Chapter 47 What does it mean to give gifts?
She went to worship the gods and ask about her marriage, but got nothing. However, it was not a wasted trip. At least her mother felt much more relieved. After returning home, she put her marriage aside and busied herself with work in the fields.
Her mother no longer cared about her, and Gu Youan also made time to prepare for her business trip and also took the time to practice her skills.
In the past few days, Gu Youan was either in Songjiang City or running to the North Mountain with the escorts from Ping'an Escort Agency. After intensive training for a period of time, Gu Youan's archery strength and accuracy have improved a bit.
“Swoosh!”
Two arrows were shot, one missed and the other hit a pheasant in the tree.
With a slight "bang", the pheasant fell from the branch onto the thick rotten leaves at the foot of the tree.
"Miss, what a big chicken!" Xiaoju quickly ran over and picked up the pheasant.
Guo Su turned to Gu Youan and said, "These flat-haired beasts are very clever. There was a lack of rain this spring, and as more people went into the mountains, they fled deeper into the hills."
Gu Wenqing said, "We've come very far. We can't go any further into the mountains. Master Guo said there are tigers and wolves deep in the North Mountains. It's very dangerous."
Tian Erlang felt bored, but safety was more important. "Then let's go out?"
As they were talking, they heard the sound of branches breaking in the valley not far away, and suddenly they heard the roar of a tiger in the mountains. They immediately became nervous.
"What's going on? A tiger escaped?"
Gu Youan clenched the bow and arrow in his hand: "No matter what the reason, hurry up and leave."
Without hesitation, they turned around and ran out, leaving behind the prey they had hunted.
On the way of escape, the noise from behind became louder and louder. Gu Wenqing turned around and saw a group of people wearing the uniforms of the guards of Prince Qi's Mansion besieging a tiger. When Gu Wenqing was hesitating whether to turn back to help, a tiger with hanging eyes broke through the encirclement and swooped down from the rear.
"careful!"
Gu Wenqing rolled on the spot, and Tian Erlang and two bodyguards from the Ping An Escort Agency jumped away nimbly and climbed up the tree.
"not good!"
As the few people dodged, Gu Youan, Guo Su and Xiaoju, who were protected in the middle, became the people closest to the tiger.
Gu Youan instinctively knew she couldn't escape this way, so she shouted, "Separate ways!"
Guo Su pulled Xiao Ju eastward, while Gu Youan headed westward. Xiao Ju had never practiced martial arts, and if the tiger went after her and Guo Su, Xiao Ju would be dead.
When Gu Youan was running to the west, he suddenly turned around, clenched the arrow in his hand and poked it directly into the tiger's eyes.
“Ouch!”
She was struck by good luck!
"An An!"
The tiger was enraged and pounced on Gu Youan with a roar.
Gu Wenqing was so frightened that he didn't even bother to run away to save his life. He turned around and rushed forward, holding the dagger tightly in his hand.
Tian Erlang and Guo Su raised their bows and arrows, but Gu Youan was fighting too hard with the tiger, and they did not dare to shoot for fear of hurting Gu Youan.
Gu Youan was exhausted and the bow and arrow in his hand broke. At the critical moment, Gu Youan hid behind a big tree and the tiger roared and rushed towards him.
"It's over, it's over!"
Tian Erlang felt that Gu Youan was doomed, so he rushed forward recklessly. He only saw the tiger pinning Gu Youan under it, biting him in the mouth... and spitting blood from the mouth?
Gu Wenqing, Guo Su, Xiaoju, and several people from the Ping An Escort Agency gathered around. Tian Erlang slapped his thigh and said, "What are you looking at? Hurry up and get our tiger-fighting hero out."
In just a few breaths, when Gu Youan was about to be pounced on by the tiger, Gu Youan avoided everyone's gaze and returned to the space. He came out of the space with the knife tightly grasped in both hands, and the sharp blade cut through the tiger's thick fur with just one stroke.
The tiger is dead!
She's alive!
The tiger's blood was all over her!
Several people hurriedly pushed away the dead tiger that was pressing on Gu Youan. Gu Youan was so tired that he didn't want to stand up at all. He lay on the ground and took several deep breaths before he felt alive again.
Only then did Tian Erlang see the knife in Gu Youan's hand, and suddenly thought of the night on the road to exile when she was killed by a knife in the reed marsh, and goose bumps appeared all over his body.
His judgment was correct, Gu Youan was a ruthless person from beginning to end!
Gu Youan rolled her eyes at Tian Erlang. He had trained so hard but was still so timid. Several years had passed, and every time this guy encountered such a situation, he would act as if he was frightened in front of her. Wasn't that interesting?
"Miss!"
Xiaoju wiped the blood off her face with a handkerchief, and Gu Youan sat up and said, "Don't wipe it, it won't be clean. Just go back and wash up."
"Go back, go back quickly, the mountains are too dangerous."
Gu Youan stood up, cleaned up the blood on his body and was about to leave when he heard a loud shout from behind: "You beast, don't even think about running away!"
Another tiger was rampaging in the forest. When it was about to break out of the encirclement, a black figure suddenly fell from the tree, stabbed a sword into the tiger's eyes, and then kicked the tiger fiercely while it was wailing. The tiger flipped over and fell into the valley.
Someone shouted from the bottom of the valley: "Master, even though he is dead, his skin is still intact."
After watching the whole thing, Tian Erlang whispered to Gu Wenqing, "This guy is really powerful. His moves are clean and efficient, without a single useless trick. He's scarier than your sister."
"I don't think so. An An is as agile as him. An An just has less strength than him." Although Gu Wenqing admired the man's skills, he still felt that An An was the most powerful.
"Brother, no matter how powerful they are, you should speak with conscience." Tian Erlang patted Gu Wenqing's chest, but was pushed away by Gu Wenqing.
Prince Qi walked over slowly and Tian Erlang shut up.
Gu Youan took the lead in bowing: "Greetings, Prince Qi."
Tian Erlang, Guo Su and others were shocked. Is this Prince Qi?
Prince Qi usually stays at home and rarely goes out. Even when he goes out, he is surrounded by guards. Few ordinary people in Songjiang City have seen Prince Qi.
In this situation, even if they saw Prince Qi on the street, they would not dare to recognize him.
They all tacitly agreed that Gu Youan was more powerful than them. Since Gu Youan said he was the Prince of Qi, he must be right. They all hurriedly saluted.
King Qi's gaze swept across them, landing on Gu Youan's blood-stained face, her body, and the blood-soaked blade in her hand.
“Nice knife!”
Gu Youan nodded in agreement. It was indeed a good sword. Even with the casting technology of the Zhou Dynasty, it was impossible to cast such a sharp blade.
Prince Qi didn't covet her treasures. He looked at the dead tiger on the ground and said, "A few days ago, the people reported to the government that wild beasts had emerged from the mountains since the beginning of spring. I led my men on an inspection, but who knew we'd encounter three tigers in this valley? I'm so sorry to have caused you trouble."
Tian Erlang subconsciously wanted to say that it was not hard and he did not feel implicated. He just opened his mouth and saw that King Qi had no intention of paying attention to him, so he closed his mouth silently.
"The mountains are dangerous after spring. If you don't have something important to do, don't go into the mountains at this time."
"yes."
Prince Qi left, and the guards of Prince Qi's mansion took the three tigers away with him.
After everyone in Prince Qi's mansion had left, Guo Su patted his chest, as if frightened: "Prince Qi is so majestic."
Tian Erlang was still thinking about the tiger that was carried away: "That tiger was killed by Gu Youan, so why did they carry the tiger away?"
"Forget it. We're lucky to be able to go back today. Why worry about this?"
"The smell of blood is strong here. It might attract other wild animals. Let's leave quickly."
I didn't have time to think about anything else, so I hurriedly packed up and went down the mountain. Don't come to the North Mountain easily recently.
Gu Youan entered the city with blood all over his face and body, which frightened passers-by. When the brave ones came to ask him, Gu Youan said that he had encountered a tiger on the North Mountain.
When Gu Youan said this, many people were frightened.
Fortunately, Minren Lane was not far from the west city gate. Gu Youan hurried home and asked someone to boil water for him to wash. After washing his whole body carefully, Gu Youan felt that the smell of blood at the tip of his nose had faded.
Feeling comfortable, Gu Youan closed her eyes and lay down against the soft pillow, letting Xiaoju massage her head. She felt so comfortable that she almost fell asleep.
Feeling comfortable, Gu Youan couldn't help but think of Prince Qi.
It's not the first time.
The last time they met at Tianyi Temple, he looked at her several times. She swore that no matter in modern times or in the Zhou Dynasty, strangers never looked at each other in that way.
This time, he spoke several times, and several times he hinted at something, all of them were directed at her, and there was no way she could misunderstand him.
What does he mean by this, repeatedly?
The most likely and the most unlikely conclusion flashed through his mind, and Gu Youan's mouth suddenly curled up, feeling that he was a little too naive.
The upper class people only have solid interest relationships around them, and only those with clear minds can stand high and live long.
She had witnessed so many examples with her own eyes, so why did she suddenly forget it when it happened to her?
You're stupid, you deserve a beating!
Xiaoxiao slapped herself.
Xiaoju asked hurriedly: "Miss, what's wrong?"
"Hmm, there seem to be mosquitoes?"
Where do mosquitoes come from in this season? Ah Ju really believed her words and hurriedly took the incense and lit it: "Miss, please wait a moment, the mosquitoes will be smoked away in a while."
There were tigers in the North Mountain, so the number of people going up the mountain to dig herbs and hunt suddenly decreased a lot.
The city was quiet for two days, and then Uncle Du brought the Du family to Songjiang City.
After arriving in Songjiang City, Uncle Du went to Ping'an Escort Agency first. The people from Ping'an Escort Agency took them to Minren Lane, where Gu Youan met her eldest cousin Du Rending.
"Meet my cousin. How are your aunt, uncle, and A-Xuan?"
Gu Youan smiled and welcomed him in: "Everything is fine at home, how are your uncle and aunt?"
"Thanks to your family, my family is doing very well too. My father's medical skills have improved greatly. In the first month of this year, he saved the youngest son of the prefect of Yizhou Prefecture. Now his reputation has soared." Du Rending's face was full of joy.
Just because Du Qing cured diseases that no other doctors in Yizhou Prefecture could cure, Du Qing suddenly became a first-class famous doctor from a second-rate doctor in Yizhou Prefecture.
Uncle Du and other members of the Du family laughed out loud. Everyone talked about this matter and felt very happy.
Gu Youan asked someone to bring tea, sat down and drank a few cups of tea, chatting and laughing for a while before getting down to business.
"Uncle, the medicinal herbs business is not doing well this year. You can just go once and forget about it. Don't get involved in the second half of the year."
Uncle Du had heard about it on the way here, and he said, "We plan to return to Yizhou Prefecture after this trip this year. If the harvest is good next year, we will come back next year."
Gu Youan nodded, that was what she meant.
The Du family is an outsider. When the years are good, no one would say anything to them if they shared the soup. But this year is a bad year, and there are not enough medicinal materials in Songjiang City for the Songjiang City caravans to share, so it is not appropriate for the Du family to ask for help.
They were all sensible people. After discussing the matter in a few words, they went back to the neighboring mountain village in the afternoon and rested at home for a day. Then Uncle Du took the Du family to the Hu family to buy medicinal herbs.
They don’t ask for much, they will buy if someone sells it to them, and they won’t force it if someone doesn’t sell it to them.
The Du family's medicinal herbs have been packed up, the weather has completely warmed up, and the thin layer of ice and snow at the foot of the mountain has melted into water. It's time for Gu Youan and the others to go out and enter the pass.
The day before Gu Youan left, there was a visitor at home.
People from Prince Qi's mansion brought a soft, complete tiger skin and an exquisite longbow.
"Our master said that it was Shopkeeper Gu who killed the tiger, so the tiger skin should naturally belong to Shopkeeper Gu. Shopkeeper Gu's longbow broke when he was killing the tiger, and this is our master's compensation to Shopkeeper Gu."
The Gu and Du families were all shocked. This... Prince Qi was being too polite.
After the gift-giver left, Tian Erlang said happily, "I told you, Prince Qi can't be stingy."
Gu Wenqing snorted lightly: "That's not what you said before. You said that Prince Qi was trying to steal the tiger that An An had killed."
"Hey, let me judge you by my own standards."
Tian Erlang was arguing with Gu Wenqing. Gu Youan's hand slid across the smooth fur. The tiger skin was too complete. It was definitely not the tiger she had killed.
Gu Youan gritted his teeth secretly. What on earth does this person mean?
Could it be that she really misunderstood?
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