Chapter 52 Chapter 52 Lantern Festival

On the night of Shangyuan, the emperor will climb up to the tower of Xuandemen, overlook the sea of ​​lights in the capital, and have fun with the people, but the harem is still lonely.Not willing to be left out, the concubines and palace people set up a temporary market in the inner garden, still decorated with lights and festoons, and the various departments in the ban will provide some miscellaneous goods, such as the pastries imitating the folk style of the Shangshi Bureau, including lactose balls, honey fried, raw and cooked Lotus root fillings, leek cakes, etc.; the Shangyi Bureau will provide ready-made clothing, clothing materials and silk threads;

Although the scale of this street market is far less than the bustling outside the palace, eunuchs and maids will dress up as hawkers and passers-by, shouting and selling. With the sound of firecrackers and orchestras coming from outside the palace, it can be considered lively.All the concubines and concubines wandered about in their fragrant clothes and temples, joking, laughing, bargaining and bickering, regardless of rank, just looking for carnival. "Princess, princess..." In Cuiying Hall, Long Baiyue begged with a bitter face and clasped hands. Princess Yunyang remained unmoved and continued to trim her nails under the lamp.

"Princess, princess..." "Don't bother me anymore," Princess Yunyang simply turned over on the imperial concubine chair, and threw Long Baiyue a back view, "What's the Lantern Festival?!" "Princess, everyone goes to see the lanterns during the Lantern Festival." Long Baiyue snapped. "You mean to say that I'm not human?" Princess Yunyang turned her head and sneered at Long Baiyue in a sinister manner. Even though her beautiful eyes were malicious, they were still breathtakingly beautiful. Being stared at by her, Long Baiyue hurriedly begged for mercy: "Princess, forgive me..."

Princess Yunyang snorted coldly, turned her head and ignored her: "Go as long as you want, I won't go anyway." Long Baiyue jumped up immediately when she heard the words, and wanted to walk out of the palace in a reserved manner, but after a few steps, she couldn't help but started to run quickly.When she was about to leave the palace, she looked back and felt that Princess Yunyang's lonely back looked cold and lonely under the lamp. Alas... A sense of guilt welled up in her heart, but she was quickly suppressed by herself——I wish I could bring the princess a present when I came back.

There is no gate control in the Cuiying Hall tonight, so Long Baiyue sneaked into the inner garden market like this.She specially put on the jewelry rewarded by Princess Yunyang, and spent money to buy snow willow moth at the stall, as well as a kind of "fire bayberry" made of ripe dates and charcoal. Inserted into the bun, it is as dazzling as the lights. Although she was dressed up glamorously, the clothes of the palace maid made her easily lost in the three thousand pinks.Everyone was just laughing, and no one paid attention to her for a while.Long Baiyue and the others did not know each other, so he enjoyed watching the lantern happily alone.

The palace prostitutes played and sang, and there were also storytellers and swordplayers. Among them, it was Zi Mian who performed the Tibetan magic trick to make the queen smile.In this dynasty, the people pursued thaumaturgy, and there were many Taoist priests in the capital who made a living by "magic skills". Zi Mian readily obeyed.According to the directions of the five elements, he wrote the five characters of gold, wood, water, fire, and earth on the table case, wrapped the mud pills with paper symbols, placed the mud pills on the characters respectively, and lit them with red candles.After a while, he opened the talisman paper, and saw that the five clay pills had all changed colors—the green in the east was like indigo, the red in the south was like red, the white in the west was like pearls, the black in the north was like ink, and the center was yellow like wax.

Everyone was amazed when they saw it, only the queen said with a smile: "Niwan is indecent after all, does your lord have something fresher?" Zi Mian smiled, bowed respectfully, and said, "Returning to the queen, I have learned a thing or two from the performance of the old artist Zhang Jiuge for King Yan's 'Making the Bee Call the Butterfly'." "It's so good." Zi Mian asked the maid at the side for the shawl on her shoulders, then found scissors, folded the colorful silk, and swiped the scissors without hesitation, the silver scissors twisted and twisted, and cut out colorful butterflies.While cutting, he sang: "The Forbidden City is full of 10,000 smoke and light, and the five gates are golden and green to shoot the clear sky. There are three thousand drums in the Liyuan, and the twelve peaks in the Luhai Ao Mountain..."

The light and soft cloak turned into a butterfly under Zi Mian's hands, and it floated out with the breeze when he flipped his long sleeves, fluttering and curling in various shapes.The butterflies flew towards the direction of the empress, some gathered on the embroidery of the maid's dress, and some landed on the peony on the concubine's temple, dancing their wings and shining brightly. "The fragrance is heavy, the moon is thick, and the terrace is surrounded by colorful clouds. The golden mud curtain of the Zhulan painting building is full of red lotuses and ten miles of wind..."

After singing a poem, Zi Mian waved her long sleeves, calling for all the colorful butterflies to fly back, and the broken cloak was intact as before.He returned the cloak to the maid at the side, and bowed down to the queen. "Amazing skills." The queen's reserved voice couldn't hide her appreciation, and she happily ordered her left and right, "Reward." "Thank you Queen." After receiving some rewards, Zi Mian withdrew, supposedly going out of the palace to visit the Lantern Market, but he stopped in an inconspicuous corner of the Inner Garden, his eyes lingering on the market, trying to find a familiar figure.

How should I give it to her?Zi Mian was secretly worried, he squeezed the little thing hidden in his sleeve, his face started to turn red. Suddenly he found her in the crowd—Long Baiyue, this cheerful little girl, was looking up at the lamp with her head up.She has planted snow willows all over her head, and the slanted fire bayberry is burning, swaying slightly in front of her forehead, making her more beautiful and moving.Zi Mian was overjoyed, and just about to call her, she was stunned. He... what should he call her... When he was not familiar with her before, he called her Miss Long, but after he got to know her well, her eyes always followed him, so that he didn't need to call her at all, he just needed to meet her eyes.But Long Baiyue is not the case, she calls Zi Mian one by one, so warm that Zi Mian feels warm and friendly, but at this moment it stumps him - it seems bad to call her a dragon girl, she is too born; The surname is also wrong, maybe... Maybe I want to call her Bai Yue?

Thinking of this, his face became even hotter uncontrollably, his heart seemed to be gripped by something, he was so nervous that he couldn't breathe, how could he utter a single word. Long Baiyue, who was greedy for looking at the lanterns, finally felt that her neck was sore. She lowered her head, and for some reason, she turned her head to look, and saw Zi Mian in the dimly lit place - he was looking at her silently, with her lips Squeezing it lightly, the pulse in his eyes was soft, and he wanted to tell his heart, but he hesitated to speak. Long Baiyue couldn't care less, she just picked up her skirt and ran towards him, and landed in front of him deftly like a lark, and shouted excitedly: "Zi Mian!" Zi Mian suddenly showed a relieved expression, as if she just saved his life. "How can you come here?" Long Baiyue blushed with excitement, she hadn't seen him for a long time. "The empress wants me to enter the palace to perform spells." Zi Mian replied with her head down. Being able to enter the palace is already a great progress, he doesn't mind using his talents for nothing, and uses his spells to serve the powerful.Especially more importantly, he wanted to see her on this day.Zi Mian squeezed the little thing in her sleeve again, looked at Long Baiyue who stood gracefully in front of her, and saw that she was surrounded by pearls and emeralds, and on her white jade-like earlobes were hung the emerald gold earrings inlaid with red gemstones awarded by Princess Yunyang , couldn't help but a trace of embarrassment floated on his face. It's getting more and more difficult to do anything, Zi Mian sighed embarrassingly in her heart, and finally forced herself to be more calm: "And... I want to give you this." He took out something from his sleeve and handed it to Long Baiyue: "It's not as good as what you're wearing now, but..." Zi Mian was stunned before she finished speaking, Long Baiyue's heart was so real that it made him feel that the things in his hands were priceless—it was a pair of earrings, just simple pearls, I thoughtfully picked out two very similar ones, the pink surface was full of wrinkles, but the color was excellent, like two buds just blooming. "I found it from the beads used for alchemy. I sent it to the bead shop to match it with a silver hook. If you like it, you can keep it for fun." Zi Mian said softly, not saying that she accidentally found a bud-shaped gemstone. Beads, so I thought of it and spent a whole day looking for another matching bead among the bead fights. "It's so beautiful!" Long Baiyue happily took it, quickly took off her own earrings, and replaced them with those given by Zi Mian, "Ah, unfortunately I didn't prepare anything." "No, no need." Zi Mian rebuffed with a guilty conscience—he just took something from her, so he was always thinking about returning it to her.He hesitated for a long time about the gold hairpin swept out by Ming Chuangchen, but he still didn't want to give it to her. He knew his own feelings - he wanted to keep a little trace of her by his side, so he held that hairpin and weighed it for a long time. Can't help but keep it for myself. Long Baiyue had already forgotten about that hairpin, and only lost it when she was injured.It was the first time she received such a gift from Zi Mian, and knowing the profound meaning in it, she couldn't help but feel palpitations, her whole body was so hot that she shivered, like a young girl in love. "Look at the lamp with me." Long Baiyue looked at Zi Mian with a charming smile, her eyes were shone brightly and blurred by the colorful lights. He was more handsome and upright than before. Zi Mian nodded with a smile, Long Baiyue happily held his hand, and the two walked under the lamp together.There was only one man, Zi Mian, in the market, and everyone naturally looked sideways at him. Long Baiyue didn't dare to get too close to Zi Mian, and just walked beside him quietly, not even daring to squint easily. But Zi Mian was thinking in her heart, what should he call her.He couldn't keep his mouth shut, he couldn't remember when Long Baiyue called him by his name, so why couldn't he change his mouth at that time?It's good now, anytime I open my mouth, I'll be too embarrassed to die. "Bai..." He murmured, his voice was inaudible. But a salute was fired, swallowing Zi Mian's voice completely.I saw Long Baiyue shouting excitedly in a low voice: "Oh, Yujia Yujia, I haven't seen the Holy One since I entered the palace. It's a pity that I'm too far away, and I can only see the dragon robe clearly. I must give it to him someday." Kowtow to the old man!" Zi Mian looked up absent-mindedly, it turned out that the emperor had already left the Xuande Gate to return to the palace, and was about to meet the queen, he could vaguely see his ocher yellow dragon robe in the embrace.Zi Mian lowered her head a little irritably, feeling helpless that her emotions were interrupted—why did he find it easier to vomit blood than expressing his heart? "White……" "Ah, the New Year's calendar!" Long Baiyue saw the eunuch selling calendars at a small stall on the side, and rushed over excitedly, "Boss, I only want the calendar issued by Si Tianjian, the one issued by Lord Zi Mian!" It's nonsense, the almanac on this stall was provided by Si Tianjian, there is no other kind.Long Baiyue took Huang Li from the eunuch's eyes, and turned her head excitedly: "Zi Mian, what did you just say?" White...idiot.Zi Mian felt bitter, and really felt like she was going to vomit blood.Forget it, it seems that today is not the right time to confess his love, he'd better go back and do some divination to pick a good day before coming back: "I'm going back." "Ah," Long Baiyue still wanted to persuade her to stay, but seeing that Zi Mian's expression was not good, she suddenly remembered that Bao'er had said that Zi Mian was dispensing medicine for Ling Yun, and hurriedly nodded, "You should pay more attention to rest, go back earlier .” Seeing Bai Yue's innocent and ignorant expression, Zi Mian couldn't help but smile wryly, this woman was once an oiran... so that's fine. He nodded and told her before leaving: "Don't play for too long." "Don't worry..." Long Baiyue waved at Zi Mian, smiling at him under the lamp.