Vol 2 Chapter 130

Gu Ningxi’s mind is never idle.

Naturally, he had to think carefully about how to cooperate with the emperor to promote the New Deal, and strive to not leave a bad reputation even if he could not leave a good name in history. From time to time, he would explain the more gentle and safe way of doing things that he and Zhang Shangshu had analyzed, and persuade the emperor to make a compromise.

At the same time, he continued to familiarize himself with the affairs of the Ministry of Officials, preparing for his appointment after the Dragon Boat Festival. However, he is currently limited to paper documents. Anyway, he is face-blind. He can remember the names of his superiors and colleagues accurately on paper, but can’t do anything on people. The emperor likes him.

From time to time, Gu Ningxi would think about her grandmother, and her grandfather who passed away more than two years ago. Two days before his death, his grandmother wrote to him and said: “I am not as good as your grandfather. I have wronged you because my grandchildren have lost sight of me, Brother Xi.” I was greatly touched by Gu Ningxi. sweep away.

As for his grandfather, Gu Ningxi has just come into contact with the essence of power. After looking at his grandfather’s handwriting and recalling his words and deeds, he deeply feels that it is a coincidence that his grandfather was able to become the prime minister. How familiar the authority is.

In fact, from the perspective of the grandfather’s guidance on the future of the children and grandchildren, except for Gu Ningxi, he was only strict with everyone else, and the cousins ​​​​entrusted to the Gu clan could not bear the heavy responsibility, which led to Gu Ningxi, the eldest grandson and the most promising. The family was expelled, the old Gu’s mansion was taken back by the government, and the eldest grandson, Gu Ningran, came to a dismal end. She was also able to see the spectacle, and saw that Prime Minister Gu had shortcomings in insight into people’s hearts and concealing the family.

The preferential treatment that Gu Ningxi and Gu Ningran received in the officialdom before was just the good cause and good result of Prime Minister Gu being in a high position without arrogance and always helping others. Officials’ support was limited, so Gu Ningran was unable to get up to the seventh rank, while Gu Ningxi mainly relied on her talent and the appreciation of ministers to rank among the middle-level civil servants.

From now on, he will embark on a different path of being an official from his grandfather, with no one to guide him and no one to support him. In fact, he has no idea, countless worries and hesitation, so he can only live in the huge and empty Gu Mansion (because the old Gu Mansion is no longer surnamed Gu). , so the mansion of Gu Ningxi, Minister of the Ministry of Rites, is directly called Gu Mansion by the world, and no prefix is ​​added to distinguish it.) Talking to himself.

Most of the time, he was thinking of Tao Xinhe.

Will He Niang still be happy with him who has changed? From a lonely self to a vulgar self, it seems that from a secular perspective, he is more able to take care of things, and his inner soul still looks forward to Tao Xinhe, who is like a sea **** needle, can he ask for her company, and change to perfection?

Not sure about getting Tao Xinhe back, Gu Ningxi often wondered whether Tao Xinhe and Cheng Shicheng would get closer and closer to Cheng Shicheng in the past few days, and secretly promised her heart, so she felt uneasy and felt a pain in her heart.

He added a habitual movement of raising his hand to cover his heart. Through the thin linen clothes that could not keep out the cold, he could clearly feel the uneven scar in his palm, and he often used this to meditate.

Gu Ningxi couldn’t sleep at night, and felt more and more stuffy and stagnant in the room amidst the silence. She stayed in the garden all night, surrounded by singing insects and surrounded by the fragrance of flowers.

He often looked up at the sky in the cold spring night, counting the stars one after another, and he couldn’t count them no matter what. Thinking back to the Tao Mansion in another part of the capital, He Niang was probably asleep, wondering if she would be in her dream.

At present, the first step in chasing his wife is naturally to deal with Tao Xinhe’s difficult problem and draw a small portrait of her.

The only clear face in Gu Ningxi’s mind is Mo Qiqi, which is definitely not enough. He found a large number of paintings of ancient ladies and ladies, and copied the faces of the characters like stele rubbings. After finishing the pen, he was at a loss for the messy lines that seemed meaningless to him, and felt even more difficult to recognize than the pre-Qin seal script he learned during his enlightenment.

He looked through the descriptions of women’s facial features and demeanor in the poems, diligently looking for chapters and excerpts, such as the eyes of the phoenix, he drew the eyes of the phoenix that everyone admired. For example, cherry lips, he filled the desk with cherry blossoms and stared at them for a while.

It was a beautiful spring, and in the garden that Tao Xinhe arranged for his servants to take good care of, all kinds of flowers bloomed one after another, attracting bees and butterflies. .

As the owner of such a well-known spring scene, Gu Ningxi puts most of his attention on the painting table in the study, spreading rice paper, drawing charcoal lines, splashing thick ink, and mixing cinnabar, drawing women one by one, his heart is like a wound, Thinking of the woman who feels pain—Tao Xinhe.

After painting a picture, he looked left and right, as if he was very unfamiliar with the characters in his brush, he wrinkled his hands and waved them on the ground. After a while, crumpled white paper flowers bloomed one after another at Gu Ningxi’s feet, until he was exhausted, unable to hold the pen anymore, unable to hang his hands down, and slumped on the chair.

This is the case every day, and the cycle repeats. At a certain moment, Gu Ningxi would feel extremely frustrated thinking that she really couldn’t complete the task assigned by Tao Xinhe, and that the hand praised by the world as “Wonderful Painting” really had something that she couldn’t do, that is, she couldn’t draw a realistic and vivid picture. woman face.

However, he will not indulge such a sad mood for too long. He couldn’t even overcome such a small problem, how could he let He Niang see his determination to get back together?

Facing a thick stack of rice paper, Gu Ningxi said to herself: “He Niang didn’t make your head hang and stab your ass, and she didn’t embarrass you for an instant high-ranking official and rich salary, but just let you use your good painting skills to draw pictures, which contain deep feelings Sincerely, haven’t you recited it a thousand times?”

Holding the brush for too long caused her right wrist to become sore and swollen. Gu Ningxi tried to switch to her left hand. Anyway, the faces she drew were not in good shape. Occasionally, when she was asked to read and read, she dared to say that it was distorted and weird.

Long nights of sleepless nights and being locked in the study room made her eyes flood with tears. Gu Ningxi simply closed her eyes to paint occasionally, letting her wrists sway freely and trusting the horse. Instead, she found a bit of joy and novelty in learning calligraphy when she was young, but it was just a few more drafts.

In short, since the funeral of Mrs. Gu, Gu Ningxi has been living a life of seeing no one else, reading calligraphy and painting. When she is free, a cup of Kudingcha, whether strong or light, tastes good. When she is busy, she is surrounded by documents in the dark, and she has inexplicable stability. Practical.

One day in late April, Shihua helped him tie his hair and exclaimed in surprise, “Master, you have grown three or four white hairs!”

Before the age of thirties, the hair on the sideburns grows early, and it’s just a sigh of relief.

Gu Ningxi looked at the smooth copper mirror, the man whose face was shrouded in smoke tilted his head slightly, raised his hand to accurately capture a white hair, pulled it hard, and pulled the long silver thread off his head.

The thumb and forefinger kneaded the white hair a few times, and the dull pain in the hair reminded him that it was indeed owned by him.

Gu Ningxi recalled that when she was young, she looked up to her father and grandparents, and always thought that her gray hair would not grow until she was forty or fifty years old. At that time, she had gained experience in dealing with people and could teach younger generations.

Letting go lightly, letting the white hair slip through the fingers and fall to the ground to find it, Gu Ningxi smiled lightly and ordered the servant to comb her hair as usual.

However, later, when he wrote to Tao Xinhe regularly, he mentioned a few words: “He Niang, I found out that I have grown some gray hairs this morning. According to the medical book, it is a fault of lack of vitality. Fortunately, I asked my side Boy, say that my appearance has not changed, and my skin is still eye-catching. I just hope that when I see you again, don’t dislike me for being haggard and ugly. I will also work hard to maintain my appearance and health, so that you can sigh like jade again.”

Speaking of writing letters, in fact, since he sent paintings and letters to Tao Mansion on April 20th, and was greatly encouraged by the reply from his former father-in-law Tao Cheng, Gu Ningxi wrote letters to Tao Xinhe every one or two days, mostly about trivial matters around him and Recently, I feel that it seems to be homely.

Tao Xinhe never responded, but Gu Ningxi took it as acquiescence not to be reprimanded by the other party’s reply, and wrote down one letter after another without getting tired of it.

Until the day of the Dragon Boat Festival, he wrote: “I wish your family good health during the Dragon Boat Festival. The scene of our husband and wife peeling rice dumplings last year is still in front of us. It is a pity that we can’t watch it together this year. We don’t know next year. Maybe we will be lucky to be with He Niang, That’s what my heart longs for.”

In another paragraph, Gu Ningxi Xu wrote: “Excluding the festival sacrifices of the Gu clan has nothing to do with me. Today I offered a few fresh rice dumplings to my grandparents and parents in front of the tablets in my house to show my intentions. But I have no I have an appetite, but I feel full when I smell the fragrance of glutinous rice leaves from the rice dumpling leaves, which is strange. Is the lotus lady ready? But have you hesitated for a long time between the red date rice dumpling and the red bean paste rice dumpling?”

**

Tao Xinhe has also been quite worried recently, and is therefore very busy.

Qiangniang’s marriage is one, and there are many follow-ups involved, including dealing with the Chen family’s parents who cannot expressly refuse the marriage, being aggrieved by the shopkeeper’s father who sometimes gets angry, and coaxing the unstable younger sister from time to time, etc.

That day I had a long talk with my sister, explaining the situation for the first time, walking out of her courtyard, Tao Xinhe walked in the intoxicating warm wind, inexplicably thinking of Mo Qiqi who had only met a few times.

They were all the little girls who depended on her, cried loudly in her arms, and wet the skirts of their clothes.

Back in her room, Tao Xinhe finally made up her mind to write a letter to her second brother-in-law who worked in Quezhou, asking him to take care of those who returned home, under the bright lights of the day, spreading paper and ink, brushing a brush.

Now that she was ready to write a letter, Tao Xinhe sent a letter to her second sister Rongniang to greet her, in addition to telling her sister to pay more attention to childcare and the recent situation in Tao Mansion in the capital, she also informed Mo Qiqi about this person, and did not write about her entanglement with Gu Ningxi I just said that she is a girl who I have a crush on, please pay attention to Rongniang, and help me if you can.

When finishing the calculation, the distance between the capital city and Quezhou is not a thousand miles, and the normal journey is only seven or eight days away. She hesitated for a few days, and the letter will be sent to the second sister and second brother-in-law after Mo Qiqi returns to his hometown to settle down. In his hands, it could be regarded as the fulfillment of Mo Qiqi’s intention to bid farewell before leaving Beijing.

Tao Xinhe rested her chin and thought, if Gu Ningxi made him the only woman in his current life who could see her facial features clearly, or if the character left Beijing, would there be a trace of nostalgia?

According to Mo Qiqi, Gu Ningxi will never meet such a character again, he was once likened to a person with a brand new bronze mirror. On this moonlit night, what was he thinking?

Heartstrings trembled inexplicably, Tao Xinhe shook her head, frowning and denying, how could he miss me, and at the same time blaming herself for wasting her time around Gu Ningxi.

The next day, she received Gu Ningxi’s note letter like a literati’s diary, saying that the moonlight is pleasant, she can’t bear to let her go to sleep, and she misses He Niang for a long time.

After that, it continued one after another, counting from the first letter on April 20th to the day of the Dragon Boat Festival, in just half a month, Tao Xinhe received eleven letters from Gu Ningxi, which were long or short, one within a day or two. For some reason, she didn’t reply.

As for how to read it at the back and review it late at night, only she knows.

The author has something to say:

End countdown.

Amway’s next spin-off of “Journey to the West” – “Crossing into the King of the Kingdom of Daughters”, seamlessly follows the file, and now you can read it with thousands of words.

If guest officials only like to read originals, the author’s column also has an advance collection of “I Support the Little Poor (Female Venerable that will definitely be published within the year. The male protagonist who keeps the masculinity and the charming female protagonist, please bookmark it.