Seeing that she looked unhappy, Madam Xiao thought that she was unhappy because she kept losing, so she deliberately fed the cards to her.
But Tian An remained the same. A good hand that could have won was directly destroyed by her.
Zhao Yiming dismissed the party upon seeing this. It was almost time for the New Year's Eve celebration, so he asked the maid to bring some hot dumplings. After everyone had eaten, he let everyone go to rest.
Fortunately, before leaving, Tian An still remembered to give New Year gifts to several people.
Both Madam Xiao and Granny Qin wore headbands embroidered by Tian An himself, and also had an exquisitely crafted hairpin. Mr. Han's was a top-quality rosewood goat-hair brush.
Xiaokang and Xiaoqi received newly embroidered purses, and Tian An specially went to a jade shop to customize a pair of green jade gourd jade pendants. The lanyards and tassels of the jade pendants were all woven by Tian An himself.
Zhao Yiming's was a purse with a white background and green bamboo embroidered by Tian An himself and a smoky gray belt with dark patterns.
Tian An started giving out gifts, and everyone also took out the gifts they had prepared.
After exchanging New Year's gifts for a quarter of an hour, everyone left the hall and returned to their own courtyards.
Zhao Yiming personally sent Tian An back to her own yard before returning to his own yard.
After reading for a while and sending Hong Lei away, he closed the door and turned off the lights, then climbed out the window and soon arrived outside Tian An's boudoir window.
Seeing that the lights in the house were off, he knocked rhythmically on the window frame a few times.
Tian An, who was in the room, heard the noise and knocked on the headboard a few times in response.
After getting permission, Zhao Yiming climbed through the window, took off his outer robe, shoes and socks, and got into Tian An's bed.
His hands skillfully wrapped around her slender waist from behind, and he put his head next to her ear and asked softly, "What happened to you tonight? Your face suddenly became so ugly, are you feeling unwell?"
Tian An shook his head, "I just suddenly felt a sense of panic in my heart for no reason."
Hearing that she was fine, Zhao Yiming breathed a sigh of relief, "You! You're just too tired. You'll be fine after a good sleep."
Tian An responded with an imperceptible "Hmm!" from his nose and closed his eyes.
......
In the middle of the night, beads of sweat suddenly appeared on Tian An's forehead. He seemed to have entered a nightmare. He was obviously very uncomfortable, but he couldn't wake up.
Zhao Yiming, who was standing by, noticed something was wrong and quickly stood up and called her, "An An, wake up, An An, what's wrong with you..."
Perhaps it was because he heard Zhao Yiming's voice that Tian An finally opened his eyes. He suddenly sat up from the bed, gasping for breath.
Zhao Yiming quickly poured a cup of hot water from the thermos on the table and handed it to her.
Tian An drank two cups of hot water in a row, still a little dazed holding the cup in his hand.
Seeing that she had recovered, Zhao Yiming took the cloak from the hanger beside the bed and put it on her back before saying, "Did you have a nightmare just now?"
Tian An nodded subconsciously, and after a while he said, "But I don't remember what I dreamed about. I just vaguely knew that something bad happened."
Zhao Yiming was about to pat her back to comfort her when she suddenly looked at him and asked, "Why are you in my room?"
Zhao Yiming paused. Could this girl have been frightened silly by a nightmare? "I've been here the whole time!"
Tian An shook her head left and right, gathering her thoughts again. Then she remembered that Zhao Yiming had been in her room after turning off the lights. She smiled awkwardly and said, "I thought you had left a long time ago."
Zhao Yiming took the cup from her hand and put it back on the table before returning to the bed. "You don't look well tonight, and I'm worried. I'll stay with you until dawn and then go back."
"Can you still sleep?"
Tian An nodded. Although she couldn't sleep, she couldn't delay Zhao Yiming, so she could only lie down, close her eyes and pretend to take a nap.
After a long while, Zhao Yiming's firm words came to my ears, "Don't be afraid, I'm here..."
Perhaps it was the effect of saying "I'm here", Tian An fell asleep peacefully with his eyes closed.
......
At this time, Tian Mingwu, who was far away in Cangzhou, was engaged in a fierce battle with the bandits.
The people who founded the mountain stronghold took advantage of the fact that Tian Mingwu was gathering people from other small villages, and coerced and bribed two villagers from other villages to act as insiders in the village to keep an eye on the movements of the army in the village for them. As soon as there was any movement, they would quickly send one person to the halfway point of the mountain to inform their people.
Fortunately, Qin Wen had sharp eyes and noticed that something was wrong with the two villagers. After discussing with Tian Mingwu, they decided not to alert the enemy for the time being. They would put on a show in front of the two men.
They used these two villagers to convey wrong information to the bandits, making them think that they were just going through the motions and had no intention of doing anything real.
Every once in a while, Tian Mingwu would secretly send people to investigate two bandit dens at night to make sure that the bandits had indeed relaxed their vigilance against them. He would then discuss with his military advisor Qin Wen and decide to launch a general attack on New Year's Eve when the bandits would relax their vigilance during the festival, catching them off guard and catching them all in one fell swoop.
So, on New Year's Eve, Tian Mingwu took out all the vegetables that Tian An had brought him and made a fairly rich New Year's Eve dinner for the villagers. He also asked someone to buy some wine from somewhere, and all the villagers and soldiers got drunk.
Just when the whole village had quieted down, two timid men were gathering under an old locust tree in the middle of the village.
"Jia San, I was the one who reported the news last time. This time it's your turn."
Jia San had a look of regret on his face. In order to keep an eye on these people, he didn't drink a single sip of the good wine tonight!
But the owner of the mountain stronghold couldn't slack off, so he could only reluctantly tell them, "Chen Wang, don't drink all the wine. Leave some for me. I'll be back soon."
"I understand. Let's go quickly. Stop dawdling." Chen Wang urged impatiently.
"Remember to leave some for me!" Jia San turned back and reminded as he walked away.
This time, Chen Wang was too lazy to even pretend to be polite. He just waved his hand casually and walked quickly towards the village chief's house.
Tian Mingwu, the county magistrate, the military advisor, and several other officials were all at the village headman's house. The soldiers' wine was no match for the general's! Of course, if they were going to drink, they had to drink the best! Now that they were all drunk, the remaining wine was a bargain for him.
However, what Chen Wang didn't expect was that as soon as he left, a group of people came out from the corner, and the leader was Tian Mingwu.
Looking at his appearance, his eyes are clear, his face is normal, and his movements are steady. He doesn't look like a drunk at all.
Tian Mingwu glanced in the direction of Chen Wang, raised his hand and made a gesture of departure behind him.
In the silent night, a group of people silently set out towards the bandit mountain without disturbing anyone.
When Chen Wang arrived at the village chief's house, he only saw the village chief, the head of the village, the county magistrate and Qin Wen crawling on the table, but the general and his deputy were nowhere to be seen.
However, when he saw the jar of fragrant wine on the table, he forgot everything and didn't even confirm whether the people at the table were really drunk and unconscious.
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