Every New Year's Eve in Shangjing, lanterns are set up and a stage is set up inside and outside Shangjing for all-night carnival.
"Secret Fragrance Garden" is less than five miles away from Shangjing City. It is a huge plum forest. Probably due to the terrain, it blooms most beautifully in January every year.
The Secret Garden of Dark Fragrance and Shuying is half of the royal garden. Every year after the Qianqiu Festival of the Holy Lord, the Ministry of Etiquette is responsible for selecting the programs, and the Ministry of Household Affairs begins the annual large-scale construction work. All the stages and other things in the garden are re-decorated.
There is a plum blossom viewing lake in the middle of the garden, and the stage is built along the water. Around the lake, at the front, are boxes filled with boxes. Behind the boxes are rows of benches for ordinary people to sit.
The boxes where the nobles are staying are all blocked by a curtain made of a rather strange material. This kind of fabric is similar to modern glass. People inside can see outside, but people outside cannot see inside. This is especially convenient for those who are not suitable for public appearances.
Or someone who is not suitable for outsiders to know is invited to use the box. After all, Dayi Dynasty clearly stipulates that civil servants and military generals are not allowed to travel with prostitutes in public.
The box in the middle belongs to the Holy Lord by default, and the curtain is kept closed almost every year.
The stage of Anxiang Shuyingyuan is comparable to the modern Spring Festival Gala. The entire teahouse, restaurant and flowerhouse theater troupe of the Great Yi Dynasty are all proud to perform on stage here.
On the right side of the stage, there is a long wooden frame that is as tall as one person. It is filled with rattan baskets. Each rattan basket is covered with a red paper, which details the programs and performers on the stage. The arrangement of the rattan baskets is
The order of each play. The role of the rattan basket is to vote.
If the people who eat melons like a program, they can buy bamboo chips. Ten bamboo chips will be used for ten big boys. You can come in person, and each person can only buy ten bamboo chips. Therefore, every year in the Secret Fragrance and Shuying Garden,
During the Spring Festival, a profession was developed, which was called a slave slave at that time. The task of a slave slave was to help the dandy kids in the capital to vote for their favorite programs.
A rattan basket can hold more than a thousand bamboo chips. When the basket is full, it will be replaced with a new empty basket immediately, and the basket has a number. Those popular actors and actresses can get hundreds of thousands of bamboo chips after a performance.
raise.
The Ministry of Etiquette conducts an inventory every three days, and the minimum number is 100,000 bamboo chips, which can be continued to perform. The top 20 in the end, on the second day of February when the dragon raises its head, the Ministry of Etiquette beats gongs and drums and personally delivers red peonies to the door. The top 20
Hundreds of people, if nothing unexpected happens, half of the performances in the first seven days of the Anxiang Shuying Garden next year will be booked by them.
Every year, the silver earned from the Anxiang Shuying Garden is distributed by the Ministry of Household Affairs, leaving a small part for the cost of repairing the stage in the coming year. Most of it is allocated to Anjifang, nursing homes and Yi Pharmacy to subsidize these charitable institutions.
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Therefore, the Yuanxi stage in the Anxiang Shuying Garden is also an unprecedented display of flowers and brocades, with various oiran ladies vying for beauty, and each theater troupe working hard. In short, as long as they can make a splash on the stage in the Anxiang Shuying Garden,
You don’t have to worry about your livelihood in the next year.
There are no winter or summer vacations for the students in the Dayi Dynasty. Normally, they start to rest around the 20th of the twelfth lunar month until the 16th of the first lunar month before returning to the academy to continue studying. Therefore, during this period, the students also keep in touch with each other.
A great time to discuss knowledge.
Jintong only brought two maids and Zhang He as bodyguards, and kept a low profile in a box.
This year, the Ministry of Etiquette was so good that they specially invited Cen Yixiao, the first of the seven princes in Beijing, known as Linxian Gongzi, to play a song for the opening ceremony.
Cen Yixiao was extremely handsome, but he just sat deserted in the middle of the stage, which made people feel for no reason that the starry sky and the fragrant and sparse shadows in the garden were not as good as the sea of stars between Linxian's eyes.
After the opening fireworks, Cen Yixiao began to play, and the whole plum garden fell into silence, and everyone listened.
Jintong was semi-musically blind and didn't quite understand what was so good about the sound of Ding Ding Dongdong's piano. She drooled when she saw it, but she thought it sounded so good. Cen Yixiao was so handsome, and she really wanted to knock him down.
Jintong, who was so lustful that she was unconscious, couldn't help but put the tip of her nose to the edge of the door curtain, blatantly admiring the handsome man. The scene was so beautiful that her subordinates couldn't bear to look directly at him.
The Holy Lord was not in the middle box, which is the default place every year. Incognito and the queen lurked in the left box, which happened to be not too far from Jintong.
The Holy Master was curious for a moment, so he slightly lifted the door curtain and took a closer look. A gust of breeze happened to blow by, allowing Jin Tong to look at Cen Yixiao's ugly appearance on the stage with salivation.
The Holy Lord looked at Jintong's virtue, and his facial features trembled violently with an expression that disgusted Jintong from the body to the depths of the soul. Without hesitation, he reached out and picked up a peanut from the table, half-squinted his eyes, and looked through the door curtain.
Aiming at Jintong's forehead, he flicked it with one finger, "Hey, let me go! You can't hit!"
The Holy Master picked up another pill and stuffed it into Tian Dazhong's hand: "Old Tian, aim at Xiao Feitong's head!"
Tian Dazhong took the peanuts with a constipated expression on his face. With a grimace, he squeezed the peanuts hard and flicked them away through a door curtain, hitting the target.
Jintong was fascinated by the handsome guy when she was suddenly attacked. All her charming thoughts disappeared in an instant. She wiped her saliva, opened the door curtain, and looked for the culprit with murderous intent.
Suddenly looking back, she saw the Holy Master looking at her with a smile from the crack in the door curtain. Tian Dazhong shrank his head and hid tightly.
As soon as Jintong saw the Holy Lord, his facial expression immediately changed to a graceful, elegant, noble and calm smile. He bowed slightly to the Holy Lord and returned to the box.
As soon as her eyes rolled, a bad idea came to her. Jintong called Zhang He, took out his badge and gave it to him, and explained a few words.
Zhang He hurried back to Pingninghou Mansion and came back in less than half an hour, attracting everyone's envy. He was seen holding a large jar of Wuliangchunjiang in one hand and a small bottle of Taoyao in the other, heading straight to the Holy Lord in a flamboyant manner.
Walking past the private room, countless people looked back.
Zhang He bowed respectfully outside the Holy Master's private room: "Little Zhang He, on the order of the master of the family, bring wine to Mr. Huang."
"Enter!"
As soon as Zhang He entered the private room, he first handed the wine to Tian Dazhong, and then knelt down to greet the Holy Lord and Queen, but he still called Mr. Huang and Mrs. Jiang. This temporary private room only separated each other's line of sight and had no sound insulation effect.
Since the Holy Lord was visiting incognito and his identity would not be revealed, Zhang He naturally had to cooperate in the acting. Unbeknownst to Zhang He, the boxes on the left and right were occupied by the Holy Lord's personal bodyguards.
Zhang He and the Queen explained a little more: "Mrs. Jiang, this bottle of Taoyao was specially brewed by the owner of the small family. It is sweet and delicious, suitable for women to drink. Mrs. Jiang can try it."
"Thank you to Mrs. Jin for me."
Zhang He promised and bowed out.
The Holy Lord looked eagerly at the jar of wine, with his eyes almost sticking out two tongues, sticking his tongue into the jar to drink. Unfortunately, the Queen was aside, so he didn't dare! Now his hands and feet are often numb and tingling, and he has headaches from time to time.
The queen was worried about his health, and the imperial doctor's unscrupulous advice was to avoid alcohol and greasy food.
As soon as Zhang He left, there were a few shameless people behind him. They came to visit this "Mr. Huang" who was so shameless that Mrs. Pingninghou actually gave him some wine, and drank some wine.
The shameless Xu Wei waved a folding fan painted by a famous artist in one hand, and held tightly the copper heater with complex patterns and exquisite workmanship in the other hand. He held his head high and became the first person to eat crabs.
As soon as he entered the door, he looked up and lay down on the spot. Don't say anything. He kowtowed a few times before talking. Then he walked to the queen's side and said, "Aunt, my nephew is not up to par, and I want to come and ask for a drink."
Xu Wei's birth was extremely difficult. His mother had a dystocia for three days before giving birth to him, and she died just five days after giving birth. Xu Wei didn't know whether it was because he felt the pain at a young age or for some reason. Since his biological mother died, he has been crying day and night.
Xu Wei, who was just a new scholar at that time, was worried about the loss of his wife and his young son, so he sought medical treatment everywhere but failed. In desperation, he followed the advice of a wandering monk and found Xu Wei a foster father with strong character, that is, Jiang.
The Queen's biological brother, Xu Wei always shamelessly called Queen Jiang his aunt.
The queen smiled slightly: "What's the matter? Go get a few jars to put them in, and then have a good time with those little guys."
The Holy Lord sat aside in a noble and cool manner, with an unpredictable expression on his face.
Xu Wei rushed back to his private room like a gust of wind. With a flick of his hand, the folding fan and the copper stove flew together. His two young men quickly caught it with their sharp eyesight and hands.
Xu Wei didn't care about scalding, and emptied the wine jars simmering on the charcoal stove one by one. Then, regardless of the dirt, he directly pocketed the wine jars under his clothes. He didn't forget to turn around and shout to his friends:
"Follow me!"
With Xu Wei as an example and Empress Jiang's generosity, the wine in the wine jar became less and less. The Holy Lord's noble, cool and mysterious face became darker and darker, going straight to the bottom of the pot.
But what could he do? He and the young couple Queen Jiang had gone hand in hand for nearly forty years, endured many late nights that were too cold for outsiders to understand, and faced many crises where their lives were hanging by a thread together. The couple had a deep love for each other.
The Queen only cares about his health, so how dare he fall out?
In the end, the Queen mercifully left the Holy Lord a small pot of Wuliangchunjiang, which was enough for two wine glasses. The more the Holy Lord thought about it, the more frustrated he became. Since there was nothing he could do to the Queen, he simply directed his anger at Jintong's forehead.