Li Rui's Flower-Admiring Banquet was held in a courtyard in the capital.
Rather than a courtyard, it was more appropriate to call it a villa.
The courtyard occupied half of a mountain, and there were peach blossoms planted at the foot of the mountain. When the spring breeze came, the peach blossoms bloomed, and the peach blossoms bloomed into a colorful glow. It was magnificent, like a fairyland.
On the day of the banquet, Li Rui specially wore a pink gauze dress that she had asked the craftsmen to make for her. The dress was densely packed with flower buds of different shapes. They were budding, fragrant, revealing a touch of delicate crimson, and then bloomed to reveal a light yellow stamen.
The peach blossoms climbed along the dress to her shoulders. Coupled with the peach blossom pearl hairpin and the peach blossom makeup, Li Rui looked like a peach blossom fairy.
An attentive young lady walked up to take a closer look and found that the peach blossoms on Li Rui's gauze dress were not embroidered with needle and thread. Instead, they were cut out with layers of fine sand, and the petals spread from the dress to her shoulders.
She did not know what kind of fabric she used. Although there were layers of it, it did not appear clumsy. Instead, it made her look like a peach blossom fairy.
The young men present could not help but look at Li Rui.
Some even wrote poems in public, praising Li Rui as a peach blossom fairy who had descended to the mortal world.
In the past banquets, everyone only had eyes for Qingcheng.
Now that everyone only had eyes for her, Li Rui felt that she had no choice.
Even though she was pretending to be reserved and smiling, the corners of her eyes and brows were filled with arrogance.
Just when Li Rui thought that Qingcheng would not come today, she saw Jiujiu, dressed in pink, slowly walk in.
Unlike Li Rui's extremely complicated clothes, Jiujiu wore a simple pink gauze dress.
It was plain and did not have layers of peach blossoms embroidered on it like Li Rui's.
But when she stood under the sun, the originally light pink gown reflected a colorful light like a gem, making her beautiful face look like a fairy who had descended to the mortal world.
If Li Rui was the Peach Blossom Fairy, then Jiujiu was the Moon Palace's Fairy Chang 'e, holy and inviolable.
The Childe, who had just written a poem praising Li Rui as the Peach Blossom Fairy, put down his pen the moment he saw Jiujiu. He stared at her in a daze. "A fairy descending to the mortal world is nothing more than this."
There were even some who directly threw the pen in their hands onto the table and loudly said, "The mortal world's pen and ink cannot depict the fairies in the slightest. Any overflowing words are an insult to the fairies."
The people invited by Li Rui were all knowledgeable and knowledgeable people. Many of them were even famous literati. Being praised by these people for her beauty would not take long for Jiujiu's name to spread all over the world.
Li Rui had thought that Jiujiu's body was delicate. Even if she had recovered, she would still look haggard and could not be compared with her.
But she did not expect that not only did Jiujiu come, her appearance was even better than before. Even her temperament was more transcendent than before. She was like a fairy, ready to rush to Toad Palace at any time.
She originally thought that regardless of whether Jiujiu came or not, she could make the other suffer. But she did not expect that the other party would be so dazzling and the one who would suffer would be her.
Li Rui was so angry that two bloody marks appeared on her palms from her pinching.
Li Rui fiercely glared at Jiujiu and returned to her seat.
After Jiujiu arrived, there were also noble ladies and young masters arriving one after another.
Among them, the most outstanding young master was the Prime Minister's legitimate son, Gu Yuan.
Although Gu Yuan was only twenty years old, he had become famous because of the poem "Ming Ming Fu".
In the last Spring Imperial Examination, he was the top scorer and the Emperor personally appointed him as the Left Assistant Minister of the Ministry of Rites.
Anyone with discerning eyes could see that the Emperor had taken a fancy to Gu Yuan and wanted to train him. In the future, his achievements would not be below his father's.
But although Gu Yuan was already twenty years old, he was still unmarried.
All the women in the capital were drooling over Gu Yuan, especially Li Rui, who had been admiring him for a long time.
Of course, it was not that Li Rui had never thought of using her parents' orders and matchmakers' words to bind Gu Yuan.
But unfortunately, Gu Yuan was not someone who would listen to his parents' orders and matchmakers' words.
Even Gu Yuan's father, the current Prime Minister, Gu She, was both happy and distressed about his son.
He was happy that his son was talented and favored by the Emperor, but distressed that his son was too stubborn and did not listen to instructions.
Although the Flower-Admiring Banquet was said to be an occasion to admire flowers and compose poems, in reality, Li Rui had an ulterior motive. She wanted to invite Gu Yuan to cultivate a relationship with her. If she could win Gu Yuan over in one fell swoop, it would be even better.
This time, Li Rui invited Gu Yuan to the Flower-Admiring Banquet and Gu Yuan took the initiative to accept, which made the Prime Minister very happy.
In his heart, he was thinking that as long as Gu Yuan expressed his interest in the girl, he would immediately propose marriage and set up the marriage.
But what Gu She and Li Rui did not expect was that the reason Gu Yuan came to the Flower-Admiring Banquet was because of Jiujiu.
Gu Yuan boasted that he was talented and looked down on ordinary women. Those who were worthy of him were either very talented or very beautiful.
Gu Yuan boasted that no woman in the world was like him, so he settled for the next best thing, a woman with unparalleled looks.
Rumor had it that Lady Qingcheng was so beautiful that she could cause the downfall of a city, so she was named Qingcheng.
Seeing was believing. Now that he had the opportunity, he naturally wanted to see if the legendary number one beauty in the capital was as beautiful as the rumors said.
Seeing Jiujiu this time, Gu Yuan suddenly felt that all words were superfluous. In heaven and on earth, he could only see Jiujiu.
If one said she was a peony, she was more ethereal than a peony. If one said she was a peach blossom, she was more elegant than a peach blossom. If one said she was as noble as a lotus flower, she was indescribably beautiful.
All words lost their power in front of her. This was probably the difference between a fairy and an ordinary person.
The wine cup in Gu Yuan's hand fell heavily to the ground, and the wine splashed onto his clothes, but he didn't care at all. His eyes were fixed on Jiujiu, and he didn't move his eyes away for a long time.
Logically speaking, Gu Yuan's absent-mindedness should have been seen by others, and he would have been laughed at.
But Jiujiu was too beautiful. At the Flower-Admiring Banquet, even many ladies could not take their eyes off her, let alone those nerds who were passionate about beauty.
Their descriptions would only be worse than Gu Yuan's.
Feeling everyone's gaze, Jiujiu looked up and smiled. She rested her chin on one hand and looked at Li Rui. She said slowly, "Miss Li, you said that you want to bury the hatchet with me. Is that true?"
When Li Rui noticed that Gu Yuan was staring at Jiujiu, she wanted nothing more than to tear Jiujiu to pieces. When she heard Jiujiu's question, her expression turned even uglier.
These nerds were well-read, but because they had been confined to their study all this time, their thoughts were purer than others.
When one of them, Li Jin, heard Jiujiu say that she wanted to bury the hatchet with Li Rui, he asked blankly, "Fairy ~ no, Miss Su and Miss Li have a conflict?"
Li Jin said something contradictory, but when he looked at Li Rui again, his gaze was unfriendly.
It was very obvious.
Li Jin was already on Jiujiu's side without hesitation. As long as Jiujiu said the word, he would fight Li Rui.
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