Chapter 17: She is so reserved and sexy!
Everyone looked in the direction of the voice and saw the person coming in, wearing a moon-white robe with fluttering sleeves and light steps, walking towards the crowd.
The people were talking and discussing the identity of the visitor.
The man's face became more and more ugly when he saw the person coming. How could it be him? Why was he here!
Didn’t he arrange people to trap her? Oh my god, the lady is in the crowd, what should I do?
Zhou Tinglan looked at the newcomer and asked, "May I ask who you are?"
Su Mingzhuo bowed to Zhou Tinglan and the others. "I am Su Mingzhuo, the eldest grandson of the Su family in Northern Frontier City. Nice to meet Miss Zhou and General Xie."
Hearing Su Mingzhuo's self-proclaimed name, some people in the crowd recognized his identity: "It's Master Su!"
"Young Master Su was the winner of the Lantern Festival last year. It won't be a mistake to have him host the event."
Zhou Tinglan naturally heard what the people were saying, and she said in surprise, "Young Master Su was the winner of the Lantern King last year."
"That's me." Su Mingzhuo continued, "Today, my elders at home asked me to take care of something, so I left home a little late and didn't participate in this year's lantern riddle guessing."
His sharp gaze swept across the crowd, and finally retracted to the man in the blue shirt beside him. "I wonder if this man... has any objections to my proposal."
"No...I dare not." The man answered quickly, with faint water marks on the clothes on his back.
"That's good." Su Mingzhuo said to Zhou Tinglan with satisfaction, "Since he has agreed, does Miss Zhou have any other questions?"
"No, Master Su will arrange the host."
Su Mingzhuo discussed with the steward how to preside over the meeting, while Zhou Tinglan and Xie Zechuan stood on the other side. Seeing this, the man in blue shirt wanted to escape secretly, but as soon as he turned around, he was pulled back by the back of the collar.
Xie Zechuan dragged the person along, and Zhou Tinglan walked forward with a smile and said, "We haven't competed again yet, why are you in such a hurry to leave?"
She snorted in her heart, you little brat, you want to run away when you see things are going badly, how can you get away with it?
At this moment, Su Mingzhuo had already discussed with the manager. He walked over and saw this scene, and immediately understood what had happened.
He pretended to be loud and said, "Some people, obviously we are of the same age, but they want to bully a little girl. Aren't they ashamed of their behavior?"
Zhou Tinglan noticed that when Su Mingzhuo said this, although he was facing the man in blue, his eyes seemed to be looking somewhere through the crowd.
Recalling the flash of pink clothing earlier, Zhou Tinglan speculated, "Could it be that Master Su knows that person?"
"After discussing with the manager, the topic of the new competition has been changed to couplets on flower branches." Su Mingzhuo announced the final competition rules.
Zhou Tinglan curled her lips and looked at the man in blue shirt provocatively. Seeing that his face was getting paler, she said, "Couplets shouldn't be difficult for someone like you who can solve all the lantern riddles. Don't run away again."
The man's eyes dodged, avoiding Zhou Tinglan's sight, but met Xie Zechuan's cold eyes. He trembled all over and dared not move.
According to the rules, Su Mingzhuo came up with the first couplet, and the other two came up with the second couplet.
"First line: The northern border is a prosperous city, and everyone is a flower lover. Please continue with the second line."
Zhou Tinglan thought for a moment and replied directly: "The bright moon blows out the lights upstairs, and the flowers are the protagonists."
The people cheered in unison after hearing this. Su Mingzhuo's eyes showed surprise and admiration as he looked straight at Zhou Tinglan.
Xie Zechuan noticed Su Mingzhuo's gaze and slightly turned sideways to block it. Zhou Tinglan was waiting for the blue-shirted man's answer with great interest and did not pay attention to the actions between the two.
The man in blue shirt's legs were shaking, he was stammering, and couldn't speak for a long time.
The whispers of the people reached his ears, and Zhou Tinglan's mocking and disdainful gaze weighed on the blue-shirted man's heart like a heavy stone. He finally lost control and collapsed to the ground.
"I...I don't want to answer!"
After saying that, the man in blue shirt tried to escape again. He didn't have time to get up, and he rolled and crawled towards the crowd. The gazes from people were like needles pricking his back.
He struggled to crawl forward, but was stopped. The man in blue looked up with a look of fear. Zhou Tinglan stood in front of him and said with a half-smile, "I told you not to run away anymore. Why won't you listen?"
Fear coiled around the blue-shirted man's heart like an icy poisonous snake. His lips trembled slightly, and a biting chill spread from the soles of his feet to his entire body. The air seemed to be squeezed, becoming heavy and oppressive.
"Don't... come over here!" The man in blue shirt retreated, but there was nowhere to retreat. Xie Zechuan stood behind him, looking at the man on the ground as if he were a dead object.
Seeing this, Su Mingzhuo came up and announced, "Tonight's Lantern King winner is Miss Zhou."
"Ms. Zhou, now that we know that this person is a malicious troublemaker, how should we deal with him?" Su Mingzhuo asked, pointing at the man in blue.
Zhou Tinglan looked at the person on the ground, a sense of evil aroused in him: "How should I deal with you?"
She squatted down and met the man's frightened eyes. She chuckled and stood up and said, "Well, just call me ancestor."
Tsk, if she hadn’t known that people in Dazhao Kingdom couldn’t just call anyone dad, I would have made her kneel down and call me dad.
Under the gaze of the crowd, the man in blue shirt stood up and reluctantly whispered "Ancestor" to Zhou Tinglan, then hurriedly pushed away the onlookers and ran away.
Zhou Tinglan watched the man disappear from the scene. There were so many weird people today. First, someone was hit in front of a jewelry store, and then someone scammed her to steal her lantern.
Just as she was thinking, Zhou Tinglan heard someone calling her.
"Miss Zhou." Su Mingzhuo walked over. "I really like the couplet that Miss Zhou just composed. I wonder if I could have the honor of becoming her close friend."
"No way." Xie Zechuan, holding the Lantern King in his hand, walked straight forward and took Zhou Tinglan's hand: "Master Su, Lan'er and I have something else to do, so I'll take my leave now."
Xie Zechuan handed the lantern to Zhou Tinglan: "Lan'er, let's go."
Before Zhou Tinglan could react, Xie Zechuan pulled her away. She turned around and said to Su Mingzhuo, "Master Su, we'll see each other next time if we're lucky!"
She said to Xie Zechuan who was striding forward in dissatisfaction: "Why are you walking so fast? You haven't said goodbye to Master Su yet. How rude of us."
"It doesn't matter. You won't have much chance to meet in the future anyway."
Holding the Lantern King, Zhou Tinglan scolded Xie Zechuan all the way: "Whether we meet again or not, it's not good."
She felt strange because Xie Zechuan had never been like this before.
Zhou Tinglan suddenly thought of something, and she moved closer to Xie Zechuan: "Xie Zechuan, are you jealous?"
"No." Xie Zechuan would never admit that he just didn't want to see Su Mingzhuo get close to Zhou Tinglan.
Zhou Tinglan became more and more certain as he looked at Xie Zechuan. Hmm, he didn't expect Xie Zechuan to be such a reserved person.
**
Zhou Tinglan looked at the forging furnace on the stage and fell into deep thought.
After the Flower Goddess Festival, she returned to her office and saw that the paper cranes on her desk had disappeared.
Xie Zechuan also said that he is not a reserved person, but rather a very flirtatious person.
Opening the plan book on the table, Zhou Tinglan couldn't help laughing when he thought of how Xie Zechuan didn't recognize a few words in the plan book yesterday.
After laughing, they returned to the main topic. The new and improved appliances in the city were selling very well. However, the population of Beijiang City was limited. If they wanted to develop further, it was necessary to open up foreign trade routes.
Some time ago, Zhou Tinglan asked Xie Zechuan for a distribution map of surrounding cities and asked him to help send soldiers to the surrounding cities to post notices. Zhou Tinglan even made some small notices, calling them "distributing leaflets."
The forging exhibition attracted the attention of people in the surrounding cities. All the inns in Beijiang City were full. Zhou Tinglan came to the forging class and reminded the students again about the process of tomorrow's forging exhibition.
"Tomorrow is our swordsmithing exhibition. As you can see, many people from surrounding cities have come to the city recently. They are all guests from far away, and we want to show them our best side."
This sword forging exhibition is of great importance, and Zhou Tinglan separated the troublemakers in the forging class to prevent them from causing trouble.
The forging furnace in the venue had been set up yesterday. There was still half an hour before the forging exhibition began, so Zhou Tinglan got up to check it one last time.
Xie Zechuan rushed over to accompany Zhou Tinglan and watched her instruct the students in the forging class to prepare the forging materials on the forging table.
Zhou Tinglan looked at Xie Zechuan behind him and asked, "How are the guests outside the venue doing now?"
"A lot of people have gathered at the door. Don't worry, I have arranged soldiers to maintain order at the door."
Hearing Xie Zechuan say this, Zhou Tinglan felt relieved. Beijiang City is not like modern times, and stampedes are likely to occur when people gather together. She doesn't want the sword-forging exhibition she carefully organized to become the starting point of a stampede.
Half an hour passed in a flash, and the guests outside the door entered one by one under the guidance of the soldiers, and the sword-forging exhibition officially opened.
Zhou Tinglan did not organize too many fancy performances. The purpose of the sword-forging exhibition was to publicize her improved new tools to the people and promote her unique sword-forging skills of the Zhou family sword.
The first thing she arranged was for the students in the forging class to go on stage for a demonstration. Several forging furnaces were operating at the same time, igniting blazing flames that reflected on the students' faces.
The students moved with dexterity, and the sound of hammers falling could be heard on the display stand. The hammers collided with the iron blocks, creating beautiful iron flowers.
Zhou Tinglan and Xie Zechuan stood in the audience. She carefully observed the forging movements of the students in the forging class. If there were any irregularities in the movements, she would be able to point them out in time after she got off the stage.
Xie Zechuan pointed to a student on the left side of the display stand and said, "Lan'er, look at that."
Zhou Tinglan followed Xie Zechuan's finger and saw the scene that made her heart stop. When the student dropped the hammer, the force was not enough. Such mistakes could easily lead to incompleteness of the tool.
She said in a deep voice, "I understand. I'll go talk to him after I get off the stage and ask him to strengthen his forging practice in the future."
Seeing Zhou Tinglan's serious expression, Xie Zechuan pinched her tense face and said, "Don't be tense. Actually, the students you teach are all very good and have superb sword-forging skills."
"If the student is strong, then am I not strong as his master?" Zhou Tinglan glared at Xie Zechuan angrily.
Xie Ze comforted him, "Of course it's because the master taught me well."
"That's more like it."
Zhou Tinglan turned her gaze back to the display stand. With her attitude of striving for perfection in sword-forging skills, she quickly noted down the shortcomings of all the students on the stage.
Just at this moment, a female voice, neither loud nor soft, came from among the guests and reached the ears of Zhou Tinglan and the others.
Xie Zechuan turned around unhappily and saw a young woman in a pink dress yelling in dissatisfaction.
"How dare you show off your sword-forging skills like this? My groom at home can forge swords better than them even with his eyes closed."
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