Placid Chang'an

Qu Ling'er is a typical guy who healed his scars and forgot about the pain, and wanted to revive the thoughts that had been extinguished for a few days. Su Cen immediately poured cold water on him when he saw this.

He didn't want the two of them to get involved too much. Qu Ling'er, a person like Qi Lin, couldn't be provoked at all. He only had his own master in his eyes. It's good that Qu Ling'er didn't interfere with his affairs. Without hesitation, he stabbed Qu Ling'er again.

After Su Cen comforted Qu Ling'er and came out of the room, only then did she realize that the sky had already darkened, the boat had stopped at the shore, and the attendants on the pier were replenishing supplies.

A eunuch was delivering a bowl of white fungus soup to Prince Ning's room, but Su Cen stopped him and sent him away.

When they got there, they found that Li Shi was not in the room, but standing on the porch outside the door, facing the vast night fog, he didn't know what he was looking at.

Su Cen stepped forward, frowning and staring at Li Shi's thin clothes, "It's getting dark, the night is cold and windy, my lord beware of catching a cold."

The robe on Li Shi's body was billowing in the wind, but he didn't care when he looked at it.

This person sometimes looks like he has steel and iron bones, but he seems to be particularly afraid of the cold. Su Cen remembers that the charcoal stove was burned in Li Shi's carriage before winter, and the silver frost charcoal sent to Xingqing Palace was even more so. Winter has never been broken, and he is not sure for a moment whether this person is really afraid of the cold, or it is just because Prince Ning has a higher standard than others in everything he does.

Li Shi turned his head to look, and raised his chin at the white fungus soup in Su Cen's hand, "Here for you, eat it."

"My lord knows that I'm coming?" Su Cen was slightly taken aback. He thought it was a coincidence, but then he thought that Li Shi really doesn't like these sweet and greasy things, but he prefers sweet things.

Su Cen took a sip, the white fungus was crisp, the soup was sweet and glutinous, and the temperature was just right.Su Cen finished the soup in just a few sips, squinting his eyes slightly, with a look of satisfaction on his face.

"Do you know where it is?" Li Shi asked, pointing to a city not far away.

Su Cen stared at it for a while, but the sky was so dark that he couldn't make out the big characters on the city tower. With just these two city gates, he couldn't tell why, so he could only shake his head.

Li Shidao: "Suzhou."

Su Cen raised his eyebrows: "Is that Suzhou that's not like Baiyun Township is cold outside, this is the first state in Huainan"?"

Li Shi nodded.

Su Cen squinted at the dark city gate in the distance, and couldn't help but smile, "I've been to this place before."

Yao thought about the situation at that time for a while, and Su Cen couldn't help but feel a little helpless in his smile, "But it's not a good experience."

Li Shi looked into the distance and said casually, "Tell me."

Su Cen didn't know if this person really wanted to hear it, or just wanted to hear him talk, but he wanted to tell him all about his past, good, bad, glorious, and down and out.

Su Cen looked at the person in front of him seriously, and took some time to say: "I told you that I traveled a lot for a year."

Li Shi nodded, and Su Cen continued, "I came to Suzhou at that time."

"However, I was out of breath at that time. My money bag was stolen on the way, and I got separated from my friends. I had nowhere to stay, so I could only live in a ruined temple outside the city."

Su Cen smiled wryly, "It's rainy and leaky in the house, the ruined temple has its own owner, and a group of beggars live there all the year round, but they probably see me as pitiful, so they left me a place, but the place is not complete. , It will leak when it rains."

"It rained for a whole month in Suzhou that year."

Li Shi smiled lightly.

Su Cen sighed, "I fell ill after two days of rain, and I didn't know where I was with the fever, but I always had to eat and take medicine. Fortunately, I always carried paper and pen with me, so I just drew Take a few paintings and sell them at the market in the city."

Li Shidao: "Fortune is unparalleled, and misfortune never comes singly. I'm afraid the painting will not sell well, right?"

"It can't be said that it didn't go well, and it was even a bit lucky. After all, my painting was approved by Hu Qingyan, the number one painter in the dynasty," Su Cen raised his chin slightly, with a somewhat proud expression on his face, "As soon as my stall was set up, someone wanted to buy my paintings and offered ten taels of silver."

Li Shi nodded his head, as he recognized the price.

Mr. Su is now the number one scholar in the new department, and Luoyang Zhigui is worth a thousand dollars, but at that time, as a young man with no name and no surname, ten taels of silver was indeed a lot.

"But I didn't sell it." Su Cen said.

Li Shi asked, "Why didn't you sell it?"

Su Cen smiled at people, "At that time, I painted a picture of bamboo in ink. First, I suffered from the lack of paint, and second, I used the depth of ink to paint the bamboo with the momentum of snow and frost. You can know the root from the appearance. But The person who bought my painting thought it was monotonous, and asked me to draw him another golden pheasant under the ink bamboo!"

Li Shi laughed out loud when he heard this, the combination of black bamboo and golden pheasant is truly unprecedented.

"Look, you're laughing." Su Cen glared at him slightly wronged, "If I draw him a picture and put my name on it, I won't have to go out to meet people in my life."

"I'm not laughing at you." Li Shi shook his head. Some words were funny when he said them afterwards, but when he thought about them at the time, he realized that it was not easy. "You are under the roof, you need that money."

"In my opinion, there are some things that are more important than silver. You can earn money when you lose money, but you lose your backbone if you lose your strength." Su Cen said to himself, his eyes became clearer in the night, "Then another person came, I also want to buy that painting, and I only give ten Wen, but I don’t need to make any changes, so I’ll sell it.”

"Twelve taels are not for sale, but ten wen is for sale." Li Shi smiled, "It's a good deal for you."

"That's not counting. The person who gave the ten taels of silver before became so angry that he overturned my stall and even broke a piece of Xuancheng Zihao. In the end, I only had the ten taels of silver in my hand."

"Ten cents," Su Cen counted one by one, "I bought two steamed buns for four cents, and a bowl of hot porridge for one penny, and the remaining money was not enough to buy medicine, so I took another four cents for it." The beggar who gave me a piece of land back then had a penny left—”

Su Cen took a money bag from his body, poured out all the broken silver inside, and took out a copper plate from it, "Here it is."

"I keep it with me to remind myself not to lose my heart."

Su Cen put the copper plate into Li Shi's palm, "It's hard to buy a thousand dollars, I'm happy. I'm willing to sell the painting for ten renminbi to someone who understands me, and I don't want to follow others to earn that ten taels of silver. It’s the opposite of everything. I was unlucky and my luck improved. After drinking a bowl of hot porridge and sleeping well, I woke up in an inn. My friend also found me. Two days later, he stole my money bag The thief in the house was also found, and the money was a little less, but most of it was recovered, so it is considered a blessing if you survive a catastrophe."

"One thing is, I want to see the person who bought my painting again afterward. I always feel that he did it on purpose to test my character. Unfortunately, I was almost confused at the time, and I can't remember some things clearly. Even I even forgot what that person looked like."

"Since I can't remember it, it's no chance," Li Shi rubbed the copper plate for a while, then handed it back to Su Cen.

Qi Lin came from a distance and reported that the boat was ready, and asked Li Shi if he would sail.

Li Shi nodded, and saw Qi Lin rushing down and waving his hand, the boat pulled the anchor and sailed, and moved slowly.

Su Cen put away the copper plate and looked up, when something slowly fell on the tip of his nose, he raised his hand to wipe it, and only felt a little wet.

"It's snowing." Su Cen looked up at the pitch-black night, and where some lights hit, he could faintly see silver dust falling.

The long thin snow fell from the sky, covering the vegetation on both sides of the bank, silent in the Taotao River, swirling and falling on the hair tips and shoulders of the man at the bow.

Li Shi looked at the vast river at the end of his line of sight, and he didn't know how long he had come before he said softly: "I don't know how thick the snow has fallen in Chang'an."