Lin Tingxun was bedridden with illness, unable to write or speak. The power of the Lin family was divided among others, and Lin Zonghai, as the commander of the village militia, had the support of the six madams behind him, making him the de facto leader of the Lin family at this time. When Lin Xie returned to Shanglinli, he had no choice but to flatter him a bit.

  Lin Xie entrusted the entire tea business to Gu Tianqiao, who was in charge of transportation and shipping. Sun Jingting and Lin Mengde helped with these matters, so there shouldn't be any major issues. Lin Xie also excused himself to personally help Zhao Hu with his wedding preparations, leaving Lin Mengde and Gu Tianqiao in charge of hosting Sun Jingting and other guests from the Western River Association at Shanglin.

  At the tavern by the ferry crossing, Lin Xie and the others bid farewell after getting slightly drunk, and he rode a horse with Zhou Pu to Zhao Hu's house at the east end of the village.

  April night, insects chirping, thinking that the Seventh Lady is also at Zhao Hu's house at this time, Lin Xie's heart is a bit nervous, after parting for more than half a year, this time they meet again, should they be more affectionate or slightly estranged?

  Madam Gu sat in the east wing, feeling uneasy. Zhao Hu's daughter had vacated the entire east wing and cleaned it up for Madam Gu to rest temporarily. Outside, two personal maidservants of Madam Gu stood guard. According to etiquette, other members of the Zhao family should avoid this area. The courtyard was empty, and Madam Gu couldn't help but think of Lin Xie. As his concubine, she had always been able to be more uninhibited in front of him, ordering him around as she pleased, being affectionate and intimate without fear of others' gossip. But now, Lin Xie had become a wise and perceptive man, able to see through people's hearts and make clever decisions. Could she still be so free and easy with him?

  Gu Ying sat anxiously in the side room, Lin Xie had not arrived, and Zhao Hu, Cao Zi'ang and others were all guarding their identities, so they did not dare to enter the side room and sit down with her for a casual chat. They left her sitting alone in the side room, which made her heart increasingly anxious. No matter how bold she was usually, at this time she was also restless, determined to keep a distance from Lin Xie, after all, they had to remember their respective identities and could not tarnish Lin Xie's reputation because of herself.

  Gu Yingxiu had just made up her mind when the barking of dogs in the courtyard suddenly grew louder. She heard Lin Xuan laughing and scolding as he kicked the dog, making it yelp. Her heart tightened inexplicably, and she tensely listened to Lin Xuan calling out to Cao Zikang, Zhao Hu, and Zhao Hu's parents in the neighboring courtyard. When she heard his low voice asking about her, Gu Yingxiu felt her heart racing with tension, as if it was going to jump out of her chest. This didn't feel like a discussion about business at all; it was even more tense than sneaking around with a lover.

  Gu Ying didn't want Lin Xuan to see her flustered, so she took a deep breath to calm herself down. After a moment, the door creaked open with a "creak", and her heart skipped a beat again. She hastily looked up to see Lin Xuan's smiling face lit up by the dim light, his cheeks slightly flushed, but it was unclear whether it was due to the wine or the flickering candlelight.

  "Long time no see, ladies..." Lin Xie walked in and said, while others did not follow him in.

  Gu Ying thought to herself: He still calls me Seventh Lady, not Gu Ying Jie, and her heart felt an inexplicable melancholy. She pointed to the chair beside the table and said in a slightly cold tone, "You must be tired from rushing back, sit down and let's talk."

  Lin Xuan gazed at Gu Ying's face under the lamp, which was mature and charming. Her eyes were large and bright, and the shape of her eyelids was also extremely beautiful. Her eyelashes were long and curved, trembling slightly. He felt that the lights in the room had dimmed a bit, Lin Xuan was accustomed to speaking in bright places, so he reached out to move the candle holder in front of him.

  "How many days are you staying here this time?" Gu Ying asked Lin Xuan with a slightly lowered head.

  "Not fixed," Lin Xuan replied, his eyes on Gu Ying's face, which was illuminated by the lamp and had a translucent quality to it. He didn't notice that his fingers were directly in the scalding hot wax, but he jumped back, startled, and accidentally knocked over the candle holder. Gu Ying's mind was elsewhere, and when she saw Lin Xuan get burned, she instinctively grabbed his hand and brought it to her lips to blow on it gently. "Does it hurt?" she asked softly. "You should be more careful... if your hand gets burned, you'll have no one to blame but yourself..." She trailed off, realizing that the room had plunged into darkness. Just as she was about to let go of Lin Xuan's hand, he turned around and grabbed hers instead. When she tried to pull her hand back, Lin Xuan held on tighter, calling out softly, "Yingjie sister..."

  "Let go, who is your Aunt Ying? In terms of generation, I am your aunt." Gu Ying gave Lin Xie a soft call, her heart almost melted. But she knew that even if Lin Tingxun was dead, the two still had a difference in generation, and the Gu family valued their door rules highly, where in the world would there be a widow aunt remarrying as a concubine to her nephew? If rumors got out, not to mention Lin Xie's career advancement, he might even be accused of a crime. Gu Ying felt that she couldn't harm him after hearing his call, and thought about pulling her hand back.

  Lin tied held Gu Ying's small hand, soft and boneless, in the April night a bit cold, said: "Ying sister, your hands are really cold, I hold it to warm you up."

  "Be kind to me! Are you also deceiving Xiao Jia's daughter with this?" Gu Yingxu really wished to let Lin Xuan hold her hand, the room was dark and her heart was racing wildly, wanting to cover up the chaos in her heart, she used Liu Yue'er to change the subject, fearing that someone would come in and light the lamp, she pinched Lin Xuan's palm and said: "If you don't let go, I'll get angry..." Still using force, she pulled her hand back.

  "Fortunately, you reminded me, Lin Xie. I almost forgot that this matter needs to be handled promptly. I want to give Liu Niang a proper status, so I need to find someone to go to the Xiao family and discuss it with them. Who do you think would be suitable for this task?" Lin Xie asked. In this era, widows who remarried needed to obtain the consent of their late husband's family; otherwise, the late husband's family could report them to the authorities and have them punished for adultery.

  "You really have a thick skin, you want me to intervene in everything?" Gu Ying snorted and fell silent for a moment. She didn't expect herself to have anything to do with Lin Xie, but since she had to help Lin Xie come up with an idea, she said, "Although the Xiao family has some influence in Shiliang County, they are not particularly impressive. The county's chief clerk, Chen Ling, has a good relationship with the Xiao family. You can go find Chen Ling and ask him to get a contract from the Xiao family that says 'Liu Shi is virtuous and Xiao Jia is inferior, marriage is convenient, and the two families have nothing to do with each other'. How difficult can it be? But is it really suitable for you to take a concubine without marrying a wife first? And if you want to give the Xiao family's daughter a title, what about Su Mei? You've taken in a younger one, but are you just going to let go of the older one?"

  Su Meng's situation was complicated and couldn't be explained clearly for the time being. It was also unclear who Gu Yingxu had learned from that Xiao Man had redeemed herself. Lin Xian lightly coughed and said, "What wife or concubine," seeing that no one had come in to light the lamps yet, she stuck her head out into the outer room and asked, "Why hasn't anyone come in to light the lamps?"

  Outside the house, there were two maidservants of Gu Yingxiu just now, but they don't know where they went this time. Gu Yingxiu didn't even call out for someone, she preferred to talk with Lin Xuan in the dark, as if the darkness could cover up people's deepest desires and emotions, making them feel comfortable and at ease.

  "This time you came back, apart from giving Liu Niang a name, is there anything else to do?" Gu Yingxu asked, "I heard Zhao Shu say that you brought many people with you, I thought, you won't just transport the Gu family tea on this trip."

  "Uh..." Lin Xuan responded with a sound, and the matter of Changshan Island had not been mentioned to Yan Ruo yet, thinking about how to start talking appropriately.

  "Are you trying to impress Lin Zonghai?" Gu Yingru saw that Lin Xie hadn't spoken, so she asked again, saying, "Sixth Son is trying to curry favor with Lin Zonghai in order to control the clan through his mother and son. You also know that Lin Zonghai has always been ambitious, maybe he even wants to manipulate the clan's power through Sixth Son's mother and son. No matter what they do, if that person dies, I probably won't have a foothold in the Lin family." The "Sixth Son" she mentioned was the mother of young master Lin Xuhui, Sixth Madame Shan Rou.

  Lin Jie knew that Lin Zonghai was a man with great ambition, and in order to more effectively control the rural areas, Lin Zonghai even accepted the seventh-grade Yun Qiwei military post brought by Shen Rong. Although Lin Zonghai intended to manipulate the power of the Lin family through his control over Liu Furen Shan Rou and young master Lin Xuhe, as long as Lin Tingli was present, Eldest Young Master Lin Xuweng would not lose his influence in Yanjing. They might not necessarily compete with Young Master Xuhe for the position of head of the household, but they would not tolerate Lin Zonghai, a collateral branch younger generation, holding the power of the clan.

  Lin Jie still didn't put Lin Zonghai in his eyes. In fact, he had already set up his own business and left, although it wasn't popular with everyone, but since the die has been cast, as long as he doesn't harm the interests of the main house, Lin Tingli and Da Gongzi Lin Xuwen can actually get along with him harmoniously. As for the matter of Gu's tea goods, if Lin Tingli and Lin Xuwen were sensible people, they would also know that the Lin family shouldn't suppress the Gu family again during Gu Wurong's prosperous time, only those old-fashioned thinkers couldn't turn this corner.

  However, Lin Tie also had a headache about one thing, Shen Rong's pulling in of Lin Zonghai to control the upper Linli Township had a considerable possibility. Hongzepu was about to undergo a change, and Linli was only 40 or 50 miles away from Hongzepu, with the Shiliang River waterway connecting them. If the situation in Hongzepu was indeed deliberately tolerated by Shen Rong, it would be difficult for the Linli Township to continue to maintain its independence.

  "The situation on the north side of Hongze Pu is like a tightened string, and it will change greatly at any time. The Lin family's power struggle, they want to fight, let them fight, Sister Yingxiu, you come with us to Jiangning." said Lin Lian.

  "Hong Zepu is back in Hongzepu, and it's still forty or fifty miles away from Shanglinli. What are you going to Jiangning for? Are you afraid that there won't be enough tongue roots to chew?" Gu Yingxiu said.

  "You can go to Lord Gu," said Lin Xie.

  Gu Ying's face was flushed in the dark, and she should have thought that Lin Xuan had brought her to Jiangning to seek refuge with his uncle. But she only thought of Lin Xuan himself and even quarreled with him, fortunately, the room was pitch black. Gu Ying's thoughts were a bit disordered, and she said: "Those two dead girls saw that the light on this side went out and didn't come to light it up. Let me go over there and tear her mouth apart." She got up in a hurry, didn't notice that her hip hit the corner of the table, and was so careless that she bumped into the table heavily. The table made a loud noise, Gu Ying was in pain, gasping for breath, and almost fell to the ground. In her panic, she grabbed Lin Xuan's arm and sat down on his thigh with a thud.

  "Ah……” Gu Yingzhuo instinctively reached out to rub the painful area on her thigh, which was the groin, the most sensitive part of the body. Even a light bump would be excruciatingly painful, let alone when she had just stood up abruptly. She hadn't reacted in time to get off Lin Xuan's leg.

  "Does it hurt when I press here?"

  Lin Xie's hand gently pressed and rubbed the sore spot on Gu Yingxue's abdomen for a couple of times, but to her surprise, it was as if she had been electrocuted. A numbness spread from Lin Xie's fingertips along her abdomen, deep into her lower body, creating an indescribable strange sensation in the depths between her legs. Her entire body relaxed, and she slumped softly onto Lin Xie's thigh, her body extremely sensitive. Gu Yingxue endured the internal turmoil-like fine tremors for a while before regaining her composure, then pushed Lin Xie's hand away from her abdomen and whispered, "Where did you touch me?"

  The groin is where the abdomen and thigh meet, also one of the most private parts of a person.

  Lin Xuan was indeed anxious to persuade Gu Yingxiu to go to Jiangning together to avoid the war. The combined forces of the Hongze Pu families, with tens of thousands of fishermen and boatmen nearby, not to mention the hundreds of thousands of refugees stranded in Dongyang Prefecture, Huai'an Prefecture, Weiyang Prefecture, and northern Jiangning Prefecture, made this chaos unlikely to be small. When the chaos broke out, Lin Xuan's village was located in the middle of Shiliang River, although there were local troops, but no strong city walls, making it difficult to protect everything. Lin Xuan had just touched Gu Yingxiu's painful spot and accidentally pressed her sensitive area, quickly letting go of his hand and letting her stand up, saying: "Sister Yingxiu, I know you are strong, but there is no intact egg under the overturned nest, the Hongze Pu chaos is about to start, human life is cheap as grass under the sword, only Jiangning is still safe..."

  Gu Yingxiu struggled to get up, the strange feeling between her legs seemed to spread to her heart, making her feel extremely dizzy. Her legs felt a bit wet. Gu Yingxiu was 28 years old and not an ignorant girl, she really knew that Lin's hand touching her groin had aroused strong emotions/desire. Her face turned red and hot, as if she had been forced to give up, saying: "You only know how to bully good women, force others, what do you want me to do? I'm not your match, I'll follow your heart's desire."

  "I've already thought of an excuse for you, in a few days it's Madame Gu's 40th birthday, you can go to Jiangning to celebrate with your aunt, others won't say anything. Zhao Hu and Lin Jingzhong's families are also leaving, at least wait until the situation in Hongze Lake is stable before you can come back." Lin Fu said.

  "Since things are so urgent, why are you still holding a wedding for Zhao Hu here?" Gu Yingxu asked in confusion.

  "The situation will change, and there are still a few days left for us..." Lin Xuan said. The situation was clear: the forces of Hong Zepu and others were waiting for Qin Chengbo to enter the trap. Even if Qin Chengbo ultimately confirmed that he would not go north along the Shiliang River, it would not be too late for Lin Xuan to withdraw from Shanglinli after receiving confirmation from Jiangning.

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