Ten diligent days: the fields are still

The marriage team traveled day and night and finally arrived at the capital of Xihu State.

There is a square in front of the suspension bridge, and in the center of the square is a bronze altar. Walking around the altar, the ministers of the Xihu Kingdom stood in three rows to welcome them.

The one at the front of the list is Prince Jing, the third prince of the late emperor and the elder brother of the current emperor.

It can be said that Xihu attached great importance to this marriage.

Yuan Lai and his brothers hid behind a big tree and listened to these people chattering for a long time. Finally, Le Wei lifted the curtain of the sedan chair, revealing the face of the princess who was to be married off.

Wang Yiheng pushed forward, wanting to greet Prince Jing, but was stopped by He Haonan and Zhao Xiaotong. "What are you doing?"

"This guy looks so much like my third brother, I want to see what his personality is like."

Yuan Lai said, "Let's not do that. Prince Jing is a royal relative, it's better not to provoke him."

Just as the team was heading towards the city, something strange happened.

A group of strange-looking people ran over here, grabbed people and threw them to the ground.

"Monster! Retreat to the city!"

"Quickly call in the demon tamer Lu Zizhou!"

"Lord Lu went home to visit his family earlier!"

"Protect the Princess and His Highness."

The leader of the guards led the accompanying guards to fight with the monsters. A man in black rushed to the back of the sedan chair and quietly crawled under it.

Taking advantage of the chaos, Yuan Lai and his men mixed into the crowd and entered the capital of Xihu Kingdom.

The capital was prosperous, but there was a clear dividing line between the north and the south. The south had obviously been abandoned for a long time. The marriage procession quickly drove across the street and turned right into another street.

Yuan Lai was concentrating on following the team forward when she was suddenly pulled back by someone. She turned around and saw a woman in ancient Chinese clothing smiling at her.

"Is this girl's name Yuan Lai?"

The other brothers were shocked, "How did you know?"

The woman lowered her head and smiled faintly, "Don't worry about how I know you, just follow me."

They followed the woman into a jewelry store, and the woman took out an exquisite box from the room behind her and handed it to Yuan Lai.

"This hairpin has finally been returned to its original owner."

Yuan Lai opened the box and saw a golden hairpin lying inside. And her hairpin was also inside.

The kitten with the hairpin tail is lifelike but has some wear and tear.

She opened the golden hairpin, pulled off the tassels underneath, and peeled off the gold hairpin. Suddenly, a picture flashed in Yuan Lai's mind. It was a man, smiling and handing her a box.

As for who that man was, Yuan Lai couldn't capture it from the fleeting scene.

"Now we are rich!" Yuan Lai immediately decided to pawn the gold hairpin to contribute the first pot of gold for their future life.

The woman didn't dare to make the decision on her own, so she had to go to the backyard and call the boss.

"Who wants to pawn something? : Forget it, our store is only for taking things out, not coming in?"

The boss walked out with a face exactly like Wang Yiheng's, and Yuan Lai subconsciously looked at Wang Yiheng behind him.

They had previously feared that their similar appearance would cause misunderstanding, so each of them wore a straw hat. Now the three of them were sitting at the door of the store waiting for Yuan Lai, but they did not come into direct contact with the boss.

Yuan Lai handed over the golden hairpin and said, "See how much silver you can get in exchange."

The boss took the broken hairpin and frowned, "If it were intact, it would definitely be worth a good price, but now it's broken... eh?"

Noticing the kitten with a hairpin tail, the boss's eyes lit up. "Wait a moment, I'll go weigh it."

Not long after, the boss came back from the backyard with a cloth bag in his hand. "Here are thirty taels of silver. Take it."

Yuan Lai didn't know how the gold and silver were converted here, but thirty taels of silver was still quite a lot. Yuan Lai didn't want to argue too much, so he happily took the money and walked out of the jewelry store.

There was no one outside the store. Yuan Lai looked around and found three people inquiring about the situation in front of a stall.

Recommended by the locals, they stayed in a fairly affordable inn with two rooms, one for her and one for the three brothers.

While eating, Wang Yiheng couldn't stop thinking about Chen Shaoxi. "He and I left the house at the same time. There's no way I couldn't see him by the river! How are we going to find him?"

Zhao Xiaotong said, "We're currently in a country called Xihu, where humans and demons coexist, but demons hold a slightly lower status. This is the capital, equivalent to Beijing. Most of the people living in the city are high-ranking officials and royal relatives. The north of the city is the main residential area, while the south is deserted. There's an altar outside and inside the city, and sacrificial ceremonies are held during festivals. I don't know why we've suddenly ended up here. And there are people who look exactly like us, which is so eerie no matter how you think about it."

He Haonan wrapped some boiled peanuts and put them into Wang Yiheng's mouth one by one. "I think we should find the other brothers first."

"It's too difficult to find people in such a big capital." Wang Yiheng stuffed his mouth with peanuts, waved his hand to refuse He Haonan's feeding, and spoke vaguely.

"It's okay." Zhao Xiaotong said, "You, me, and Xiao He, the three of us, and then there's my eldest son, Le Wei like Zhuo Yuan, Ti Lian like Xiao He, and Prince Jing like Geng Yun. We're almost there."

Where is it all?

"And there's a jewelry store owner who looks like Yiheng." Yuan Lai was listless and had no idea what to do next. The regret and the unfamiliar environment made her face swell up.

She got up to fetch water to wash her face and found an unconscious figure behind the water tank.

"Isn't this the person hiding under the sedan chair? How did he get here?"

Yuan Lai called other people and carried the man in black into the room.

He took off the mask, revealing a familiar face.

"Shaoxi!"

"This isn't Shaoxi. He might just look like Chen Shaoxi."

"Yes, yes, he just looks like Shaoxi."

At this moment, the man in black coughed and said angrily, "If you can't even recognize me, are you still brothers?"

what?

He Haonan bent down and carefully examined him from head to toe, almost taking off his clothes to check, "It really is Shaoxi! How did you get hurt?"

"Yeah! How did you get here?"

Wang Yiheng was quite curious.

Yuan Lai interrupted, "Why don't we treat the wound first."

I regained my composure, but the conditions did not allow it. It was the middle of the night and there was nowhere to find a doctor.

So I could only ask the waiter for some common ointments for bruises and injuries.

"Shaoxi, there is no modern medical technology here. Please bear with the pain." Zhao Xiaotong cut open the clothes at the wound of Chen Shaoxi and applied medicine on his arms, legs and back.

According to Chen Shaoxi, that night, he and Wang Yiheng left the multi-purpose hall to find other people for dinner. As they were leaving, they heard someone calling him. He thought Wang Yiheng was playing a prank and ignored them. Then, someone hit him on the head, and he fainted.

As for the injury, when Chen Shaoxi woke up, he found himself tied up and thrown into a room.

A man who looked very similar to him insisted that he get into the sedan chair, threatening to kill him if he didn't agree. Chen Shaoxi had no choice but to agree. However, he only learned Kunqu Opera and didn't know any real martial arts, so he couldn't hold out and was soon discovered by the guards.

The guards beat him up and left. He had seen Yuan Lai and, with the mentality of giving it a try, had followed him all the way to the inn and entered through the dog hole.

"The man who threatened me was wearing a jade pendant. I couldn't read the words on it, but he said he was the legal husband of the princess in the sedan chair."

Chen Shaoxi kept crying out in pain, which made Wang Yiheng laugh out loud.

"You are so miserable."

He Haonan changed the blood-stained water and said generously, "Since you are injured, you can sleep on the only bed in the room. The three of us will sleep on the floor."

Chen Shaoxi nodded in agreement, "That's what a good brother is! Just now I suspected that you were all fake."

Yuan Lai brought a quilt from his room and spread it on the floor. "Fortunately, the weather is not too cold, otherwise we would have to spend money to buy several more quilts."

Because Chen Shaoxi was injured, most of the money was spent on hiring doctors and buying medicine. Looking at the little money left, Yuan Lai frowned.

When the money runs out, they will all be kicked out.

"It's okay," Zhao Xiaotong walked over to Yuan Lai and comforted him, "How can we let you starve? My brother and I are going out to do odd jobs to earn money, and Xiao He will stay to take care of Shaoxi. I think the waitress at the jewelry store seems to know you, why don't you go find her and ask for information."

makes sense.

Yuan Lai came out of the inn, walked along the street to the door of the jewelry store, and waved to the waitress through the bead curtain.

The waitress came out with a smile, "Miss, do you want to see me?"

Yuan Lai got straight to the point. "That day you said the property should be returned to its original owner. Who asked you to give me that hairpin?"

The waitress didn't intend to hide it and replied with a smile, "Lord Lu asked me to pass it on to you. As for the reason, I think it would be better for you to ask Lord Lu in person."

"When Lord Lu is free, he likes to eat at a restaurant at the end of Desheng Street. You can go and have a look."