Baidi City Wenxing Lane, this not-too-wide civilian lane halfway up the mountain is lined with gates and courtyards. Under its deserted appearance, more than half of the civil servants from the imperial court gathered at the Golden Palace. Whether they were ministers of rites or workers
All the officials in the ministry have chosen to buy houses here. The reason for this, if it is to say that people are divided into groups, has a different meaning among the civil servants who despise each other.
On both sides of the narrow alleys paved with bluestone roads are tall walls with white walls and black tiles. The only difference, only those who are careful will notice, is the small brick carving on the door of each house.
There is a evergreen plant carved on it. This is true for every household, but the "dieffenbachia" in each household is different. According to the number of cones produced by each evergreen plant on the brick carving, the civil servants of each household on both sides of Wenxing Lane
They are divided into three, six or nine grades invisibly.
As the saying goes, the Baidi City hiking trail has a total of 12,662 steps, and each step is as difficult as climbing to the sky. Only a few civil servants in the court knew that in this narrow alley, if you want to give your family a
Adding another cone to the evergreen brick sculpture is no more simple than taking an extra step on the hiking trail.
There is no way to verify when this unwritten rule of Wenxing Lane was initiated and who took the lead in following it. Only those who have done the research have made statistics. At present, the most fruitful "Dieffenbachia" plant in Wenxing Lane is
Above, there are nine cones.
There is a lot of rain in the city today, coming and going rapidly and continuously. This is one of the two obvious rainy seasons in Baidi City every year, because in the season when the autumn is supposed to be clear and crisp, there will be autumn rain for more than a month. People in the mountain city call it
"Long Run".
A young man in white clothes walked in this alley with a knife on his back. The sky was blue and rainy. It was still a morning similar to the mornings of the previous few days. The sky had not even risen yet.
It stands to reason that the houses on both sides of this road should have already been commotion. Although the early morning meeting is not at Yinshi, the officials in front of the Golden Palace have long been accustomed to waiting in front of the main hall square on the top of the mountain an hour in advance, chatting with each other, and counting the time for washing and climbing.
You have to go out before dawn every day at the fifth watch. Civil servants who live at the foot of the mountain have to calculate this time further forward, and the same is true for the twelfth lunar month in the cold winter.
There was once a scholar who was well-off in his hometown, and could be considered as having sufficient food and clothing in a small place. However, after gaining academic qualifications, he ended up in a residential position at the bottom of the mountain. Because he was pampered since he was a child, he couldn't stand the pain of getting up early in the cold winter, so he often stepped on the spot before entering the golden age.
Before long, he was the first to resign and go away, retreating to his resting place in his hometown and county town.
Today is one of the few days when there is no need to go to court in the morning. In the past, such good things were only promulgated by Bu Xingsi once every quarter. Ever since Yu Shuheng, the prince of the southwest, came to the city, he claimed to take care of the young emperor's health. Days like this went unnoticed
There are a little more, and now there are four days of court leave every month. For the people in the city, this is one of the few good things that General Yu has done since entering the city.
Along the way, Bai Yehua, with his outstanding observation skills, had already discovered the mysteries in the brick carvings on the doors of each house. However, along the way, the largest number of evergreens he counted could only bear three cones.
This made the young man feel a little disappointed. He didn't know the rules behind it. He just wanted to see what the Dieffenbachia plant full of fruits looked like. The three solitary ones hanging on the branches seemed a bit too shabby.
Suddenly, an unusual Dieffenbachia plant appeared in the field of vision, with six huge and plump fruits. This forced the young man to stop and take a closer look. After seeing the name of the house clearly, his eyebrows condensed subconsciously.
, the sharp gaze suddenly replaced the original leisurely mood.
"Hey, what a handsome young man, you don't look like someone from Baidi City. You are also a candidate who wants to come to Mr. Wen to smooth things over, right?" An old voice sounded from beside the young man.
Bai Yehua was startled at first, and then discovered that an old servant leaned out of the house opposite the house. Because of the narrow alley, the distance was too close, which made it appear so abrupt.
Bai Yehua did not turn around, too lazy to pay attention to the old man's conjecture.
The enthusiastic old servant still chattered endlessly: "I advise you not to ask for trouble. This sir is a man who has nothing to do with anything. Whether he is a noble son from the south of the Yangtze River or a noble son from the north, he wants to learn from this minister of etiquette.
I asked for recommendations here, but in the end, who didn’t get a bad result?”
As he spoke, the old man glanced at the scale-patterned white pod scabbard that the young man carried behind his back, and said kindly: "If you want to be a martial arts champion, come to him, Master Wen. Aren't you on the wrong mountain? If I were you, I would
I won’t knock on this door.”
Seeing that the young man ignored him, the old man stopped asking for trouble and closed the door of the house again, but Bai Yehua, who had a sharp ear, still heard a sigh of regret.
The young man corrected his mind and took one step forward, stepping onto the steps in front of the door.
Behind the door of a strange house called "Deep Alley", the concierge who got up early was stretching his muscles in the courtyard, and a series of crisp knocks sounded outside the door.
The concierge was startled at first, and then he wondered how someone could come to visit him so early in the morning, let alone that someone like his master could have any friends who would appear in Wenxing Alley so early in the morning.
But doubts are doubts, and you still can't neglect things. This is the rule of being a servant. The old porter first shouted, "Sir, wait a minute," then took off the door latch and slowly opened the heavy door.
When the door was slightly open, the concierge saw clearly the person coming outside the house. It was a young man in white clothes, with eyes like knives. Before he could take another look, a white light flashed in the next moment, and by squeezing,
The door was opened a crack, and a long knife accurately penetrated the door and stabbed the concierge in the heart. The tip of the knife penetrated an inch of the body, and the mortal concierge lost all his life under the knife.
It was a bone-white blade, about three feet long including the part inside the heavy wooden door. The young man held the knife in his backhand, turned around and lifted it up to put it away. The bone-white blade had an edge as fine as the vertebrae of a python. It was stained with blood.
There was no need to wipe the blade, and the bright red blood instantly penetrated into the blade, revealing the original spine-like python bone blade pattern.
"No one will be left alive." Bai Yehua sheathed the knife and pushed open the heavy door.
The courtyard is deep, and the hall facing the entrance of the house is pitch black. Under the blue sky and misty rain, the red light in Bai Yehua's eyes fleetingly disappears. He can see the figure sitting in front of the hall. Even the concierge has not noticed the figure who has been sitting quietly for a long time.
The figure there.
Wen Jiu, who was dressed in official uniform, looked at the young man standing outside the door in the dark. He did not panic when facing General Yu. He asked from afar: "Who sent you here? Those old guys from Jiangnan County.
Guys? Is it because I drove away a few useless little guys from their family? Or are those old bastards from the Ministry of Finance who are not ashamed of falling in the eyes of money and want to stretch their hands for more power, so they jumped over the wall and did such a mindless thing?
.”
Bai Yehua moved forward step by step, his pace getting faster and faster, his right hand gradually pressed on the handle of the knife, and said: "It sounds like there are many people in the city who want you dead, but I am the biggest one."
As soon as he finished speaking, the young man started to run away. The land in Baidi City is very valuable, and the residential area in Wenxing Lane is not large. Almost instantly, Bai Yehua fell in front of Wen Jiu, and the fierce wind blew the civil servants away.
The red light reappeared in the boy's eyes, he drew the sword out of its sheath, and in one go, the unsheathed long sword was like a white python that shot up, biting the man's neck straight away.
"Then I know who it is." The man remained unfazed in the face of danger, letting the rain and wind blow him away like a rock. Under the wind of the python bone knife, he even raised his head and looked directly into the young man's scarlet eyes.
The moment he saw those calm eyes, the sword in Bai Yehua's hand paused briefly. This general style that did not belong to a civil servant made him suspicious. Even the hand wielding the sword couldn't help but slow down a little. He didn't understand.
What qualifications does Wen Jiu, a mere civil servant who cannot wield a sword have, to be so frank and calm?
But if you don't understand, you don't understand, just like he can't understand many principles in books, and he can't recognize some words. If everything is blocked because of a sentence that he doesn't understand, then there will be no unsheathed sword in the world.
Thinking about it, the speed of the knife falling from the young man's hand increased instead of decreasing. This change of thought also successfully saved his life.
A crisp sound of gold and iron clashing sounded in front of the hall, accompanied by a mixed dragon's roar. The table and tea cup in front of Wen Jiu swept across the table, and two figures faced each other on top of it.
The ponytailed girl in green took off the long-handled knife in her hand, and the panicked dragon roar came from the half-moon-shaped crescent blade. The girl's vibrant eyes stared at Bai Yehua warily, and the latter released the pressure.
With the left foot holding the blade of the Yanyue Sword, step back.
Previously, the girl was hiding in a dark corner at the top of the hall in front of the hall, carrying a long-handled knife weighing over a hundred kilograms against the beam like a gecko. Just now, she suddenly fired a cold arrow, suppressing the force of the knife from top to bottom.
Due to the weight of the Yanyue Sword, Bai Yehua felt his hands were numb from the shock, and the Python Bone Sword in his hand almost fell away.
Fortunately, he made a desperate move at the last moment, forcing the girl to focus on protecting Wen Shangshu. If the sword force had been slower, the blade in the hand of the girl floating silently above her head would not have been to defend the python bone knife.
, but chopped it off straight on the head.
Only then did Bai Yehua understand why Wen Jiu was so calm. From the beginning, he knew that someone was coming to kill him, and he always had a back-up plan ready. The man had been acting since he entered the door, and asking him where he was was just numb.
It's just his means.
The girl felt a little regretful that the attack failed to succeed. She stepped on the expensive sunken wood table and dropped it on the stone tiles in front of the hall. The Yanyue knife in her hand fell to the ground, and a crack appeared.
Behind the girl, Wen Shangshu, who secretly wiped away his cold sweat, straightened his posture and said, "Go back and tell your master that Wen Jiu of the Ministry of Etiquette will not accept this gift."
The young man turned sideways and waved the knife, and said displeasedly: "There is one more person, and you are so sure that I can't kill you?"
"You can't kill me," the girl nodded, and the ponytail on the back of her head trembled as she said, "You can't defeat me, and your sword can't defeat my sword."
As he spoke, he pointed at the young man's blade. Bai Yehua looked sideways at the bone-white blade that was so close at hand. An imperceptible crack, like the crack on the stone tile floor in front of the hall, suddenly appeared on the blade with python bone patterns!