The Pharaoh’s Concubine

Chapter 20: The right minister who looks familiar

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Time flows quietly like running water. When the double cherry blossoms are in full bloom again, Shaluo, the daughter of Kamo's family, finally ushered in the day of coming-of-age ceremony. As soon as the coming-of-age ceremony was over, several maids came into Shaluo's room, and quickly hung up curtains and curtains in her room.

According to tradition, once an aristocratic woman becomes an adult, she needs to talk to men behind the curtain, even her father and brother. Although Sara's father, Kamo Tadayuki, held the official position of the five officials, he has always been favored by Emperor Murakami, and he is often summoned by the emperor. His status is naturally not low, so Sara has to be like other Like aristocratic women, they were isolated behind the curtain.

But what made her even more depressed than this was—————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————.

"Aqiu, can't you wear a few less?" She asked with a drooping face to the young woman in front of her who was instructing her on various etiquettes.

"Of course not, you are a person of status." Aqiu smiled slightly, and handed her a plain white bat fan, "Also, if you encounter an unexpected situation, you have to use a fan Half cover your face, or use your sleeves, in short, don't let other men see your face easily."

Sha Luo reluctantly took the fan, and covered it casually.

"This is not acceptable, Ms. Shaluo. When holding the fan, the right hand should hold the lower part of the fan so that the tip of the fan is slightly upward; the left hand should be held in the middle, with the thumb on top and four fingers on the bottom." Ah Qiu corrected her posture with a smile.

"Ah, I see." Sha Luo was almost impatient.

"Miss Sha Luo, it was very impolite for you to open your mouth like this just now. Please remember to cover your mouth with a half-open fan; when you are talking and laughing, you should lower your head and cover your lips with a fan."

Sha Luo clutched her fan tightly, her endurance was almost reaching its limit... Sha Luo's mind began to swell under the etiquette explained by Ah Qiu. She looked at Ah Qiu's mouth and didn't listen to anything, just I wonder why she is not tired after talking for so long.

A few days later, at dusk, He Maozhongxing and Baoxian came to her room. Through the bamboo curtain, Shaluo could vaguely see their appearance, but he felt very uncomfortable talking to them like this.

"Shaluo, how are you learning etiquette recently?" Mr. Zhongxing asked with a smile.

"Father, why do you have to learn these boring manners? Sha Luo doesn't want to learn." Sha Luo immediately began to complain.

"How can you not learn, you have passed the coming-of-age ceremony, it's time to get married, and if you let yourself like this, no one will dare to marry you in the future." Bao Xian interjected.

"Your brother is right. Father has always let you go, but now that you have grown up, you should learn the necessary etiquette, understand?" Mr. Zhongxing nodded and said.

"I don't want to marry..." Sha Luo frowned.

"Stupid child, how can you not get married?" Master Zhongxing stood up while talking, "Okay, I still have some things. Baoxian, how about you?"

"Father, Baoxian still wants to say a few words to his sister."

"Alright, but don't stay too long."

Seeing his father leave the room, Sha Luo let out a breath, raised the bamboo curtain, and said sadly, "Brother, I'm about to be tortured to death."

"It looks like you're really lethargic." Baoxian looked at her gloatingly.

"Nonsense, I'm afraid I'll be tortured to death before I get married." She complained weakly.

Bao Xian's evil eyes narrowed, he glanced at her half-seeing, and said with a smile: "Then, tomorrow, I'll take you out to relax, how about it?"

"Really?" Sha Luo regained his spirits immediately, but immediately looked helpless, "But, I have to learn a lot of etiquette tomorrow... You also know that Aqiu..."

Bao Xian smiled even more mysteriously: "Aqiu won't come tomorrow."

"Really?" she asked incredulously.

"Of course it's true. I'll pick you up after Father and Qingming leave." He tapped the fan lightly.

"Qingming? By the way, how is he doing recently?" Hearing his name, Sha Luo asked hastily. During this period, Qingming has been concentrating on learning Yin Yang Art, and the chances of them bickering have been reduced a lot.

"Qingming has been busy learning the Yin Yang art of summoning Shikigami recently, he is indeed a smart boy." Baoxian smiled.

"Brother, will you really take me out tomorrow? Are you so kind?" She asked half-believingly.

"Idiot!" Bao Xian knocked her on the head with a juniper fan, and said, "I'm your brother, if I don't love you, who else will I love?"

"But I heard that my brother has many confidante friends." Sha Luo rolled his eyes.

"Oh hehehe, how can they compare with my Shaluo." Baoxian stood up, smiled and shook his head, "Go to rest early, I will pick you up tomorrow."

In a blink of an eye, he had already left the room, leaving only a faint scent of plum blossoms in the room.

After finally surviving until the next morning, Sha Luo still dubiously believed what Bao Xian said. She waited in the room for a while with great doubts, only to see a maid hurriedly approaching the door, and said at the door: "I'm really sorry, Miss Sha Luo, today Ah Qiu can't go out because he wants to avoid things."

Sha Luo, who grew up in an onmyoji family, is no stranger to this word. Wuji is an act of avoiding "violent parties". According to the theory of Nine Star Qi and Qimen Dunjia, every direction between heaven and earth is guarded by different star gods, such as General, Taibai God, Tianyi God, Jinshen and so on. If you offend the gods, you will be punished with death. Therefore, if you see dead bodies of cats or dogs or filthy things on the road, you should stop what you are doing and go home to pray for the forgiveness and protection of the gods.

Reminiscent of what Bao Xian said yesterday, Sha Luo immediately guessed that it was probably his brother's fault.

Not long after, Baoxian came to pick her up. Of course, Bao Xian denied his sister's suspicion, and just handed her the fan that was smoked with plum fragrance. He knew that his younger sister liked the incense he made very much, so he specially smoked her fan last night.

Not long after, the ox cart passed through the Zhuque Gate and stopped next to the Taiji Hall in Da Nei Li of the Peace Palace. Right.

"Shaluo, brother will be back soon, you have to stay here first..." Baoxian was talking, when a black cat came out from nowhere and jumped onto the bullock cart with a whoosh!

"Cat again!" Shaluo recognized that it was her brother's shikigami. Since she was sensible, it had been helping Baoxian to take care of her, so she was really a little afraid of this cat.

"With cats to accompany you again, you won't be bored anymore." Baoxian put down the curtain and left with peace of mind.

Shaluo raised the curtain and looked out. There seemed to be a row of ox carts parked beside them. Some were simple and some were gorgeous. Most of them had their family crests painted on them. Woolen cloth. Thinking that this place was a place she had never been before, she couldn't help but feel a little itchy in her heart, but as soon as she moved, the cat meowed again in warning.

It's really more annoying than her brother. Shaluo glared at it, and as soon as she moved, the bat fan in her hand slid down. She was about to get out of the car to pick it up, but suddenly heard footsteps coming here, and then unexpectedly Stand still in front of her ox cart.

Through the curtain, a slightly cool astringent fragrance wafted in with a light breeze. Compared with the plum fragrance on my brother, it seemed a little more calm and romantic. Sha Luo vaguely saw a purple figure.

Purple? This seems to be a color that only nobles with high status can use. It's just—why is he standing here? Shaluo looked down, and found that a corner of his willow-colored dress had accidentally leaked out from under the curtain. Oops, he must have found out.

"This fragrance seems to be the incense commonly used by Mr. Baoxian." He said in a low voice, with a bit of gorgeousness in his sexy voice.

Wow, this man has a good nose, he must be able to recognize a beauty by smelling the fragrance, Sha Luo suddenly imagined He Mao Baoxian wearing twelve singles, and couldn't help but burst out laughing.

"Unexpectedly, Mr. Baoxian is hiding here..." He seemed to move a little closer, and his beautiful and gorgeous voice sounded softly outside the curtain: "The spring clouds cover the spring flowers, and the colors of the flowers are hard to see. Only the breeze blows, and the fragrance of the flowers is secretly delivered." .Will I be lucky enough to see suits today?"

Sharo resisted not speaking. For some reason, she felt as if she had heard this voice somewhere before, but she couldn't recall any more information for a while.

"Can you tell me your name?" The man continued to pester unrelentingly.

"Your Excellency, why are you here?" The voice of Baoxian came in time. Sha Luo was overjoyed, his brother appeared so timely! "Lord Baoxian, I don't know who is in the car..." The right minister obviously wanted to ask clearly.

"Oh hehehe, Mr. Right Minister, you have also discovered this." Baoxian smiled ambiguously, bowed his head and whispered in the right minister's ear: "You must keep it a secret."

The minister on the right was taken aback for a moment, then quickly smiled and said: "It turns out that he is the confidante of Mr. Baoxian, then, I will take my leave."

After he left, Bao Xian got into the car.

"Brother, is that person the right minister? He sounds very young." Sha Luo immediately asked curiously.

"That person is the lord's younger brother Yuan Gaoming. I heard that he has a romantic nature. Shaluo can't be fooled by this kind of man." Baoxian obviously didn't like the right minister, so he quickly changed the subject, "My lord father Today I went to Fujiwara Dai Nayan's mansion to do a fortune-telling for him. I'm afraid I won't be back until very late. I can take you around for a while.

It turned out that the so-called distraction was sitting in the car and driving around the streets of the capital, and the constitutional protection did not allow her to get out of the car. Shaluo could only helplessly look at the scenery outside, and before he knew it, the sky gradually darkened.

Just as the ox cart they were riding in crossed Sishao Road and turned into Omiya Road, an ox cart also came by on the side road, followed by a dozen or so young men in white hunting clothes. The two ox carts were not sideways. Meet at the intersection of the street without leaning.

Among the crowd, Shaluo immediately saw Abe Seimei, who stood out from the crowd. In the past few years, Seimei's relationship with other brothers and sisters has never been close, but rather indifferent. This is also easy to understand. As a descendant of the legendary fox, not everyone can easily eliminate the psychological barriers between human beings and aliens, even the onmyoji who often deal with various non-human beings is no exception; The youngest disciple in the lowest row, Qingming's academic talent is far higher than others, so high that it makes all the seniors jealous. Sha Luo quickly thought of another important thing. Since Qingming appeared here, the one sitting in this bullock cart is... "Bao Xian, is that you?" He Maozhongxing's voice came from the bullock cart. When the sound came from the car, Bao Xian sighed helplessly and got out of the car.

When he learned that Sha Luo was also in the car, Mr. Zhongxing was naturally quite angry, and scolded Bao Xian in front of all his disciples.

"Master..." At this moment, Qingming's face suddenly changed, he lowered his head, and whispered a few words beside Zhongxing's curtain.

He Mao Zhongxing immediately raised the curtain, looked in the direction Qingming pointed, and his face immediately changed drastically. He tilted his head and whispered something to Baoxian, and Baoxian's expression immediately changed. Sha Luo also faintly felt a strong demonic aura in his bewilderment. Looking up, he saw something like a gloomy cloud billowing ahead, approaching here.

Mr. Zhongxing glanced at everyone, and said in a calm tone as much as possible: "Tonight we may encounter a hundred ghosts at night. Wait a minute, everyone, please don't make a sound. If the ghost finds out, all of us will die."

Seeing the panic on everyone's faces, he said again in a deep voice: "Bao Xian and I stay here and set up a barrier with me, and you all stay in the barrier. Qingming, go to Shaluo's car and look at her." .”

Qingming responded and got into the bullock cart, sat down beside Shaluo, and said in a low voice, "Don't be afraid."

"With Seimei around, I'm not afraid." Shaluo interjected.

Seimei didn't speak, but a faint smile flashed across his eyes.

There was a complete silence all around, and there was no trace of life in the chill. As the black cloud-like evil spirit gradually approached, the sound of howling ghosts and wolves could be heard faintly, and the howling of the group of ghosts was creepy.

Sha Luo was about to look out through the curtain, but Qingming pulled her back and gave her a look of disbelief.

Just as she was about to speak, she saw that the curtain on the bullock cart was suddenly lifted by a few strands of long black hair that slipped in, and a beautiful woman with fluttering long hair appeared in front of the curtain. But buried the faces of countless different girls! Shaluo was horrified, she thought it was the hair ghost that her brother had mentioned! Fagui, also known as Xiemenji, only eats the face of a virgin, and if she swallows one, she will become younger. Perhaps it was for this reason that she felt Sharo's presence.

At this moment, a warm body quickly and silently covered her body.

Sha Luo opened his eyes in surprise, and it was Qingming's face that came into view. Before she could react, he took advantage of the opportunity and gently pressed her head into his arms.

A scent of frozen lake came to my face. Under him, Shaluo could clearly hear his steady heartbeat and rhythmic breathing, without any disorder. She couldn't believe that Qingming would do such a thing, but for some reason, her heart was rippling away like gentle waves... I don't know how long it took, but the voice of Baoxian came from outside the curtain: " Shaluo, Qingming, the hundred ghosts have left, you two are fine..."

When the curtain was lifted to see the scene in front of him, a trace of surprise flashed across Baoxian's face.

"Brother, we're fine." Qingming had already stood up, with his usual calm face still on his face. "Well, there was a ghost just now, and Qingming wanted to protect me..." Shaluo explained with a blushing face.

Baoxian laughed, "It's fine. Qingming, thank you for protecting my sister."

Qingming turned his face slightly expressionlessly, and said calmly, "Brother, you don't need to thank me. This is what Master ordered me to do." After speaking, he got off the bullock cart and returned to He Maozhongxing's side.

Looking at Qingming's back, Shaluo felt a kind of melancholy that even she couldn't explain clearly. So - what would he do if it wasn't his father's order