The golden morning light dissipated the blue sky, spreading from the city over the densely packed houses and buildings, shining into the window frames of the distant mansions and villas, and sprinkling on the desk with open pages of books.
Oh... Oh oh ah—
The cocks crowed loudly, and the Min Mansion gradually became lively with the noise of people. A woman in a long skirt that dragged on the ground walked through the corridor with a maid carrying porridge and cakes. After passing the crescent gate, they saw from afar a scholar setting up his easel and painting under an old tree in the courtyard.
"Mr. Lu."
Min Yuerou took the tray from the maid, carried it over with lotus steps, put it on the stone table, and tilted her head to look at the spread out scroll. Under the upright camphor tree with lush branches and leaves, there was an old man holding a scroll, reading with his eyes closed, bathed in the mottled sunlight.
I couldn't help but ask, "Mr. Lu, this is Lord Shuhua, right?"
Lu Liangsheng nodded. He had also seen this young lady from the Min family when the old man was alive. Speaking like this was nothing more than giving her a pretext for the conversation.
Sure enough, Min Yuerou suddenly came over with a smile on her face, stood opposite the easel, raised her arms, turned around on the spot, and her skirt fluttered in the wind.
"Well, can you draw me a picture? I want to see what it will look like on paper."
"Heh..."
Lu Liangsheng chuckled, drew the final stroke of his mentor's portrait, and then covered the painting with a blank canvas.
"Then you just stand there and don't move."
"Um!"
Min Yuerou folded her arms, pursed her lips to reveal a hint of a smile, intertwined her fingers and hung them in front of her abdomen, and leaned forward slightly, as if giving a slight blessing.
The wind blew through the camphor tree, and the branches and leaves rustled.
Sunlight shone through the window. The Toad Taoist walked out of the bookshelf, stretched lazily, kicked Wang Banxia who was still sleeping soundly, got down from the end of the bed, jumped on his two short legs, climbed up the legs of the desk, shook off the dense bumps on his back, hummed a little tune, and walked to the window frame and curled up.
"I got up early this morning. How can anyone be relaxed? I am the most relaxed one..."
Standing still, but moving his limbs in one direction, the Toad Taoist continued humming a tune, looking at his disciple sitting outside in front of the easel, and the woman standing opposite him without moving, and continued humming.
"... and my good disciple, he is destined to be a romantic... That girl... You can tell at first glance that she is not from a good family, ugh... You can tell at first glance that she is a woman of long-lasting love~~~"
After basking in the sun for a while, I closed my eyes and stopped looking at the man and woman over there.
…As long as I don’t go to the northwest and don’t run into that white wolf, it would be fine if I could live a leisurely life like this.
Outside the window, amid the rustling of leaves of a camphor tree, Lu Liangsheng looked at the affectionate woman, then glanced away from the painting, with his pen outlining the graceful figure under the old camphor tree, her long skirt fluttering, lightly embellished, her black hair tied up high, her bun adorned with gold hairpins and jade beads, in the house behind, the window lattice was open, and there was a long painting on a bookshelf.
Half an hour later, Lu Liangsheng put down the last stroke and blew gently onto the painting.
In an instant, a gust of wind blew, and not far from Min Yuerou, a woman's figure appeared out of nowhere. In the sunlight, she bowed to Lu Liangsheng from afar.
The woman in the painting walked out, causing Min Yuerou to cover her mouth and look at the scene in surprise.
"Mr. Lu... am I alive in this painting?"
I subconsciously reached out to touch it, but the 'Min Yuerou' in the painting quickly dodged backwards, with an expression so lifelike that it was hard to tell whether it was real or fake.
"Liangsheng!"
At this moment, Min Changwen's voice suddenly sounded outside the Crescent Gate. Lu Liangsheng put down his pen and stood up, and saw an old man in an official robe, walking quickly into the courtyard with a hurried look.
Judging from his appearance, Lu Liangsheng thought that he must have rushed back from the morning court and did not even have time to change out of his official robe in the backyard. Thinking of this, he went up to him and bowed.
"Mr. Minister, what's wrong?"
The illusion disappeared, Min Yuerou also stopped smiling and stepped forward, bowing to her father: "Dad, what happened? Go sit over there and tell me slowly."
Min Changwen walked to the stone bench and sat down, took a breath and said.
"Something unexpected happened in the war in the north..."
As soon as these words were spoken, the Toad Taoist who was basking in the sun by the window suddenly opened his eyelids, slightly raised his upper body and listened. After a moment, Min Changwen's next words came over.
"… The Great Khan of the Turkic Khan Shaboluo personally led 100,000 troops to the south. The battles in various places of the Great Sui Dynasty were just his cover. He kept his troops in place, looking for the weak points in the front line, and let him find the place defended by Daxi Changru. Only 700 of the 3,000 elite soldiers were left, leaving 200 people to cover the rear, and then he broke out. There were fires all along the way. The Second Prince has led 30,000 troops from the capital to rescue…"
As the old man was speaking, he did not notice that the scholar who was standing beside him and listening quietly had turned around and left. He walked into the room calmly, took the bookshelf and put it at the door.
The father and daughter heard the donkey's braying and hoofbeats before they reacted. Min Yuerou quickly asked, "Mr. Lu, what are you doing?"
"Nothing, I just spent some time here, it's time to go out for a walk."
The bookshelf put the old donkey's buttocks away, Lu Liangsheng replied calmly, took the master from the window frame, put him into the small door of the compartment, and whispered: "Master, tie the rope."
He took the reins, bowed to the old man and said goodbye. Without waiting for Min Changwen and Min Yuerou to say anything, he disappeared outside the crescent gate in the blink of an eye.
"Dad, where is Mr. Lu going?"
The woman lifted her skirt and ran a few steps, but the man was no longer in sight. She turned around and looked anxiously at her father under the camphor tree. The old man sighed, sat back on the stone bench, and looked towards the north.
"He is going to the north. I thought there would be no accidents in the war, so I forced him to stay here for a while. Alas, it seems that it is my fault."
The war in the north suddenly changed, and the old man only learned about it this morning. By now, the news has spread throughout the city, spreading like an electric arc.
In the mansion with the word "Yuwen" written on the door plaque, the usually calm Yuwen Tuo accidentally broke a vase. Looking at the broken pieces on the ground, he was extremely anxious. After thinking for a while, he took the magic sword given by his master in the room and was about to go out, but he stopped in the middle of the courtyard.
Lu Liangsheng's voice faintly rang in my ears.
"You are from the royal family of the previous dynasty. You must not act rashly without the emperor's order. Otherwise, you will cause trouble! I will go to Yuanfeng in person."
The magic sound entered Yuwen Tuo's ears for only a moment, and he calmed down. He clenched his teeth and slowly relaxed. He stood for a long time before returning to the house. He slammed the magic sword on the table, looked at the bright morning sun outside, and slammed it again.
"I hope you are alright, Junior Brother."
…
The sun passed through the clouds and extended to the north. Looking down from the clouds, the Turkic cavalry rushed to the south with long smoke billowing. On the field behind them, the advancing infantry phalanxes, to the sound of desolate trumpets, launched a final encirclement of the small group of Sui people who were struggling to death.
Shaboluo urged his horse to the top of the hillside. He could see the group of Sui people in the distance, now less than a hundred people, who were still resisting stubbornly and trying to hold him back.
"High Shaman, do you see that these Sui people are using witchcraft?"
Beside him, a black warhorse pranced forward slowly. On the horse's back was a man in a robe patched with animal skins. He had a big beard and hawk-like eyes, staring in the direction the Great Khan was looking.
"The Khan does not need to worry about the cultivators of the Southern Dynasty. He is no match for anyone below the White Wolf God."