Chapter 115 Plum Blossoms 25 Just Think of Me as Being Coquettish

Song Yanze suddenly turned his head away and looked at him with a very suspicious look.

"You?" Song Yanze looked at Jiang Tingyuan who was obviously stunned. "It's good enough that you can understand the music score."

"Don't worry about it. If you don't, I won't mind it either."

Song Yanze sighed and patted his arm, and Jiang Tingyuan grabbed his wrist.

"As soon as we met, you said I was illiterate. Yes, I am not good at writing, I can't compose poetry, and I don't understand elegance. Do you dislike me..."

"This isn't the first day you've been like this." Song Yanze was afraid that he was really sad, so he took the initiative to hold his hand and moved closer to look at him. After he said this, he felt that what he said was not good, and tilted his head slightly.

"You have your own strengths. I am powerless, but you are a master of martial arts."

Jiang Tingyuan waited for the compliments to come, but when he lowered his head and met Song Yanze's eyes, he realized that there really was no follow-up. Jiang Tingyuan immediately circled him and lifted him up by the waist.

"I'm going back."

"How disrespectful! Put me down." This place is close to the suburbs, and it is remote and deserted at night, but we are outside after all.

Jiang Tingyuan frowned and said to him in a harsh voice: "I'll let you see my ability when I get back."

Song Yanze grabbed his robe and let out a cry. Jiang Tingyuan came close to him and gently bit his ear.

"I, your husband, can play the flute. I'll show you how to play it."

Song Yanze fell silent. He vaguely realized that the person playing the flute might not be what he thought, but he didn't understand what he meant for a moment.

Song Yanze has a lot of things to do during the day, especially since it is a critical period. At night, he just kisses, rubs, and hugs her, not doing much else which makes him more tired.

The gauze curtains were shaking, the quilt was warm and fragrant, Song Yanze's hair was loose, his face was flushed, one hand was tightly grasping the quilt, and the other hand was under the quilt, grasping something.

The quilt was arched up like a hill and the heat was leaking out from the seams.

Song Yanze kicked hard, and his white calves stretched out from the quilt. His flesh and bones were evenly proportioned, veins on the instep of his feet were visible, his tendons and bones were obvious, and his toes were curled.

"Asshole! What kind of flute are you playing?"

At this moment, the hill suddenly moved, emerged from his loose collared shoulders, pressed his nose against his cheek, and laughed softly.

"We bastards all brag like this, how about it? Sir Xiao Song, can you give us some advice?"

"Can you make the master feel like he is floating in the air?"

Song Yanze couldn't stand such nonsense, so he reached out and pinched his upper and lower lips, his chest rising and falling, easing the rising pleasure.

"I was wrong. I should have thought about your feelings." Song Yanze felt that it was indeed inappropriate to say that. Even if he wanted to help and talk to Jiang Tingyuan directly, he would definitely think it would be more appropriate.

Instead, it made him think more and he suffered again.

Song Yanze is a gentleman, and he judged Jiang Tingyuan, the bastard, with a gentleman's heart. Jiang Tingyuan was just looking for an excuse to taste the meat. He always looked down on those pedantic writers, so how could he have regrets?

"Don't worry, I will never have anyone else in my life. Even in the future..."

Jiang Tingyuan couldn't wait for him to finish, so he rushed over and pressed him down into the mattress. He bit his lips with his eyes open, his soft and flexible tongue very cunning. Song Yanze put his arms around his neck and grabbed it with his fingers uncontrollably.

Jiang Tingyuan had thick skin and tough flesh, which caused Song Yanze's fingers to hurt.

Song Yanze tasted the strange taste on his lips, and his whole body turned red with shame instantly. He blinked his eyes, his cheeks flushed, and looked at him in a daze.

Seeing that he couldn't bear it anymore, Jiang Tingyuan propped up his arms and looked down at him. Seeing his swollen lips again, he couldn't help but come over and lick them to comfort him.

"I was just joking with you. I'm not really angry. I understand."

Song Yanze reached out and hugged him, laughed, and said slowly: "I understand, I understand why you played that trick before?"

Jiang Tingyuan's skin tensed up and he immediately felt his ear being twisted again. He stretched it out and let him twist it. She smiled and kissed the side of his face, pinched his waist, and changed the subject.

"I think I didn't play it well just now. Can you play it again for me to appreciate?"

Song Yanze wanted to hide and reached out to pull him, but he only felt his legs being pressed down and his waist being clamped, and he slipped into the quilt.

"asshole……"

The next morning, notices were posted on bulletin boards everywhere, and the price of grain was 180 wen per dou.

Song Yanze had just lifted his robe and sat down when a wealthy businessman in brown silk clothes squeezed in from outside the door, carrying letters and grain deeds and ran straight towards him.

"Master Xiao Song! Oh, Master Xiao Song, you kept me waiting. I came to look for you yesterday, but the concierge said you went to the Governor's Mansion."

Song Yanze drank his tea slowly and looked at him: "Why are you in such a hurry?"

"I got the news the day before yesterday. When I counted the granaries in other places, I found that there was still a lot of surplus grain. Thinking that Master Song was worried about the rice, I hurried over. The grain ship set off yesterday to..."

"Oh, isn't this Mr. Liu who told us that he would give it more consideration?"

They were all very smart. They said they would wait and see and not act rashly. Instead, they all counted the grain in the granary and transported it back.

Song Yanze sighed in embarrassment, frowned and looked at the merchants who had come, drank his tea and lowered his eyes to think, and surprisingly, he did not accept it immediately as they thought.

"After the grain payment was made that day, several merchants from other places spread the news when they returned. They all heard that the grain price in Jiangnan Province was high, so they all rushed to transport grain here and waited for the grain to be collected."

"But the government has limited food to consume, and a few grain stores can no longer consume that much."

Song Yanze looked thoughtful for them and sighed, "Let me say something for your consideration. Let's just ask them to transport the ship away before it goes far away."

But no matter how far away the local merchants' granaries were, they were always closer than those from other places. Naturally, they would not give up and immediately patted their chests and said that they were transporting the grain back not for money but out of public interest.

Song Yanze bowed and said, "Everyone is righteous."

After a whole morning of noise and bustle, the merchants finally left. Jiang Tingyuan finished his work and came to the yamen to find him. As soon as he arrived, he saw his son, Mr. Song, smiling and leisurely sipping tea.

"So happy?"

Song Yanze looked up at him, poured him a cup of tea and smiled.

"You want to know what I'm planning, don't you? You'll know in three days."

As they were talking, Ji Bai and Shi Yucheng rushed back from outside the yamen, exhausted. Both of them looked disheveled and covered in dust, but both were inexplicably excited.

As soon as he came in, he placed the map in his hand in front of Song Yanze's desk.

“The route to dredge the river.”

Then Shi Yucheng took out a crumpled piece of paper and placed it in front of him.

"Specific program charter."

Ji Bai shook the document with his seal on it and said, "We have found a route that can minimize the losses and the possibility of flooding farmland."

Song Yanze looked up at the two of them, put away the papers in front of him one by one, and returned them to them.

"Very good, go ahead and do it."

Jiang Tingyuan sat next to Song Yanze, and tried to pull his hand, but when he failed, he childishly tugged at his sleeve.

"That's it? You don't want to take a closer look?"

Song Yanze said as if it was a matter of course: "I don't understand, why should I worry about you?"

"Work-for-relief requires rice, and the amount is not small. When we came back, we saw a notice saying that the price of rice has risen to 180 wen a dou!"

Jiang Tingyuan leaned on the chair behind Song Yanze and laughed: "Just go and prepare, don't you trust him?"

Ji Bai frowned. "How can I not believe it! It's just..."

He looked at Song Yanze with some shame, unconsciously showing the admiration of a young man for a strong man. The wet expression came from the heart and was not artificial at all.

Jiang Tingyuan was unhappy and clutched his robe sleeve tightly.

This person who is younger than him is better at pretending to be pitiful. Song Yanze reached out and pulled his hand, glared at him as if warning, and then smiled and looked at Ji Bai.

"Don't worry, it will be solved in three days. You have worked hard these days. Take a rest for a few days. Once the rice and food arrive, we can start."

After Song Yanze comforted them, he turned around and saw Jiang Tingyuan with a long face.

In just a few short sentences, he had already walked out the entire plot in his mind of Ji Bai seducing the concubine, getting into the house, becoming her equal, then framing her, pretending to be pitiful, and finally trying to seize the position of the principal wife.

Song Yanze didn't know what he was thinking, but he fully understood his narrow-mindedness. He was a little surprised and asked Jiang Tingyuan sincerely: "Why do you always think that others like me?"

"You know very well that from the time I was studying at the Huizhou clan school to when I entered the officialdom, I have always been unpopular. Not many people have shown me kindness."

Jiang Tingyuan's face froze, he concealed the expression in his eyes, and put his arm around his waist: "Just think of me as being spoiled."

Song Yanze sighed, thinking that he was really contradictory. He looked full of energy, and sometimes looked like a peacock spreading its feathers in front of him, but he had so many little thoughts, worried about gains and losses, and was very uneasy.

"After the matter is settled, before returning to Kyoto, I will take you back to Huizhou to talk to my grandmother. No matter what the result is, I will write a marriage certificate and give it to you. Are you happy with this?"

Jiang Tingyuan's face turned pale, but he really wanted what he said... the marriage certificate.

"If your grandmother..."

"My heart is not made of stone, it cannot be moved."

Jiang Tingyuan hugged him tightly and smelled the light plum blossom fragrance on his neck. He felt warm, but it was not like his body heat. If you hugged him for a long time, you would always feel hot after a while.

But Song Yanze would never push him away.

*

Song Yanze said three days, and it would not be more than four days. This was the first time that so many grain ships gathered at the dock. Judging from the waterline, the ships were full of grain.

For three consecutive days, the dock was filled with ships loading and unloading rice. At this time, someone finally realized that something was wrong. This was rice from a group of merchants in Jiangnan Province, and later on, rice was pouring in from other places because they heard that the price of rice in Jiangnan Province was high.

Song Yanze opened the government silver shop to collect grain. He set up a table at the dock to collect the money. Merchants with a keen sense of smell tried their best to go to Lord Song to pay first.

In the end, Song Yanze stood directly on the high ground of the dock and pulled a rope towards the ferry, requiring payment to be made in the order in which the bow of the boat touched the rope. As for collecting grain, he only collected a fixed quota every day and no more.

For a while, the pier was as lively as the Dragon Boat Festival boat race, and people even set up stalls for people to watch every day.

Song Yanze stood on the roof of the restaurant with his hands in his pockets, looking down. Jiang Tingyuan, who was standing behind him, was leaning against the wooden railing and looking at him, and couldn't help laughing.

"I thought you were a gentleman, but now it seems you are not."

Song Yanze knew that the situation was settled, and he felt relieved. He stood in the wind, his crimson official robe fluttering slightly. He turned his head and looked at him with a smile, his eyes soft.

"What is it?"

"It's a fox. What a conspiracy."

Jiang Tingyuan took his hand, lowered his head, and picked up his fingers with his idle hands, pulling, touching, and pinching his fingertips.

"We make friends with merchants, hold banquets, compete in tea, hold boat races, and encourage the repair of houses. This is to absorb refugees and stabilize the situation. We can find things for young and middle-aged people who are likely to become bandits to do. At the same time, this will also allow the money of the rich to flow into the market and be spent."

"You also found out the situation of the granary, and you made a conspiracy. You wrote letters to buy grain from other places at high prices to stimulate local merchants. Now you are asked to hold the three departments in power and confirm the price in the name of the official, which is also sending a signal that you have the final say in Jiangnan Province now."

"It's not that no one knows that you can't collect much high-priced grain, and they also understand that you will withdraw sooner or later, but the price is too high, and with huge profits, they all think they are the ones who can eat the meat."

Jiang Tingyuan didn't say anything else. He moved closer to him, leaning against his face, staring into his eyes, his heart itching and eager to do something.

"My husband is so amazing."

Song Yanze lowered his eyes and looked at him, smiling as well, not avoiding his intimacy, his palm against his cheek.

"Then guess what I'm going to do next. There's a reward for guessing correctly."

When Jiang Tingyuan heard the word "reward", his eyelids suddenly lifted, his Adam's apple moved, and he asked him in a low voice: "Is it the kind of reward I want?"

Song Yanze had been keeping him for so long that he became more aggressive and angry when he went out to do things. Song Yanze nodded, like he was dangling meat in front of a vicious dog.

“Stop purchasing grain, open warehouses and release grain for free, in large quantities. This will cause grain prices to drop rapidly. By then, they will have to sell the grain they have brought from thousands of miles away at a low price.”

"The price of food has dropped, and the disaster victims and refugees can now earn money. Gradually, fewer people will need disaster relief and food distribution, and this difficult time will be over."

Jiang Tingyuan is not stupid at all. He is an ambitious man and strategist who came from Yanzhou. He just likes to be an obedient and stupid dog in front of him.

It didn't take long before Jiang Tingyuan secretly got hold of the whole story and evidence of the dam's destruction, from the Ministry of Works' corruption to the local governor and the three officials secretly blowing up the dam.

When Jiang Tingyuan talked to him, he couldn't figure out the reason. But Jiang Tingyuan sneered and pointed it out.

"Li Heng saw through the emperor's mind. He wanted to take advantage of the party struggle to annex land and make more money. A political party not only needs power, but also needs to satisfy the appetites of the upper and lower levels."

Song Yanze took a long time to recover. When Jiang Tingyuan said this, his eyebrows were cold, his narrow eyelids were hidden in his eye sockets, and his brows were lowered, like a sharp goose feather blade unsheathed.

"Is it right? Is it right?" Jiang Tingyuan came up to him and asked him, with no trace of coldness in his eyes and brows, looking like a greedy dog.

Song Yanze came back to his senses and pulled his ear: "Yes, yes, you are right."

Jiang Tingyuan was right. This was Song Yanze's last day to collect grain. The next day he withdrew from the market and no longer collected any grain. Not much silver for disaster relief was used at this time.

Song Yanze set a fixed time, place and quantity every day, and laid out the silver lavishly, and also implemented a first-come, first-served system, where people competed to bid. It was a lively scene, and people thought it was a lot, but in fact they didn't even buy one-sixth of what they brought in.

Song Yanze then opened the granaries and began to distribute large amounts of grain, not only to the disaster-stricken villages and counties, but also to the disaster-stricken towns.

Free food is enough to keep people fed and clothed, there is plenty of surplus rice on the market, and it is impossible to transport it over long distances. There is a lack of information, and grain ships are still coming here. All merchants are starting to sell rice at low prices in a hurry.

Not only were the disaster-stricken states stocked with rice, but the entire Jiangnan Province was stocked with rice.

Song Yanze bought another batch of grain at a low price and began to support them in dredging the river and discharging flood water.

The migrant workers are all disaster victims. They have food to eat and wages every day. Moreover, they are working for their own families to get out of the flood as soon as possible, so none of them complain.

After the flood discharge ends and the water level drops, the farmers can continue to plant rice without wasting their farming time. Most importantly, they probably won't be short of food for the whole year.

Jiang Tingyuan also found out the truth, and the fifteen people from Zhaojia Village who had been hiding from the limelight also returned home, but they went to help repair the river the next day.

The woman in the capital who first appealed also returned home to reunite with her family. Jiang Tingyuan was really meticulous in his work. He had already taken care of all these things without Song Yanze telling him.

Even the "Ting Niang" who played the flute was settled by him. Her bond was broken and she was free. Since she had lived in Zhaojia Village for some time, she stayed there now.

He just wanted to see Master Song again, so he wanted to send him off with a song. Jiang Tingyuan came back and told him about it with a fake smile, and then found an opportunity to force him to appreciate it again under the quilt.

Song Yanze's lips trembled, perhaps he never wanted to hear the word "playing the flute" again in his life.

The people almost praised Lord Xiao Song to the sky, shouting that he was a literary star from heaven who had descended to earth, and even wanted to offer him a longevity tablet.

In contrast, the wealthy businessmen and officials from the three departments hated him.

Since Song Yanze did that, he knew it would be like this. Even if he had to do it again, he would still do it.

Now that the overall situation has been decided, the struggle in the court is quietly entering a white-hot stage.

The Minister of Industry's corruption case, Li Heng instructed local authorities to blow up dams, local officials and businessmen colluded to force farmers to sell their land at a low price...

Each one of them is a fatal matter.

Song Yanze curled up in his arms. Thinking of this, he couldn't help but hug him tightly. Seeing that he seemed to be asleep, he whispered.

"Don't leave me behind again, even in life or death. Otherwise, in the next life, I won't..."

Jiang Tingyuan opened his eyes at some point, put his hand on the back of his neck, and lowered his head to stop him from speaking.

Rub and nibble the soft lips, suck and lick gently.

Song Yanze hugged his broad back and looked at him in the dim candlelight. Their heat was entangled and their black hair was tangled together.

Jiang Tingyuan hugged him tightly and looked at him, with emotions as deep as ink in his eyes.

They separated for a moment to catch their breath, and when they looked at each other, it was unknown who was more anxious, and they suddenly pressed together again.

"Yan Ze, in the last life, this life, and the next life, no matter what, I will be here, I will always be here."

Song Yanze's head buzzed, and those dark eyes seemed to be ink blue, but it was always him, so sure, so certain.

Just like Tingyan or Jiang Tingyuan, they are the same person.

It was just like the sentence he repeated many times.

No matter what you look like, I like you and love you.