Xianyalou is a restaurant and a special place in Beijing. [ads: This site has a new URL, shorthand method: ,..]
What makes it special is mainly its location.
There is a lake in the center of the capital, which has always been the most interesting place for leisurely people and scholars. Every night, many people go boating on the lake, accompanied by a piece of piano music, drinking a cup of tea, waving a folding fan in their hands, picking up girls and acting cool, all of which are perfect.
In the very middle of the lake in the center of the city, there is a restaurant built on the lake. It is the most expensive, has the best food, and is the most difficult to reserve a location in the whole capital. It is called Xianyalou.
All diners who come to Xianyalou for dinner must first spend money to hire a small rowing boat by the lake, and have the boatman take you to the door of the restaurant. After finishing the meal, they must hire another small boat to row back.
This is how Feng Yuheng and the other two came.
Huang Quan was obviously very familiar with Xian Ya Lou. He pointed at it and introduced it to Feng Yu Heng while they were still on the boat, saying, "Your Highness opened this restaurant for fun when he was nine years old. He didn't expect it to become famous. No matter if they are noble young men or young ladies in Beijing, they are proud to eat at Xian Ya Lou. In the past, it was only the private rooms that were difficult to book, but now it is not easy to even book dining in the restaurant."
Qingyu was shocked when she heard this: "Who is the person who invited our young lady here?" She came to the Feng family after the engagement ceremony at Prince Yu's Palace, and had a very vague impression of the prince that Huang Quan mentioned.
Huang Quan said with a smile: "Of course he is the owner of this place."
As they were talking, the boat docked.
Someone in the restaurant immediately came forward to greet the guests. Seeing that they were three girls, a waiter asked, "Have you three reserved a table?"
Huang Quan threw a fist and greeted him: "I need to book a table when I come here?"
The waiter was stunned for a moment, but soon recognized Huang Quan - "Oh! It's Miss Huang Quan."
Before he could say anything more, a well-dressed man who looked to be in his forties walked out of Xianya Building. He nodded to Huang Quan first, then bowed deeply to Feng Yuheng and said, "Princess." He then turned sideways and gestured, "Please come in. The prince is on the third floor."
Feng Yuheng was not used to this address at first, but sometimes Wangchuan and Huangquan would call her that, so she would not feel it was too abrupt. However, when she heard that person was on the third floor, she blushed slightly when she was called the princess.
Huang Quan, who was always laughing, became serious after going up the stairs, which made Qingyu nervous as well.
It was not until the shopkeeper personally led the three of them to the door of a private room on the third floor that Feng Yuheng saw Bai Ze.
She twitched her brows and recalled their first encounter in the mountains. The purple lotus that had been floating in her mind and refused to disappear became clearer.
After the shopkeeper handed the three people over to Bai Ze, he went back downstairs. Bai Ze grinned at Feng Yuheng without saying anything, which made Feng Yuheng so angry that she glared at him.
Finally, Bai Ze remembered the important things. After a while, he put away his smile, turned around, pushed open the door, and said to the inside: "Master, the person you are waiting for is here." Then he made a gesture to Huang Quan, and Huang Quan pulled Qingyu to follow Bai Ze away.
Qingyu was still worried at first, but Feng Yuheng nodded slightly to her, and then the little girl followed Huang Quan unwillingly.
Feng Yuheng himself stood at the door of the room, not daring to take a step closer for a long time.
There were two people, one inside the door and the other outside, as if they were in a competition. No one spoke, the one inside didn't come out, and the one outside didn't go in. They were in a stalemate for a whole incense stick of time.
The man inside sighed helplessly: "My legs are not convenient, you can't ask me to go over and invite you in person."
She came to her senses then, but the words "my legs are inconvenient" made her heart ached again.
Feng Yuheng had imagined the scene when the two of them met again. She once thought that she would first ask who had injured his legs and face, and then write down the name of the enemy and help him get revenge in the future.
She was indeed preparing to say so now, but some words, although clearly thought clearly in her mind, changed their meaning once spoken out loud.
Just like Feng Yuheng now, he entered the private room, closed the door, and then walked in front of Xuan Tianming. The first thing he said to him was: "Your legs are injured and your face is ruined, why don't you just throw away your life?"
She really wanted to slap herself!
Xuan Tianming didn't feel that surprised. This girl had never given him a good word or a good look from beginning to end. Thinking about the treatment he had received in the mountains, he felt that it was pretty good now.
So he spread his hands, leaned on the back of the wheelchair and looked at her, saying: "If you lose your life, who will come back to Beijing to support you?"
She retorted reflexively: "I can deal with them just as well without you!"
Xuan Tianming laughed.
She just looked at the man with the corners of his lips slightly curved upwards, and that curve just touched her heart, and she was stunned and could not continue the bickering.
He stared blankly at the man in front of him. The golden mask was made very delicately, and there were even delicate carvings on it. The purple lotus was faintly visible through the small hole between his eyebrows, strangely making the man look a bit devilish.
She didn't think much about it, and without any warning, she raised her claws and reached straight for the mask.
But just when my fingertips touched the metal, they were gently grasped by a hand.
"What are you doing?" he said helplessly, "It's ugly."
She suddenly turned her head, her back to him, her lips tightly pursed stubbornly, her eyes staring straight at an unknown corner.
There was a stream of liquid welling up in my eye sockets, but it refused to flow out, making me feel uncomfortable and aggrieved.
Xuan Tianming was also stunned. Looking at the awkward back figure, he felt that the girl seemed to be thinner than when she was in the mountains.
"How dare the Feng family not give you enough food until now?" He asked casually as a thought came to his mind, reaching out to pull her sleeve as if chatting, "I thought that after Madam Zhou's visit, they should at least know how to restrain themselves. Why are you still so thin?"
She lost her temper after being pulled by him, turned around and pushed his hand away, "Later, I ate well. I have a good foundation, so I don't have to lose weight after getting fat."
Xuan Tianming had never heard of the term weight loss. After thinking about it for a while, he concluded that it might be because girls are afraid of getting fat. He was so angry that he shook his head: "How old are you? You are still growing up, why would you say that?"
"Hey!" Speaking of this, Feng Yuheng got excited, turned around, and sat on the table, with her legs dangling. "You also know that I'm young? Why are you in such a hurry to give me a betrothal gift when I'm so young? You even said that you'd let me marry you when I'm fifteen years old. I've never seen anyone so impatient. Besides--" She raised her eyebrows, "Did you ask me if I was willing?"
"When I was engaged as a child, no one asked me if I was willing or not." He said honestly, "When it comes to arranged marriages, none of us has a say in it."
Feng Yuheng frowned, and her dangling legs suddenly stopped, staring at him blankly——
"So you don't want to?"
Xuan Tianming shook his head, "What kind of logic is this?"
"Why did you give such a heavy betrothal gift?" She asked the question she had always wanted to ask, "When did you know that I was the second daughter of the Feng family?"
He answered honestly: "I saw you at the city gate on the day I returned to Beijing, so I asked Bai Ze to check. Those betrothal gifts... are the medical fees I owe you."
She shook her head and stared into his eyes: "You have already paid the consultation fee."
"Twenty taels is too little."
"Not a small amount. Without that twenty taels, I can't go back to the capital."
There was silence between the two of them.
He thought of the night he saw her in the deep mountains, flicking stones to deal with the bad guys; he thought of her dragging him out of the crevice in the mountains; he thought of her scraping flesh and setting bones for him; he also thought of her desolate and thin figure when they left.
And she thought about her thrilling escape from the northwest to the capital, which she had to rely on the twenty taels he gave her to survive.
Feng Yuheng's stubbornness came back in an instant, and he jumped directly from the table towards Xuan Tianming, reaching out to grab the mask.
"Show me."
Xuan Tianming was startled by her and quickly caught her, dodging her hand while shouting, "Heng Heng, stop making trouble."
After trying several times to grab it but failing, she obediently withdrew her hand, but she was still lying on top of him, one hand tightly grasping the front of his clothes, and two tears rolled down her face.
Without any warning, Feng Yuheng started crying.
She cried aggrievedly but no sound came out. Her throat was sore and painful, her two rows of silver teeth were clenched and made a clattering sound, and her nose was running with snot.
In the years before Xuan Tianming went to the northwest to fight, many girls had cried in front of him, including the daughter of the king of the opposite sex whose palace he had burned down.
But no girl can cry so purely and sincerely, and... so without caring about her image.
Suddenly, a wave of heartache surged up, and a strange feeling that he had never experienced before came over him. Xuan Tianming subconsciously reached out his hand to touch her soft hair, and said to her in a coaxing tone like a child: "Be good, don't cry."
But she cried even harder.
He had no choice but to endure the pain on his legs from her pressing on him, and he held the child in his arms, patting her back gently.
Yes! This is a child. He is only twelve years old, eight years later than he was born.
"Do you regret it? You're disappointed that the man you're going to marry is a crippled man with a disfigured face?"
He was teasing her on purpose, but who would have thought that Feng Yuheng, who had been crying tastelessly in his heart, suddenly raised her head. Although her tears were still hanging, she stopped sobbing. She just stared at him for a long while before she said faintly, "My leg that the doctor and I managed to heal with great difficulty, how come it's broken again?"
He took out a handkerchief from his bosom and wiped her tears and snot one by one. "After you left, Bai Ze and I were unable to get out of the mountain safely. We were ambushed at the mountain pass."
He said it easily, as if it was just a small fight.
In fact, that ambush almost cost him and Bai Ze their lives.
"Who set up this ambush?" She thought for a moment. "Enemy country?"
He shook his head. "Not likely. This matter is under investigation. Don't take it too seriously."
Feng Yuheng was furious. "Your legs are lame, and my favorite face is ruined. Xuan Tianming, who gave you the courage to destroy my things like this?"
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