swear not to be concubine

Chapter 44

Zhou Yingying was sitting in the Cui Gai Zhulun carriage, closing her eyes and resting her mind.Sitting next to her was her close maid, Wan Cui, she didn't dare to make a sound when she saw this, she just held her breath, hoping that she would be invisible.

But after a while, the carriage that had been driving slowly stopped suddenly, and then the voice of the driver came in through the blue curtain of the carriage embroidered with magnolia flowers: "Miss, you are at the mansion."

Wan Cui turned her head and took a look, and saw that Zhou Yingying was still leaning against the back wall of the carriage with her eyes closed, motionless, so she was quite hesitant for a moment, whether she should wake the girl up or not.

After struggling like this for a while, she finally lowered her voice and called softly: "Girl."

Zhou Yingying didn't respond.

Wan Cui didn't dare to stretch out her hand to push her, so she raised her voice slightly, and called again: "Miss."

This time Zhou Yingying finally had some reaction.

But seeing the long crow-feather-like eyelashes tremble a few times, and then a pair of Qiushui pupils opened.

There was still some confusion in those pupils at first, but after only a moment of effort, they immediately regained their clarity.

Zhou Yingying sat up straight, raised her eyes to look at Wan Cui, and asked, "Go back to the mansion?"

Wan Cui nodded quickly: "Yes. Let the girl get out of the car."

Zhou Yingying nodded, so Wan Cui lifted the curtain of the carriage and got out of the carriage.

The carriage stopped straight in front of the Yimen in the inner courtyard of the Zhou residence.When Wan Cui got out of the carriage, the servant who was driving the carriage had already retreated, and a woman surrounded her and put a horse stool beside the carriage. Then, Wan Cui stretched out her hand to open the curtain of the carriage, and helped Zhou Yingying get out of the carriage. .

It was already evening, and the two camphor trees in front of the door stood quietly in the twilight, a piece of darkness.

Zhou Yingying frowned, and asked, "Why haven't there been lights in the yard yet?"

An old lady at the side replied respectfully: "This is a rule recently set by the eldest wife, saying that the lights in the yard should not be touched until it is completely dark."

After Zhou Yingying heard this, she was speechless for a while.

Wan Cui observed the words and expressions, and asked cautiously: "Girl, shall we go back to the room now, or what?"

Zhou Yingying didn't answer, but turned her head and asked the woman: "Is uncle back?"

"The master came back early today, and he came back at the end of Shen Shi." The woman lowered her eyebrows and answered with a bow, "According to the boy, the master has been staying in the Shuyu studio in the garden since he came back. come out."

Zhou Yingying nodded, then turned around and walked towards the garden.Seeing this, Wan Cui hurriedly followed.

Different from the front yard, the garden was lit up everywhere, making it bright.

From time to time, maids and servants passed by on the road. When they saw Zhou Yingying, they all saluted respectfully, then bowed and stepped aside, letting her go first.

Zhou Yingying walked straight to the door of Shuyuzhai.

Shuyuzhai is a study room, shaded by locust trees at the door, with beautiful green bamboos.

Seeing Zhou Yingying approaching, the maids waiting at the door hurriedly bowed to her, and then a maid immediately went in to announce.

After a while, the servant girl came out and said with a smile: "Master let the girl in."

After finishing speaking, he turned around and opened the soft silk curtain of navy blue plum blossom hanging at the door.So Zhou Yingying took Wan Cui and walked in.

Her uncle, Zhou Yuanzheng, the chief assistant of the court, had a pair of glass mirrors on his nose, and was standing in front of the bookshelf, holding out the books on the grid.

Zhou Yingying blessed her body, and called out with a smile: "Uncle."

Zhou Yuanzheng turned around with a copy of "Song History" in his hand.

He wore a straight body with dark tattoos of sandalwood brocade, and he was about 50 years old.Tall and thin, with a clear appearance, he looks like a scribe.

Seeing Zhou Yingying, he nodded, and asked with an amiable expression: "Are you back? Where did you go today? Are you happy?"

A bead chandelier made by the Inner Palace was lit on the roof of the house, other than that, there was only a gauze lantern lit on the desk, the room was not very bright either.

Zhou Yingying said, "Uncle, your eyesight is bad, why don't you light up a few more lamps?"

One by one, he walked to the flat-topped table next to the window, reached out his hand to grab the torch, and lit the other lamps in the room one by one, then turned around and smiled at Zhou Yuanzheng: "Today Zhao Shangshu's daughter has an appointment. I went to the Zhuangzi on the outskirts of her house together. A large group of people were exhausted from socializing. What’s the fun? That’s all. The Zhuangzi is far away from Jingli Road, so I came back It was so late."

After a pause, she smiled again: "But no matter how late you come back, you still have to come over to say hello to uncle."

Zhou Yuan was stretching out his hand to let her sit, and then he himself sat in the armchair behind the desk, took off the glazed mirror on the bridge of his nose, and then said: "It doesn't matter if you greet me or not? You are tired, just go back Just rest. If this happens again in the future, there is no need to come to greet me again."

Zhou Yingying smiled and agreed.The two chatted a few more gossips, and Zhou Yuanzheng asked her if she had any interesting things recently.

It turns out that every spring day, the ladies in the capital are the busiest.Either you invited me, or I invited you, to come to each other's house to enjoy flowers, or to go out to play together.This is of course because the flowers are in full bloom in spring and the wind is pleasant, which is the most suitable for going out to play. In addition, it is also because the female relatives of the famous and powerful families socialize together, which can somewhat increase the exchanges between the two families. Also extremely beneficial.And someone like Zhou Yingying is not only the niece of the first assistant, but also Zhou Yuanzheng's favorite, and her talent and name are outside, so everyone likes to post and invite her to hang out together.

Hearing Zhou Yuanzheng's question, Zhou Yingying said, "Zuo is nothing more than that. It's nothing more than playing games such as fighting herbs, throwing pots, and taking flower names, or talking about what kind of jewelry is coming out in Beijing. And dresses, it's really boring."

After thinking about it, she smiled again: "Speaking of interesting things, I think of someone."

Zhou Yuanzheng asked: "What kind of person? He can even make you find it interesting, so that person must be not simple."

"She is not simple." Zhou Yingying said in great agreement, "The girl's surname is Jane, she is just a daughter of a merchant, and her status and family background are just that. That day, it was Miss Li from Zheng Guogong's mansion and Wu Kangbo's mansion. Miss Guo invited me to enjoy the peach blossoms in the Taoyuan in the suburbs. When I arrived in the Taoyuan, I happened to meet the female relatives of Xu Shilang’s family who were also enjoying the flowers there. I heard that Miss Jian was a relative of Xu Shilang’s family. At that time, Miss Li and Miss Guo He really looked down on Miss Jian, and taunted her very much in his words. This Miss Jian didn't take it seriously, she just listened with a smile on her face, and didn't answer a word, isn't she a very patient person? Later, Ms. Li proposed to compete with Ms. Jian who could paint better and write better. Ms. Jian was modest at first, saying that she could not draw and her handwriting was ugly. Later, it was probably Ms. Li and Ms. Guo. The ridicule and sarcasm were imminent, so she responded to the challenge. Uncle, you don't know that the painting drawn by Miss Jian is bold and majestic, desolate and majestic, which is not like the handwriting of a boudoir girl. And it is easy to write, Don't let the eyebrows go at all."

"Xu Shilang? Xu Zhongxuan?"

But obviously, Zhou Yuanzheng's focus was not on how good the paintings and handwriting of the Jane girl that Zhou Yingying was talking about.

"That's right. It's that Xu Zhongxuan who was at the top of the third rank at a young age." Zhou Yingying laughed again, "I heard that Xu Shilang is still Uncle's disciple?"

Zhou Yuanzheng nodded: "I happened to be the chief examiner in the year he took the exam, so he wanted to call me a mentor."

After a pause, he said again: "Since you think this girl Jane is interesting, you should get in touch with her more. What's the point of being a merchant's daughter? The most important thing is to be talented and well-educated. Don't rely on others If your status and family background are not as good as yours, you will look down on others."

Zhou Yingying smiled and agreed.The two chatted for a while, and she got up to leave.

After she went out, Zhou Yuanzheng put on the glazed mirror, and spread out the "History of Song Dynasty" that was at hand.It's just that I can't calm down, and the four words of identity and family background are still repeated in my mind.

In the end, he simply put down the book in his hand, and took out a box from the hidden place of the bookshelf.

This small rectangular box is made of golden nanmu, reflecting the light of the red candles in the house, the golden threads can be seen flickering and shining brightly.

Zhou Yuanzheng looked down at the box for a long time, then stretched out his hand to caress the box, and then slowly stretched out his hand to open it.

Inside was just a simple silver hairpin with plum blossoms.It seems that it has been a long time, and the hairpin has turned black.

Zhou Yuan was staring at this silver hairpin for a long time, his eyes were sometimes gentle and tender, and sometimes broken and fine, as if he was thinking of countless things that made him both sweet and sad.

"Mei Niang." He murmured in a low voice, then reached out and picked up the plum blossom hairpin in the box, and looked carefully at the candlelight, as if he wanted to see every part of the plum blossom hairpin clearly. Clearly, deeply engraved into the bottom of my heart.

I think that the beautiful woman was just young and her smile was like a flower, but now she has turned into a piece of loess and has disappeared without a trace.

Zhou Yuanzheng suddenly felt as if a heart in his chest was tightly grasped by someone's hand, the pain was so painful that he almost couldn't breathe.At the same time, the plum hairpin held in his palm was like a red-hot iron, not only burning his palm, but even his heart was being roasted back and forth on the fire together.

He put the plum blossom hairpin into the box as if he was running away, then closed the box, got up and put the box back to its original place.

It's just that the heart in the chest still hurts badly, and the whole body is also very weak.There was only one crisp voice calling Ah Zheng back and forth in his mind, Ah Zheng...

Zhou Yuan's face turned pale, and he stretched out his hands to hold his head tightly, and then he slumped in the armchair like a dead man, unable to move a single inch.

On the other side, after Zhou Yingying left Shuyuzhai, she went back to her own Lan Ruoju.

The house was already brightly lit.The little servant girl saw her daughter came back, and hurried forward to take her coat.Wan Cui ordered a little maid to hurry to the kitchen to get food.

Because the Zhuangzi where I went to play today is a little way away from the capital, Zhou Yingying hurried back all the way, and the dinner was not used yet.

The little maid agreed, saying that the girl's food was ready early in the morning, and it was warming on the stove with hot water, so she went to fetch it now.

Zhou Yingying's Lan Ruoju has her own small kitchen.When you want to eat something on weekdays, you can just ask the servant girl to burn it, which is convenient.

The little maid who went to get the food in the small kitchen came back after a while, holding a round holding box with black lacquer and gold blessing and longevity pattern in her hand, and the two or three little maids who followed in behind also held a holding box in their hands.

The rosewood and mother-of-pearl mother-of-pearl kang table was wiped clean by maids in the room. The little maids each brought the dishes in the holding boxes to the kang table, and then retreated one by one holding the holding boxes.During the whole process of going in and taking the food and putting it on the kang table, there was no sound at all.

Wan Cui helped Zhou Yingying into the inner room, and when she sat on the black lacquered wooden kang, Zhou Yingying saw five-flavored steamed chicken, jade silk belly lung, bad melon and eggplant, pork dragon floss soup, etc. on the kang table Dishes, served with a bowl of hot fragrant rice.

She frowned, and said, "Greasy, who is bothered to eat these?" Then she asked people to withdraw them as they were, and asked if there was anything else to eat?

A little maid came up and replied respectfully: "There is still a plate of mutton crystal corners in the small kitchen, and a plate of butterfly rolls, do you want some?"

Zhou Yingying thought for a while and said, "That's all. Make me another pot of jasmine tea."

The little maid agreed to go.After a while, cakes and tea were delivered, and Zhou Yingying sat on the kang and ate slowly.

These days are actually a time when Bai has nothing to do.Today this family is here to invite, and tomorrow there are several other houses to invite, she is tired of running, so she will simply refer to illnesses from tomorrow onwards, and will not accept posts from other families in the future, otherwise she will run like this all day long , who can stand it?

While she was eating, she was thinking like this, when suddenly she heard a little maid come in to announce that the wife had come.

Before she could say a word, her mother Tao Shi had already walked in.

Tao Shi is less than 40 years old now, although his appearance is only average, but his eyes are soft and gentle.

She wore a water-colored cloak with indigo trim, a dark blue horse-face skirt underneath, and a simple white magnolia silver hairpin on her head, without other accessories.

Seeing her, Zhou Yingying frowned slightly, but she still got up and called her mother.

Dow hurriedly asked her to sit down.Yibi looked down and saw that there were still unfinished mutton crystal corners and butterfly rolls on the kang table, so he frowned a pair of slender eyebrows and asked, "Why do you only have dinner now?"

The voice is just like the person, very soft and moving.

Zhou Yingying was drinking jasmine tea, when she heard this, she said impatiently: "I went to play with Zhao Shangshu's daughter in her family's Zhuangzi during the day, the road is far away, and it will be late when I come back."

"Come back but did you greet your uncle?"

Zhou Yingying also frowned.Although I was extremely impatient in my heart, I still replied: "Please."

"What about your aunt? But did you invite her too?"

Zhou Yingying sneered, and said: "What kind of greetings are you paying her? Even if I greet her again, she won't like me. Whatever I do, I have to go to her and see She gave me a cold face and taunted me with sarcasm? I'm actually a bitch, can't I just post it and scold me? "

Her quick words only made Tao Shi not dare to speak at the moment, just lowered his head, put his right hand over his left hand anxiously, and wiped the back of his left hand back and forth with the thumb of his right hand continuously. .

Her hands are in excellent condition.Even though she was quite old, she was still as white as jade, and her ten fingers were as slender as spring bamboo shoots that had been peeled off.And on the back of the right hand, near the little finger, there was a red mole the size of half a sesame seed, which was very eye-catching.

Zhou Yingying was staring at her hands right now, and the more she looked at them, the more angry her eyes became.

However, Tao Shi was lowering his head now, so he didn't see the anger in Zhou Yingying's eyes.So she thought about it, and finally got the courage to ask, "Mother wants to ask you something. You, you go out with the girls and sons of the rich and powerful families in Beijing every day these days." Youwan, but, is there a young master who can catch your eye? Don't be shy, just say it, and I'll let your uncle tell him..."

Before he could say a word, there was only a loud bang, Tao Shi was startled, and hurriedly looked up.

It turned out that Zhou Yingying threw the teacup in her hand heavily onto the Kang table, and the tea in it splashed all over the table, dripping along the edge of the table onto the Kang table.

"Mom, what do you mean by that?" Zhou Yingying stared at her autumn water eyes, raised her brows, and spoke harshly, "Does mother think that I'm hindering you by staying here? That's why I'm so anxious You want to send me out? Why bother, even if I know about those nasty things you have done all these years, I didn't say a word, I just thought I was deaf, blind, and heard nothing, nothing See, but even so, is mother eager to send me out immediately?"

"No, no, it's not what you think," Tao Shi was frightened by her and stretched out his hands and shook, while explaining hastily, "I, I really think about you. What's the point of staying at home? The left and right are not our own home, and your aunt wants to find fault with you every day. hostess……"

Before he could finish his sentence, Zhou Yingying picked it up.

"I'm still afraid that she will find my fault and find my business? Let her find it. If she has the courage, not only me, but you, as well as the other women in the mansion, have long been given to her by her." Sweeping the floor and leaving the house. It's just a waste of the reputation of a wife. I really think I can be the master of this house? I won't randomly find someone to marry just to leave this dirty house I will never marry again if I don’t find someone who can satisfy me in everything. If that’s the case, my mother won’t have to mention it in the future.”

Tao knew that although Zhou Yingying looked kind on the outside, she couldn't be more stubborn on the inside.Since she said that, no matter what she said, she must not be able to impress her.

Tao couldn't help but sighed, said a few more gossips, then got up and said, "You've been tired all day today, you should take a rest earlier. Mother is leaving first."

Zhou Yingying didn't raise her eyelids, she just hummed and didn't speak.

Seeing this, Tao sighed again, and then slowly walked out of Zhou Yingying's room.

The sky was completely dark, there was a crescent moon in the sky, and there were a few stars.

The servant girl who came with her asked her cautiously: "Madam, are we going back?"

"No, I won't go back," Tao stood in the shadow of the pine wall, shook his head, looked at the crescent moon and the stars in the night sky for a while, lost his mind for a while, then lowered his head again, and said in a low voice He ordered, "Go and ask, see where the master is now, I'm going to see him."

The servant girl agreed, and turned around to ask others.She came back after a while, and said with lowered hands: "The servant has asked. The master is now washing Yuzhai."

"Then let's go to Shuyuzhai."

By the time Tao Shi arrived at Shuyuzhai, Zhou Yuanzheng was already sitting in an armchair, reading a book with a glass mirror on his face calmly.

Seeing Tao Shi coming in, he didn't raise his eyes to look at her, he just stretched out his hand and turned over another page of the book, and then slowly asked: "You came to see me, what's the matter?"

The tone is very rusty.

After hearing this, Tao couldn't tell what it was like in his heart.

She looked up at him.The candles in the room were brightly lit, and one could see a hairpin with white jade bamboo knots on his head.People who are nearly 50 years old don't even have a trace of white hair, and they still have black hair all over their heads.Looking down, it can be seen that he still looks like a thin scribe, not at all like other officials at this age, with a big belly, fat head and big ears, and a greasy smell all over his body.

Xu Shi hadn't heard Tao Shi speak for a long time, Zhou Yuanzheng finally raised his head and looked over.

He squinted his eyes, even though he didn't say anything, Tao Shi still felt a little chilled by his cold eyes.

She hurriedly lowered her head, and said in a low voice: "The concubine came to see the master because of Yingying's business."

"What's wrong with Yingying?" Zhou Yuanzheng folded his hands together, put them on the book, looked at her, and asked indifferently, "She was fine when we chatted with me just now."

Dow considered his words for a while, and then he said slowly: "The concubine is thinking, Yingying is already 16 years old, and she is not young in terms of age. Girls from other families have already reached this age. It's time to discuss marriage. It's just that this child has high vision and stubborn temper, so he can easily look down on anyone, and I can't force her, so I just think..."

Before he finished speaking, Zhou Yuanzheng had already accepted her words: "So you just want to persuade her to let me have time, and then help her pay attention to whether there is any suitable family?"

"Yes, that's exactly what I mean by being a concubine." Tao replied hastily, "I'm going to trouble you, Master."

"You don't need to worry about these things, I will keep Yingying on the lookout for suitable candidates." Zhou Yuanzhengfu lowered his head to read his book again, his tone was light, showing obvious alienation, "If there is nothing else, then you should go ahead Go on down. I don't like being interrupted while I'm reading."

Tao Shi's face was filled with disappointment for a moment, but she quickly suppressed all her emotions in her heart, just saluted Zhou Yuanzheng, and said politely: "That concubine is Take your leave first."

After finishing speaking, he took the maid and turned around to leave the gate of Shuyuzhai.

A crescent moon is still in the sky, and the stars are still twinkling and shining coldly.

Dow walked slowly along the aisle.Suddenly a gust of wind blew up on the ground, and the candles in the lamps on both sides of the road were shaken uncontrollably, casting shadows jumping all over the ground.

She couldn't help but put her hands into her sleeves, looked up at the locust tree branches protruding from the side wall and was whining in the wind. The wind is still so cold.

(End of this chapter)