box of hearts

Chapter 17 Zhan Chunkui (16)
"Third Master, I don't talk about anything superfluous. It's just that 'the state owns the state law, and the family has family rules'. As a courtier, we also have our own set of rules in the small class. When playing tea circles, we call the game when we are called, or when we are out, there are other rules. This is the industry rule, so even if Mr. Qiao is not the caller tonight, Qingtian has to deal with it. You see, originally the guests come on a first-come, first-served basis, but once you enter the door, I immediately tried to get rid of the person in front of me who had already sat in the main room, and waited half the night for the idiot in the west room. This time, I couldn’t call the game again. It’s really a broken rule, even if my mother knows it. to scold."

Qi She was obviously offended, and regained her arrogance, "No matter where I am, the rules are up to me. Sit down."

However, Qingtian only lowered his posture, almost pleading: "Third Master, you just leave, but I will stay here for a long time. If the business fails, there will be no way out. You also understand my difficulties."

"sit down."

"Third Master, how about you look at this—"

"I don't know how to praise things!" Without warning, Qi She changed her face and overturned the huanghuali chess table viciously.The dozing cat jumped away in Yu Yi, but two people rushed in at the door.It turned out that his personal eunuch Zhou Dun and the bodyguard He Wuwei, when they heard something wrong inside, they stood by and waited for orders.

Qingtian's smile froze on her face, her deep affection for Qiao Yunze was only confided to this high-status man in front of her, she regarded him as heart-to-heart, she regarded him as merciful, but he was just another person who coveted her beauty Those in power are bullying the weak and bullying others.Her gratitude to him that has always been in her heart fell apart with the overturned chess pieces.

Qingtian squatted down, twisted a black seed and put it back in Qi She's hand, smiling beautifully, looking around, "Third Master, this is a thing, you can throw it, let me pick it up, I don't know how to move it. Qingtian, yes People with hands and feet can go wherever they like. If you have to force them to stay, use the Mongolian knife at your waist." She smiled and bowed deeply, without even glancing at the vicious pair of humming and ha two in front of the door. Will, go in a blink of an eye.

Mu Yun was so frightened that she stood on the spot, and there was a "click" sound in her throat, "Third Master, you, you don't mind, aunt, aunt, girl——, girl! Girl!" Finally, she looked at Qingtian The back, staggered to chase out.

Inside the house, there are silver and red curtains sprinkled with flowers, catalpa wood carvings and jade flower covers, three screens of red sandalwood and silk tapestry, and five openings of begonia embroidered pier... Qi She is left alone in this trivial and colorful dark corner.He stretched out his hand to embrace the frightened cat, and comforted it for a very long time. His black and white eyes wandered between the black and white cats all over the bed, and finally landed on one of them - put back by Qingtian. The heart, sincerely, burst into a smile.

"Why do nothing."

The guard standing side by side with the eunuch strode forward. He had a dignified look, and the bridge of his nose was slightly hooked like a scimitar.Shicai eagerly let go of that ignorant bitch, who was making people's teeth itch with hatred. Seeing the master speak, he immediately raised his chest and said, "The slave is here!"

In this short period of time, Qingtian had already boarded the sedan chair and left.The sedan chair of the red lady is different. I saw that the sedan chair of the foreign blue wool was embroidered with white velvet thread, and there were emerald tassels on the four corners. There were also four colored balls studded with rhinestones hanging from the Hangzhou incense rattan sedan chair. , in the eyes of curiosity and envy along the way, the meteor rushed to Dengshikou like a moon.

As the name suggests, Dengshikou is full of lights.The pavement facing the street is on the beams, under the eaves, in front of the door, and indoors, so that the walls are hollowed out to hang inlaid colored lights, and the clouds are covered with smoke, dazzling and fascinated.A huge and deep house in the sea of ​​lights, the door is guarded by stone lions, and the word "Jiaofu" is written on it.

"Girl, here we are."

Qingtian's heart is not without panic, and he also regrets his momentary recklessness in front of the regent, but the matter has come to this point, let's just focus on the present.She poked out half of her eyebrows from behind the car window, and said to Mrs. Ju, "You go and report."

"That's right." Before she could move, the aunt stood still again, "Yo, it's coming out!"

A dozen or so people poured out from the gate of Jiao's house. It seemed that when the banquet was over, the male guests were all surrounded by Yingying and Yanyan. Among them, Qiao Yun walked at the end. The waist of the woman beside him was as thin as A spring vase, the flower arrangement in the vase is a bright red peony towering above the clouds.

This year, the Dongfeng is cleverly tailored, and the affection is only waiting for the envoy to come [28]-it is Xizhu.

Inside the sedan chair at the intersection, Qingtian was so angry that his eyes were about to burst into flames.But in a blink of an eye, she saw that Ai Lang Qiao Yun, accompanied by Xi Zhu, was no longer in her usual spirit, and her steps were heavy and gloomy, which immediately turned her anger into joy.Suddenly, Qiao Yun turned his head towards her as if he had a tacit understanding, and their eyes met.The distance and the light made it difficult for Qingtian to see the other person's expression clearly, she just smiled warmly and nodded to him.

In the night, Qiao Yun stared in surprise at the familiar sedan chair across the street, the corner of his thin and sharp mouth twitched, and then his whole body was shocked.He turned his head and saw that Xi Zhu's tender hands were on his shoulders, and her people were holding him up and leaning on him intimately, smiling provocatively at something - just because he also saw Qingtian's palanquin.

Qingtian's anger rekindled again, and he wanted to rush down and grab the woman's hand away.Perhaps it was the overwhelming hatred, but after only a moment, an invisible force pulled Xizhu's two hands away from Qiao Yunze's body, and used them to strangle Xizhu's own body in a terrifying and inconceivable way. throat.In front of the Jiao Mansion, people began to exclaim, watching the famous courtesan suddenly lose her composure: like a flower in a storm, Xizhu struggled silently and violently, twirling her body to every angle, then fell heavily, her hands still He grabbed his own throat and spit out blood from the corner of his mouth.Convulsions, death.

The peony in the hair is still trembling, and a few petals are falling.

The whole process from the beginning to the end only took a few blinks of the eyes, but Qingtian completely forgot to blink and stared dumbfounded.Then she felt the car shake violently, so frightened that she hurriedly supported the board walls on both sides, feeling dizzy that the car body was turned around, and ran back to the way she came from.Frightened, she opened the sedan chair curtain, and found that all the porters in Huaiyatang had disappeared, replaced by a group of strangers with swords at their waists, and the leader in front was the regent's personal guard named He Wuwei .He ran without touching the ground, without any explanation, he just turned his eternally stern face and glanced at her.Qingtian lowered his hand in a weak state, allowing himself to be taken away from the scene as if kidnapped.

The wind beat against the front curtain in bursts, trying to open it and then close it, like a mystery before it was revealed.

14.
The room was still the same as it was when Qingtian left, with black and white ivory chess pieces scattered all over the floor, and even Qi She, who was sitting quietly in the room, seemed to have never moved.

She stood in front of the door and stared blankly at him, and he also examined her carefully: her eyes, her chest, her whole body.But Qingtian completely ignored this sharp gaze, all her thoughts were already occupied by Xizhu.She and Xizhu are enemies, that's right, but the endless bickering, fighting, and stumbling between them is the intimacy of growing up together, learning art together, and even being deprived of their virginity together. Mutual hatred has long since become a part of each other.Therefore, she who lost Xizhu is like a word that has lost its own antonym, making Qingtian completely disbelieve, and completely——

"Don't understand?" Qi She finally spoke in a bland tone, "Jiao Zun, a wealthy businessman who entertained guests today, had a feud with Zhang Yanshu, the left servant of the court's Rites Department. Buy it, but Jiao Zun doesn’t sell it, and there was quite an unpleasant quarrel. I have a group of people who specialize in spying on the movements of the officials and gentry in the capital. A few days ago, they reported a news that Zhang Yanshu’s housekeeper secretly purchased a colorless, odorless and expensive poison. I didn't understand its purpose until just now. To outsiders, what happened tonight looks like Jiao Zun intending to kill Qiao Yunze with poison, but accidentally killed the person who served him. The servant of Youjiu was poisoned. Such a murder case occurred in the house, and Jiao Zun has since become the fish of the king, to be slaughtered by Zhang Yanshu. —— Still don’t understand? Then it seems that you haven’t heard of it.”

Qi She let out a long breath from his nose, looked directly at the bewildered Qingtian, and there seemed to be a sigh of pity in his eyes, "Young Master Qiao is coming to the door with double happiness: in the officialdom, the nine-rank Ministry of Rites has been released to watch politics; in the love field, Zhang Yanshu has been hired his only daughter as his wife."

Accompanied by the last word, the blood color disappeared from Qingtian's face, and even the rouge on a pair of plump lips faded to a dazzling paleness.Her fingers were trembling, and she touched a Ruyi armchair by her side, and tightly grasped the armrest of the chair.

Qi She paused for a while, then continued clearly: "Therefore, in order to ease the relationship with Zhang Yanshu, Jiao Zun hosted a banquet for Qiao Yunze, but he was falling into his old Taishan's trap. The son-in-law of the east bed has enough reasons to believe that the biggest obstacle to his happy marriage is - you. If I hadn't been so happy to visit you today, this grand banquet would have killed two birds with one stone for the Zhang family's son-in-law. It's Li Daitao who is stiff." He paused again, observing Qingtian's reaction, "How do you feel? Want to cry and feel that I am the most pitiful person? Or want to laugh and feel that I am the most ridiculous person?"

Qingtian didn't answer anything, because she couldn't describe this strange feeling at all, as if she had heard the news of her own death with her own ears.She recalled that night, and Qiao Yun personally cut the wedding dress for her and promised her the marriage contract, so she didn't understand, still didn't understand, she couldn't understand at all, her mind had fallen into absolute chaos.Maybe it was a moment, maybe it was a thousand years, anyway, when her senses recovered, she found that she had slipped into the armchair, her eyes were straightened, and she saw a man walking up and down in her room with a crippled leg.

(End of this chapter)