The sound of the watchman came from far away from the depths of the streets and alleys, and the prosperity disappeared, leaving only ashes and scraps of paper on the ground.
Except for wine shops and Goulan who are still looking down on life and death amidst the aroma of wine in Erguotou, all the gentlemen and ladies either found their favorite people and went somewhere to share their feelings, or they went to find Qingmeng with a bit of resentment.
.
There are a few people who have missed their marriage and are still searching in vain for the peach blossoms that dare to laugh in the spring breeze in dimly lit places.
Li Chongrun was sitting under the stage, looking at the bright moon hanging in the sky behind the stage, as if thinking about something.
"Brother Run, Brother Run~" The little cousin used a long silk ribbon to roll up the two long sleeves of the palace dress, and jumped out from behind the curtain backstage.
It was stained with a lot of wax tears and carbon black, and looked very sloppy.
"How's it going? How was the show today?" The stage was a bit high, but the little cousin jumped into the arms of Li Chongrun without any doubt, regardless of the anxious look on the face of Senniu Weibei who was following behind her.
.
Li Chongrun naturally caught the little cousin's figure easily, "It's very good. The little girls have opened their eyes to these Yangzhou salt dealers. I saw that several young ladies fainted from crying and were panicked by their families."
The locals were sent back."
Li Chongrun was a little absent-minded, but he still had a lot of smiles on his face. He gently placed his little cousin on the chair next to him and wiped the two streaks of charcoal black on her face that he had not had time to wipe off.
"I think there should be more people coming to watch tonight." The little cousin is not that easy to be satisfied. "There were a few plays just now that were not interesting enough. It was the first time for the little girls to go on stage and sing.
I made several mistakes. Only Wu Qi is better."
"It's okay. This is a new play. Even if we sing it wrong, they won't know."
Li Chongrun had always admired his little cousin's attitude of striving for perfection, but it would be a bit painful if it involved him.
"How can that be done? If this is spread out in the future, it will ruin my reputation. It is more serious to practice it again when I have time."
The little cousin couldn't hold it anymore. She leaned on Li Chongrun and yawned loudly: "It's just that the smell of the lights is too strong and it takes a lot of effort. I can reduce it a little next time. It's a bit troublesome to serve."
Seeing that his little cousin was a little sleepy, Li Chongrun could only pick him up and walk to the boat opposite the stage.
Anyway, he was using Fengyiwei's brand, and he was seriously short of men. Li Chongrun took Yiyunxuan over rudely. Anyway, the people were sent to Bing'er, so he kept the ship for himself.
Come down.
After taking his little cousin to sleep in his arms, Gongsun Lan chatted with Li Chongrun wordlessly on the boat, but his eyes were a little straight.
A few guards were left to guard the place, and everyone who had packed up got on the boat, ready to go back to the garden to rest.
The boat floated gently across the water, breaking through the reflected prosperity, and slowly headed towards the quiet place.
The little girl and the palace servants, who had been busy for a long time, each found a comfortable place on the painted boat, sleeping here and there. Li Chongrun saw that Gongsun Lan was also a little sleepy, so he gently eased her and his little cousin.
He lay down on the Arhat couch, found a blanket to cover himself with, and walked towards the bow of the ship.
The bright moon is like a mirror with a few sparse stars.
Some dim lights are still recalling the previous bustle, but above the bustling light and shadow, there is a not-so-high pagoda, leaving a dark silhouette in the somewhat bright moonlight.
Light and darkness, high and short, lively and lonely.
A gust of cold wind that was not too biting blew by, and the iron horse hanging on the eaves of the hexagonal pagoda made a clear sound, faintly heard through the bustling night sky.
Like Buddha's words, like Zen singing.
The strong contrast gave Li Chongrun a slightly strange feeling, almost instinctively. Li Chongrun had a not too strong sense of crisis.
"I'm not a monster, how can I be afraid of these Buddhist things?"
Li Chongrun said something to himself somewhat self-deprecatingly.
However, the sense of crisis deep inside his heart became stronger and stronger.
Li Chongrun walked across the deck to the stern of the ship. Several of Yang San's apprentices were rocking the boat. Yang San was holding a big elbow and watching the remaining apprentices fight for wine. He just knew that the little girls on the boat had fallen asleep, but he didn't
What noise does it make?
"Uncle Yang." Li Chongrun called out and saw several people raising their heads to look at him. Before they could greet him, Li Chongrun arranged for the two little brothers who were rocking the boat: "Let's stop the boat first. I think
Something’s wrong.”
"Yes, Your Majesty."
"Just now, my cousin brought those dudes to the show and told me something. It was just a rumor to liven up the atmosphere, but I thought something was wrong." Ruiniang and Bing'er were not sleeping and were in the cabin.
They were talking in the kitchen at the back, and when they heard Li Chongrun's voice, they also walked out to listen to what he said.
"Just now my cousin told me that the boy from the Song family saw his stepmother coming back from outside in a hurry in the afternoon. He was greeted with joy and slapped by the woman. Then he smelled that the woman had something on her body.
The smell of man."
Li Chongrun did not simply regard this matter as a piece of tidbits. The Seven Firms were the power of the Seventh surname. He heard that the woman named Cui had recently taken advantage of the family head's illness to control most of the power of the Song family.
Not even some scum was left for the boy named Song.
During the holidays, no matter how impatient the woman is, she should be at home to take care of the festival, so why would she go out and have an affair?
Unless there is someone important, she must be flattered.
So who can have so much energy to let a woman with the fifth surname, who is also the invisible head of the Song family with a net worth of tens of millions, serve him?
Li Chongrun could only think of one person, that is, the monk who had heard that he had come to Yangzhou and might be from Wuling.
"Your Majesty, this afternoon, several woodcutters who delivered charcoal to the Lu family business also saw the head of the Lu family hurried out of the back door. They didn't even return their greetings." Lianghao has a high reputation among farmers.
I can often find out a lot of information and develop a lot of informants. Ruiniang and Bing'er both work in the Lianghao. Although I haven't heard much serious news, I often collect information that seems to be short-lived.
"Let's make a bold guess. Could it be that the owners of the seven major businesses went somewhere and met someone?" Li Chongrun said to Bing'er with an open mind.
"The person who can make the seven companies work together to please them is naturally the head of the family with the seven surnames, or..."
"He's from Wuling. There were rumors before that he was from Wuling who had already come to Yangzhou."
Li Chongrun had a very strong intuition. "When I was watching the theater in the evening, I heard someone in the crowd rumored that traces of dragons were found in Runzhou. I guess they planned it this afternoon and prepared to spread the news, because Your Majesty
I like things like auspiciousness the most."
Li Chongrun suddenly felt that what he said was inappropriate, especially in front of grandma's confidant, the little milk tea expert Bing'er. But seeing that her expression was as usual, he restrained his disrespectful words and changed to a tactful expression.
.
"The auspiciousness presented by King Wei before and the beads I presented are still being enshrined in the Mingtang, not to mention that it is a dragon this time. If the auspiciousness can be divided into levels, this kind of auspiciousness is probably only slightly lower than that of gods descending to earth in person.
"
Li Chongrun looked into the distance, becoming more and more sure of his guess.
"We handed over the news. If His Majesty knows that there is a fraud, he will naturally ignore it, and then make the matter known to the whole world. Even if His Majesty knows the conspiracy, he will still have to swallow this poisonous fruit.
"
"They spent so much effort just to get His Majesty auspiciousness? Then why not just dig out the dragon bones and present them to His Majesty? Why do they have to bury them back again?"
Li Chongrun felt that he couldn't understand the relationship. It was originally a very simple matter, why did it have to be so complicated?
"Could it be that you are thinking of assassinating someone?" Bing'er offered an idea: "If the dragon bone is found in Runzhou, His Majesty may come out of Beijing to reward him. Runzhou is no better than Luoyang in that it can create a lot of opportunities for assassination."
"That's what I originally thought." Without Aunt Shangguan and Her Royal Highness the Princess by his side, Li Chongrun was forced to analyze intelligence these days, which made his imagination expand a lot.
"It wasn't until just now that I thought of a few inconsequential things and realized that this seemed to be a plan to kill three birds with one stone. Of course, it could also be four birds."