's ghost-like behavior would have been really scary. He opened the oil paper package and found eight neatly arranged rice cakes inside.
The red rice cake, the green mung bean cake, the white glutinous rice bean paste cake, and the yellow yellow rice cake are all delicious snacks that can fill your stomach. They are supported by green leaves, which look cute and convenient to eat. Needless to say, these are homemade snacks made by Aunt Liu.
Eating while walking is definitely not elegant, so Zhang Shou and Zhu Ying stopped walking, ate something to fill their stomachs, and asked about the situation of Ah Liu. When Zhang Shou learned that Wang Jie had killed Zheng Huai'en, he directly put the strange theft case in the palace on this royal family, and Zhu Ying was stunned, and then she exclaimed in surprise.
"Although the first and second princes are not good people, they would not do such a petty thing. Princess Yongping is a woman who thinks highly of herself and thinks she is a pure and innocent woman. She would not use such despicable means. That's why I thought she was taking the blame. Zheng Huai'en used to go to Qingning Palace frequently. Maybe it was him!"
In just a moment, Zhang Shou also figured it out. He only felt that the inexplicable love rival was ridiculous, and Zhu Ying's speculation was not a big deal. Anyway, he had already done what Wang Jie asked him to do, and now it was his rare rest time.
When they met up with several guards from the Duke of Zhao's mansion who stayed at the foot of the mountain, rode eastward on horseback, and returned to the Duke of Zhao's mansion in Haidian, western suburbs of the capital, although the sun had not yet set, it was already past the 3:00 p.m.
Today's Haidian is in the same area as the Haidian of later generations. There are dozens of shallow lakes and rivers scattered among the flat land, sparkling, connected by various bridges, countless paddy fields, and beautiful scenery. Zhang Shou, who is familiar with the geography of the capital, knows that the future Summer Palace and Yuanmingyuan will all be in this area with the most abundant water system in the capital.
Today, however, there are no royal gardens, but dignitaries have built numerous gardens nearby.
All of these gardens have running water, rockeries, and numerous pavilions and towers. However, due to the chaos that occurred one after another after the founding of the country, many gardens have been rebuilt and changed hands, and the garden of the Duke of Zhao's mansion is no exception. It is said that it was where Emperor Taizu temporarily lived before the founding of the country, and was later given to a duke. It changed hands many times and was finally awarded to Duke of Zhao Zhu Jing by Emperor Ruizong.
This garden does not have any elegant and meaningful name. Similar to other noble gardens nearby, it is simply called Zhao Garden.
Zhang Shou, who had just arrived, discovered at the first moment that although Zhu Ying had decided to go down the mountain with him through a small path on a whim because she had met Wang Datou, and had taken a long detour before meeting up with the others, and was afraid of not being able to return to Beijing in time, she planned to stay here for one night. However, the servants in Zhao Garden were so that it was obvious that they did not know they would be coming just now.
Finally, not only he, but also Zhu Ying, who was a little unaware at first, noticed it. She suddenly stopped and glared at the manager Zhao who was leading the way attentively beside her: "You look so prepared, as if you knew I was coming?"
"It's rare for the young lady to go out of town, so the Madam and Madam will certainly ask us to make some preparations. Maybe you'd like to stay here for a night? After all, our Zhao Garden is right between the capital and the Eight Great Places, so it's on the way."
As the manager of the Zhao Garden spoke, he smiled and bowed to Zhang Shou. Then he looked at Zhu Ying again and said, "If the young lady thinks that my presence here is too much trouble, I will take my leave."
Even though Zhu Ying was always generous, she was still annoyed by what Zhao Yuan's manager said: "If you don't speak, no one will think you are dumb! Stay in the back. I will call you when I have anything to ask!"
Zhang Shou watched the elderly Zhao Garden Manager bow with a smile and then retreat to the back. Now it was his turn to feel a little uncomfortable. However, this subtle feeling soon disappeared after boarding the boat to tour the garden. Under the setting sun of this autumn day, he followed Zhu Ying to take a rough tour of the garden and made a very unexpected discovery.
With Zhu Ying as his best guide, he first took a boat to drink tea before dark, and then walked around the garden. He found that there were countless inscriptions by Emperor Taizu in this Zhao Garden, all of which were inscriptions for pavilions and towers. However, compared with the very normal inscriptions in the Imperial College, the names of these pavilions and towers left him speechless.
Xiaoxiang Pavilion, Hengwu Garden, Daoxiang Village, Zhuijin Tower, Qiu Shuang Zhai... However, the only one missing is Yihong Courtyard.
I don’t know whether Emperor Taizu hated Jia Baoyu or simply didn’t like the name Yihongyuan.
So much so that after a sumptuous dinner, when Zhang Shou and Zhu Ying were walking in the garden again to digest their food, he couldn't help but ask, "Yingying, what was the name of Zhao Garden in the past?"
"When Emperor Taizu lived there, it was called Daguan Garden. But after Emperor Taizu moved out and gave it to someone else, he changed the name of the garden to Wei Garden after the meritorious official!"
Zhu Ying didn't notice Zhang Shou's subtle expression, and then smiled and said, "Emperor Taizu wanted to withdraw all the inscriptions and let the Duke of Wei change his name. As a result, Grandpa Ge's ancestor said that everyone was used to these names, so don't be so stingy, and Emperor Taizu gave up."
Zhang Shou laughed to himself, and then asked casually: "By the way, I read a lot of books in the countryside before, but there was nothing about Emperor Taizu. It was only after I came to the Imperial Academy that I learned that Emperor Taizu also wrote a lot of poems and seemed to have written books?"
"Emperor Taizu didn't write many poems, only a few in total, but they were all very powerful." Zhu Ying recited them one by one to Zhang Shou with great interest, but she didn't see Zhang Shou's dark face in the night. When she finished the poem, she smiled and said, "Emperor Taizu also wrote a very mysterious novel, Journey to the West, which was written before the founding of the country."
"I like the monkey Sun Wukong the most! He was so powerful when he made trouble in the Heavenly Palace, but unfortunately he met the old Tathagata and was pressed under the Five Finger Mountain. After he was rescued by Tang Sanzang, he fulfilled his promise to protect him on his journey to the West to obtain the scriptures, but he was unwilling to become a Buddha. Instead, he vowed to open up another world for the demons in the world and never let them be controlled by the immortals and Buddhas again, so he rebelled against Lingshan..."
Zhang Shou listened to the story of Journey to the West, which was gradually going off the track, and he didn't know what to say, but he got to know Emperor Taizu's character better. If those poems were plagiarism, then Journey to the West had gone beyond plagiarism and entered a field that he was familiar with...
Of course, he was surprised that Emperor Taizu named his temporary residence the Grand View Garden, but did not write a Dream of the Red Chamber...
That night, Zhu Ying stayed at Qiu Shuang Zhai. In her words, she always liked the spacious layout of the three undivided rooms in Zhao Garden the most. Although Zhan Jin and Liu Yin did not come out with her, the two skillful maids carefully selected by the manager of Zhao Garden took care of everything.
As for Zhang Shou... Yihongyuan was gone, so it didn't matter where he chose, so he didn't think much about it. When the manager of Zhao Garden said with a smile that Nuanxiangwu, not far from Qiuxuanzhai, had already been cleaned up, he chose this place without hesitation.
Perhaps because it was in the suburbs, the autumn nights were already cold, the front door had been replaced with a deep red felt curtain, and the beds had been replaced with thick quilts. Among the three rooms, Zhang Shou chose the west room. At this time, he sat on the large step-out bed with his feet burned, but he was not very sleepy.
He was especially surprised when Ah Liu took it for granted and brought a quilt, intending to sleep on the flat floor in front of the bed that was like a small house.
Whether at home in Rongshui Village or in the small courtyard that Qi Jingshan lent to them mother and son, Liu had never done such work as night shifts. What was he going to do now?
Before he could speak, Ah Liu said calmly, "Just in case."
Zhang Shou was choked and speechless, thinking about how he had once been shot by an arrow and how everyone looked like an assassin. If he had not been well prepared today, he might not have been able to escape on his own when Zheng Huai'en's two guards suddenly held him hostage. He sighed.
"Okay, then just keep talking to me! I never thought that Wang Dayin swore that everything was ready and that I only needed to show up in the city to lure people into the trap, but in the end it turned out to be like this..."
Zhang Shou had just said this when he suddenly heard even breathing sounds. He looked down and saw Ah Liu, who had crawled into the bed, already fast asleep. He didn't know if the boy was pretending to sleep or really sleeping. He couldn't help but laugh, but thinking about it, it was really boring to talk to a little guy who was so quiet, he simply lay down.
He lay there in a daze for a while, and gradually fell asleep with his eyes closed. Suddenly, he vaguely smelled an intoxicating sweet fragrance. He was suddenly startled and subconsciously opened his eyes and wanted to call for help, but the next moment, he saw a black shadow flash in front of the bed, and it was Ah Liu who flashed out like a ghost.
In an instant, a scream was heard from the door.
