After Cao Jingren finished speaking, not only Zhou Jinjin, but also Tang Zibo and the masked man subtly breathed a sigh of relief.
Looking at Zhou Jinjin's stupid and fat face, Cao Jingren felt from the bottom of his heart that it was a waste for this painting to fall into his hands. He glanced at the picture scroll again, and said in a calm voice, "Ding Maoxue was alive, if someone had bought it like Zhou Langjun, he would not have died of poverty."
Zhou Jinjin grinned his plump lips, and regretfully said: "Life is full of regrets everywhere." He paused, and humbly asked for advice like a studious student, "It's just that I don't understand why he has to ask a question. Is there a poem chanting plums next to it?" Could it be that he was dizzy from hunger
Cao Jingren said: "This poem is not inscribed by Ding Maoxue."
Zhou Jinjin was surprised and said, "Oh? Then who did such a foolish thing?"
Cao Jingren gave him a disdainful look: "It's really not speculative."
Zhou Jinjin: "..."
So he hates scholars, more sour than the vinegar in their jars. He still doesn't want to marry his eldest daughter to him.
After a lot of tossing, the famous painting is finished. Zhou Jinjin put "Magnolia Spring" back into the brocade set and put it beside him, letting the Kucha band continue to play. The cheerful music sounded again, Liu Qinghuan slightly hooked her lips, and spun around again.
Perhaps stimulated by famous paintings, the atmosphere in the hall was even warmer than before. Zhou Jinjin also beat the edge of the table with his folding fan to the sound of the dance music, and finally stood up from his seat, went to the hall and danced to the music.
Zhou Jinjin was originally a plump and fat man, but at this time he danced unexpectedly flexibly. He danced in the hall for a while, then spun around in front of Liu Qinghuan. Trying to match Liu Qinghuan's twirling dance steps, he picked a gap and winked at her: "Little lady, are you willing to marry me as the fourteenth concubine?"
Liu Qinghuan's brows twitched, her eyes were crooked and she pretended not to understand Chinese: "Shan Shan Mani Ulala!"
Zhou Jinjin frowned, and after turning around again, asked with difficulty: "You don't know Chinese?"
Liu Qinghuan continued to say in a high-pitched voice: "Alumni Celibala is so cute!"
Zhou Jinjin: "..."
Being unable to speak the language of the beauty, Zhou Jinjin had no choice but to give up communicating with her, and planned to communicate directly with her boss after the banquet was over.
After throwing a wink at Liu Qinghuan, Zhou Jinjin turned around and left. He stopped at a friend's table and asked him to dance with him. The friends were not restrained, and left their seats readily, and twirled and pedaled together with Zhou Jinjin. The atmosphere of the banquet suddenly became extremely cheerful, and the sound of playing music in the hall was even more enthusiastic than before.
In this way, one person invited one person, but in the blink of an eye, almost everyone left the table to dance, and the protagonist "Anaye" was pushed aside instead.
Liu Qinghuan saw that everyone was looking at her having fun, and no one was still looking at her, so she got lazy, Hu Xuan danced more and more slowly, and became more and more perfunctory.
A maid with a cloud bun came up from the back hall, holding a glass plate in her hand, on which were filled with crystal clear pomegranate seeds, the bright red color was very attractive.
Liu Qinghuan pursed her somewhat dry lips, and slowly turned in circles towards the maid. The maid walked to Zhou Jinjin's master's table, turned her back and put the glazed plate on the table. After Zhou Jinjin left the table, the rolled "Magnolia Spring" was still placed next to his seat. Liu Qinghuan's eyes flickered, and she stared straight at the back of the maid.
The maid stayed in front of Zhou Jinjin's seat for a while, then left the main hall empty-handed. Liu Qinghuan glanced at the seat, and the pair of "Magnolia Spring" was placed there intact. She subconsciously glanced at Tang Zibo and the masked man, and found that their eyes were also on the pair of "Magnolia Spring".
The singing and dancing in the hall was in full swing, few people noticed that a maid came in just now, Liu Qinghuan took advantage of the opportunity to turn around, and quickly looked around the hall. There are only two people in the hall who are still sitting in their seats, one is a young talent who appraises the authenticity of paintings, and the other is Tang Zibo.
Liu Qinghuan turned around again, quickly grabbed a few pomegranate seeds and put them in her mouth.
Well, it's so sweet.
But the moment she turned around, she saw the masked man put down the instrument in his hand and sneaked out of the main hall.
Although the masked man left the main hall from a different direction from the maid, after leaving the main hall, he quickly chased in the direction the maid left. He has long legs and good martial arts, and he saw the goose yellow back in front of him within a few steps of chasing him.
He slowed down, quietly avoided the servants of Zhou Mansion, and quietly followed behind the maid. The maid walked in a hurry all the way, as if someone was chasing her. He followed the maid all the way to the back door of the Zhou Mansion, seeing the maid suddenly turned her head to look, and quickly moved aside.
The maid seemed to be worried that someone would follow her, so she looked carefully before turning around and opening the wooden door. A man in gray clothes stood outside the door, he seemed to have been waiting for a long time, when he saw the maid came out, he eagerly greeted him: "How is it?"
The masked man hiding aside squinted his eyes. He recognized this person as Tang Zibo's subordinate. It seemed that this maid was also Tang Zibo's internal agent who had been placed in the Zhou mansion long ago.
The maid nodded at the man in gray, and took out a medium-sized scroll from her wide cuff: "This is it, I used the one prepared by the master and dropped it."
The man in gray took the scroll and opened the brocade cover. When the scroll was unfolded, it turned out to be the "Magnolia Spring" that Zhou Jinjin had just shown in the hall.
The man in gray looked at the painting in his hand for a while, then asked worriedly, "Is it true?"
The maid said: "It's not wrong, Cao Jingren himself said that this is the real work."
The three words Cao Jingren seemed to reassure the man in gray. He put away the scroll and said to the maid: "I will send someone to inform the master that you leave as soon as possible."
The maid nodded and said nothing, and gently closed the back door.
After the maid walked away, the masked man climbed over the courtyard wall lightly, and followed the gray-clothed man in front again. The man in gray turned a corner and entered another alley. There were three people around the alley, who were talking about something. When they saw the man in gray coming, they all walked up. The man in gray whispered something to one of them, and the man nodded and left. The man in gray didn't stop there, and walked in another direction.
The remaining two men continued to stand in the alley talking as if nothing had happened.
The masked man thought for a while, passed the man in gray silently, then adjusted his collar and hat at the next corner, and bumped into the oncoming man in gray.
Because both parties were walking very fast, and the man in the mask was very tall, the man in gray was directly hit by him and sat on the ground. The painting carefully packed in the brocade case also rolled out of his arms.
"Sorry." The masked man walked forward quickly, instead of helping the man in gray, he went to pick up the scroll that fell on the ground.
"Don't touch it!" The gray-clothed man suddenly shouted, and the masked man innocently spread his hands and moved away from his tall body.
The painting is still lying on the ground.
The man in gray quickly got up, picked up the painting and stuffed it into his arms, staring at the tall man opposite him defensively. In order to show that he did not have any malice, the masked man took two steps back and apologized again in jerky Chinese: "I didn't mean it."
The man in gray looked at him for a while, turned around and walked out of the alley without entangled with him. After walking a few steps, he worriedly took out the painting in his arms and opened it to have a look. It was still the same "Magnolia Spring".
"Huh—" the man in gray exhaled lightly, put away the scroll and continued on his way.
The masked man was still standing at the entrance of the alley just now, and only after hearing the footsteps of the man in gray go away, he pulled out a scroll from the wide bearded coat. He curled his thin lips and opened the scroll, and on the painting was a magnolia as white as jade.
The moment he blocked the gray-clothed man's sight with his body just now, he had already lost the two "Magnolia" paintings.
The sound of dancing and music in the main hall of the Zhou Mansion was still lively, Liu Qinghuan lazily turned around and ate a few sweet pomegranate seeds. A man walked in at the door, leaned over and whispered something in Tang Zibo's ear. Tang Zibo suddenly had a faint smile on his face, and he seemed to be in a very happy mood.
Liu Qinghuan turned around again, and after sweeping her gaze over Cao Jingren's clear face, she found that the masked man who had left the table also returned to the main hall at this time. Coincidentally, there was a faint smile in his eyes, as if something good happened.
Liu Qinghuan curled her lips, grabbed a few more pomegranate seeds and quickly put them into her mouth.
Just when everything looked wonderful, there was a sudden commotion at the door. The noisy voice became louder and louder, and gradually overwhelmed the sound of dancing and music in the hall. Zhou Jinjin stopped her enchanting dance, frowned and looked out the door: "What's so noisy? Don't you know I'm entertaining guests!"
Before the servants of the Zhou Mansion had time to kneel down and apologize, a group of disheveled people suddenly appeared in the courtyard outside the main hall, rushing up like a tide.
The sound of dancing and music in the main hall also stopped due to this sudden change, and all the distinguished guests in the hall looked at the group of unexpected guests with different expressions. However, the uninvited guests didn't seem to notice the scorching gaze, and just stared viciously at the Kucha band kneeling beside them.
As if they met each other's eyes, the leader suddenly pointed and shouted in a more vicious tone: "They are pretended by Zoroastrians! We are the real Kucha band!"