Chapter 623: Garden Excursion

It was currently the Autumn Festival. On this day, nobles, officials, and scions of great families all gathered to play, discuss poetry and prose, and socialize. This time, the event was held at the Rongguo Mansion. Bai Lang was also a participant—though he was young, he was the heir to the Tianshui Earl. If his father kicked the bucket, the little Earl could directly inherit the title. Whether it was the Rongguo Mansion or the Ningguo Mansion, the people inside sometimes quite envied the Tianshui Earl's family for their hereditary title that could not be revoked.

Since the title was hereditary and irrevocable, the starting rank for military officials was relatively low, and the Emperor above didn't pay much attention to this noble family. Little Earl Bai Lang was dressed and ready. He didn't take a sedan chair; instead, he pulled out a horse. Even though it was just an ordinary Mongolian horse, it was still a bit too big for the current Bai Lang. However, with Bai Lang's martial arts, he simply flipped onto the horse and clamped his legs to control it. "That fellow doesn't seem interested in going." After that Si Wu went in, he never came out.

With his servants in tow, Bai Lang rode his horse swaggeringly to the Rongguo Mansion—it was only a few hundred meters away, not even a kilometer. He was almost the only scion of a noble family to arrive on horseback. Handing the horse to the Rongguo Mansion's servants, Bai Lang walked inside under the guidance of a high-ranking servant. Before him stood a middle-aged man who looked like the scholarly type. The servant beside him called out, "Greetings, Second Master."

Bai Lang cupped his hands, "Greetings, Uncle." He watched as Jia Zheng nodded at him, "The Tianshui Earl's heir has grown up."

After finishing the pleasantries, Bai Lang went straight to the garden. Tables had already been set up in the garden, and Bai Lang chose one at random to sit down, grabbing a piece of fruit from the table and biting into it.

He had always had little interest in this kind of networking. It wasn't a competition of archery or martial arts; what was the use of testing literary talent? Bai Lang had never thought about taking the imperial examination... Before long, the sounds of chirping birds and swallows reached him. What Bai Lang saw were groups of maids serving their respective masters as they entered—it seemed he was the only one who had brought just a single maid. He also saw a wealthy old lady, followed by a group of equally wealthy women, holding a boy with a face like jade and a younger girl.

"Could this be Jia Baoyu? And who is that beside him? This physique is clearly weak from birth." Bai Lang watched coldly, his hands not stopping, and in the blink of an eye, he had finished the dried fruit in the bowl. He clapped his hands to signal to the maid that she didn't need to replace it, but the maid brought more seasonal dried fruit anyway. "Fair enough, if the mistress above saw that my spot was empty, she would definitely blame someone."

Bai Lang was too young to drink alcohol, and he didn't care either, picking up a cup to drink fruit wine—this stuff, as usual, didn't count as alcohol. While drinking, he sized up the young masters of the Jia family who had arrived, as well as the other boys from noble families who were like him. "The older ones are all hollow, and the younger ones are pampered, with delicate skin and tender flesh." Bai Lang twisted the cup in his hand, "If it were my master, he would say their mouths are too slippery; this stuff is man-eating."

When it came time to take their seats, there was inevitably more socializing. At his current "age," Bai Lang only needed to say a few polite phrases; the subsequent poetry writing had nothing to do with him. Of course, Jia Baoyu did go up and compose a poem that won applause from everyone—as for the girls, they had gone elsewhere. Bai Lang listened with utter boredom, curling his lip and just fiddling with his wine cup. When it happened to be his turn, Bai Lang looked at the young masters with a very lazy expression.

"Writing poetry is impossible; I can't write anything. How about I be punished with three cups of wine? Or, why not bring out bows, horses, swords, and spears, and I'll perform for you all?" This attitude of Bai Lang's quite displayed the true colors of a noble—the rough men were granted titles by winning them with swords and spears, so where would they have any poetry or prose? But in this situation, it didn't look very good. The people present were not old, and even if there were one or two mature ones, they couldn't suppress everyone's desire to watch the spectacle.

Writing poetry was originally a minority pursuit among these people—there were plenty of ignorant fools here, including Jia Baoyu himself... Now that they saw someone willing to ride a horse and perform martial arts, this spectacle was much more interesting than everyone reciting poems. Although the scions of noble families nowadays were mostly elegant fools who spent their days visiting brothels, playing with whores, and gathering to mess with maids, occasionally bullying the good, snatching women on the street, and fighting, the old-fashioned wicked youths who hunted with hawks and horses outside the city were truly rare now.

Everyone here was a descendant of nobles, yet it seemed Bai Lang was the only one with a family tradition of martial arts? He was likely the only one who practiced strength and martial arts daily. This garden was not small, so running a horse was more than enough. Thus, Bai Lang ordered someone to bring a horse—at this moment, not only Jia Baoyu but even the women on the other side were quite interested and came over to watch. Not a single pedant came to say it was improper. Bai Lang flipped onto the horse, "This horse is useless for battle, but it's enough for a run."

Many of the scions present couldn't ride, and while many could, not a single one of them could ride at eight or nine years old—the fool Jia Baoyu couldn't; not only had he never ridden a horse, he hadn't even been close to one. Bai Lang inserted his bow into the saddlebag and ordered someone to set up an archery target—surprisingly, the Rongguo Mansion didn't have one, so those meddlesome noble scions simply used wooden stools and silk to make a temporary one, which made one sigh at their extravagance.

Bai Lang controlled the horse purely with his legs, not grabbing the reins at all; this horsemanship was already unique among those present. Afterward, he took the bow and arrow in hand and, turning sideways, shot the target with one arrow. "Sure enough, my archery skills have improved!" Bai Lang was quite pleased with himself, reaching up to his chin, "I forgot I haven't grown a beard yet." He had always relied on his long spear and broadsword to break formations, so it was good to see even a little progress in archery.

Not to mention the Inner Scene, even an Innate Expert should be able to perfectly achieve the realm of never missing a shot; it was just that Bai Lang hadn't bothered to do it before. His shot now drew cheers from everyone—it was lively; look, the horse was running back and forth, and the child on it could still draw a bow and hit the target with one arrow; this skill was no small feat. Could you see this kind of street performance? Street performers found it hard to even keep a horse, let alone play with archery.

He was using a soft bow, playing with trick arrows. But what Bai Lang held was a real military hard bow, originally an eight-dou strong bow for infantry. Not a single person present could draw such a strong bow.

"Good, the little Earl can truly be called skilled in archery and horsemanship!" Having watched the spectacle, everyone cheered. Bai Lang exited the field... actually, the elders of the Jia family had heard the noise and come over. Seeing this scene, they couldn't say much, and their precious treasure Jia Baoyu was even blinking his big eyes, thinking it was quite fun. ===== CHAPTER 624 =====