Chapter 115: Midnight Song

Liu Cheng was stupid, and Wang Yang was also stupid. He thought, *This is not right. Liu Zhao clearly said that it was not reported to the provincial government. How could the provincial government have files? Did Liu Zhao find someone to make up the procedures later, but just didn't have time to tell me? *

"Impossible! This is impossible!"

Liu Cheng could no longer maintain his superficial demeanor and cried out in a loss of voice.

The Prince of Badong ignored Liu Cheng and said to Liu Cheng's brother: "Wentong, what do you say?"

Liu Cheng's brother was much more mature than Liu Cheng and immediately pleaded guilty: "This matter was all caused by my lack of clarity, and I am willing to take the responsibility."

Then he bowed to Wang Yang to apologize, his posture was very low, and his tone was sincere. He also greeted Liu Cheng to apologize together.

Liu Cheng shook his head with a red face: "Although the province has re-verified it, it is not ironclad evidence—"

"Ashen!" Liu Cheng's brother's voice was severe, trying to stop his younger brother from continuing.

Liu Cheng hardened his heart and clasped his fists: "Please ask Your Highness to send an official letter to Yixing County to inquire!"

Wang Yang's eyes narrowed slightly, and he swept a glance at Liu Cheng.

A clear and quiet voice came: "No need to ask. I have seen Young Master Wang in Yixing."

Wang Yang was startled in his heart and looked in the direction of the sound.

I saw Xie Xinghan entering the hall gracefully in a gorgeous palace dress.

Starry eyes like beautiful jade, eyebrows slender and long, hair pinned with dangling hairpins, earlobes with bright moon pendants.

Beautiful makeup in a new style, beauty overflowing with fragrance, shaming the palace maids of the Rui Zhu Palace.

Xie Xinghan, who was wearing new and clever makeup, was more elegant and noble than usual, and also more charming and moving.

The Prince of Badong knew that Xie Xinghan had helped Wang Yang coordinate the "unloading and transporting of grain," so he did not feel strange at all about her being late.

Attendants had long guided Xie Xinghan to her seat.

Liu Cheng watched Xie Xinghan sit down gracefully, thinking back to her words just now, feeling like a fishbone in his throat.

The Prince of Badong asked: "Xie girl, have you and Wang Yang met in Yixing?"

"Yes. My father was the Prefect of Yixing before, and I followed my father to Yixing and met Young Master Wang once."

Wang Yang's expression moved.

Everyone thought, *So that's how it is. *

Xie Xinghan's father, Lady Xie Fei Fei, served as the Prefect of Yixing for three years before becoming the Secretariat Director, which is widely known. Coupled with Xie Xinghan's status, since she said she had met Wang Yang, naturally no one would disbelieve it.

"So they knew each other long ago." Liu Cheng felt that his whole body had lost its strength, and his heart was churning.

The Prince of Badong smiled: "I said so, how could the Langya Wang family have fakes?"

Seeing Liu Cheng's dejected appearance, Dai Zhigao knew that the general trend was gone. He slandered the gentry in front of so many scholar-officials and offended the Langya Wang family. The outcome would probably be very miserable. He hurriedly kowtowed to Wang Yang:

"The little one is muddled! The little one is muddled! Begging Young Master Wang for forgiveness! Begging Young Master Wang for forgiveness!"

The Prince of Badong was a bit disgusted by this scene and said directly: "Drag him down, give him fifty strokes, and drive him out of Jingzhou City."

The Qi Dynasty inherited the Jin Law, and the stick punishment is divided into system stick, law stick, and small stick.

Among them, the system stick is the heaviest, using a thorn stick six feet long and one inch thick at the head, hitting the thigh bone, which is the thigh. But if there are sores on the thigh, it is changed to hitting the buttocks.

As soon as the Prince of Badong finished speaking, two armored soldiers stepped forward, lifted Dai Zhigao and left!

Dai Zhigao's feet dragged on the ground, wailing and begging, and shouting "Young Master Liu, save me." Liu Cheng's face was ashen, and he did not respond.

The Prince of Badong looked at Liu Cheng's brother: "Wentong, it was agreed before that if the investigation was wrong, you would take responsibility. I will punish you with two months of salary. Are you convinced?"

Liu Cheng's brother was as calm as usual: "Your Highness is fair and strict, the subordinate accepts the punishment."

"As for the fourth son..."

Liu Cheng's brother hurriedly said: "Your Highness, my younger brother is young, and his actions are inevitably impulsive. I hope Your Highness will raise your hand!"

The Prince of Badong smiled: "He is not an official, and his household registration is not in Jingzhou, so I can't control him. You, as an older brother, should discipline him well."

"Yes! Thank you, Your Highness!" Liu Cheng's brother knew that this was the Prince of Badong intentionally letting Liu Cheng go. This matter happened in Jingzhou, and the nature could be light or heavy. If the Prince of Badong really wanted to handle him, how could there be a reason for "not being able to control him"?

He reminded Liu Cheng to thank the Prince of Badong, but Liu Cheng was like a wooden sculpture, without any reaction.

Liu Cheng's brother knew that his younger brother had always been arrogant, and today he suffered a major setback in public, which was difficult to accept for a while, so he had to pull him back to his seat first and enlighten him after going home.

The Prince of Badong smiled and asked Wang Yang: "Are you satisfied with my handling of this?"

Wang Yang bowed: "Thank you, Your Highness, for upholding justice!"

"Good!" The Prince of Badong clapped his hands, his interest was high, and he raised his cup to the guests: "Everyone, drink freely today, don't return until you are drunk!"

The guests stood up together and offered cups: "How dare we not!"

Wang Yang was actually not very satisfied with the Prince of Badong's handling.

That Dai Zhigao was obviously used as a gun by others, and the punishment was too heavy. A beating would have been enough, but he was also driven out of Jingzhou City. Isn't it because he has no status?

Liu Cheng and his brother were different, first-class high families, and the sons of a Duke. The family power is not trivial, so the punishment for Liu Cheng's brother was light. With his family background, whether he has a salary or not probably doesn't matter. As for the culprit Liu Cheng, he was not punished at all. This unreliable Prince, although he likes to play, may not have a scale in his heart.

However, no matter how the Prince of Badong handled it, it was not something Wang Yang could control. At this time, he was thinking more about the household registration files and why Xie Xinghan said that.

Could it be that she already knew that he was a fake Langya Wang family member, so she wanted to help him round out the lie? No. Even if she suspected, there was no ironclad evidence! But... but why did she say she had seen me in Yixing? Is she not afraid of being implicated? Or did she really see me?!

At this time, the guests stood up to toast the Prince. Wang Yang was suspicious in his heart, and while raising his cup, he peeked at Xie Xinghan, and found that Xie Xinghan was looking this way, her bright eyes blinking lightly, as brilliant as stars...

Fragrant wind clusters of silk, wine banquet plays music.

Twelve long-sleeved beauties in the hall were dancing gracefully.

They were wearing soft gauze clothes with quality like clear waves and color like white silver, dancing gracefully like white clouds.

This was a very popular dance at the time, called "White Ramie Dance."

Wang Yang could not figure it out, and coupled with the continuous passing of the test before, his spirit was too tense and he was too exhausted. Now he simply put his doubts aside and focused on drinking and watching the dance, feeling refreshed and pleasing to the eye!

The long sleeves dancing, the faint fragrant wind blowing on his face; the corners of the lips of the leading beauty moving with every frown and smile; and the changes in the movements of the slender fingers were all presented in front of Wang Yang.

This kind of close-range, immersive viewing is not the same as looking through a screen, and it is even more infectious than sitting in the front row of the theater!

The stage of the theater is designed to be very high to consider the audience sitting far away. Therefore, even if you sit close, there will be a sense of distance.

But now they are dancing right in front of you, the belt is not slow for singing and dancing, the hair is biased to allow the eyes to wear through!

Just a few steps away.

As a transmigrator, Wang Yang felt the charm of ancient dance for the first time and was immediately attracted!

No wonder the monarchs like to watch dancing!

Slow singing and slow dancing condense silk and bamboo, the monarch watches all day without enough.

This can't be performed in TV dramas at all!!!

The scene where the monarch enjoys the mediocre beauty and dance is just suspicious that the monarch has never seen fine rice...

Watching Wang Yang having a great time, Xie Xinghan's eyebrows twisted several times.

In stark contrast to Wang Yang's happiness was Liu Cheng, who did not watch the dance, nor did he talk to others. The excitement and laughter around him seemed to have nothing to do with him. He just kept drinking, cup after cup, and no matter how his brother tried to stop him, he could not.

As the song ended, the long-sleeved dancers went down. Just as the pieces of "white clouds" withdrew from the hall, the soft and charming singing voice suddenly sounded: "Lying on the north window with a pillow, the man comes to play with me—"

The voice was like a trickling stream in spring, with the gentleness and tenderness unique to the Jiangnan water town, flowing in everyone's ears.

Wang Yang was attracted by the clear singing of these two lines of Wu dialect and turned to look. He saw a petite singing girl walking slowly. At this time, another charming girl turned out from behind the pillar and sang softly: "Little joy is too abrupt, how long can we love each other."

A third one appeared from nowhere, her voice like a nightingale: "I am miserable because of your sorrow, and I am happy when you smile."

The fourth singing girl appeared in the southeast corner of the hall, walking lightly toward the hall, her singing voice ethereal: "I don't see the connected trees, different roots rise from the same branch!"

At this moment, the zither, zheng, flute, and flute all sounded at once!

The four girls sang together with the music that made people's hearts sway: "I haven't combed my hair for a long time, silk hair covers both shoulders—"

Wang Yang felt numb all over, and goosebumps rose. Just as he was intoxicated, he heard the Prince of Badong shout: "Stop! Everyone stop!"

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Note: ① Xie Xinghan's father Lady Xie Fei Fei served as the Prefect of Yixing in the fifth year of Yongming and returned to the court three years later. *Book of Liang: Biography of Lady Xie Fei Fei*: "In the fifth year, he went out to be the General of Champion, Prefect of Yixing, added rank of two thousand stones... served for three years, and was summoned to be the Secretary of the Ministry of Justice, Secretariat Director."

② *Book of Song: Record of Music*: "White Ramie Dance, according to the dance lyrics, there are words about robes, ramie is produced in the Wu area, it should be a Wu dance." Before the Southern Liang, it was always a group dance of twelve people. *Tongdian: Music 6*: "During the Southern Dynasties, the costumes of towel dance, white ramie, Bayu, etc. were different. Before the Liang, there were twelve dancers, and the Liang dance reduced it, all using eight people."

*Old Book of Tang: Record of Music* says "two eights of dancers," which is sixteen people. But first, *Old Book of Tang* was written in the Later Jin Dynasty, later than the *Tongdian* in the Tang Dynasty, so it is not as close as *Tongdian* in examining the dance affairs of the Southern Dynasties; second, reducing four people from twelve seems to be more gradual than reducing eight people from sixteen, because when Shen Yue wrote *Four Seasons White Ramie Song*, there were five-woman white ramie dances (*Women's Red Surplus Record*: "Shen Yue's *White Ramie Song* has five chapters, and the dance uses five women."), which is reducing three people from eight, which is not much different from reducing four people before. If it is as *Old Book of Tang* says, reducing eight people at once seems a bit radical. Based on the above two reasons, this chapter is written according to the records of *Tongdian*, which is twelve people. But this is only an inference, not necessarily in line with historical facts.

③ The singing lyrics come from the *Yuefu Poetry Collection*, named *Midnight Song*, which is a Qing-Shang tune of the Jin Dynasty. ===== CHAPTER 116 =====