He cried silently for a while, and suddenly a hand was placed on his shoulder, patting him twice, neither lightly nor heavily.
Li Qishen withdrew his hand and said two words: "Uncle."
There is not much to say between men. It is disgusting to be so sticky and hesitant. With this sound, Li Rongjin knew that Li Qishen did not care. His mood fluctuated. Sometimes he felt like a stone was pressing down on his heart, and sometimes he felt that Li Qishen was really a generous person.
He was silent for a while, raised his hand to wipe away the tears from the corners of his eyes, and rubbed his nephew's head.
Since arriving in Fengzhou, Li Qishen had never let his hair down. He had always tied his hair in a ponytail, but after Li Rongjin rubbed it, the hairband loosened a bit, and the ends of his hair fell down, almost scraping his waist. He quickly gathered his long hair and tied it up tightly: "Blood debts must be paid with blood. Others are innocent, but as for the Khan, he deserves it. Isn't that how the world is? Those who do wrong should be punished, and there is no reason for them to escape."
"Your mother also told me the same thing back then." Li Rongjin suddenly smiled.
Li Qishen also smiled: "Really?"
"Let's not talk about this." Li Rongjin waved his hand and changed the subject. "Let me ask you, do you plan to return to Chang'an?"
Li Qishen didn't answer directly. He just picked up a few blades of grass, rolled them into a ball, threw it forward, and said casually, "Do I have the final say?"
"I see you want to go back." Li Rongjin said.
"Chang'an City is prosperous and wealthy, who wouldn't want to go there?"
"That's right." Li Rongjin sighed, squinted his eyes and felt around in his arms, and unexpectedly took out two more small wine bags, "Come on, keep drinking!"
"I remember last time, Doctor Pei said that you should drink less. Drinking will cause trouble." Li Qishen said this, but his hands were honest. He took the wine from his uncle's hand, opened the seal without even looking at it, and drank it with his head tilted back.
The wine bag is only the size of a palm, but it feels heavy and it is not easy to drink a full bag. It feels like a sharp knife wrapped in flames when it enters the stomach. My whole body becomes hot and I just want to roar.
Of course Li Qishen didn't shout. He returned the wine bag and wiped his lips, his face flushed with the smell of alcohol. The cold wind blew over him, and he felt extremely happy: "Good wine, really good wine."
"Of course it's good wine, I hid it secretly... Pei Xiu, you dog nose, last time I hid it in the quilt, you found it..." Li Rongjin didn't dare to argue with Pei Xiu in person, and secretly cursed him behind his back, "Are you dizzy?"
"Dizzy." Li Qishen was quite honest.
"Are you sleepy?"
"Sleepy."
"So you want to go back to Chang'an," Li Rongjin paused and asked the last question, "Are you thinking about Chang'an City, or someone in Chang'an City?"
Li Qishen did not answer immediately as he had done before. The cold wind blew and the alcohol in his head made his chest rise and fall, and his breath was hot. After sitting there for a while, he suddenly fell backwards on his back, lying on the grass with a smell of earth, with the overgrown grass as his pillow, and the indigo sky reflected in his pupils.
Starlight and moonlight fell on him. The young man stared at the sky full of stars and suddenly said, "Isn't the man in Chang'an City in Chang'an City?"
He exhaled, and another wave of alcohol came up. He had drunk too much tonight. It was refreshing when he drank it, but now it was killing him. He was so sleepy that he couldn't even open his eyes. His mind was in a fuzzy mess. In his ears, he could hear the dance of seventy-two people in the music studio, and in his ears, the soft voice of Xie Wangzhi.
"Go to sleep." The girl said, "I'll wait for you to come back."
Li Qishen looked up at the sky, smiled faintly without any reason, closed his eyes, and fell into a deep sleep.
Li Rongjin watched him lie down and fall asleep, stared at his nephew in the night breeze for a while, then reached out and gently touched his forehead.
"I can't drink much." He shook his head, "I still need to practice."
**
Chang'an City, Xie Mansion.
"… Let's stop here for today. Madam, you have talent and you have learned to play the qin before, so you don't need to spend too much time on it. The konghou is also a musical instrument, it is just to cultivate one's sentiments." After listening to Xie Wangzhi finish playing a piece, Yuan Sanniang smiled on her usually cold face and nodded, "I will come back in three days. Madam, remember to review it every day and don't forget what you learned before."
"I will, thank you sir."
The teacher stood up, and the student certainly couldn't sit down. Xie Wangzhi stood up along with Yuan Sanniang. Without noticing, his fingertips scratched the decoration on the edge of the phoenix-head guzheng, causing her to gasp in pain.
"What's wrong?" Yuan Sanniang has good hearing. "But where did you bump into?"
“…Nothing.” Xie Wangzhi retracted his hand and instinctively wanted to hide.
Yuan Sanniang glanced at her and said calmly, "Stretch out your hand."
After all, it was Wang who had invited the teacher to teach konghou. Yuan Sanniang was also well-known in Chang'an. Apart from those in the music school, she was also one of the best konghou players in the whole city. Moreover, she was cold and serious. If she had not had some kind of relationship with Wang, she would never have been willing to come to the mansion to teach a young lady who had not yet reached the age of marriage.
Therefore, when Yuan Sanniang glanced at him, Xie Wangzhi felt guilty. After holding it in for a while, he finally gave in and stretched out his hand to show her.
After three months of good food and drink at home, the rough spots caused by grinding in the Shangshi Bureau disappeared. Xie Wangzhi's hands were soft and slender, with fair skin, and looked like a noble lady who had never touched women. These hands were beautiful, but there was something wrong with the fingertips, which were slightly red, especially on the sides of the index finger and thumb, which was obviously caused by the grinding of the strings.
"Didn't I tell you that you can't be impatient when learning to play the konghou? According to my calculations, practicing for a quarter of an hour a day is enough?" Yuan Sanniang frowned and said to Lu Zhu beside her, "Go get some ointment."
Luzhu responded, knelt down and bowed, then slowly went out to get the medicine.
Yuan Sanniang turned to look at Xie Wangzhi again and said, "If you don't want to listen, I won't make it difficult for you. I will tell Madam Xie today so that you won't have to hurt your hands in the future."
"Sir!" Xie Wangzhi was anxious. He retracted his fingers, and the side of his fingers scraped against her palm. She took a breath in pain. She hurriedly explained, "It's not that I don't want to listen to you, sir. It's just that I'm bored on weekdays and don't know what to do... Only when I play the konghou do I find it interesting."
Yuan Sanniang looked at her for a while, closed her eyes and shook her head. Luzhu happened to come back with the medicine, and she gave a look to signal Xie Wangzhi to wash his hands in the basin held by Qingyu, and then took the medicine from Luzhu herself: "Please stretch out your hand, madam."
Xie Wangzhi knew that she was going to apply medicine to him, so he couldn't agree: "Sir..."
"With your hand injured like this, do you still need to consider etiquette?" Yuan Sanniang was annoyed by this unnecessary reserve. Her tone became serious and she directly picked up the ointment with a stick and applied it on Xie Wangzhi's hand.
It was already applied, and it would be hypocritical to refuse. Xie Wangzhi had no choice but to watch the ointment on the stick spread slowly on the reddened area. This ointment came from the Imperial Medical Bureau, and it was warm and cool in nature. Once applied, the original stinging feeling was swept away, and it didn't hurt even if it was scratched by the stick occasionally.
After wiping off the wounds on both hands, Xie Wangzhi said softly, "Thank you, sir. It's my fault. I'm sorry for causing you so much trouble."
Yuan Sanniang returned the stick to Lu Zhu and said, "Mrs. Xie sent someone to find me earlier and said that you wanted to learn the konghou. I didn't ask you at that time, but now I want to ask you, do you want to learn this instrument for yourself or for someone else?"
At that time, the idea of learning the konghou suddenly popped up in her mind. Xie Wangzhi had never thought carefully about why. In the past few months, she has been learning the konghou, plucking the strings by the window. She is not a wooden person, and she can feel the pain in her fingertips, but she plays the konghou repeatedly like a machine, and feels an inexplicable peace in the music that she is gradually becoming familiar with.
Now, if Yuan Sanniang asked her a question, she really couldn't answer it.
…For whom
Seeing Xie Wangzhi's bewildered look, Yuan Sanniang knew that she couldn't answer, so she shook her head and said, "My lady, you need to know that whether it's a konghou or a qin, they are both musical instruments. If you don't learn them for a living, then they are for the purpose of cultivating your sentiments, and it's ultimately for yourself. If you hurt your hands just to learn a musical instrument, it's not worth it."
"… yes."
"It's getting late, so I'll go back now." Yuan Sanniang said, "Since you've injured your hand, you just need to remember the music for the next few days. I'll come back in seven days."
"Thank you for today, sir."
Xie Wangzhi sent Yuan Sanniang to the gate of the courtyard. As soon as he turned around, Hongyun came up to him and said, "Madam, there's a letter from Fengzhou."
"Fengzhou?!" This was the first time Xie Wangzhi received a letter from Fengzhou. He was shocked and asked, "Is it from Tiande Military City?"
"How do you know?" Hong Yun was a little surprised. "Where did it come from? The sender seems to be... Prince Yanyang."
Xie Wangzhi was stunned for a moment, and a surge of joy suddenly surged in her heart. The slight loneliness she had felt when talking with Yuan Sanniang earlier was swept away. She nodded to Hongyun, turned around and hurried to the study.
As soon as I entered the study, I saw a letter on the desk. The letter had traveled all the way from Fengzhou to Chang'an, and the edge of the envelope was a little hairy, but fortunately the seal was intact. There was also a small jar pressed on the edge of the envelope, and I couldn't tell what it was.
"Madam, that's marmot oil." Hongyun had never seen it before, so he could only repeat the messenger's words, "It's the oil made from marmots, and it's said to be very effective in treating burns and scalds."
"... I understand." Xie Wangzhi looked at the letter and the small jar on the table, her heart ached, and a myriad of emotions surged up. She didn't dare to step forward for a moment, fearing that this was also a dream, and she would wake up from the dream as soon as she touched the letter.
After three months of separation, Li Qishen's letter finally arrived, and along with it came his address. She was finally able to meet him again through letters.
Xie Wangzhi suppressed the surging emotions in his heart, sat down at the desk, picked up the knife to open the envelope, endured the slight pain on his fingertips, and opened the letter bit by bit.
Unexpectedly, there was only a piece of Huanhua paper in the envelope, which was very thin. There were only a few words, just a few lines, and the writing was elegant and graceful. However, the last few strokes seemed a bit floating, as if they were written in a hurry, or as if they were written after being drunk.
Li Qishen did not mention the can of marmot oil, nor did he say where he was, how he was doing, or whether the journey to Fengzhou was hard. What he said was simply incomprehensible. The gist of it was that he had heard that it was cold in the north, but there were still peach blossoms after April. Now he was in Fengzhou, so far north, and he searched all over the grassland, but there were no peach blossoms to pick, so he had to draw one himself and send it with the letter.
There are only a few lines of words in total, which occupy the upper half of the Huanhua paper. The lower half is peach blossoms in ink, with distinct branches and leaves, and vivid petals, which are so lifelike.
Xie Wangzhi looked at the late peach blossom for a while, and suddenly laughed out loud.
"... So stupid." She wiped the slight moisture from the corners of her eyes, "Fengzhou is a desert grassland, where do the peach blossoms come from?"
The author has something to say: Tell me loudly, is Changsheng romantic or not! Is this chapter sweet or not! Thank you to the little angels who voted for me or irrigated me with nutrient solution~
Thanks to the little angel who cast [mine]: 31871768 1;
Thanks to the little angel who irrigated [nutrient solution]:
17 bottles of Guazai; 5 bottles of Toilet is Really Cold; 2 bottles of zwzwz; 1 bottle of 31871768 and Sky Sauce;
Thank you very much for your support, I will continue to work hard!