Chapter 144 Unable to recognize him
When Meng Xuan got up, He Danggui grabbed the long gown on the table and put it on him. Even if he wanted to stay in her room, he must put on his clothes. When Chan Yi came in, it could be explained that “Childe Xuan lost his way, so he came to visit here.”
But Meng Xuan didn’t cooperate with her at all. His body was as soft as noodles. He scratched his head with his right hand and dug his nostril with his left hand when wearing his clothes, which made He Danggui be very angry and said, “Hey, have you heard of the evil energy in Jianghu of renewing one’s youth? I became a ten-year-old girl by practicing it. When practicing it, I have to suck a boy’s brain every day. If you don’t wear clothes, I will suck yours!”
Meng Xuan laughed with his shoulders trembling. As he raised his arms and put on his sleeves, he stared at He Danggui with a pair of beautiful eyes and said, “I’ve never seen such an interesting person as you. I really want to be friends with you. By the way, what’s the Tea Dew?”
“Oh, that is the concentrated tea cream, which could intoxicate a lot of people after taking a sip,” He Danggui dragged Meng Xuan out of bed. Like a conscientious maid, she dressed his collar, front and waistband. Then she pressed him to the dressing table to comb his hair. At the same time, she continued to explain, “Wine can be intoxicating, so is tea. Its potency is thirty times stronger than wine, which can let a person sleep for more than half a day after taking a drop, and even thunder can’t wake him up. But this Tea Dew that can intoxicate people is so scattered that sometimes you can’t take a drop even though after ten barrels of tea. Before being intoxicated, people will die because of drinking too much. Therefore, few people know about tea intoxication.”
“You, Madam Luo and I all have had it. Why are you all okay? The assassin didn’t take a sip of tea. Is your precious Tea Dew only used for me?” It was the first time that Meng Xuan had sat in front of the dressing table used by women and combed his hair, so he felt so strange that he reached out to pull the dressing box on the table and looked over it.
“No, the strangest thing about Tea Dew is that it doesn’t only work if you drink it, but also if you smell it, which just works slowly. As for the reason why Madam Luo is OK... If you use Anesthetic Herb alone, it will only work for martial arts seniors; if you use Tea Dew alone, it will work for anyone. However, if you get Anesthetic Herb first, and then drink Tea Dew, ordinary people will neutralize them and be safe, just like Madam Luo; if someone with internal force like you drink Tea Dew, he will catalyze the development of Anesthetic Herb and immediately become unable to walk or even to move.”
He Danggui couldn’t comb her own hair very well, but she could comb others’. In a short time, she made a bun for Meng Xuan. Then she planned to drag him to sit the table and poured him a cup of tea, acting as a guest came to visit. However, this guy had a strong interest in her dressing box and sat so steadily as a mountain that couldn’t be dragged like the Giant Buddha.
He Danggui had no choice but to tell him, “As soon as someone comes, you stand up relying on the dressing table and pretend to appreciate the layout of my room with your hands behind. If you are obedient, when I have time, I will use a silver needle to help you invigorate blood and discharge the medicine as soon as possible.”
Meng Xuan raised his eyebrows and looked at her, “Yesterday you said that you couldn’t help me to discharge the medicine, so I had to wait for it to fade away and make do with it for two or three days.”
“Yesterday I was sleepy and impatient to you,” He Danggui said vaguely and explained after a pause, “Besides, my acupuncture technique is very rare in the world, which had only been seen by my closest maid. I’m not familiar with you, and I’m afraid that you are a bad person with other intentions, so I dare not to show you my rare technique. Now you teach me the methods of internal energy and make friends with me. Of course, I will change my attitude. I hope you can keep the secret of acupuncture. Don’t let it out.”
Meng Xuan said with a smile, “Well, anyway, I will also ask you to keep the secret about ‘He He Qi Ri Qing’. However, I’m so curious that the reason why you know more than us (adults). I even want to open your head up and have a look.” Suddenly he opened a fragrant box and sniffed it. Then he said with a low voice, “Yes, that’s the smell of Zixiao!”
He Danggui was bending over to fold the quilt, then she turned around and had a look, “That’s the spice made from the seeds of Love Flower. In addition to Love Flower, there are other fragrant plants, such as Huolie Flower, Lilac and Jasmine. I named it ‘Carefree Fragrance’.”
“Carefree Fragrance?” Meng Xuan was amazed and asked, “Is it also made by yourself that can’t be bought outside?”
As He Danggui made the bed, she shook her head and said, “It was developed by my mother. I just added a few Huolie Flower to it and gave it the name of ‘Carefree’. Because every time I smell it, I will dispel my worry...” He Danggui grabbed the pillow and patted it. Then she said, “Buy it outside? You can only buy Lilac in Rouge shop and Love Flower in herbal medicine shop. It’s hard to find the rest. Do you like the fragrant so much? That’s for you. I’ll make a new one when I have time. Oh, you can use that green jade hairpin to pick out some for me and put them in another box. I’ll use them these days.”
“Oh, thank you.” Meng Xuan left some for her and put the remaining with the box into his sleeve. Then he asked again, “Can’t I really buy it outside?”
“I don’t know. You can have a try.” He Danggui made up the bed, hung up the bed curtain, turned around and poured half a bowl of Distilled Osmanthus Drink to Meng Xuan. Then she asked him, “What is Zixiao? A flower?”
Meng Xuan was fiddling with a handful of bead sheet flowers. He shook his head and said, “No, Zixiao is a person.” She was my savior and my concubine.
“Well, drink it now,” He Danggui turned to open the door and told him, “When Chan Yi comes, you pretend that you aren’t familiar with me and be very polite. You say that you were lost and came here by accident, so you came in and sat here casually. Besides, put those things you messed up in order.”
He Danggui opened the door and carried the water on the ground outside. After washing her face, she was about to go out and splash water. Suddenly, Meng Xuan, who had been “inconvenient to move and half paralyzed”, stood up abruptly and walked up with a big step. He washed his face with the water in her hand, wiped his face with her towel, and jumped out of the house as soon as he pushed the window.
Meng Xuan turned around outside the window and saw her expression was like seeing a ghost. He explained kindly, “I really couldn’t walk last night. It took me a night to practice energy here. Although I can walk now, both of my legs are unconscious. You can touch them in the evening if you don’t believe me... I’ll come back at midnight tonight. Make some midnight snack for me except sweets and noodles.” Then he waved at He Danggui and left.
He Danggui held the basin for a long time. Then she went to the window and splashed out the water. Alas! She had always been a person who fooled others, but now it was the opposite. It was really like that she always hunted wild geese all the year, but accidentally she was pecked by them.
“Miss, you wake up!” Chan Yi came in with a bowl of bright egg noodles. She smiled and said, “Ah, it’s so strange that you have made up your bed. You have never made it since I lived with you for such a long time!”
He Danggui rolled her eyes and asked, “Why did you find me last night? Did Madam Luo send people to find me?”
“Oh.” Chan Yi put down the bowl and bowed her head. She twisted clothes and said, “Brother Feng Yan and Brother Feng Yu let me ask you if you don’t tell Miss Ling that they have lived in our mansion. Although I don’t know what happened and who Miss Ling is, they’re very pitiful. Miss, could you promise them?”
“Feng Yan and Feng Yu?” He Danggui frowned slightly and said, “You aren’t allowed to talk to them!”
“Well? Why?” Chan Yi put down her clothes in surprise and said, “Miss, although they look glib-tongued, actually, they are very good people. When I picked the little white flowers last time, a little boy dropped his sugar man and started crying. They bought a new one for making the little child laugh... And they had already left Luo’s Mansion last night. I can’t find any of them even if I want to talk to them.”
“They left? You mean... All four of them are gone?!” He Danggui opened her eyes and stared at Chan Yi. Seeing that she nodded at a loss, He Danggui asked again, “When did you pick flowers? Are you familiar with them?”
Chan Yi waved her hands hurriedly and said, “No. I’ve met them three times. The last time was last night; the time before last time was in the Yu Ya Hall Pavilion; the first time was when you were almost stepped by the horse on the street. Didn’t you ask Huai Hua and me to pick the little white flowers? Brother Feng Yan and Brother Feng Yu also went to pick them. They said that Childe Ning ordered to pick.”
“... Huolie Flower?”
“Yes!”
He Danggui suddenly felt a little cold. She sat down and held the bowl of noodles to keep warm. Now she could be certainly sure that Ning yuan was Zhu Quan.
The record of Huolie Flower was from the small study room of Zhu Quan in the Lord Ning’s Mansion. All the books in it were out of print ancient books collected by him, which would never be found in other places. She remembered clearly that on one rainy night of that year, he and she were drinking tea in a small study room. He was reading The Catalogue of Taishang Taoist Classics, and she was reading The Classic of Rare Herbs.
When she read Huolie Flower, she saw two lines of old ink annotations, which praised it as “Salt of all herbs”, and the writing was only 60% similar to his. After asking, she knew that it was the annotation he wrote in his childhood. It was only because he changed to practice Liu’s calligraphy later, which was quite different from before. Then she started to write with a smile and added a sentence in the blank of the page “At the night of Nov. 8, 5th year of Yongle Period, reading in leisure time, which is always profitable.” He also took the writing brush with a smile and added a sentence at the back “The ownership of this book is accompanied by a beautiful girl reading at night, which is the happiest thing in life.”
He Danggui picked up chopsticks and began to eat noodles. She bit her teeth and regretted. She didn’t expect that the man would leave so fast. She had thought about it in the garden yesterday. Although she didn’t want to kill Zhu Quan at present who was young, after all, he hadn’t harmed her, she had figured out a way to let him be in trouble.
She only needed to deliver an anonymous letter to copper turtle outside the Yamen of Senior Governor in Yangzhou City. It said that Lord Ning Zhu Quan paid a private visit to Taoist Sage Bai Yangbai, who was recruited by the Emperor. Zhu Quan took Bai Yangbai as his teacher and learned the disguise skill very well. Zhu Quan often left the fief arbitrarily to engage in various underground activities. Now, he disguised himself as “Ning Yuan” and hid in the Ting Zhu Yard of Luo’s Mansion. When the Senior Governor of Yangzhou City Han Fei received such a letter, there were three ways for him to deal with it. The first was to lead troops to surround Luo’s Mansion again and catch Ning Yuan. The second was to send people to find out whether Lord Ning was in Daning Prefecture. The third was to write a letter to the Emperor and attach this anonymous letter.
No matter which way he chose, of course, it would be better if he chose all. The consequences of this matter were enough for Zhu Quan to be in trouble. After all, in the final analysis, all his power, status and money were given by his father Zhu Yuanzhang. Once Zhu Yuanzhang didn’t trust him, his happy life would end... But it was pity that he ran in time. If he could stay for one or two days... Well, she only wanted to be a passer-by who had nothing to do with him. She only hoped the heaven would pity her and let him disappear in her vision and her life forever.
“Bah!”
He Danggui quickly spat the noodles in her mouth into the gargling bowl and was greatly frantic, “Chan Yi, what did you add to the noodles? Sugar?” It was very greasy and awful! He Danggui was suddenly furious. Was the little girl possessed by the devil? The chrysanthemum tea she brought was as greasy as syrup, which made her struggle to drink it. How could she add sugar in a bowl of salty noodles with chili sauce?!
Chan Yi was surprised and covered her mouth, with round eyes opening wide. She had never seen that Miss lost her temper, let alone to her.
“It’s too sweet to eat. I’m going to sleep now!”
He Danggui gargled with Distilled Osmanthus Drink. Then she pouted and jumped to the bed. She laid back to Chan Yi first. Then she pulled the quilt and hid herself to sulk.
The room was silent for a long time, and He Danggui began to regret. Ticktock, ticktock, ticktock... The excessive silence made her feel guilty and introspective... In fact, what she was angry about was that she didn’t recognize the real identity of that devil earlier. She used to laugh at him and even regarded him as a friend. Even when she thought about the things happened in the past, she still felt heartache, which not only made her complain about herself, but also couldn’t be interrupted and separated from her body like breathing and heartbeat.
But these things weren’t related to Chan Yi at all. How delicious food could she make as a teenager? She really shouldn’t yell at her for a bowl of noodles. In retrospect, one of the things she regretted the most in her previous life was that she didn’t have money to take Chan Yi away from Taoist temple. Now she could stay with Chan Yi forever as she wished. Why wouldn’t she be satisfied? As expected, people were all animals who would be insatiable…
The words of apology were almost out of the mouth...
At this time, she felt that her back was poked across the quilt, and then the sound of Chan Yi rang behind her. It was her representative words, “Miss, if you dislike sugar, just tell me. How can I know whether you like it? Although you suddenly leave your chopsticks and go to the bed, you still have to tell me whether you like sugar or not! If you really dislike it, I won’t add it again. Eh, Miss, are you pretending to lose your temper to have a lie-in? Get up, you can’t sleep anymore! You’ll be a pig!”
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