From beginning to end, Li Yonglin never spoke or looked at the painting.
"Dad, this!" Dan Qingsheng pointed to the door of the Li family and said to his father with a dissatisfied look on his face. From the beginning, he objected to coming to attend the banquet held by the Li family to celebrate his family's overcoming difficulties. In his opinion,
, the matter of divorcing his wife has offended the Li family to death, and the relationship cannot be repaired no matter what, so he just doesn't have to deal with the Li family in the future. But he argued with his father many times, but Dan Mo had no idea of adopting his suggestions.
Today, he insisted on bringing him to the banquet. As expected, the father and son were repeatedly humiliated.
"What is this!" Dan Mo was not in a good mood, but he did not dare to vent it on the Li family. Even if he was just a slave, he could only scold his son: "Hurry up and get in!"
"The Li family humiliates our family like this, and we are still hot-tempered but cold-hearted!" Dan Qing said a folk saying in anger.
"If you dare to disobey me again, if you say anything like this again, I will expel you from the house!" Dan Mo shouted.
"Dad!" Dan Qingsheng glanced at him in disbelief and noticed that his father's expression was not joking. Although he was still very dissatisfied, he could only hold back his anger and followed the servants of the Li family into the Li Mansion.
.Dan Mo also followed.
"This is where you sit!" The servant of the Li family took them a few steps into the house and came to a small courtyard, pointing to the two empty seats at the table and saying.
"Here!" Dan Qingsheng's emotions that he had finally suppressed almost burst out again. As the number one merchant in Suzhou, the Li family is extremely wealthy, and of course the courtyard is extremely vast; but no matter how vast it is, it is not the countryside after all, but the city of Suzhou where every inch of land is worth the money.
, the Li family did not dare to occupy too much space, which would arouse the taboos of the government, not to mention the various flower gardens used as decorations, which could only accommodate about a hundred tables at most.
But today, in addition to officials, everyone with some status and money in Suzhou City is here. Even those who only own a tailor shop at home are here half to congratulate and half to make money.
The yard could not accommodate the man who had performed well at all times. The Li family had to clear out the houses around the front yard, open up the yard walls, and arrange many lower-status guests in these small courtyards. The Dan family was arranged in
It's in a small courtyard, and it's a very remote courtyard.
Dan Qingsheng looked at the people on both sides of the empty seat. He happened to know both of them. One of them was the owner of the incense and candle shop, and the other was a second-rate boy near their home. There were three or five brothers. In addition to stealing and cheating from other places, they usually
For a few dollars, even the doorman of their house could be scolded. Letting the father and son sit among such people would be even more humiliating than being in front of the gate.
"Cough! Cough!" Dan Mo coughed twice at this time, came over and held Dan Qingsheng's shoulders, forced him onto the seat, and sat down himself. The people on both sides looked very frightened and stood up to show that they did not dare.
Sitting side by side with them. Dan Mo said a few words very gently, which slightly alleviated their fear. Then he was glared at by the servants of the Li family, so he could only sit down, but he was ready to stand up at any time.
Prepare.
Dan Qingsheng sat on the chair with an angry look on his face. In order not to anger the servants of the Li Mansion, he could only look down at his hands; Dan Mo still had a calm expression and looked around.
‘At least 600 tables have been arranged for today’s banquet. Calculating there are ten people per table and two guests per household, that’s 3,000 households. Basically everyone from the middle class and above is here. The scale of this banquet is really quite big!’
'It seems that I came to the right place today. Now that the Li family has such a great influence in Suzhou, and Li Yonglin is Li Taiyuan's biological daughter, if they target my Dan family everywhere in the future, my family's secrets will definitely be exposed. The only way is to bear the humiliation of the Li family,
Only by taking the initiative to get involved and being repeatedly humiliated by the Li family can the Li family calm down and stop targeting my Dan family. Only then can my Dan family be safe.' Dan Mo thought in his heart.
His great-grandfather was a Mingjiao believer and followed Zhu Yuanzhang to conquer the world. However, after Zhu Yuanzhang became emperor, he immediately began to purge the Mingjiao in the army and declared the Mingjiao to be a cult. Most of the so-called Mingjiao at that time were actually just trying to make ends meet.
Seeing that the Mingjiao uprising was at its peak at the end of the Yuan Dynasty, he just sneaked in to eat, and Zhu Yuanzhang immediately announced his separation from Mingjiao. However, Danmo's great-grandfather was a devout Mingjiao believer and had to flee from the army.
He originally wanted to flee to Shandong, but the riverside was heavily guarded and he couldn't swim, so he had to flee in the south of the Yangtze River. It happened that he had fought in Suzhou before, so he fled to Suzhou, which had just experienced war and had chaotic household registration, and changed his name to hide it.
He got up. And because he wanted to find his own organization, and farmers could not have a suitable reason to move around, he became a businessman. In order to protect his origins from being found out, he also recognized a small local family named Dan.
For relatives.
A few years later, he successfully found an organization and contacted the believers in Jiangbei who had changed their name to the White Lotus Sect. At that time, he wanted to take his wife and children to leave Suzhou, which was extremely tightly controlled by the Ming Dynasty, and go to Shandong or Shaanxi, which were relatively loose, but
The senior officials of the White Lotus Sect felt that their family had already taken root in Suzhou and should not act rashly, so they asked him to lurk in Suzhou.
Later, several very business-savvy people came out of the Dan family, and they expanded the family's business and became one of the top five merchants in Suzhou. Although the descendants of the Dan family felt that this was too ostentatious, they had already reached this scale.
There is nothing left to do.
Although the fact that his family is a White Lotus cultist is extremely secretive and only a few people know about it, if someone continues to target their family, they will always be able to find some clues. At that time, what their family will have to face will not be the Li family, but the imperial court.
Jinyiwei. In order to prevent the Li family from targeting their family, Dan Mo decided to take the initiative to come to ask for humiliation. Now it seems that the effect is not bad.
"The more severely the Li family insults our Dan family, the faster they will dissipate. If you humiliate us like this for three to five months, you will be dissatisfied. You don't have to worry too much in the future. Alas, our ancestors were just confused for a moment."
Dan Mo thought helplessly. Their family actually disliked the identity of this White Lotus cultist and always wanted to get rid of it, but who told the ancestors to find the organization in the first place? If the organization was not found, it can be regarded as not having this identity, but if the organization was found, then
It’s hard to quit.
"Fortunately, when someone proposed to get rid of Li Yonglin, I thought about it and rejected it. Otherwise, I'm afraid the first thing the Li family will do after they recover is to use their backers to get rid of my Dan family." He was a little lucky.
Dan Mo was thinking about it when he heard the sound of firecrackers coming from outside and saw fireworks flying in the air. Dan Mo quickly calmed down his mind, sat on the chair respectfully, and changed positions with others so that he could see the outside of the door, and waited for Li Taiyuan for a while.
rhetoric.
But at this moment, there was a sudden noise from the courtyard, and it seemed that something very incredible had happened. Dan Mo stood up and looked into the courtyard, thinking: 'What happened? Could it be Suzhou's new Zhao
The magistrate came to pay a visit? No, literati all want face. Local literati are just fine. Folks from the countryside are also acceptable. Literati from other places who come to Suzhou to serve as officials cannot lose face. But if it hadn't been for this, what would have happened?
To make everyone so surprised?' Not only him, everyone in the small courtyard was very curious and looked into the courtyard. But from the angle of the small courtyard, we could only see some guests talking with surprised faces, and nothing else could be seen.
No; it was too noisy and I couldn't hear what they were talking about.
"Brother Wei, what happened in the courtyard that made everyone so surprised?" the second-rate man sitting next to Dan Qingsheng asked a servant of the Li family who had just walked in.
This person also had an expression of disbelief on his face. The second-rate man greeted him twice before he realized what he was doing and said: "The elder has arranged for the third lady to sit on the table and sit next to him."
"How could it be possible!" Everyone exclaimed. The third lady is Li Yonglin. Although she is Li Taiyuan's eldest daughter, she is the third daughter of this generation in the family, so the servants call her third lady. Although she is clearly
At the beginning, the social atmosphere was not as closed as it was later, but it was still very unbelievable for a woman to attend a banquet, not to mention that she was not an elder in the family, but a young junior. Li Taiyuan asked his daughter to
It is estimated that the entire Suzhou people will discuss the matter for half a month, and even the government may reprimand the Li family.
What surprised everyone even more was that Li Yonglin actually sat next to Li Taiyuan, and the other Li clan members seemed to have no intention of objecting. It was just Li Taiyuan who was just messing around like this, and the entire Li clan was going crazy with him?
"There must be a reason for this!" Li Xingjian, who was sitting in the courtyard, said immediately after experiencing the initial surprise.
"I also feel that there must be something we don't know about." His second brother Li Xingxiao also said. Even though he is not very smart, he is not as understanding of the world as his elder brother, and he also knows that when things are abnormal, there must be monsters.
They thought about this for a while. When all the firecrackers in Suzhou City had exploded, they just took a short rest. Li Taiyuan, who had already arrived at the table, stood up with a wine glass in his hand, looked around and said: "Thank you all.
Participate in the banquet held by my Li family. My Li family is just a merchant, but it is an honor for my Li family to invite all the gentry in the city here."
"Master Li, you don't have to be so polite/you are too polite/how can you be so polite/..." everyone said one after another.
Li Taiyuan waited for them to finish speaking before continuing: "You don't have to be too modest. I know very well who my Li family is. It's all thanks to your care that I have this little bit of dignity."
"However," Li Taiyuan suddenly changed the topic: "Not long ago, my family's little dignity was completely stripped away, and several people almost lost their lives. Those few people not only wanted to strip away my family's dignity and humiliate my Li family, but also
They want to eat my Li family alive completely, leaving no way for them to survive."
"What is he talking about?" Li Xingxiao was very puzzled. Today was a celebration of overcoming the disaster, but it seemed unnecessary to exaggerate the difficulties encountered at that time; and all the families in Suzhou, regardless of their relationship with the Li family, did not help.
Busy, he said this as if he was mocking them.
"Listen carefully! Don't talk!" Li Xingjian scolded. Seeing that not only his elder brother scolded him, but also others were dissatisfied with him, Li Xingxiao did not dare to speak anymore and listened carefully.
"..., my Li family was really in extreme danger at that time!" Li Taiyuan said loudly and hoarsely.
"But when there was no way to ask for help, my daughter suddenly thought of a way, so that the court punished the officials who coveted my Li family's property and framed my Li family, so that my Li family survived this disaster. Therefore, she is our Li family's
A great hero, a great hero with the greatest merits! Without her, our Li family would be finished!"
"Dad," Li Yonglin was a little uneasy about what to say, but before she could finish her words, she heard Li Taiyuan say again: "So, today, in front of everyone, I want to express my gratitude to the man who saved the whole family as the head of the family.
