Chongxi [rebirth]

The Lantern Festival banquet did not dissipate until Xushi.

The guests left one after another, and the lively scene ended, only the servants who cleaned up the mess remained in the mansion and were still busy.The old concubine was getting old and her spirit was weak, she was ready to rest now, only Yiqiu was still working in the courtyard.

Ye Yunting drank a few glasses of wine, he was in a state of not being drunk, and his spirit was also very good.

Holding hands with Li Fengqi and sitting in the waterside pavilion for a while, he seemed to remember something, and pulled the person out: "Let's go out." He rolled his eyes with a smile, pretending to be mysterious: "Take you to a good place."

"Huh?" Li Fengqi raised his eyebrows, he didn't think there was a good place in Weizhou City that he knew, but he didn't know.

But he saw Ye Yunting looking at him with bright eyes, looking very impatient, so he let him pull him, and followed him out the door.

Ye Yunting was already very familiar with the roads in the city, so he took Li Fengqi to the busiest market.Because it is the Lantern Festival, the streets are decorated with lanterns and festoons, and rows of lanterns are hung all over the whole street.The common people shuttle back and forth with lanterns in their hands, looking from a distance, it looks like stars floating in the dark night.

"To see the lantern festival?"

Probably to make up for the deserted New Year's Eve, this time the Lantern Festival was extraordinarily lively, and you could hear the hustle and bustle before you got close.

"Yeah." Ye Yunting clasped his fingers with him, and walked to the most crowded place on the street: "Ji Lian said that the lantern festival is very lively today. I just want to come and see it with you."

When he spoke, his face was turned sideways, his eyebrows and eyes were crooked, probably because he drank too much wine, he was not as calm and gentle as usual, and showed a rare childish look.

Only then did Li Fengqi realize that he probably had never seen the Lantern Festival.

No wonder I am so happy today.

The corners of his lips curled, and he dragged him to a small stall selling masks, and bought two masks with money.

"Put on the mask first." Li Fengqi fastened the tie on the back of his head for him, and the painted mask just covered the upper half of his face.

Ye Yunting had never worn such a mask before, it was very rare, he looked at Li Fengqi again and again: "Is there any reason to wear a mask?"

How can there be any explanation?It's just that they don't want the people to recognize them.

Li Fengqi sneered, and made up a casual way: "In the past, many young men and women who loved each other liked to sneak out to meet each other through the lantern festival, but they were afraid of being recognized by their acquaintances, so they would wear masks to cover them up. Later, as time passed, people at the lantern festival Men and women like to wear masks."

"Then we put on masks, wouldn't it be like we sneaked out to meet each other?" Ye Yunting had never seen the Lantern Festival outside, and he didn't know the custom of celebrating the Lantern Festival outside.Therefore, he didn't suspect Li Fengqi's nonsense to coax him, he just found it fresh.Put on the mask happily, and walk with him in the bustling crowd holding hands.

Li Fengqi was pulled by him, the corners of his mouth curled up.But he thought in his heart that the men and women who sneaked out of the private meeting were not just to watch the lanterns.

But seeing that Ye Yunting was in high spirits, he let him go.

The most important part of the Lantern Festival is naturally guessing lantern riddles.Every lantern stall has a lottery, and anyone who can guess the lantern riddles can choose a lantern.Lantern riddles and corresponding lanterns are graded. The more difficult the lantern riddles are, the more exquisite the lanterns are.

With shining eyes, Ye Yunting pointed to the largest and most exquisite dragon-shaped lantern and asked Li Fengqi, "Shall I win that lantern back for you?"

In fact, Li Fengqi didn't want the Laoshizi lantern, but when Ye Yunting asked him, he seemed to be bewitched, and unconsciously opened his mouth to answer: "Okay."

Listen to his promise.Sure enough, Ye Yunting dragged him to the lantern booth with the most people and the biggest one.

Someone next to them heard their conversation and laughed and joked: "What's the hurry, no one will snatch it from you, that dragon lantern has been a lottery for two years in a row, but no one got it. The treasure of the town store."

Ye Yunting paused when he heard the words, glanced sideways at the speaker, and smiled confidently: "Then they are waiting for me to pick them."

The man saw that he was young and well dressed, so he guessed which family he was from, but he didn't say anything against him, he just smiled and said: "Young master, go and try."

Ye Yunting excitedly dragged Li Fengqi to the front, saying that he wanted to pick the dragon lantern.

When the people around heard that he was about to guess the most difficult thing when he came up, they all booed.Seeing this, the stall owner smiled and told him the rules: "This dragon lantern is the treasure of my shop here. If you want to win this lottery, you have to guess [-] lantern riddles correctly within a stick of incense."

Fifty lantern riddles are not difficult, but it is rare that you have to guess them within a stick of incense.Moreover, the fifty lantern riddles were selected randomly, if one of them cannot be guessed, it will not be considered a pass.

Ye Yunting's expression didn't fluctuate when he heard the words, he nodded and said, "I know everything, let's start directly."

The shop owner hadn't seen such an arrogant young man for a long time. Hearing this, he cheerfully took out the lantern riddles at the bottom of the box, spread them out in front of him, and lit another stick of incense: "My lord, choose it. Once you take it, you can't change it."

Ye Yunting glanced at it, and the riddles on the lanterns should be all lantern riddles that hadn't been hung on the lanterns yet, so he didn't care, and unfolded one casually, with the words "Beautiful at the Bridge Head Saying Goodbye, Type One" on it.

"It's 'Sakura'." He only glanced at it, then said the answer.

As soon as the words fell, he took out another one: "Taste the half-empty Dukang bottle, and name it."

"Ditang."

His speed was so fast that he could read out the answer almost at a glance. In the blink of an eye, there were already a dozen or so riddles on the table.

Seeing that this time he was really a powerful person, the people around cheered.

"You disassemble it for me." Ye Yunting dismantled more than a dozen by himself, feeling tired, and turned to Li Fengqi.

His voice was clear and bright, like a spring breeze and drizzle, but the ending sound was a little dragged, and it seemed soft when it was drawn a little too long.It stopped in Li Fengqi's ears, as if she was acting like a baby.

Li Fengqi felt itchy in his heart, pursed his lips, said "um", and solved the lantern riddle for him.

While he was tearing it apart, Ye Yunting was answering.Almost as soon as Li Fengqi handed it over, he already gave the answer to the mystery.It caused the bystanders to exclaim one after another.

Only half of a stick of incense had been burned, and he had already answered fifty lantern riddles.

"I'm done answering." Ye Yunting stared at the owner with burning eyes, waiting for him to give him the lottery.

Unexpectedly, he could really answer the question. When the shopkeeper turned to fetch the dragon lantern, his face was full of heartache, but he still handed over the very exquisite dragon lantern to Ye Yunting as promised.

Ye Yunting took it, but stuffed it into Li Fengqi's hand: "Here."

Li Fengqi looked at the lantern, then at the people against the lantern, the corners of his mouth curled up, he pottered a silver ingot and threw it to the shopkeeper, then he pulled Ye Yunting out.

"What are we going to do?" Seeing that he was in a hurry, Ye Yunting was puzzled.

Li Fengqi didn't answer, he dragged him into a dark alley, pressed him against the wall, and kissed him fiercely.

Lips and teeth stick together, tossing and sucking.

When they were separated for a long time, Li Fengqi reluctantly bit his lower lip before answering his question: "Kiss you."

He wanted to do this ever since Ye Yunting dragged him to watch the lanterns.

The mask has been removed, and the tip of their noses touches each other, their breaths blending.

Ye Yunting raised his eyes to look at him, and fell into a deep and gentle gaze.The warm light was reflected in the black pupils, and in the depths of the light, he was the only one.

He raised his head, panting and kissed him again.

Two slender figures entangled each other in the dark alley. Occasionally, a passer-by would glance at them and leave in a hurry. I wondered which young man was so reckless and shameless that they kissed in the alley.

……

When the Lantern Festival ended, it was close to Haishi.

Li Fengqi held the lantern in one hand and held hands with Ye Yunting in the other, and returned to the Dudu's mansion unhurriedly.

Probably because of staying together in the alley for too long, Ye Yunting's lips were still a little red, but when he was exposed by his snow-white complexion, he showed a bit of beauty.

Li Fengqi's eyes stopped on his plump lips, and after entering the backyard, taking advantage of no one around, he whispered in his ear: "Shall we go back to the house and continue?"

"..." Go on and go on, but this person wants to talk about it, appearing to be dishonest.

Ye Yunting glanced at him, wanting to withdraw his hand and keep away from him, but he held it too tightly and didn't twitch at all.

So in the end, he could only say "OK" in a low voice.

Li Fengqi smiled triumphantly.

***

Fifteen years later, the New Year officially came out.

The heavy snow that had stopped for a few days began to fall again, and the weather became colder and colder, with no sign of returning to spring.But fortunately, the refugees in northern Xinjiang basically have a place to go now, so although the weather is a bit bad, they can still live.

But the refugees outside northern Xinjiang were not so lucky.

Intermittent heavy snowfall and cold weather every day caused many people to be displaced.Countless refugees froze to death on the roadside.

The manpower Ye Yunting sent to various state capitals has set up garment factories and recruited a group of refugees, but compared to the huge number of refugees, it is just a drop in the bucket.

When receiving the reply letter from the garment factory in California, Ye Yunting showed a worried expression: "The news from the California state, the government only opened the warehouse to release the grain once, and there was no movement after that. Now many refugees have taken refuge in the uprising military,"

The uprising army in Nieyang became more and more powerful, and Shen Yu led troops to suppress it several times, but he never took it down, and is now in a stalemate.

Just looking at the news that came, Ye Yunting felt incredible: "Is Li Zong planning to let it go?"

But if anyone is still thinking about sitting on the dragon chair, Li Zong shouldn't be so laissez-faire.

"Look at this." Li Fengqi pushed a letter to him, with a little sarcasm on his face: "It's not that he doesn't want to take care of it, I'm afraid it's because he has no power."

Ye Yunting took the letter and found that it was from Jiaozuo.

Just as he was wondering if Li Fengqi's life experience had some clues, when he looked down, he found that it was related to the Zhao family's treason case.

Before they left Shangjing, Han Chan was already overturning the Zhao family's case. In order to ease the relationship with Han Chan, Li Zong insisted on thoroughly investigating the Zhao family's conspiracy in spite of the old minister's opposition.

After two months, the case finally made progress, but it unexpectedly involved the death of the late emperor's elder brother, the late crown prince Li Xun.