Linque

As soon as the cold spring passed, the sky in the imperial capital completely warmed up.The spring is bright inside and outside the imperial city, and the palace people have put on new clothes of the season, willows, soybeans, green apricots, and white flowers. Walking among the palaces, there is a kind of lightness and sprightness unique to spring.

Entering March, the first happy event in Jiuzhong Que is the little prince's birthday.Qing Yan is not yet old enough to formally enter school. According to the palace practice, birthdays before the age of six are not called "Prince Qianqiu", nor do they have palace banquets, and are not allowed to pay homage to foreign officials, so as not to be too extravagant and press back on children's life expectancy .As for Qing Yan, this point seems to have to be paid special attention to.

He was born on March [-]rd, the Shangsi Festival.This day is good and bad.

There is a folk saying, "February [-]nd, the dragon raises its head; March [-]rd, Xuanyuan is born".March [-]rd is the birthday of Huangdi Xuanyuan, the first ancestor of the humanities. Of course, the days of this kind of light can't be better, but the worst is that it's too good. I always worry that the child's fate will not be able to bear it.

Put it four years ago, when Qing Yan was just born, the Empress Dowager Qi Wang was in full swing, and the emperor was in decline. As a pawn, Qing Yan had the name of the prince but not the blessing of the prince, and the palace looked up and down. .Four years have passed and the situation has changed. Looking at it now, who wouldn't say that the little prince is born blessed.

The imperial calendar turned a page and came to the third day of March.The chef of Ming Chengdian simmered the broth overnight, and at two o'clock in the morning, when he heard the sound of cars and palace people welcoming him outside, the imperial chef began to pour longevity noodles into the soup, and sugar horns exploded on the dim sum stove. Steam a bowl of almond puff pastry.

Over there, Dabai Tuanzi crossed the threshold with short legs, went straight to Ling Ye, first knelt down and saluted in a dignified way, then got up and tied Ling Ye's arms, opened his chubby hands and said, "Be justified and confident!" "He asked his father for candy.

Tuanzi still doesn't quite understand the meaning of birthdays, but he already knows from his aunt in charge and the little maids that he is one year older today, and it's the same as during the Chinese New Year. Don't be scolded.

Ling Ye rubbed Qingyan's head, waved his hand to signal the waiter to set the meal, and said, "After eating the noodles, I'll give you a candy corner."

This is not a rare fruit, but it is sweeter. Ling Ye is afraid that eating too much sugar will hurt his teeth, so he is not allowed to touch it on weekdays, and only let the imperial chef deep-fry it on a small dish during the New Year and holidays.

"Father is the best!" Tuanzi's eyes lit up when he heard these three words, and immediately ran to the table and obediently waited for breakfast.

Seeing this, Chu Heng couldn't help laughing, and teased: "You should eat less sugar, but are you too strict with Ayan? .”

"Then why not? They still look like you," Ling Ye raised his lips and said, "Can you read characters and go to the pastry shop?"

"..." Chu Heng choked, his ears turned red, he looked away and said forcefully, "Ah Yan and I were both hungry that time."

Ling Ye looked at him, but smiled and said nothing.

Years ago, he and Chu Heng wrote two copybooks for Qingyan, preparing to open the spring to bring Qingyan to enlightenment.

The rule of Dayin's royal family is that princes and daughters will go to school at the age of six, and before that, they will be raised by their mothers and concubines.There are many concubines and children in the palace, but there is only one emperor, and everyone knows that no one starts writing until he is old enough to go to the study.Although the teachers will teach from the beginning, but in order to get a compliment from the father, the princes start to be enlightened when they are three or four years old.Ling Ye also came here in the same way.

When he came to Qingyan, he was very different from the princes in the previous palace history. Although he suffered many crimes due to political struggles when he was a baby, he was taken to Ming Cheng Palace by his father before he was one year old.His father has always been his father alone, and no one has ever been able to compete with him.Throughout the history of Dayin Kingdom, it is difficult to find a few like him.

Probably just like this special birthday, Xuanyuan Guang's good fortune was attached to him.

However, although Ling Ye loves Qingyan, he doesn't spoil him. Ling Ye doesn't intend to break the rule of entering school at the age of six for Qingyan. He followed the method that Empress Chengde taught him when he was young, and started enlightening Qingyan at the age of four. .

After showing Qingyan the copybook on the first day of the new year, he and Chu Heng took the group to learn some calligraphy scatteredly, but he had to read the memorial in the morning, so he didn't have so much free time, so Chu Heng taught more.

But Sheng Mingru, His Majesty, can also see that their Dongjun is good everywhere, but it may be due to the habits of being a senior brother for so many years, and occasionally pretends to be serious to big children like Ling Qiran and Chu Yan, but For a milk dumpling like Qingyan, there is really only a soft heart of being responsive, so there is the phenomenon of recognizing characters and recognizing the pastry shop.

So in the future, I will learn it in the study of Jingcheng Hall, under the eyes of His Majesty.

Chu Heng was uncomfortable being watched by Ling Ye, he coughed lightly and got up and walked to the table, and carried Dabai Tuanzi, who was waiting on tiptoe, to the chair.

Qing Yan was thinking about the candy corner, and when the breakfast was served, he didn't want the ladies of the Eastern Palace to help, so he took a spoon and ate a small bowl of noodles by himself.When he got the candy corners he was thinking of, he gave one to his father and one to his master, and tasted it happily.

The dumplings are very easy to coax, and Ling Ye is not too attached to him. Today is his birthday, and it is the Shangsi Festival. The weather is sunny and sunny, which is suitable for going out for an outing in the countryside.

An hour later, the two big ones and one small one left the city, the carriage stopped at the foot of Chaoxian Mountain, and planned to burn incense in the Yanhuang Temple on the top of the mountain.Chaoxian Mountain is famous for its two scenic spots, Fengchi and Chaoxi. There are lush forests and bamboos on the mountain, magpies, swallows, warblers and birds singing. In addition to worshiping Xuanyuan, it is also a good place for spring outing in March.

Hearing the murmur of water along the way, he walked slowly up the stream for a quarter of an hour, and was about to reach the Fengchi halfway up the mountain, when he met several commoner men holding pots, one of them in brown clothes had a bad complexion, While walking, he complained: "It was hard to take advantage of the Shangsi Festival to pass by, but I met a group of people chatting and drinking. You can drink as much as you want. It's no big deal to surround a Fengchi to prevent others from entering. I burned incense and wanted to scoop up a good water and take it home for my daughter, but this is not going to happen."

"Keep your voice down." The companion hurriedly persuaded him, and then pouted in the direction of Fengchi, "The servants all carry knives and swords, and they are all big shots at first glance. How can we offend, let's go .”

The brown-clothed man sighed, shook his head and said, "Forget it, forget it."

Chu Heng took Qingyan's hand and passed by a few people. After walking a few steps, he looked back at Ling Ye and said, "It's not a coincidence for us to come here."

Ling Ye was a few steps behind and was about to speak when he saw a person walking down the mountain road not far away. He raised his eyebrows slightly and looked back over Chu Heng's shoulder.

Seeing the change in his expression, Chu Heng also turned around and took a look.

A sixteen or seventeen-year-old boy was wearing a royal blue auspicious cloud-patterned round-neck gown. He was knocking on the folding fan in his hand as he strolled down the road. It was only when the bamboo branch came out that he came back to his senses, he raised his head and stretched out his hand to brush the bamboo stick, and at the same time saw the emperor head-on.

Ling Qiran was taken aback for a moment, then the hand knocking on the fan suddenly stopped, he looked left and right, then fixed his eyes again, to confirm that it wasn't his own dazzled eyes, his face suddenly changed, he stuck the fan on the jade belt behind his waist at a loss, and then He smoothed his clothes, and walked over boldly.

Dabai Tuanzi recognized him. On the morning of New Year's Eve, King Shenjun came to Mingcheng Hall, and they were still playing Jiulianhuan together.

Qing Yan yelled crisply: "Uncle!"

"Ah...Ayan." Ling Qiran glanced sideways at Tuanzi, then quickly raised his eyes to look at the emperor, and walked forward with his head down. Seeing no one on the front and back mountain roads, he bowed and bowed. Said: "Brother Huang."

Ling Ye let out a "hmm" and asked casually, "Why are you here?"

After the spring of the new year, the emperor sent Ling Qiran an errand to go to Taichang Temple to learn the etiquette of palming from the minister.Hearing this, the king of Xiaojun thought that the emperor wanted to reprimand him for not studying well in the official office but ran out to play. His calf suddenly softened and he almost knelt down on the mountain road.

Ling Ye raised his hand to support him, frowned and said, "Excellent!"

The Xiaojun Wang stood firm, said "Brother Xie Huang", and quickly explained: "I...I take a bath every three days, and today just happens to be the Shangsi Festival, so I came here to burn incense with my cousin and the others."

Ling Ye's brows moved slightly, and he asked, "Then why are you alone, Shen Yingbai?"

Ling Qiran was a little embarrassed, scratched his head and said: "On the way up the mountain, we happened to meet a few descendants of the aristocratic clan, and my cousin was dragged by them to Fengchi to make a cup of water. I listened to it a few times, feeling bored. Let’s go to the temple on the mountain first, and just burned incense.”

Ling Ye understood in his heart that the few civilians who passed by just now said they gathered around Fengchi to chat and drink, and it must be this group of people.He didn't show it on his face, he only seemed to criticize: "You don't read enough books, you can't write poems, such elegant things as drinking water, of course it's not interesting to you."

Hearing this, the Xiaojun King shook his head twice, twisted his fingers and explained in a low voice: "Brother Huang, I think I can still tell the difference between good and bad poems, but they only drink and chat about awarding officials, and they don't write many poems at all... ..."

"Awarding an official?" Ling Ye finally heard what he said, and repeated it.

"Yeah." Xiaojun Wang nodded, and then said, "I heard them say about the rankings. They should all be candidates for Enke at the end of the month. There are people from the aristocratic family and others who have voted for the exam. They talk about awarding officials, like the Marquis of Jiayong. The eldest son Xu Shao, and several other high-ranking sons whose families belonged to the official department were also invited, and it seems that some of their aristocratic families were also recommended, anyway, there are quite a lot of people, so I didn't remember carefully."

Ling Ye nodded, and only said "hmm" without expressing his opinion.Ling Qiran didn't take this to heart either, the imperial examinations have always been like this, and the Yanhe Shen family also has family members and students who want to sponsor this year.These people have joined the door of the aristocratic family, and they only need to follow along to get a stable official position in the court.The essence of the imperial examination lies in the examination papers, and the most important thing is to choose the right poems and essays to submit to the right family. As for the final examination papers, they are all trivial matters, as long as they are well-behaved.They are all recommended by the big families, who can not give face?

"Since there are people in Fengchi drinking Qushui, it won't disturb the elegance." Ling Ye asked Ling Qiran in a light tone, "Are you going to find Shen Yingbai?"

The little county king thought about it, and probably felt bored, so he shook his head and said forget it, and went up the mountain with the emperor's cousin again when he had nothing to do.

Ling Ye followed him and went up the mountain. While walking forward, he waved his hands behind his back lightly.

There were rustling sounds of forest leaves on both sides of the road, Chu Heng glanced sideways, and it was the shadow guard of the Son of Heaven hidden in the dark who had received the order to go to the direction of the flowing water in Fengchi.

The little county king followed the emperor unconsciously, halfway there he suddenly remembered something he forgot - cousin Shen Dai was also on the mountain, and they came together in the morning.

Ling Qiran looked at the emperor's cousin hesitantly, and hesitated for a while, thinking otherwise, he should not say anything, after all, he was scolded for mentioning his cousin before his majesty last time.