Firecrackers rang out continuously, and the lights were like dragons. According to the practice of the Wu Dynasty, the thirteenth city of the first month will be lit up, the seventeenth day of the first month, a total of five days of the lamp, the city dragon and lion dance, sleepless night, but naturally to the fifteenth Shangyuan Festival is the most lively, the snow has not yet melted, the lantern festival, the poetry will have begun to be active again, compared to the scale of the Mid-Autumn Festival night.

The excitement of this night is not as good as the fireworks of the Mid-Autumn Festival, but more of the unfinished party atmosphere since the end of the year. On the night of Shangyuan, people pay more attention to the celebration of themselves and their families, relatives and friends, eating Lantern Festival, guessing lantern riddles, visiting the night market, and then paying attention to the smoke and rain where those literati are located.

The reasons for this situation are complicated, such as heavy snow closures, a decrease in the number of passing merchants and pedestrians, and some students who have traveled to study have returned to their hometowns before the year...... There are still all kinds of gatherings about poetry, but they are not as clear as the Mid-Autumn Festival every year, the Puyuan Poetry Club and the Water Stop Poetry Club are not officially held in Shangyuan, this night is usually dominated by the performance of the students of Lichuan Academy, Lichuan is actually the official school of Jiangning, if it is not for the influence of the Mid-Autumn Festival to hold the Water Stop Poetry Meeting in Panfu, the quality of their students should be the highest.

Of course, even if many formal poetry meetings are not held, the literati still have a large number of banquets to go to exchange the best works of the New Year, and some of the students in Lichuan will also disperse to participate in these banquets, and then steal the limelight with their own poems with their classmates.

After nightfall, it was bustling, and when the bell rang at nine o'clock in the evening, Ning Yi and Xiaochan were eating rice balls at a food stall near Suzaku Street, surrounded by lanterns with various lantern riddles, illuminating the entire market as if it were day.

In the evening, Ning Yi and Su Tan'er followed Su Boyong to the house of a Su Mansion World Friend for a banquet, and after the basic etiquette was exhausted, Su Tan'er and Ning Yi said goodbye, saying that the young couple went to Zhuque Street for a walk, but in fact, it was not all for this.

Su Tan'er's several shopkeepers were talking about business in Mingxiu Building near here tonight, and Su Tan'er was concerned about the result, so after a little play on the road, she went to a small teahouse opposite Mingxiu Building to find a table and sit down, and waited for the result while listening to the singing in the teahouse. Ning Yi listened to the play with her for a while, and when the young shopkeeper named Xi Junyu came over to report the preliminary results, he also got up and prepared to walk around for a while.

"Stroll around Suzaku Street, see what's delicious, and taste a little bit of everything."

"Remember to bring some back to the concubine."

Su Tan'er smiled sweetly and said this to him, and then Xiaochan also followed, and when she went downstairs, she looked back and saw that Su Tan'er had turned into a light and breezy look, talking to the young shopkeeper. Since Su Tan'er also led him to the various shops of the Su family around the New Year, Ning Yi, the shopkeeper of this seat, has also met a few times, and he is ambitious and capable, but he is sharp and not restrained enough, but he is also quite good. This reminded Ning Yi that when he was young many years ago, he had also seen a lot of such young people, with friends and opponents, but when he got to the end, the one who surprised him the most was Tang Mingyuan, who had always been indecisive and followed behind him, so it was a little ironic to think about it.

Soon after, he and Xiaochan tasted it along the route of one food stall after another near Suzaku Street. There is still unmelted snow on both sides of the road, there is a wind blowing near the Qinhuai River, but it is not cold, the whole street is in full swing, dragon and lion dances, lantern juggling, and the heat rising from the stoves of various vendors. Xiaochan couldn't eat much, so she bought a small lantern and held it in her hand, with a cat pattern on the lantern, of course, the cat had a "king" word drawn on its forehead, so I thought it was a tiger. …,

"Uncle, uncle, how to solve the riddle of candied coptis?"

"Could it be the sharing of joys and sorrows?"

"Uncle and uncle, Huang Juan's young woman, what is the grandson's mortar?"

"Heh, it's very difficult to know the way, Cao Cao asked Yang Xiu, and the riddle is a wonderful word."

"Uncle, there is a very difficult one here, one form and one body, four branches and eight heads. In 1858, Feiquan was upstream...... What is this......"

“…… How do I know about Lu Dao? ”

"It turns out that my uncle doesn't know what to do......"

"Did the first two guess correctly, did you go and ask?".

"Uncle is right."

“…… Come and eat rice balls...... After eating the rice balls, you will be told that it is a tic-tac-toe. ”

"Oh, it turned out to be tic-tac-toe."

I really couldn't lose my temper for Xiaochan, I ate a few rice balls and moved to the next stall, the five-spice beans in this stall are Xiaochan's favorite, I bought half a porcelain cup and ate it slowly, the small lantern was shaking, and after a while, I said thoughtlessly: "Miss is actually very tired." ”

"Huh?"

"Just now...... The young lady was in the teahouse just now, and the uncle was about to leave, in fact, the uncle knew a lot of things, right? Quite a few words"

That little face was a little serious, Ning Yi thought about it, nodded with a smile: "If it's not appropriate to talk over there, after all, it still has to be decided by your young lady, I'm over there, it's actually useless, sometimes it's counterproductive." ”

"Sure enough, my uncle knows how to ......" Xiaochan nodded, glanced at Ning Yi a few times, and stopped a little bit, but finally said, "Why doesn't my uncle help Miss?" ”

"Your young lady is very powerful, don't worry about it."

Xiaochan thought about it, and then laughed again: "Miss has been very happy recently. ”

"Huh?"

"Because Uncle, Miss rarely talked so much to people before...... Well, there are some who say it, but they don't know how to talk about business or anything, and they talk about it happily, and there is an uncle who tells stories and plays chess...... So Xiaochan thought that if her uncle was willing to help Miss, Miss would definitely be happier. Uncle also knows that Miss is ...... After all, Miss is a girl's family like Xiaochan, and when she goes out to do things, there are always people gossiping, Miss doesn't say it, she must have a lot of things on her mind......"

Xiaochan really thought about Su Tan'er, and mustered up a lot of courage to say this, and was afraid that she would inevitably cross the maid's duty inch by inch, which made Ning Yi a little unhappy, and looked at Ning Yi from time to time, but the reaction she got was that her whole face was pulled into a big cake by Ning Yi's outstretched hand.

"At what age did Chan'er enter Su Mansion?"

"The world is broken." Chan'er hesitated for a moment, then muttered a gesture, and only when Ning Yi let go of her cheeks and turned to walk forward, did she trot to catch up, adding, "Chan'er was sold at the age of four." ”

"Four years old, what a ......"

"Juan'er too, Sister Xing'er is one year older than us, five years old at the time. The young lady was eight years old at the time. Xiaochan didn't shy away from this, and smiled a little sweetly, "Originally, it was too young at that time, and people didn't want it, but it happened that Sufu wanted a few little girls, and Xiaochan chose it, and the family originally wanted to sell her brother." ”

"I don't usually hear you talk about your family."

"Xiaochan was sold to Su Mansion, she is a person from Su Mansion, how can you mention them all day long." Xiaochan lowered her head and thought about it, "Actually, Xiaochan can't remember much about things when she was a child, she is just hungry." I heard that there was a younger brother, who was starved to death soon after birth, and the family originally wanted to sell his brother at that time, and the brother could always do something, and then sold Xiaochan, sold for twenty-five years, and the family got thirty-five taels of silver. Now Xiaochan sends ten taels of silver to her family every year, and her brother got married last year, and he also wrote a letter to Xiaochan, saying that he married the most beautiful girl in the neighboring village, which is ugly...... Well, Xiaochan went back the year before last, and she can go home to see her sister-in-law in March this year........., many things are the norm in today's society, Xiaochan didn't feel much sad when she said it, and then she was happy, and then she pursed her lips with a little weakness: "Uncle......"

Ning Yi smiled: "So Tan'er is just like your sister, right?" Quite a few words"

"Hmm." The little girl nodded hurriedly, and then shook her head again, "Xiaochan is just a maid, I don't dare to think like this." ”

"Then she often talks to you about business matters, and often tells those shopkeepers, even if I help her, what is different if I have one more person?"

"But, but...... Uncle, it's different......"

"Heh, don't think about it, the reason why your young lady can tell me that is because I don't understand, and I don't do business. If I could help, it would really be a business conversation. Although she is innocent in front of Su Tan'er, Xiaochan is not stupid, on the contrary, she is very smart, and Ning Yi doesn't care about her little scheming for Su Tan'er's sake, it's normal for people. At this time, the two walked all the way forward in the crowd, and Ning Yi smiled: "Your young lady is much more powerful than you think, if she is not so powerful, it is useless if the gang does not help her, it is best for her to stop as soon as possible." I'm glad you're good at me, but don't ...... Uh......"

Ning Yi's voice stopped, and Xiaochan came from behind: "Uncle is very powerful." Under the bright lantern light, Ning Yi frowned slightly, and looked at his left hand suspiciously, with a touch of red color on the outside of his thumb, sticky and not yet dry, this is ...... Blood.

Where did you get it......

Looking back in confusion, the lights of the market are brilliant, the crowd is coming, all kinds of noisy sounds are endless, at the other end of Suzaku Street, a yellow dragon flies with the sound of gongs and drums, and in the lively Shangyuan scenery, several officials are mixed in, as if they are looking for something.

The next moment, the blood light suddenly bloomed and ............,