The brazier was burning hot, Zhu Yanyin untied his cloak, revealing the thin and soft pajamas underneath. He was actually very focused, just wanting to cool down, but he accidentally created a half-faced effect of holding a lute, and the big devil liked this, because it really looked pure and innocent.
Zhu Yanyin realized it later: "Wait a moment!"
Li Sui picked him up and said, "Stay here tonight."
"Aren't we talking about business?"
"You can talk slowly in bed."
"… "
"I'll have someone pass the message to the Zhu Mansion."
Zhu Yanyin: Well, then I will sleep on the inside.
A fickle reader.
The Wanren Palace was full of warriors, so naturally they didn't have high requirements for beds. They just put bedding on a hardwood board, without bed curtains, and the pillows didn't have any incense. But as the saying goes, love the house and love the dog, I wish the second young master was lying comfortably. He turned his head to look at the person beside him and asked, "Do we still want to talk about Xu Yunzhong?"
Li Sui said: "I will go with you to see him tomorrow."
Since we have agreed to meet tomorrow, there is no need to waste time on other people tonight. Zhu Yanyin lay in Li Sui's arms, one hand reaching into his clothes, taking advantage of him openly, who said there were not enough braziers in the room
Li Sui held his wrist and kissed him on the lips: "Don't want to sleep?"
Zhu Yanyin: “…” In an instant, eight hundred plots of the storybooks came to my mind, the kind where the characters were not wearing clothes.
No, Xiaozhu, you have to be more reserved. Scholars can't be so rude.
Zhu Yanyin opened his eyes and looked at Li Sui who was suddenly so close. His long eyelashes were drooping down, covering his dark eyes. There was a little candlelight on the tip, which seemed to be about to fall if he shook it. How to say it, it was so beautiful that it was breathtaking. Anyway, for Zhu Yanyin, there was no one more beautiful than this. Even if he read through thousands of books, he would not be able to find another one.
He pretended not to be nervous and asked, "What are you looking at me for?"
Li Sui replied: "It looks good."
Zhu Yanyin thought to himself, I am good-looking, but you are more beautiful.
Li Sui smiled and lowered his head, continuing to kiss him, kissing him gently and tenderly, making his heart itch. Just now, Second Young Master Zhu had been touching the devil's chest for a long time, but now he returned all his touch. This shows that it is not good to have pajamas that are too soft. If they were replaced with coarse linen that was so rough that it could bleed, he would definitely not be interested in kneading it like this... Hmm.
Li casually stopped at his thin chest and whispered something ambiguously.
Zhu Yanyin's ears felt hot again: Don't listen to anything inappropriate, I'm deaf.
The loyal old butler only received a message saying that his own son would talk with Palace Master Li all night, but he didn't know that this was the way the talk would go. He was still writing letters to the master and the eldest son who were far away in Jiangnan, reporting on the increasingly harmonious relationship between the second son and Palace Master Li.
The candlelight on the table danced cheerfully, making the winter night no longer lonely.
Zhu Yanyin lay among the pillows and quilts, his face flushed, his heart beating fast, his clothes in disarray, and he finally found a tone of indulgence that matched his temperament as a big devil.
Early the next morning, Xu Yunzhong was invited to Zhu Yanyin's room. This time, there were no eight burly men accompanying him, only Li Sui and Jiang Shenglin.
Jiang Shenglin first took Xu Yunzhong's pulse and found nothing abnormal. He then asked in detail about the shape and taste of the pill. There was nothing special about it either. It was white and sweet. Most of the poisons in the world look like this.
Zhu Yanyin speculated: "If even Divine Doctor Jiang can't see it, could it be that Chi Tian deliberately cheated and it's actually just an ordinary sugar pill?"
"It's possible, but we still have to be careful." Jiang Shenglin said, "As for the bottle of medicine that Chi Tian wanted to poison you with, it's actually a poisonous insect. If it stays in the body for 20 to 30 days, it can make people confused and have hallucinations."
"What hallucinations?"
"Most people see wealth and splendor, but some also see gods and Buddhas everywhere. It's hard to say."
Zhu Yanyin was puzzled: "Why did Chi Tian give me this poison?"
Jiang Shenglin explained that hallucinations were only in the early stages. If the poisonous insects were not removed, the person would become increasingly irritable and violent, and even want to kill someone with a knife. This kind of poisonous insect was thinner than a hair and coiled in the brain, so it was extremely difficult to remove it.
Li Sui knocked on the table and reminded: "At least I can force you back to Jiangnan."
Everyone in the world knows how much the Zhu family in Jiangnan values Zhu Yanyin, and they would send thousands of followers to follow him whenever he goes out. If he is poisoned despite such care and becomes crazy and violent overnight, one can imagine how the Zhu family feels about the entire martial arts world.
Zhu Yanyin frowned: "He is afraid of the power of the Zhu Mansion, so he doesn't want me to join this crusade."
"Chi Tian has always been a rat in the gutter." Jiang Shenglin threw the bottle of medicine into the brazier. "For so many years, he has been hiding behind the scenes and doing dirty things. He has long forgotten how to stand on the stage, but his methods are still as cowardly and vicious as before."
Xu Yunzhong was wiping his hands frantically at the side, because he felt disgusted when he thought about how he had been putting the poisonous insects into his sleeves.
Zhu Yanyin said: "We still don't know what Chi Tian's white pill is, so let's just play along and put on a good show."
Jiang Shenglin asked: "How to act?"
Zhu Yanyin glanced at Xu Yunzhong and said, "So the money that Boss Xu gave out a few days ago was also given by Chi Tian?"
"Yes." He always had to pretend to show that he was really trying to get closer to the whole underworld.
"How much is it in total?"
"One thousand taels."
It is not a small amount actually, but Zhu Yanyin said: "If you want to establish a relationship with me and the whole martial arts world, one thousand taels is not enough. It will only make a sound if you throw it into the water."
Xu Yunzhong quickly understood what he meant: "That ugly man also said that when the team passes through Duancheng in a few days, I should go to Taoranting in the north of the city if I have anything to do."
Upon hearing that he could get some money, Zhu Yanyin immediately made a decision: "I'll teach you what to do!"
Once scholars start to indulge in pleasure, they will spend more than one thousand taels, let alone ten thousand taels.
Xu Yunzhong was extremely gifted in this area. With just a little guidance, he could immediately draw inferences from one example and apply it to other similar cases. He first spent a lot of money to invite the chef of Zhu Mansion, and held a grand banquet in the wilderness, inviting many young handsome or beautiful young knights and knight-errant ladies to the banquet. During the banquet, they talked drunkenly, played the piano and recited poems, the fire was burning, and the beautiful talents in Hecheng were fluttering in their sleeves, holding wine glasses and shuttling back and forth. It was a lively scene.
Then he hired servants from the Zhu Mansion and asked them to go to Duancheng to buy a batch of gifts, and then bring them back as fast as possible, and give them to his "good friends" on the same day. As for why they had to go back and forth and couldn't wait in Duancheng, it was of course to burn money faster.
How many people in the world can refuse such a talented man who is interesting, good-looking, literary, and generous? Most people can't, so when the Wulin League arrived in Duancheng, Xu Yunzhong had become the most popular person in the whole team.
Of course, it seems that he has not yet succeeded in hooking up with the Zhu family, because one thousand taels is indeed not enough.
It makes sense.
Taoranting is located in the northernmost part of Duancheng, surrounded by schools and academies, as well as many shops selling the four treasures of the study. Chi Tian chose this place as the meeting point, and it was obviously considered.
Xu Yunzhong went to the appointment alone in a carriage.
There was indeed a man waiting there. He was wearing a dark grey gown, had a thin face and a small mustache.
Xu Caizi thought, with the appearance of a rat digging holes, it would be unreasonable for him not to be a villain.
The bearded man asked, "What's the matter?"
Xu Yunzhong got straight to the point: "I don't have enough money."
After saying this, without waiting for the other party to question him, he took out a large piece of paper from his sleeve, on which were densely listed all the expenses.
The bearded man didn't even look at it. He just held the bill indifferently in his hand. When he unfolded it, it was already in pieces.
Xu Yunzhong: “…” No matter how strong you are, you are still ugly.
"Here's twenty thousand taels." The bearded man threw an envelope over. "The leader has seen everything you've done these days."
Seeing everything, he was still willing to continue giving money, which meant that he was quite satisfied with what he had done? Xu Yunzhong once again had a new understanding of the Demon Cult's mind. In this case, he said, "Maybe it's not enough."
The bearded man was displeased: "Twenty thousand taels is not enough?"
Xu Yunzhong took a quick glance and said, "I plan to buy a few paintings and antiques from the past and send them to the Zhu Mansion. This alone will probably cost at least 50,000 or 60,000 taels. Plus, to maintain relationships with other martial arts sects, 100,000 taels won't be too much."
He had a beautiful face and a cold and arrogant temperament. When he said this, it didn't seem like he was making up stories to ask for money, but rather like he was scolding his son with his hands behind his back. The bearded man didn't ask any more questions and paid the 100,000 taels very readily.
Xu Yunxin was not happy with the extortion, because the Burning Fire Hall didn't look like it was short of money, and how could such an ugly villain live a rich life? But he couldn't extort more money, because he couldn't say that a painting of Gu Kaizhi cost tens of millions of taels of silver, so he could only snort coldly and returned to the inn angrily with the 100,000 taels.
Zhu Yanyin comforted him: "The Burning Fire Hall has killed so many people, so it is impossible for them to tighten their belts for such a small amount of silver."
Xu Yunzhong threw the banknote away and said angrily, "It's meaningless."
"This has to be done step by step." Zhu Yanyin poured tea, "Now that you have the new banknotes, you can do new things. There is a custom in this city to light lanterns during the cold moon, and it happens to be tonight. I heard it is very lively."
Xu Yunzhong's eyes sparkled, and he sat up and asked, "You mean, I should get some gilded gemstone pendants, make a batch of expensive Kongming lanterns and give them to the major sects, and invite them to fly them together?"
Zhu Yanyin was stunned by this wonderful way of thinking. He said, "No, no, I mean you can go out with everyone tonight to relax. It has nothing to do with whether it is gilded or not."
Xu Yunzhong leaned back in his chair with little interest and asked again, "Who is the man I met with today?"
"One of the guardians of the Burning Fire Palace." Zhu Yanyin thought for a while, "The name is a bit difficult to pronounce, I forgot it."
Xu Yunzhong continued, you are right to forget, because an ugly, greasy and vicious man does not deserve to have a name.