When they arrived at the Jiang Family Courtyard, Lian Chen and others who were still living here were very surprised: "Didn't you say you went out of the city?"
"I went to see the concubine and the concubine, and had a conversation with them." Concubine Lian's tomb was buried close to that of Princess Ruan anyway. When Qiu Yilan wanted to talk to Princess Ruan alone, she ordered Su He and others to do the same. I went to clean the tomb of the dowager, and I didn't feel guilty saying this now. "I just remembered on the way back. I was in a daze when I left, and I forgot to tell my uncle."
"Oh, we should go take a look." Lian Chen stroked his long beard, sighed, and said, "Now that Qiu Mengmin's true face has finally been revealed, and the Lu family died in fear of crime, it is natural for you to comfort the spirit of your elder in heaven. …”
Qiu Yilan was stunned: "Mr. Lu died out of fear of crime?"
"This is the final conclusion of the Heavenly Family." Lian Jianhao said with a smile.
Qiu Yilan immediately understood that this must be Empress Jiang's conclusion - she asked: "What about my uncle?"
"Because the two young princes of the Xihe Palace refused to take the throne, the Queen Mother insisted on reinstating Qiu Mengmin as the Xihe King because there was no other blood in the Xihe King family." Lian Jianhai said, "But the Queen punished him separately. Ten years of salary, and all his titles except the king's title were taken away from him... "
At this point, he reminded, "The queen should praise you and comfort you, but you left the city. When did you come back? Have you never been to the palace? I think you may have to express gratitude."
"Thank you, Third Cousin, for your advice." Qiu Yilan nodded, thinking how could Queen Jiang let Qiu Mengmin reset so easily? It seems there must be something inside. She added, "This time I was able to redress my grandmother's injustice. It's thanks to the hard work of you and others who came all the way to prove it."
Lian Chen hurriedly said: "Why are you thanking us? Your grandmother is my sister, shouldn't we speak for you? Over the years, because we are far apart, we have not been able to protect you, and you mother and daughter have suffered. I have suffered so many grievances, so how can I have the dignity to be thanked by you?"
Qiu Yilan naturally hurriedly expressed that the Lian family did have something worthy of her gratitude. After exchanging pleasantries for a while, she turned to the topic: "Although Lu died out of fear of crime, she was my uncle's biological mother after all. Now that she is gone, I'm afraid My uncle doesn’t say anything, but he still has some grudge against me.”
She bit her lip and looked at Lian Chen, "I would like to ask my uncle to give me some advice so that I won't anger him even more in the future."
"That's a problem." Lian Chen glanced at Lian Jianhao and Lian Jianhai and said, "It's a pity that your maternal family doesn't have any female relatives. Now you have to continue to raise her in the palace."
He pondered for a while and said, "How about this? I'll let your two cousins stay and pick up your aunt and them later. They can visit you from time to time. In this case, Qiu Mengmin should avoid being harsh on you openly." ”
Lian Jianhao seemed to want to say something.
Lian Chen glanced at him and said, "What?"
"After Xiang and the others came, although they could often visit their nieces, it was only on the surface after all." Lian Jianhao hesitated, "In addition to Qiu Mengmin, there are only his wives, concubines and children in the Xihe Palace. How can there be any servants?" Why don't you go to the head prince, but to the young princess?"
Qiu Yilan frowned slightly, seeming to be very troubled.
"Then do you have an idea?" Lian Chen asked thoughtfully.
Lian Jianhao said: "After my younger sister became a widow, in order to focus on raising Qian'er, she vowed not to marry again..."
These words reminded Lian Chen, and he said to Qiu Yilan: "Your cousin was carefully taught by your great-grandmother, and she and her husband are both talented and handsome people. It's a pity that your cousin is not blessed, he is twenty years old." I vomited blood after taking the provincial examination, but I didn't make it through. Later, I was ranked third in high school, but it didn't make sense... The two of them only have a daughter named Qingqian, who is one year younger than you. "
The point is, "Your cousin misses the love between husband and wife and her youth. Although she was widowed in her youth, she has no intention of remarrying. At the beginning of last year, the village even built a memorial memorial for her."
The atmosphere in Dali is open, and divorce and remarriage are not new, so there are not many chastity memorials. But the role of the archway is equally huge - although this honest cousin has no official life, because of her chastity archway, the concubine has to be polite when she sees her, and she cannot be treated like an ordinary woman.
The Lian family made this point, and their meaning was very clear: they hoped that Qiu Yilan would take the initiative to ask for Lian's aunt and daughter to come to Beijing and live with her in the palace.
After all, Cousin Lian is the same generation as Qiu Mengmin, and she is Qiu Mengmin's biological niece. As long as she doesn't make any big mistakes, Qiu Mengmin won't be able to do anything to her. Especially since she has the status of a restrained woman, even Princess Yang cannot manipulate her at will.
With this cousin by his side, Qiu Yilan can save herself a lot of private troubles - but who knows if it will cause other troubles
Qiu Yilan has never seen this cousin before. If she is the kind of master who abides by the rules and is almost pedantic, isn't she looking for a pair of shackles for herself? When the time comes to invite people over, it will not be easy to send them away. If you are not careful, even the Lian family will be offended.
So Qiu Yilan said calmly: "Cousin Lian's chastity is really admirable!" without saying anything else.
Seeing this, Lian Chen stroked his long beard and exchanged glances with Lian Jianhao and Lian Jianhai - because before, he felt that Qiu Yilan was not like an ordinary thirteen-year-old girl and was not easy to coax, so now they also Not disappointed, he just said kindly: "Your cousin Lian has a very good temperament, and Qian'er under her knee is also a good child. If she comes to Beijing, you will have more sisters to move around."
"This is really excellent." Qiu Yilan agreed, but that was all.
Lian Chen knew when she saw this. Even though she knew that living alone in the palace would be a lot of trouble in the future, she still didn't want to make a decision without meeting this aunt of the Lian family.
So he stopped mentioning this matter and turned to other things: "I heard that the heirs and grandsons of General Ruan won the apricot list this time. It is very gratifying and congratulatory!"
Sure enough, relatives with top academics can be famous everywhere - because he is his cousin, Qiu Yilan does not need to be humble on behalf of Ruan Qingyan, so he smiled and said: "Cousin Ruan is indeed very talented."
"I heard that General Ruan is the youngest among the tributes in this department." Lian Ding, who was standing next to him and had been afraid to speak, couldn't help but added with bright eyes, "I'm ashamed to say that I am younger than General Ruan." He’s two years old and he’s not even a scholar yet!”
Lian Jianhai snorted: "You unworthy man, how can you compare with General Ruan?"
Qiu Yilan secretly lamented the world's situation: Jiang Yashuang was the direct son of Jiang Banchao's family, and his father, General Zhenbei, held a heavy army, so even though he was just a white man, when he came out, he was respectfully called "Little General Jiang".
Ruan Qingyan, who is also a descendant of the general and the only grandson of General Ruan, passed the imperial examination, and everyone remembered that there was actually a general behind him.
Lian Chen settled the matter and told Lian Jianhai not to lecture him any more, and said to Qiu Yilan: "I'm afraid there will be a lot of visitors to General Ruan's house in the past few days. You lived there before, but now you don't know how convenient it is." inconvenient?"
Qiu Yilan said: "On the day when the court meeting ends, I will take the people back to the palace."
"Then you have to be more careful." Lian Chen frowned and said, "You must be on guard against others... After all, your uncle is the prince now. Alas, it's a pity that we left in a hurry and didn't have time to bring the women with us, otherwise I would have kept you here."
"Uncle, don't worry. It's only been a few days since Lu committed suicide in fear of guilt. Even if my uncle is angry with me for this, he doesn't dare to do anything to me so soon. Otherwise, wouldn't he be too contemptuous of the Queen?" Qiu Yi Lan smiled slightly and said, "I came today, but I have something big to do, and I want to ask my uncle to make the decision!"
Lian Chen asked in surprise: "What is it?"
"You know that I am the only living flesh and blood of my grandmother and mother-in-law." Qiu Yilan sighed, "Ordinarily, their dowry should also belong to me - it's not that I am greedy for wealth, but this elder's How can the things left behind be given away like ordinary things? It happened that my mother-in-law was seriously ill, and my aunt and aunt took the opportunity to take away a lot... I am very worried. Outsiders don't know this, and they think I don't care about my grandmother and my wife. Keep your mother’s things at heart!”
When the Lian family heard this, their expressions changed and they said: "This is not a matter of greed for money. No one can get involved in a woman's dowry except her own flesh and blood! This is a rule that has been established since ancient times and is also written in the Darui Law. ! How come the palace not only disobeys the concubine, but also takes away the concubine’s things?”
Lian Ding was very angry and said: "Grandpa, they don't even pay attention to my aunt's wishes. They welcomed the Lu family to the palace to support them for more than ten years. How could they not touch my aunt and Aunt Ruan's things! Such things! I’m really bullying Cousin Qiu!”
"How many things did they take away? Have you seen the list?" Although Lian Chen's face was not very good-looking, he was not very anxious - it was clear at a glance who was right and who was wrong. As a reasonable person, he felt Actually, I’m not very worried. Anyway, the Xihe Palace is still there. If it’s gone, just ask them to compensate!
As a result, Qiu Yilan said helplessly: "That's the problem. I haven't seen any of the dowry lists of the concubine and the concubine. When I asked the people in front of the concubine, they said they didn't know. I originally suspected that my aunt was cheating on me. Maybe my aunt and others took it, but these two asked me for it before! I don’t know if it’s true or not, but they didn’t take it?”
"It's nothing." Lian Chen frowned after hearing this, then relaxed his brows and hummed, "Our family also has a list of the dowry when the concubine leaves the cabinet! Although there is no list this time I didn’t take it with me as I expected this, but I’ll just send a message back to get it.”
"I'm just afraid of the road..." Lian Ding couldn't help but remind him.
Thinking of the flashes of swords and shadows along the way, as well as the dead soldiers of the Jiang family who died in front of him, Lian Chen couldn't help but feel ashamed!
Qiu Yilan rushed over to discuss the matter with the Lian family, because she was afraid of this - the Jiang family had already sacrificed many people to escort the Lian family and Xin to the capital. Even though the Jiang family had a great business, they were not summoned beasts and did not offer help. Just help.
And even if Queen Mother Gu no longer interferes with the dowry list, the Lian family can't compete with the Xihe Palace.
She was about to say that both Qiu Mengmin and his wife were "sick" now, so why not take advantage of this situation to go back quickly... But Lian Jianhai said: "Didn't Ding'er say that he saw Qiu Xia in Beijing two days ago?"
"That's right!" Lian Ding couldn't help but exclaimed after hearing this, "Why have you forgotten Qiu Xia? If Qiu Xia is willing to take action, as long as it's not as difficult and dangerous as when we came back, I think everything will be fine!"
Qiu Yilan said in astonishment: "Qiu Xia?"
"He is a Jianghu traveler." Lian Jianhao explained, "It seems that he also came from a scholar's family. Later, for some reason, he stopped taking the right path and accidentally entered the Jianghu..."
"Second uncle, Qiu Xia said that a real man should read thousands of books and travel thousands of miles." Lian Ding seemed to admire the so-called "Qiu Xia" and actually argued with Lian Jianhao in public, "Qiu Xia is still young. How does the second uncle know whether he will retake the imperial examination in the future? Moreover, Qiu Xia is bold and unruly, has traveled thousands of miles, and has done countless chivalrous things. According to my nephew, he is better than many scholars..."
Lian Jianhai frowned and said: "Shut up! Who allows you to be disrespectful to your second uncle!"
Lian Jianhao said he had nothing to do - Lian Chen was too lazy to pay attention to the little things of the juniors and said directly to Qiu Yilan: "A few murders happened in Lanxi a few years ago. After the criminals were identified, the government officials went to arrest them, but they had already gone away. ! The family members of the murdered family naturally refused to let it go. After being introduced, they invited this person from the south - he was indeed a man of great reputation. He actually delivered the murderer's head to the Yamen within a month. What is even more commendable is that he will pursue the murderer. The bounty obtained by returning the criminal's head was divided among the families who were killed, but he only took a small amount and left!"
Lian Ding said excitedly: "He has been to our house!"
"Your second cousin guessed that he came from a scholar's family and was here. That time he quietly posted a message on our door and borrowed books from our family to read for a few days." Lian Chen stroked his long beard and said, "So there is something wrong Old love... This person has a great reputation as a chivalrous person in the world, and his martial arts skills are said to be extremely high. If you get his help, you can really rest assured... It's just... "
Qiu Yilan asked curiously: "Just what?" Suddenly a wild hero came out, and she really wanted to look at it!
"It's just that this person's origin is unknown." Lian Chen muttered, "Qiu Xia is the honorific name given to him in the world. It is said that when he first debuted, someone asked him his name in a restaurant when Xiao Xiao was under the falling tree. He looked at There are endless fallen trees outside the railing, and the word "Autumn Wind" is spoken casually. There is only one copy of the dowry list, just in case it is entrusted to someone else..."