During their usual interactions, Old Qin always maintained a calm demeanor. However, truth be told, he was a man destined for great things, and such a man should possess great ambition. Although he valued relationships, he wouldn't subscribe to the notion of "friends are like limbs, wives like clothes." But when it came to his attitude toward women, he shared the common perspective of men of that era. He wasn't so shallow as to think women lacked their own temperaments, but realistically, two women were hardly something to expend excessive effort on.

It was precisely this aspect of Ning Yi's character that he found somewhat disagreeable, ultimately chalking it up as another quirk in the man's personality.

For this private banquet, he had Yun Niang invite Yun Zhu, without informing Ning Yi. Conversely, he invited Ning Yi without telling Yun Zhu. His rationale for the invitations was perfectly sound: Ning Yi had saved his life at the Bamboo Shop that day, and Yun Zhu and Jin'er had also contributed. A closer gathering was only natural. In reality, he was subtly bringing the two parties together.

The moment Yun Zhu saw Ning Yi, she understood the situation. Aware that the person she cared for might be in a difficult position, she smiled playfully. However, she refrained from showing any particular expression thereafter, maintaining a serene demeanor, unwilling to cause trouble. Old Qin initially laughed at the situation, but later refrained from interfering.

The ensuing banquet was segregated by gender. It was said that Yuan Jin'er actively discussed business strategies with Su Tan'er. Aspiring to be a successful businesswoman, she eagerly sought advice from a true one. Tan'er, after understanding the details of Jin'er's shop, genuinely offered some suggestions, leading to an engaging conversation between the two.

On Ning Yi's side, Qin Shaoqian spoke of matters in the military camp, before inquiring about the upcoming spring outing in two days, mentioning Li Shishi and Fan Lou. He laughed heartily, "I know Fan Lou well! I've even met that Li Shishi. We'll go and see her together then."

Qin Shaohe questioned, "You've been to Fan Lou often, but Li Shishi has only emerged in recent years. How would you know her?"

"Ahem, a few years ago, when I went to Bianjing, I gathered a group of old friends. They said that the Shishi girl was the most famous, so we went to Fan Lou. Before I even saw her, I saw Gao Qiu's fake son bullying others, about to lay hands on a woman selling melons. I... uh, I hate that kind of thing the most! I immediately argued with him, and we ended up fighting in Fan Lou. If it weren't for that lackey named Lu Qian being skilled in martial arts, I would have given him a few punches!"

At this point, besides the three Qin father and sons, there were only Ning Yi and Xu Xiaohu at the table. Qin Si-yuan, hearing his youngest son speak of such matters, put down his chopsticks, handed his bowl to the servant to refill, and frowned, saying, "Nonsense." However, there was no real reprimand in his words. At this time, Gao Qiu already held the post of Grand Commandant in Tokyo. However, he had risen through flattery, and although he was adept at manipulating power, he wasn't well-regarded among the high-ranking civil and military officials. Although Qin Si-yuan said "nonsense," he didn't seem to think much of Gao Qiu.

Qin Shaoqian naturally understood his father's nature and shrugged his shoulders. "It wasn't nonsense! I couldn't just stand by and watch! We used to make trouble in Bianjing, but we only fought with those local thugs and bullies, fighting for justice when we saw it. Father, you haven't been to Bianjing in a long time. You don't know how polluted it is by those spoiled brats. A few months after I left a few years ago, I heard that Gao Yanei framed a Lin instructor from the imperial guards, and later..."

He paused, "Hey, later the Lin instructor's wife died in Gao Yanei's room, and the Lin instructor was exiled. Last year, I heard he rebelled and went to Liangshan. Damn... Ask anyone on the streets of Bianjing, eight out of ten know what happened. It's a pity I hadn't heard of his evil deeds at that time. Otherwise, even if Lu Qian and Uncle Geng stopped me, I would have drawn my sword and chopped him into pieces..."

Qin Si-yuan looked up at him. "Xi Dao was there too?" Geng Xi Dao was Geng Nanzhong.

Qin Shaoqian nodded. "Yes, Uncle Geng asked me to say hello to you, Father. He came out to mediate, so we had to give him face. Mother Li from Fan Lou brought that Shishi girl out to persuade us as well. Later, we found a flower hall to sit down, we on one side, the Gao guys on the other. That Shishi girl sang in the middle, tsk, not interesting at all... We parted on bad terms."

After he finished speaking, he shrugged and buried his big bearded face in his bowl, starting to shovel rice. The others laughed, and Qin Si-yuan nodded. "Xi Dao is quite good at mediating."

Afterward, everyone chatted about various things. When they spoke of Xu Xiaohu, they learned that this young man was a true martial arts master, having practiced genuine superior internal power. Qin Shaoqian had no experience in this area, and his fighting skills relied solely on his own bravery. Qin Si-yuan then laughed and talked about Ning Yi's previous aspirations for martial arts. Then, Ning Yi inevitably said things like, "I've heard so much about you, people call me the Blood-Handed Butcher" to Xu Xiaohu.

According to Qin Shaoqian, Xu Xiaohu's martial style was fierce and powerful, specializing in Bazi Quan and Baiyuan Tongbi, but in terms of personality, he was very simple and even slightly shy. Ning Yi had been practicing martial arts for so long, and he had many questions about it. He asked them, and Xu Xiaohu answered them without reservation, but later, it was roughly the same as what Lu Hongti had said. Martial arts ultimately needed to be

Fought out. Practicing routines too much, without reaching the point where the intent arrives before the body moves, is ultimately meaningless. In other words, the most important thing is to form a conditioned reflex.

After this meal, everyone was happy.

A day passed, and it was time for the spring outing. It was two days before the Qingming Festival, traditionally called Hanshi, set up to commemorate Jie Zhitui in the Spring and Autumn period. Before the Three Kingdoms period, people did not light fires for a month before and after Hanshi, and they all ate cold food. Later, because this month-long period often made it impossible for the old and weak to survive, Emperor Wu of Wei Cao Cao abolished the custom of eating cold food. Later, the Hanshi Festival, spring outing, and ancestor worship were moved two days, and it was placed together with Qingming.

The weather was good that day. There was a fog in the morning, but it had dissipated after sunrise. In front of a small building on the banks of the Qinhuai River, Yun Zhu and Jin'er were dressed as men, each holding a fan and waving it, ready to go out.

At this time, the spring breeze was warm, and the clouds stretching in the sky were like white dragons flying. The willow branches on the banks of the Qinhuai River were green and green. It was a good time for spring outings. The residents of Jiangning City were wealthy, so there were more activities of this kind than in poorer places. These days, on the roads leading to the suburbs, you could often see families of three or two wearing clean and tidy clothes and happily going out for outings. Children held the hands of adults, shaking and shaking, excitedly.

Today, there seemed to be more people traveling like this than usual. Occasionally, you could see one or two painted boats sailing out of the city on the Qinhuai River. Among the flying willow catkins on the road, there seemed to be a few more scholars heading towards the city gate. Today's spring outing organized by Chen Luoyuan was located near Bailuzhou outside Jiangning City.

Yun Zhu had not been out for a spring outing like this in the past few years. She only had such an opportunity in the early years when she was in Jin Feng Lou, and even then, she was not out for her own sake. In the first two years of redemption, she enjoyed the feeling of freedom, but rarely went out, almost like returning to the young lady of an official family who was afraid of seeing strangers. Later, she started selling preserved eggs, but it was only as a necessary business. Otherwise, she still felt more comfortable staying at home. She was still a traditional and conservative person in her bones. As a woman, she always felt that she should travel with her family. When she was a child, she followed her parents, and in the future, she could only follow her husband. So, Ning Yi asked her to come out like this, and she was happy in her heart, but she could not help but feel a little nervous dressed as a man.

"I'm a little nervous." Slightly tidying her clothes, she walked on the road and turned her head to talk to Jin'er. Jin'er was walking and unfolding a folding fan to fan herself. Hearing this, she shrugged her shoulders. "What's there to be nervous about? Come on, Sister Yun Zhu, let's walk hand in hand."

Yun Zhu smiled and said, "I'm also a young master like you now, what's there to hold on to?"

The two originally agreed to meet Ning Yi near Bailuzhou. After laughing and joking for a while, they arrived near the city gate, and then took a car and went all the way to Shitoucheng.

Ning Yi only regarded today's spring outing as going to a concert, so he was not in a hurry. Before leaving the city, he first went to Yushan Academy to arrange a few homework assignments. When he arrived at the agreed location, there were already many people having spring outings on the river bank near Bailuzhou.

At this time, Bailuzhou was not in the same location as the Bailuzhou Park in Nanjing in later generations. At this time, Bailuzhou was the original site in Li Bai's poem "Three Mountains Fall Halfway into the Blue Sky, Two Waters Divide Bailuzhou." It was a sandbar in the Yangtze River outside Shitoucheng, dividing the Yangtze River into two. There were many reeds on the island, so egrets often gathered. Later, the Yangtze River silted up, and Bailuzhou was connected to the south bank of the Yangtze River, and gradually disappeared in later generations.

At this time, the scenery near Bailuzhou was very good, but a spring outing was not a tryst, so there was no need to go to the reeds on the island. Generally, people walked along the mountains and waters on both sides of Bailuzhou. There were many kinds of spring outing activities in this spring day. A family of three going to the wild to fly kites was a spring outing. A few more people wandering around casually was also a spring outing. A more formal one was usually in the form of a literary meeting. A group of young scholars received invitations from many literary celebrities or high-ranking officials in the imperial examination. The bigwigs gave a topic in the mountains to make friends with literature and show their talents. It can also be called a spring outing. For example, the famous Lanting gathering of Wang Xizhi, Xie An, and others in history, they called it Xiuqi, which can be broadly classified as a spring outing gathering.

This time, the spring outing gathering was not too strict, but most of them were mainly participated by literati. There were also many other merchants and officials, but they all knew how to read and write. Chen Luoyuan, the great scholar who organized the event, had his own garden here, and the location was naturally placed there, so as to prevent many idlers from running to participate. But to be honest, there were quite a few literati gathered nearby who had not been invited. They would naturally not say that they were here for Chen Luoyuan's gathering, but it was fine to see if they could sneak in, or even more imaginative, they were also preparing to organize a larger literary gathering here to completely overshadow Chen Luoyuan and Li Shishi.

In this way, when Ning Yi arrived, there were many idlers by the river, and some painted boats and buildings were parked there. Presumably, the women in them were also invited to participate. Ning Yi had a general agreement with Yun Zhu and Jin'er, and it took him a while to find them. The two girls were dressed as men and had put a lot of effort into it. Ning Yi did not find them immediately. He was actually attracted by the confrontation scene there. A few people stood under the tree, and the atmosphere seemed very bad. One side was naturally Yun Zhu and Jin'er, and the other side was three scholars and a prostitute who seemed to be accompanying them. Among them, Ning Yi also recognized one person.

That was Liu Qingdi, a talented man who used to admire Jin'er very much and went crazy when he saw Ning Yi behaving intimately with her.

But now it seems that Liu Qingdi's face is a little arrogant, and Jin'er's expression is unhappy. Probably Liu Qingdi realized that it was impossible for him to get his hands on the girl, so he has begun to rebel and decided not to give this promiscuous woman a good look, so the two sides quarreled...

Tsk, chasing girls like this is really ugly. Jin'er's attitude towards chasing Yun Zhu is much better than his...

Ning Yi sighed in his heart and was about to go over when suddenly, a hand stretched out from behind and grabbed his shoulder: "Brother Ning! You are here too?"

The tone was quite surprised.

Ning Yi looked back and saw that the person with a surprised look behind him was indeed someone he had seen. When he saw that woman surnamed Wang that day, the follower beside her, what was his name?

Ning Yi thought for a while.

Yu Hezhong. (To be continued.) Voting for recommendation tickets and monthly tickets is your greatest motivation for me.)

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