Tang Dynasty Hidden Guards

The March sunshine is like tea brought by a wife; the cup doesn't contain water, but rather the feeling of home.

It was the perfect time for a spring outing. The Luo River flowed through the city, and painted boats crisscrossed its surface. But instead of going to the Luo River, they went to the Chan River, which flowed northwest.

Boat trips have become a particularly popular way to enjoy nature in recent years. They are relaxing and allow you to sit on the boat, drink tea, and eat snacks. While horse-drawn carriages are also nice, the roads are often in poor condition in scenic spots, making the ride bumpy and uncomfortable.

Taking a boat becomes a good way to avoid the fatigue of horseback riding, and you can go ashore to enjoy the beautiful scenery whenever you see it.

Before dawn, Xue Wei and Yuan Min boarded a large pleasure boat at the South Market Wharf. The boat wasn't rented; it was left by Yuan Min's father. It looked ordinary on the outside but was luxurious and comfortable inside, with two levels. The upper level was for sleeping and resting, while everyone stayed on the lower level during the day.

The lower cabin is also divided into three sections: the front cabin is for three female warriors and the maid A-Huan; the middle cabin is for Xue Wei and Yuan Min; and there is a rear cabin, which consists of two parts: a storage cabin and a washroom.

The boatmen were a middle-aged couple, one in front of the other, and they poled the boat slowly westward.

Traveling northwest along the Chan River is like a spring outing. The west side is mountainous, sparsely populated, with beautiful scenery and fresh air.

In fact, Xue Wei wanted to travel eastward to see the countryside of the Tang Dynasty and experience the rural life that had endured through the ages.

Luoyang is located in a basin. After traveling west for more than ten miles, you will gradually see mountains.

"Old Xue, look at that mountain, doesn't it look like a young girl gazing into the distance?"

Yuan Min was in high spirits. Once outside the city, the domineering female CEO transformed back into a seventeen-year-old girl experiencing her first love. She linked arms with Xue Wei and excitedly explained the local customs and culture to him along the way.

Xue Wei laughed and said, "Is there a legend that once upon a time, there was a beautiful wife who stood at the entrance of the village every day, year after year, waiting for her husband who had gone to war. She did not know that her husband had died in battle on the frontier. She continued to wait devotedly and eventually turned into a mountain."

"Your story is too sad. I prefer a happy ending. It should be that the wife and husband ascended to heaven, and their physical bodies transformed into this mountain."

"What about the husband's physical body?"

"It was eaten by a dog!"

Xue Wei was both amused and exasperated. "What did this husband do to offend you?"

"What do you think?" Yuan Min glared at him angrily.

Xue Wei scratched his head. "So you were indirectly insulting me."

"Who told you to never go on outings with me before, but instead went with those two vixens?"

"Let's not bring up the past, okay?"

"I'm going to flip it over, every year, until you owe me for the rest of your life!"

Xue Wei suddenly pointed to the shore, "Hey! There's a large pink area over there, isn't it a peach blossom grove?"

Yuan Min pretended to be distracted. She clapped her hands and laughed, "They really are peach blossoms, like a cloud of clouds, so beautiful! Lao Xue, let's go take a look."

"Okay! I'll get a sketchbook."

Painting was Xue Wei's hobby in his previous life. He loved drawing cartoons and comics since he was a child and dreamed of becoming a cartoonist, but he was selected by the fencing team of the sports school in junior high school.

Xue Wei took out a sketchbook, which he had specially bought from a stationery store using 24-fold cardboard, and then pulled out a thin wooden tube from his pocket.

"What is this?" Yuan Min asked, pointing to the thin wooden tube in his hand.

"It's a pen!"

The Tang Dynasty also had hard-tipped pens. Many texts in the Dunhuang documents were written with hard-tipped pens, but the hard-tipped pens in the Tang Dynasty were made by dipping sharpened bamboo or wood into ink.

Xue Wei designed and made his own hard-tipped pen. He found a graphite shop, but it contained many impurities. However, it sold purified graphite powder. He bought the pure graphite powder, mixed it with clay, made it into a stick, baked it dry, polished it with deerskin, applied a layer of wax, and sharpened the tip to make a pen.

He then found a carpenter to help him make a thin wooden tube to hold the graphite pen. He made a very ingenious cork stopper at the front of the thin wooden tube, so that the graphite pen could be poured out by pulling out the stopper. He made a total of five of them.

Xue Wei poured the graphite pen out of the thin wooden tube, handed it to her, and said with a smile, "I made it myself, so you don't need to bring ink."

Yuan Min's eyes lit up. "This is interesting. It should be very popular."

She was a businesswoman and immediately saw the business opportunity.

Although graphite was used to draw lines as early as the Eastern Han Dynasty, it lacked shape and easily made hands dirty. Xue Wei's graphite pen has a good shape and doesn't make hands dirty at all.

She took the notebook again, opened it, and her eyes lit up even more. She couldn't help but laugh, "Is that me? So cute!"

Xue Wei drew a chibi version of Yuan Min, depicting her focused on writing, eating with her chubby cheeks, and standing by the window looking up at the rain. She was cute and small, with particularly expressive big eyes. He drew more than a dozen of them, and he loved every single one of them.

Yuan Min was immediately captivated by the notebook. She pressed it to her chest and exclaimed with a smile, "This notebook is for me!"

"Yes! I'll give it to you as soon as I finish drawing it. It was originally a birthday present I prepared for you."

Yuan Min looked at Xue Wei with bright eyes, "When did you learn to draw? And how can you draw such cute and adorable pictures?"

"I'll draw whatever I like."

Yuan Min stretched out her slender, fair fingers and poked his heart. "Although this is a dishonest answer, I still like it. Let's go see the peach blossoms."

Yuan Min put on a light gauze wide-brimmed hat, took Xue Wei's arm and went ashore. The two held hands and ran happily toward the peach blossom forest.

There was indeed a large peach orchard on the shore, with peach blossoms in full bloom, stretching for miles as pink clouds of flowers, which was particularly pleasing to the eye.

The peach orchard was filled with tourists enjoying the spring scenery. They strolled in twos and threes, admiring the beauty of the peach blossoms while chatting quietly. Most of them were families, but there were also couples. However, most of the women wore wide-brimmed hats with light veils covering their faces, partly to protect themselves from unwanted advances and partly to protect themselves from the sun.

Yuan Min led Xue Wei by the hand as they walked through a large, brightly blooming peach orchard. Seeing several girls painting, Yuan Min smiled at Xue Wei and said, "Paint one for me too!"

"Okay! Do you want something cute or realistic?"

Yuan Min thought for a moment and then smiled, "I want both!"

She stood under the peach tree, slightly turned to the side, lifting a corner of the veil to reveal half of her pretty face.

Xue Wei's brush moved swiftly; first, he drew a chibi-style half-face portrait draped in a light gauze, and then quickly sketched a portrait of a young girl admiring flowers.

"Let me see!"

Yuan Min ran over, tilted her head to examine it closely, and pouted slightly, saying, "Old Xue, to say something you won't like, you should just draw cute characters! Your realistic ones aren't as good as mine; they don't look like me at all!"

"You can draw too?"

"Of course, I started school at the age of five. Calligraphy and painting are essential skills, as are embroidery and sewing. These are things a young lady must know, otherwise how can she support her husband and raise children in the future?"

Xue Wei smiled and said, "I've sketched a simple outline of a large scene. When you get back, you can use my sketch as a background to create a more detailed picture of a spring outing."

Yuan Min clapped her hands and laughed, "That's a great idea!"

Xue Wei immediately sketched the surrounding mountains, rivers, and peach groves, as well as their boat and the small groups of people. Yuan Min could then paint them in detail when she returned home.

Xue Wei put down his pen, and the two prepared to board the ship. Just then, a deep voice came from behind them, "Miss Yuan, is...is that you?"

Yuan Min turned around and was taken aback. A group of scholars were coming from diagonally opposite, each holding a fan. One of them quickly walked up to her and it turned out to be Cui Shi.

Yuan Min was wearing a light veil, and Cui Shi couldn't be sure. He only felt that the back view looked similar. The moment Yuan Min turned around, the light veil on her face was blown up by the wind, and Cui Shi immediately recognized her.

"Ah! It really is Miss Yuan. Didn't you say you didn't have time today?"

Cui Shi then looked at Xue Wei beside him, "And this is...."

This was the first time Xue Wei had seen this famous handsome man from the Tang Dynasty. He was indeed very handsome, with a square face, large ears, a face like jade, sword-like eyebrows, bright eyes, and a high nose. Moreover, he had a gentle and refined temperament, and his appearance and demeanor were outstanding.

The only drawback was that he was a little short, only about 1.7 meters tall, which made him a good half a head shorter than Xue Wei, and even a little shorter than Yuan Min.

Before Yuan Min could speak, Xue Wei said with a faint smile, "My name is Xue Wei, and I am Yuan Min's husband."

He asserted his sovereignty without any hesitation, and Yuan Min blushed but offered no explanation.

"Oh! So it's Young Master Xue. I've heard so much about you."

His "I've long admired you" wasn't a compliment; it meant he'd heard a lot about your bad reputation. Cui Shi suddenly felt very uncomfortable. Why was Yuan Min still entangled with her playboy ex-husband?

At this moment, Yuan Min calmly said, "I have received all the letters that Young Master Cui wrote. I also admire the talent and learning in Young Master Cui's letters. However, I would still like to ask Young Master Cui not to write to me anymore. There are bound to be beautiful women within three steps. Young Master Cui might as well broaden his horizons a bit."

Cui Shi smiled and said, "I'm a rather stubborn person. I've always believed that sincerity can move mountains. As long as Miss Yuan hasn't married yet, I don't think I'll give up easily."

He gave Xue Wei another disdainful look, as if to say, "I know you're divorced; you're just my ex-husband."

"Whatever you want! Lao Xue, let's go."

She gently took Xue Wei's arm, and the two walked quickly toward the painted boat on the riverbank.

Three companions stepped forward; they were all Cui Shi's brothers: Cui Ye, Cui Di, and Cui Li. Cui Di sighed and said, "A woman with unparalleled beauty, a graceful figure, and immense wealth—such a woman is one in a million. Brother, if you don't have confidence, let me try!"

"Third brother, what nonsense are you talking about?"

A gust of wind blew by, and Yuan Min's long dress clung to her body, revealing her slender waist and full figure from behind, her curves captivating several men.

Watching the two figures walk away, Cui Ye asked, "Big brother, who was that man?"

Cui Shi said with a grim face, "He is Yuan Min's ex-husband, Xue Wei!"

"Is that the Three Masters Young Master?"

"It's him. Even though he's already divorced, he's still haunting Yuan Min."

Cui Ye frowned slightly. "Brother, Yuan Min's willingness to come on this spring outing with him probably means she still has feelings for him!"

Cui Shi snorted, "Marriage is not about love; it's always a combination of reality and interests. Her grandfather and mother both hate Xue Wei and will never allow them to remarry. Besides, her family has approved of me, so her marriage will ultimately be decided by her grandfather."

Cui Shi shook his fan again, a hint of smugness in his eyes, and said, "More importantly, they are divorcing out of mutual respect and agreement. She probably doesn't even know it herself. According to Tang law, divorces that are not considered amicable are never allowed to be remarried. So just wait and see! She will still marry me in the end. I know the truth and I won't give up so easily."

"Yes! With over two hundred shops, who would easily give up such a golden goose?"

Cui Di's words were a bit vulgar, and Cui Shi turned around and glared at him fiercely, "Do you think I'm the kind of person who would bow down for money?"

Cui Di rolled his eyes. They're all brothers, why pretend?

Cui Ye patted his brother's arm. "Big brother, let's go! Out of sight, out of mind."

Cui Shi glared at Xue Wei, who was helping Yuan Min onto the boat, and with a surge of anger in his heart, he turned and left.