bastard returns

It was night, and Empress Dowager Xia was holding on to an embroidery needle, carefully embroidering crabapple flowers on a screen.

The candles in the hall were brightly lit, illuminating the hall as if it were daytime. An old eunuch stood with his head down, reporting something in a low voice. When the old eunuch finished speaking, the Empress Dowager Xia just finished the last stitch and cut off the thread with her fingernails , put the needle in the brocade box held by the maid beside her.

"When did this happen?" She turned her face away and looked at the eunuch motionlessly.

"Going back to the Empress Dowager, that's what happened this morning." The old eunuch said with a low eyebrow, "But in the end, His Royal Highness took him back, and he didn't have any displeasure with King Xi and the others. Wanting to investigate secretly, it turned out that the shopkeeper of the calligraphy and painting shop who beat and blackmailed Mr. Su had disappeared from the city overnight. The slave only found out after inquiring that the shopkeeper of the calligraphy and painting shop was a gambler and owed a large sum of money , and before she left, all the money owed has been paid off, so the slave feels..." At this point, the old eunuch glanced at Empress Xia, as if he didn't dare to say any more.

"The Ai family knows what you want to say, and you didn't think wrongly. The Ai family may not care about what they do to those Zhou people, but they are really courageous to involve the king of Jincheng County. Come here." Empress Dowager Xia Squinting her eyes, she sat down on the mahogany chair at the side, and immediately after she yelled, two eunuchs came in from the outside.

"Pass down the decree of mourning the family, dismiss Wan Ming, the inspector of Wan Xuetang, and receive a [-]-stick punishment, and drive the whole family out of Yanjing."

The two eunuchs immediately took orders.

The old eunuch grimaced. Fortunately, he knew that the Empress Dowager Xia had always acted vigorously and vigorously, so he was not surprised. Wan Ming, who was only a school inspector, dared to plot against the King of Jincheng with Sikong Xu, he deserved it.

After dealing with Wan Ming, the Empress Dowager Xia looked at the old eunuch again, "The Ai family also has an errand for you to handle, you go and tell Sikong Xu, this time the Ai family will let him go first, and next time, the Ai family will take care of you." Can't keep him."

"Slave complies with the order." The old eunuch bowed his hands and hurried away.

Wan Ming never imagined that he was just cooperating with Sikong Xu and wanted to kick his friend Qiao Miao for revenge, but in the end he caused such a disaster for himself. Their little tricks might be able to deceive King Jincheng, but they couldn't hide it from the Queen Mother. Yanjing, before dawn, the entire Wan family was expelled from Yanjing for the sole reason of disrespecting the county king.

The other officials learned that this was a decree from the Empress Dowager herself. Although they didn't understand what happened, they all said in unison on the surface that they all spurned that Wan Ming deserved what he deserved, and then flattered the Empress Dowager for her wisdom. Murong Cheng, one of the parties involved, was in a daze after hearing the news, still thinking about when Wan Ming disrespected him. Could it be that his queen mother made a mistake?

The news naturally spread to the posthouse where Ning Yuan and the others lived, which surprised Ning Yuan for a while. It took less than a day. How could the Queen Mother Xia's news be so well-informed? Wan Ming was taken care of.

But that's good, he asked himself that he had no grievances with Wan Ming, but the other party conspired with Sikong Xu to plot against him. Originally, he wanted to find this Liang Zi, but now Empress Dowager Xia took care of him, saving him trouble.

It can also be seen from this that the Empress Dowager Xia really values ​​her own younger brother. As soon as Murong Cheng was bullied by others, she immediately vented her anger for her younger brother. Wan Ming suffered, and Si Kongxu, the mastermind, must have had a hard time. .

But compared to himself, there is another person who looks down on Sikong Xu even more, and that is Su Che.

Sikong Xu might never have imagined that he tried his best to use Su Che to frame Ning Yuan, but in the end he failed to do anything. Instead, Su Che, who had always been devoted to him before, could see clearly his ugly face, and From love to hate.

That night, Ning Yuan pretended to poison Su Che, but he was acting out of doubts in his heart. Unexpectedly, he actually let him lure the snake out of the hole, and guessed the real plan of Wan Ming and others. He also revived him with medicine, and asked him the real ins and outs of why he ended up living on the street.

Realizing that he was actually a chess piece used by Sikong Xu to frame Ning Yuan, Su Che was furious, no longer concealed anything from Ning Yuan, and confessed everything.

It turned out that after Sikong Xu fled in Huajing, due to lack of preparation, he was already at the end of his life before leaving Yanzhou, and almost starved to death by the side of the road. At this time, he ran into Su Che by chance, but it was the same as what Su Che said before. The difference is that the wealthy Jiangzhou businessman who was raising Su Che at that time was safe and sound, and knew that the war was imminent, so he planned to give up Yanzhou's property and bring Su Che back to Jiangzhou. After believing that the other party abandoned him back then because Huajing was sinister and he didn't want to get involved with him, not to mention being moved, Su Che, who thought he was still Sikong Xu's true love, was heartbroken, and quietly took away a lot of money from the rich businessman, and followed Sikong Xu ran away together.

Relying on Su Che's relief money, Sikong Xu successfully survived the difficulties, and finally sneaked into Daxia, and came to the summer capital Yanjing.

But he is a man from Zhou, and he used to be a prince. Once his identity is exposed in Yanjing, he will be too busy to walk around. So he proposed to dedicate Su Che to King Jincheng, who has always liked beautiful young people, so as to take refuge in Xia. Queen Mother's thoughts.

He has always been very conceited about his appearance, thinking that as long as he can get the favor of the Empress Dowager Xia, not to mention being rich, he might be able to rely on the hands of the Empress Dowager Xia to regain the power he deserved in the Great Zhou Dynasty.

So he continued to deceive Su Che, saying that arranging Su Che to be beside the King of Jincheng was a means of protecting him. If he had the protection of the King of Jincheng, he would be able to sit back and relax, and he would find a way to break into Yanjing. Once he gets something, he will come back and take him away, so Su Che naturally agreed.

But this time, according to what Su Che said, it was Sikong Xu who contacted him suddenly, saying that he had made up his mind to take him away from Yanjing, to a place where no one knew them to stay together, and to give him a A pair of calligraphy and painting, let him escape from the county prince's mansion, go to a certain calligraphy and painting shop in the city, and exchange calligraphy and painting for the silver that Sikong Xu kept at the shopkeeper. , but when he arrived at the calligraphy and painting store, not only did he not get anything, but he was beaten up for no reason.

It happened to be the scene that Ning Yuan bumped into.

Seeing Ning Yuan for the first time, Su Che was really taken aback. He didn't know that he was deceived by Sikong Xu, on the contrary, he was afraid that Sikong Xu would be exposed, so he didn't tell the truth.

After Ning Yuan made a point, Su Che suddenly realized that he had seen Sikong Xu's face clearly, so he cooperated with Ning Yuan and acted in the next day when Sikong Xu led Murong Cheng to visit the important person. A good show that makes the other party feel embarrassed,

Going back to Jincheng County King's Mansion was also proposed by Su Che himself. Ning Yuan once said that if he wanted, Sikong Xuan could send someone to send him back to Dazhou safely, but Su Che refused, and Ning Yuan did not ask him. The reason, but to some extent, you can see a little bit of Su Che's thoughts.

Su Che, who has lost his way, seems to be extremely resentful for Sikong Xu's repeated use and murder. As long as he listens to Murong Cheng's pillow, Sikong Xu's life will not be easy in the future.

At the same time, Su Che also told Ning Yuan a very important news by the way.

The secret about why the Empress Dowager Xia wanted Da Zhou to cede Yanzhou.

"You mean, there is actually a very huge refined iron mine in Yanzhou?" In the same hidden water pavilion attic, Emperor Xia and Huyan Yuanchen both showed surprised expressions after hearing what Ning Yuan said.

Huyan Yuanchen received a message from Ning Yuan, saying that he had something important to meet with Emperor Xia, so he asked Emperor Xia to invite Sikong Xuan and Ning Yuan into the palace again on the grounds of drinking tea and chatting. There is no reason for wanting to obstruct it, and they can only acquiesce, but unexpectedly, what Ning Yuan said was such an important matter.

It is very clear what the huge iron ore concentrate means to a country.

"This matter should be true, otherwise I really can't figure out why the Empress Dowager Xia would suddenly want the barren land of Yanzhou." This time it was Sikong Xuan who spoke, and he said in a deep voice: "According to what Su Che said, he It was only after listening to Sikong Xu's words in his sleep that he learned about it. He didn't take it seriously at first, but after paying attention to it, he realized that it was true. This refined iron ore was accidentally discovered by a group of horse bandits under Sikong Xu. Yes, and then Sikong Xu hid this secret and didn't tell anyone. It seems that Sikong Xu originally planned to use this fine iron ore as his trump card to seek power. What a disaster, now he is obviously the one who disclosed the news to the Empress Dowager Xia in exchange for his own interests in Great Xia."

"Then everything makes sense, and this is also the reason why the Queen Mother suddenly went south to mobilize troops." Emperor Xia frowned and said, "It must be that Sikong Xu told the Queen Mother about it, and the Queen Mother had something to do with the refined iron ore. over this battle."

"The Empress Dowager Xia of your country is so anxious, naturally she doesn't want me to have refined iron ore in Dazhou." Ning Yuan said: "Fine iron ore is very rare, and Daxia is rich in mineral deposits. There is only one mine in the whole country, and there is only one mine in the whole country. Da Zhou has no mouthful. Once Da Zhou starts to mine this mine, the gap between the two countries' armaments will be shortened significantly. Nothing to talk about.”

"The queen mother's move is really ridiculous." Emperor Xia shook his head and sighed sadly: "Let's not talk about whether she can take Yanzhou, even if she holds two mouthfuls of refined iron ore, so what? Emperor, but he also knows that the Great Zhou is strong, even though its armaments are poor, there is no shortage of other supplies, and our dynasty's products are barren, this battle will not only fail to make achievements, but will also cause countless people to suffer from the flames of war, and I don't know how many soldiers will die in foreign lands. "