Chapter 77: Fifteen Hawthorn Fruits
The next day, in the Tianzihao private room of Fengya Tower, Wang Fengxu, Meng Caiyun, Bai Heye, Ruan Meng, and Long Zhu sat together staring at each other, none of them having the energy to criticize or ridicule each other.
The idea of searching for someone was Long Zhu's, the painting was also drawn by Bai He, and the notice was posted by Ruan Meng. Unexpectedly, Song Wen, who was passing by, happened to have met Wang Fengxu and was able to find him without any effort.
Wang Fengxu also passed the message to Meng Caiyun and asked her to come over as well.
The situation is now serious. Only five people have recovered their memories, and one of them has turned into a dog.
Wang Fengxu looked hesitant after hearing the purpose of the visit, but after a while he sighed, "Alright, but once we leave this place, you still have to keep it a secret for me. My master's wife won't let me use that trick."
The Japanese God of Wealth cast an illusion on Xuanjin Mountain, and Wang Fengxu, desperate and desperate, broke it with a technique not even Long Zhu had heard of, let alone one from the Qingcheng Monastery. However, Long Zhu wasn't interested in other people's secrets. She simply felt that since this technique could break the illusion, it would be perfect for removing the memory seals on everyone.
"I can do it, but I don't have any spiritual power at all," Wang Fengxu said, spreading his hands. "We are currently bound to our character's identity and ability level."
Bai He also pondered and said, "I can lend you my spiritual power, but there's not much left. This opportunity only comes once."
Meng Caiyun stroked his chin and concluded, "So, we need to find a chance to gather nearly everyone in the city before sunset tomorrow. Then, Abbot Bai will lend his spiritual power to Wang Lanlan, and he'll awaken everyone in that instant—and then what?"
Bai He also said, "With Senior Wang and the rest of the Zhu Alliance raiding the formation, once everyone regains their memories, she will be able to sense it and immediately reinforce the seal from the outside. At that time, Canye will kick out the outsiders to protect its formation core from being damaged."
Ruan Meng: "Why don't I understand? If strengthening the seal can make the broken pages spit us out, why doesn't Taoist Lingsu just do it directly?"
Wang Fengxu leaned forward and said, "I know this. The fragmented page is actually a formation. It swallows people and then gives them a random identity. This behavior is a bit like sealing them. Then the spiritual power in our bodies becomes part of what nourishes it. But once the memory is recovered, it is equivalent to breaking the connection with it. Although we ourselves cannot use spiritual power, it cannot use ours either."
"In other words, if the memory is not recovered, then at the moment of reinforcing the seal, the fragments will choose to fight to the death and digest us completely. But if we wake up and cut off the connection with it, we will be like garbage taking up memory to it, and its first choice will be to uninstall us." Meng Caiyun spread out his hands and gave a more popular explanation.
Ruan Meng listened for a long time, then leaned back with his arms folded, mumbling a few words as if he was too quiet: "I understand what's going on, but - how are you going to gather people here?"
Everyone was silent.
"No matter how powerful the calligraphy that breaks the illusion is, it has to have a range, right? Even if we don't restore the memories of everyone who falls in, we have to wake up the 90%." Ruan Meng scratched his head. "A lot of people probably don't know what happened yet. I was still diligently working as a pimp before Master Bai woke me up. If you want to gather these people together, relying on brute force and talking is a long shot."
A furry dog face popped out from Bai Heye's arms and offered his suggestion: "Woof woof woof, woof woof woof woof woof!"
Bai He was also stunned, and then he was quite inspired: "This idea is feasible."
He raised his head, his eyes wandering between Wang and Meng.
Meng Caiyun's scalp tingled. "What's going on? Am I the only one who can't understand dog talk?"
Wang Fengxu: "I feel like I have a bad premonition..."
"Let's do it this way," Bai He quickly made the decision and nodded to Wang Meng and the others, "There's no time to lose. You can get married tomorrow."
"ah????"
"What I mean," Bai He also slowed down his speech, "is that Princess Qingning will marry, and Prince Li will come to pick her up. It will be held tomorrow, on the busiest street in the capital."
Wang Fengxu came back to his senses and suddenly thought that this thing was quite interesting.
One is a princess of the royal family, the other a dandy, known for his playboyish ways but claiming he'd never marry a princess. Their sudden, flashy marriage—who in the capital wouldn't want to join in the fun? After all, watching the action unfold has been ingrained in human DNA since ancient times...
Meng Caiyun also understood: "Then I'll get someone to spread some news when I get back. It would be best if I could say that I would rather die than surrender and remain chaste than submit to the royal power. And also hint that I'm planning to run away from the marriage or something like that. That would have a more explosive effect."
Wang Fengxu rubbed his hands joyfully and said, "Yes, if I had heard about this, I would have climbed over walls and climbed trees to see it."
The two were extremely receptive and accepted this outrageous setting without any hesitation. They even began to draw inferences from it and improve the details, vowing to make this ancient bloody thunder drama into a haunting one.
"Then it's settled," Bai He also said, "You have convenient identities. Please spread the news and we will prepare the wedding procession. This is a trick. We definitely can't go along with the arrangements made by the Imperial Court Zongzheng Temple. Otherwise, if we alert the Emperor in advance, the plan will fail. We only have one day."
The princess's marriage is a royal happy event, and the emperor must ask the imperial master to choose an auspicious day and prepare the six rituals carefully before holding the ceremony. They can't afford to wait, and they are playing a blitzkrieg to deceive the world.
"That's just right, I have people here," Ruan Meng stood up, "I just recruited a troupe of opera performers two days ago, so carrying a sedan chair and playing musical instruments and singing won't be a problem."
When he brought the members of the opera troupe over, Meng Caiyun took a closer look and found that they were familiar faces again - several outer disciples of the Lan family.
In the past, these people followed Lan Qianhuang around, full of arrogance, looking down on others with their chins pointed. Now they have become the "lower class" who are servile, have to please others and struggle to make a living.
Wang Fengxu saw that Lan Huai was not inside and wondered if he was lucky and was not swallowed.
The troupe leader listened to Ruan Meng's instructions and nodded repeatedly: "We've done it before, we're all familiar with weddings and funerals. I wonder whose wedding this is?"
Ruan Meng said, "You're a prominent family in the capital. If you do a good job, I'll recommend you to some mansion or palace to perform for the nobles. Once you're done, one person..." He muttered, "What's the concept of prices in the Great Shu Dynasty?" Then he said, "I'll give each of you three months' salary for performing, and I'll also help you redeem the person. How about that?"
Everyone was very happy, fearing that the other party would go back on their word: "Sure, sure, sure!"
As he spoke, Ruan Meng called him to the clothing store to buy clothes for the wedding.
Meng Caiyun asked, "What about redeeming someone?"
Ruan Meng skillfully fished a brass pipe from his shirt, figuring he was just taking a couple of puffs in a dreamland, so it shouldn't count as a relapse, right? He bit the end of his cigarette and mumbled, "Hey, so these are the Lan family. I was just saying they look familiar—they were originally unlucky. A famine struck their hometown, and they couldn't make ends meet, so they performed all the way to the capital. To raise money for the company, the troupe owner sold his daughter to a wealthy family in the suburbs as a kitchen maid. Now that they're in the city, they want to earn enough to redeem her."
Everyone looked a little sad, but Long Zhu was thinking that those people from the "Lan family" were just unlucky and attached themselves to these people.
This was an illusion to them, but on this day a thousand years ago, there really was a troupe of opera performers who fled famine, sold their children, and came here to make a living.
She was a little curious whether these people's wishes would come true.
But she could only glimpse a short fragment in the history book, and in these fragments, the life and death of countless mayflies could be summarized in just a few general words.
No one will remember it at all.
Long Zhu felt a little regretful, but she couldn't figure out what kind of feeling it was.
-
A Wu, a girl with a pale face, had just finished rehearsing a dance and was sweating profusely when she ran outside. She picked up the long-spouted copper teapot on the table and drank from it. Beads of sweat slid down her hair, which was clinging to her forehead, to her chin, and then rolled down her throat and into her chest.
After finishing the pot, she sighed with satisfaction, wiped the corners of her mouth, and looked back to see a group of people from a variety show troupe walking out excitedly.
"Did Shisan Niang agree to take them in?" Ah Wu muttered in surprise, "Is she really that generous? That's really unlike her."
The gatekeeper ate sunflower seeds and said, "Hey, look at them, they're pitiful. The boss wants to redeem his daughter. When she was sold, she was only worth ten strings of cash. When she redeems her, she's worth ten times that. If she's smart, she might even get a hundred times that."
The shopping woman fanning herself nearby shook her head and said, "How pitiful is the love of parents in this world."
Ah Wu flew into a rage, his hands on his hips, and said, "If you really cared about his daughter, you wouldn't have sold her in the first place! It's just a few dozen strings of cash. You could have worked as a laborer at the ferry outside the city, helped out on the farms in the suburbs, or gone to the countryside to collect and sell from one household to another. It would have been a little harder and slower, but wouldn't it be better than selling your daughter?"
The old woman was afraid of her temper and said awkwardly, "You're just saying that because life is so difficult, who in a good family would be willing to sell their daughter?"
The gatekeeper nudged her with his elbow and glared at her.
This girl, Ah Wu, had been sold to Fengyalou to dance at the age of eight, and was now sixteen. Everyone knew that she had been saving money to redeem herself, planning to build a reputable reputation and start her own business after escaping from slavery.
As for rewards, she would have to dance in the houses of the rich and powerful; it would pay quickly and she could put the money into her own pocket. But Ah Wu refused, fearing the attention of the rich and powerful. Since she was not a good person, she would be taken in as a concubine or given away as a gift, and she would end up being a slave for the rest of her life, a "thing." This was unacceptable.
Ah Wu didn't take the two men's hesitant expressions seriously: "Let them be. I have important things to do tomorrow and can't be distracted."
The shopping woman suddenly laughed: "Yes, tomorrow is a big event! We can't delay it!"
Word has spread everywhere: the princess is getting married, with a grand ceremony, floats, dragon and lion dances, and the rumored escape of Prince Li. I wonder if he'll be tied to a horse tomorrow or what? This news can't be missed.
Ah Wu also wanted to dance on the float, and she secretly decided that she would not be outdone by Bai He this time, so she tightened her belt, wiped the wet hair on her temples, and hurried back to continue rehearsing the dance.
Halfway through the journey, a small stone hit me. I looked back and caught a glimpse of a dark shadow hanging on the wall.
"Who is it?" Ah Wu turned around and raised his voice. He saw the shadow on the wall startled and suddenly fell down with a clang, then hurriedly ran out the door.
Ah Wu chased after him a few steps and said, "It's you again! You're always peeping at women, aren't you ashamed?"
The child was covered in dirt and wearing clothes with countless layers of patches. He shrank his neck and said, "I... I am..." He hesitated, but suddenly gained confidence and defended himself, "I came here to look for my dog! My dog is lost!"
"If the dog is lost, go look for it in the neighborhood. We don't have it here!" Ah Wu cursed, then remembered something and put it aside.
The child hesitated, sniffed, and gave a dumbfounded laugh: "But you dance so beautifully, I forgot about it."
Ah Wu was startled, and looked at the child with disdain. He turned around, picked up a few hawthorn berries from the table, and stuffed them into his hand: "Hurry up, hurry up, or they will chase you away with a broom again."
Little Zhao walked away with the fruit in his arms, looking back every few steps.
Ah Wu also turned around and took a few steps, stepping on the pebble she had stepped on. She moved her foot away and saw something glittering. She picked it up and saw that it was a tiny silver particle.
"This brat..."
Zhao Xiaohai has been running from the East Market to the West Market these two days, but he still hasn't found the silver.
The streets were bustling with activity, with the people at the tea stalls discussing the big event of the next day. He paid no attention, but continued walking home with his bag of fruit, winding his way into the alleys.
Some rustling sounds came into my ears, like people whispering, mixed with one or two sighs.
Xiaohai Zhao's pace suddenly quickened a few steps, then suddenly stopped. After a long pause, he took a half step back, then continued to tiptoe forward tremblingly.
The bright red hawthorn fruit in his arms fell down, rolled to the corner door, and stopped in front of a pale wrist sticking out from the rolled up tattered straw mat.
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