Lin'an Never Night

Chapter 178: The Return of the Swallow
Today, Luxi has become a leader in Lin'an's catering industry.

Maybe she is not as strong as those masters with many students.
Nor are they as respected as those old masters who have been in business for many years.
But when it comes to the ability to develop new dishes, no matter how powerful or respected, they all have to admit defeat to her.

Now, word has spread in the market that after Prince Enping tasted the new dishes developed by Miss Luxi, he specially ordered a few dishes to be brought into the palace and asked the Empress Dowager and the Queen to taste them.

After tasting Miss Luxi’s dishes, the two palaces liked them very much.

The Empress Dowager intends to invite Lu Xi to the palace to cook a few of her signature dishes for the Emperor.

If the emperor likes the dish, the imperial chef will take her as his apprentice and learn new dishes from her.

what does this mean?
For a time, girls from Luxi became very popular, and people came and went asking matchmakers to help them find their husbands.

The person that Matchmaker Wang plans to introduce to Luxi today is Wang Yeran, the eldest son of Mr. Wang, the largest merchant in Longshan City.

The financial resources of the Wang family are not comparable to the current "Song Family Flavor Restaurant".

However, no matter how rich they are, they are still merchants.

If Luxi can establish connections in the palace and the Wang family marries Luxi, it means that the Wang family has connections in the palace.

This is a real and strong backing that belongs to the Wang family. It is much better than spending a lot of money to curry favor with some powerful person.

Therefore, even a business giant like the Wang family is very motivated to marry into the Song family.

Matchmaker Wang felt that with the financial strength of Mr. Wang's family, she would be able to make the deal this time, so she was full of confidence.

Wang Yeran sat next to Matchmaker Wang, looking somewhat unhappy.

A little cook suddenly became rich.

But how could a little cook, no matter how famous she was, compare to the number one merchant family in Longshan City?

I don't know what this girl looks like. If she's not pretty, then just marry her and keep her as a treasure.

For a girl like this from a small family to marry into our Wang family, she must have been very lucky. I don't think she would dare to ask for much.

……

Matchmaker Liu has been having a miserable time lately.

Her original fame was actually no less than that of Matchmaker Wang.

However, recently the reputations of the two matchmakers have been rising and falling, and the gap between them is getting bigger and bigger.

She didn't know what had happened to her, but her luck had been particularly bad since the Chinese New Year.

She introduced a beautiful bride to the owner of the "Shuiyunjian" restaurant on the bank of West Lake. However, on the wedding night, the drunken groom stepped into the lake and drowned.

She introduced a good marriage to a girl named Luxi from Qingshi Lane, but the man broke off the engagement with her in public.

She wanted to introduce Liu Mo, the eldest son of the Liu Ti family, the second owner of the "Moshanghua" embroidery workshop, to Dan Niang.

As a result, Liu Mo suddenly disappeared.

The Liu family has already reported the case to the police, but it is not known whether anyone from the government has conducted a serious investigation. In any case, there has been no news of this person until now.

Matchmaker Liu is very panicked now.

This time she came to introduce Luxi to her ideal husband not for the sake of making money, but to prove herself.

She wanted to prove that she, Liu the Matchmaker, was not possessed by a jinx. No, absolutely not!
The Wang family in Longshan City, whom Matchmaker Wang wanted to introduce to the Song family, was indeed a wealthy family.

However, the person introduced by Liu the matchmaker is not bad either!
The person she introduced was a juren, Fan Jiang, who was going to Beijing to take the imperial examination this year.

Mr. Fan is only 25 years old this year, and he has already achieved fame and honor. How young and promising he is!
Mr. Fan was from Fufeng County, Fengxiang Prefecture, Fengxiang Road. He was a typical Guanzhong man, so strong that he didn't look like a scholar.

The problem is that although Mr. Fan is physically strong, his mental quality is very poor.

The candidates were crowded into a small, airtight dormitory for several days, eating, drinking, defecating and urinating there.

It's a hot summer day again. If you are under a lot of psychological pressure, the consequences can be imagined.

In this exam, two people died.

They were all exhausted from studying hard for the exams for many days, and were nervous and afraid in the exam room, coupled with heatstroke. They were not discovered in time and ended up dying in their dormitories.

Mr. Fan Jiang was fine, he got diarrhea when he was nervous.

However, after having diarrhea for a day and a half, his face turned pale and he was dying.

He knew that if he continued to hold on he would surely die. Although he was extremely reluctant, he had no choice but to give up the exam and was carried out.

Today is the day when the imperial examination results are announced. According to the old rules, many powerful families will go to "catch a son-in-law from under the list."

This can also be considered a custom in the literary world.

Historically, literary leader Ouyang Xiu was one of those who was chosen as a son-in-law, as was Wang Gongchen, a popular figure in front of Emperor Renzong. Fan Lingsun was taken as a son-in-law by Prime Minister Wang Dan, and Cai Jing's younger brother Cai Bian was taken as a son-in-law by Wang Anshi...

Mr. Fan, who failed the imperial examination, had been recuperating for a long time and had just recovered.

Other high school graduates were all being rushed to be sons-in-law, but he had to compete to be the son-in-law of someone from Lin'an, even if there was suspicion of being a live-in son-in-law.

Because now he doesn't even have the money to go home.

Like the ones mentioned above who were selected as husbands-in-law, they were all unmarried during their high school years.

Their family background is not bad, and they have money to get married, but they just want to pass the imperial examination first and then get married.

This will give the other half more options, create a strong alliance, and be more beneficial to his future career.

Mr. Fan married late because of two considerations.

One reason is that he wanted to take the imperial examination first. After passing it, the family background of the person he wanted to marry would be different.

The second reason was that his family was poor. His family was so poor that they had spent all their money on his studies, and he had no money to get married and start a family.

Now he fell ill due to the fear of the exam and missed the opportunity to make a breakthrough.

After recovering from a serious illness, he was so emaciated that he thought it would be a good idea to find a family in Lin'an and marry a girl from Lin'an.

In this way, I can stay in Lin'an and continue preparing for the exam, and there may be a chance for a breakthrough in the future.

If he really fails the exam, he will still have the title of a juren. He can then ask his father-in-law to help him spend money to get a job as a teacher in the nearby Kuo County. That would also be a glorious background, wouldn't it?

And for the Song family, once this marriage is concluded, the Song family will leap from a merchant family to a poet and scholar family, which means both sides get what they want and it's the best of both worlds!

Therefore, Liu the Matchmaker was determined to win this time.

Mr. Fan stayed with Matchmaker Liu and drank the same pot of tea over and over again until it turned into plain water. However, the stingy Matchmaker Liu did not even bother to ask the shop to get another pot.

Forget it, let’s continue drinking. I don’t know when Old Man Song will come back.

Old Man Song went to Mr. Qu's house to drink and is not at home.

Matchmaker Liu couldn't understand him either. His family ran a hotel, so why did he go to Mr. Qu's house to drink?

But since the parents are not here, it is impossible to directly find the girl for matchmaking, so I can only wait here.

Huh? Father Song is back!
The two matchmakers' eyes lit up, they stood up at the same time and walked quickly towards him.

The shoulders of the two matchmakers collided hard, and then they fell down one on the left and one on the right in front of Old Man Song with a cry of "Aiya"!

……

Yang Yuan walked into the Bluestone Alley. Yang Yuan had imagined that he would put on a grand show to make the entire Bluestone Alley a blast, and Lu Xi would surely like it.

He remembered that when he was a child, he read a fan fiction called "Subversion of the Smiling, Proud Wanderer", which was written by a man called "Mengyou Jushi". In the last chapter, the hero Wu Tiande made three wishes and proposed to Saint Lady Ren Yingying with an extremely grand momentum. It was extremely romantic.

He also wanted to do this, invite Mr. Qu and Yuyao Nu, and just relying on their reputation, he could mobilize all the famous people in the Lin'an entertainment industry. What kind of event could he not create?

If that is still not enough, then go to Lin'an Prefecture. The prefect there may not have heard of "Song Ci", and even if he had heard of it, he may not want to get on his side now, so you can still make use of this relationship.

He, Yang Yuan, could also do a "Yang Erlang three wishes to promise love" and move Luxi so much that she was overwhelmed.

However, when the time came, he gave up all these plans.

He knew that women attached great importance to the sense of ceremony, but after going through all these ups and downs, especially, he had not yet asked for Luxi's forgiveness.

If he had come with such a big show, it would have been a complete show for him, but for Luxi, it would have been a way of using his power to overwhelm others.

If you want to compensate her, it's only natural to make a bigger splash when you marry her.

This time, he just needs a sincere heart.

He also believed that Luxi was not such a superficial woman, and today's confession and true love were enough.

So, here he came.

Carrying gifts, wearing official clothes, he entered Qingshi alone.

Hua Hao Yue Yuan followed behind him, keeping a short distance between them.

It’s not that the two women wanted to avoid suspicion, but because it was a festival, there were bustling merchants and pedestrians everywhere.

There are also gong and drum teams lined up in a long snake formation, wandering through the streets and alleys, beating drums and dancing as they walk.

"Boom boom, boom boom, boom boom boom, it doesn't boom it boom it..."

Add to that the crowds of onlookers cheering and walking around, and it becomes even more difficult to pass through.

Yang Yuan was dressed in official uniform, so people naturally avoided him when they saw him.

Not to mention that someone avoided the two of them, along the way, Leng Yuchan broke the arm of a lecher who was "touching the gods", and Xue Bingxin kicked down a drunk who deliberately stuck to her.

"Huh? You...you are Jiro?"

Neighbor Auntie Wu was having her grandson ride on her neck as she watched the lively gong and drum band passing by. Suddenly she saw Yang Yuan and was startled.

But she could hardly believe the way Yang Yuan was dressed at this moment.

Yang Yuan stopped and said, "Auntie Wu, it's me!"

"It's really you, God, you...you didn't go to the Kingdom of Jin, did you? How could this be..."

"I am a Song Dynasty person. How could I go to the Northern Kingdom?"

Yang Yuan explained with a smile: "To be honest, Aunt Wu, have you seen my official uniform?"

“Ahh, ah, I see.”

"In fact, I am a spy in the Speed ​​Room of the Privy Council of the Great Song Dynasty. The so-called breaking off of the engagement and going to the Northern Kingdom were all a trick to deceive people."

"Actually, I was trying to capture an important Jin spy. Now that I've accomplished my mission and made great contributions, I've been promoted to the seventh rank, Wugonglang."

"Ah~, ah! Erlang is back, Erlang is an official, Erlang did not go to the Jin Kingdom, he is a military officer of our Song Dynasty..."

Aunt Wu carried the child and ran away shouting all the way.

The crowd was so dense that she felt shouting was not enough, so she ran to the arch bridge over the river and started shouting loudly.

"Wow!" Her little grandson was probably frightened by her overly excited look, and a pool of hot urine poured into her neck.

Yang Yuan smiled slightly and continued walking towards the Song family snack shop.

What I am saying today should only be said to Aunt Wu.

Soon, Aunt Wu will be known to everyone in Qingshi Lane and Houshi Street.

He didn't need to explain it in too much detail. No matter what he said, these old ladies would definitely add fuel to the fire and make a weird change to it.

Yang Yuan stood at the door of "Song's Snack Shop".

Ever since that day he went to see Wugu Lun Yingge, he never came back.

At this moment, the Song’s snack shop that he was familiar with had disappeared.

What appeared before him was a two-story restaurant called "Song's Flavor Restaurant" with a very imposing door lintel.

In life, there are always some people, some things, and some objects that will be lost behind you as your time passes, until they gradually fade away in your memory.

Yang Yuan stood there, thinking about many things for a long time...

Hua Hao and Yue Yuan stopped. In front of the Song Family Flavor Building, there were pedestrians coming and going, and guests coming in and out. However, Yang Yuan, standing in the dense crowd, raised his head and looked at the lintel, as if he was in the wilderness, the only one there.

That feeling of loneliness and desolation makes people feel indescribably uncomfortable.

Yang Yuan stood there for a long time, then blinked his eyes gently to get rid of the mist in his eyes.

Then he strode in.

……

In Fengwei Building, the two matchmakers were blocking Old Man Song at this time, pointing and spitting, talking like a machine gun with almost no pause in between.

There is no matchmaker who has poor eloquence and is not good at speaking.

Moreover, when they say nice things, it's like honey and makes you feel like spring breeze. If they say bad things, they will scold you for an hour, and they won't say the same thing twice.

That was really a mixture of insults and curses, the insults were sharp and the words were wild and unrestrained.

However, the two matchmakers belittled each other and criticized the men introduced by the other party for trying to cheat the girl from Luxi, which inevitably directly denigrated the two parties involved.

So, Mr. Fan and Mr. Wang naturally ended up in trouble.

Two grown men couldn't hit a woman, and they couldn't scold her enough, and they couldn't say it out loud, so they had to confront their rivals.

Mr. Fan was a big man from Guanzhong. He was taller, strong and sturdy. He really didn't look like a scholar at all.

However, he had just recovered from a long illness, his cheeks were thin, his face was pale, his eyes were dull, and he looked very frail.

Although Young Master Wang is from a merchant family, the Wang family business in Longjiang City is engaged in canal transportation and bulk commodity wholesale. As the eldest son of the Wang family and the future head of the family, he often has to sail on the ship, going through wind and rain, and has a very strong physique, not a dandy boy.

Moreover, he also practiced martial arts, so although he was a head shorter than Mr. Fan, his waist seemed to be no thicker than Mr. Fan's thigh, and he was quite strong.

When he saw that he was not as tall or as big as Mr. Fan, Young Master Wang took off his shirt in a flash, revealing a body of lean, muscular body covered with exquisite tattoos.

"I have a blue dragon on my left, a white tiger on my right, an old ox at my waist, and a dragon head in front of my chest..."

Young Master Wang got ruthless and he actually had a sharp ox-ear knife on his waist, which he grabbed in his hand with a "swish".

At this time, Yang Yuan walked in...

PS: Okay, I'm all out again, I'm coding tomorrow's now. Please give me monthly votes, recommendation votes...

(End of this chapter)