Chapter 43 The hidden corner

There was drought in Henan and Shanxi. There were rumors that it was because the Empress Dowager Cixi was too harsh, so God punished her.

The people in the court naturally didn't take the rumor seriously, thinking it was fabricated by the subordinates, and asked the governor of the corresponding prefecture to eliminate the rumors and avoid the controversy.

"People have already starved to death, but the government still hasn't heard the news. I think they probably don't want to report it, and let the Ministry of Justice take care of it." The person who was talking to Mr. Li was Jiang Chunsheng, a wealthy businessman from Jinling. He had a beard and a medium build. His eyes were bright and lively under his thick black eyebrows. Although his eye bags were sunken, his body was straight.

He stood like a pine tree, with his legs fixed on the ground. His hind legs were slightly bent and pointed forward. He looked like a man who had practiced martial arts, and his every move was full of masculinity.

Li Daoxuan had heard his story from Master Li. It was said that he started out by driving donkeys. By chance, he got the treasure left by the Taiping Army and became rich. He was nicknamed "Jiang the Donkey".

However, these words were mostly meant as a joke. Now looking at Jiang Chunsheng, he is a decisive person and a well-known wealthy businessman in Jinling.

Mr. Li was chatting with someone and called Li Daoxuan in to introduce him to everyone. Someone asked Li Daoxuan if he had ever read a book, and he said he had.

He just joked that he read those books just to test him.

Li Daoxuan told the other party about the scriptures he had read, and when he heard that they were Taoist scriptures, he stopped talking. This caused the onlookers to burst into laughter, and they all said that he was overestimating his own abilities.

The guests did not have to wait long before a servant came to invite them in for tea. The guests responded in groups of two or three and walked into the royal courtyard. Upon entering the courtyard, they saw a sunshade carved with a blue dragon, and on both sides were bronze statues as tall as a person.

Li Daoxuan and his elder brother walked in the crowd, surrounded by guests and merchants with pigtails and hats. There were even officials wearing official uniforms and flower feathers on their heads.

Looking at his clothes, there were embroidered pheasants, peacocks, tigers and leopards. Li Daoxuan asked his elder brother in a low voice, and then he knew that the peacock was a third-rank official, and the pheasant was a second-rank official.

Officials and merchants were two separate groups, and they seldom interacted with each other. Even though officials were superior and merchants were inferior, even Master Li bowed respectfully to those officials embroidered with birds and beasts.

I had never seen so many people at the last banquet, and I never thought that so many people would come today. This shows how prosperous the Wang family is, and I am afraid that few families in Jinling can match it.

These people naturally had nothing to do with Li Daoxuan. After all, the Li family still had his father and elder brother, and these two were responsible for handling diplomatic matters. The seats were arranged according to their status, and the inner and outer courtyards of the Wang family were full of people. Young masters and masters, who were rarely seen on weekdays, appeared in large numbers at this time.

Mr. Li was not qualified to go to the inner courtyard, so he took the two of them and sat down in the guest room of the outer courtyard hall.

Li Daoxuan was curious about the birthday banquet of this wealthy family. He saw maids and servants coming and going, and they were holding gold, silver and porcelain in their hands. It was said that the sandalwood used to warm the masters was a product of the former Ming nobles, and the porcelain bowls for rinsing mouths were also made of high-quality blue and white porcelain.

The best tea leaves are selected for making tea. I heard from Master Li that it is girls' tea. The leaves should be picked in the early morning when they are the tenderest. An unmarried girl should pick them up with her mouth. Then they are stir-fried in dew water, and only a few taels of tea leaves are obtained.

Therefore, this tea is expensive and ordinary people can hardly afford it.

He called a servant who was in charge of making tea, and he brought a kettle with a long spout and made a gesture to pour it into the teacup. The tea was swirling, and the smoke rose up like a cloud dragon carrying fog, which immediately attracted a round of applause.

There is a saying in the tea brewing world that only when the tea mist is like a dragon can it be considered a truly top-grade tea.

Li Daoxuan took a sip and felt that it was just so-so. It didn't have the fragrance that others talked about, nor did he taste any sweetness. Perhaps he didn't understand these elegances, and could only chew peonies like a cow, and couldn't eat this girl's tea.

A few more plates of cakes were served, and Li Daoxuan ate two to fill his stomach, then sat in this room in a daze. He couldn't go anywhere else, and Master Li and his elder brother wouldn't let him run around. One reason was that they were afraid of offending the nobles, and the other was that they were afraid that he would get into trouble. So it would be better for him to sit in this guest room and wait for the birthday banquet to start.

Li Daoxuan didn't care. He could pass the time by sitting quietly with his eyes closed. He just didn't know whether he drank too much water or ate too much cakes and had an upset stomach. His stomach gurgled and he felt pain.

He held his stomach and told Master Li about this, then called the Wang family's servant to take him to the toilet.

He followed the servant in small steps, resisting the discomfort and going to the toilet in the backyard. Turning left and right, he arrived at a place with beautiful scenery. The servant pointed to the toilet with red walls and green tiles not far away and smiled at Li Daoxuan, "The guest goes first, and I will wait here."

After thanking the servant, Li Daoxuan ran inside, holding his stomach and holding his butt. He hurriedly took off his pants and squatted down, and then he felt the world open up and the wind was soothing. He could vaguely hear the voice of a person, but it disappeared soon. He didn't care much and squatted there quite happily.

After finishing the job, Li Daoxuan picked up the toilet token at hand, scraped it clean, then rinsed it a few times in the basin of water prepared by the host, then pulled up his trousers and left.

Although he has been in this world for a long time, there are still many lifestyles that Li Daoxuan cannot adapt to for a long time. The toilet token is one of them, but there are few other choices.

After leaving the toilet, I looked around and found that the servant who was supposed to be waiting for me was nowhere to be seen. There was no one in the huge yard.

Li Daoxuan was a little dumbfounded. After all, the Wang family's house was not small. If there was no acquaintance to pull him out, it would be difficult to find the place. He tried to shout a few times, but no one answered. Seeing the sun slowly moving westward, he calculated that he had been out for some time.

He walked out according to his memory of how he came here, turning left and right until he arrived at a secluded courtyard.

The courtyard was eerily quiet, with two stone lions at the door staring at him. It was rare to see stone lions in an inner courtyard. Li Daoxuan saw that there was no way to go left or right, so he had to bite the bullet and walk in.

The yard is not big, and there is a water tank in the middle.

There are weeds growing in the cracks between the stone slabs, and it's obvious that no one has cleaned them up for a long time.

There were spider webs on the tiles of the two houses, which made people feel abandoned. Footsteps echoed softly in the yard, but no one answered.

This place seemed to be very far away from the Wang family's main courtyard. Li Daoxuan could only hear the faint sound of firecrackers from a distance.

I looked at a house with some curiosity, but found that it was blocked by paper windows, and I couldn't see the scene inside clearly. This house was not like the main hall of the Wang family, which had windows full of bright and luxurious tiles. It was just window paper, and the color was also different. The lighter one was obviously replaced later.

"Curiosity kills the cat." Li Daoxuan thought. Although this courtyard looked uninhabited for a long time, the window paper was intact, which was very strange. After all, the paper used to paste the windows during this period was mostly a kind of "Dongchang paper". Although it was solid and tough, transparent and not easy to break, it normally needed to be replaced once a year. Therefore, he guessed that this quiet place might not be a simple abandoned courtyard. But no matter what it was used for, it had nothing to do with him.

Just as he was about to leave, he heard footsteps coming from outside the yard. Li Daoxuan was already in an unfamiliar environment, and he felt something was a little unusual. He was startled when he heard the footsteps, and he didn't care what secrets were hidden here. He jumped hard, jumped onto the roof, and hid under the cover of the eaves.

The footsteps were getting closer and closer. With the cover of the eaves, Li Daoxuan held his breath. He vaguely saw a young man in a red coat walking towards him. Although he couldn't see his face clearly, he knew he was a young man because of his green and strong fingers.

Just as I was wondering who this person could be, I saw him push open the door and walk in. When the door was closed, a gloomy male voice came from inside the house.

"My dear brother, are you adapting here?"

(End of this chapter)