Brother Donggong

I think Pei Tan and I are like a chicken and a weasel, a natural incompatibility.Like a hound catching a rabbit, he escorted me and Cui Bicheng back to Yongjing.He bought a car, Cui Bicheng is now a lame man, and can no longer ride a horse.

I lead my horse, and Pei Tan follows behind.

I suddenly asked him, "Old Pei, what is your zodiac sign?"

He looked at me for a year, "I am born in the year of Yihai."

"Oh..." I nodded, "So you're a pig, tsk tsk, it's not like that. I've been thinking about your genus...that..."

I originally wanted to say that he was a water fish, but after thinking about it, if the twelve zodiac signs don’t have this, it’s fine.His face seemed to be covered with paste, he was stiff, and he didn't speak.

"Old Pei, why do you think we have a disagreement? Tell me, every time the prince is upset, he will send you out. I see that your clothes are all damp. I guess there was no one there last night. Just like the dog that nestled on the edge of the tree stack, it was specially designed to catch innocent rabbits. Seeing how you came all the way from the border, Shangfeng must have given you a lot of rewards."

"Pray for your lord." Pei Tan suddenly said coldly, "The Xuanwu Gate is here."

I raised my head, squinted my eyes and looked at the auspicious beast on the Xuanwu Gate towering up to the clouds, and rolled off the saddle.I stretched out my hands in front of Pei Tan, "What's the matter, don't be too polite, you should wear what you have to carry, like some heavy iron shackles, just put it on for me."

Pei Tan just took the sound of the bridle in my hand and asked someone to lead the horse away. I looked at him, he bent slightly, and stretched out his finger to guide, "My lord, please."

But when I was wrong with him, he suddenly whispered, "My lord, this matter has nothing to do with the crown prince."

I froze, and turned to look at him.

He sneered, and said to me, "Your Highness, your voice is good enough. Those who don't know think that you are fine at all."

I touched my nose and said to myself, my throat is hurt, so I can't speak.At that time, Lin Ruoqian said that I was injured and asked me to take good care of it, so I went down the donkey, and caught up with the cabinet and carried me to the front. Although Chu Qiangsheng was also pulled down as a back for me, I still didn't dare I got involved too deeply, so I pretended that I couldn't speak. As a prince without real power, it's better to talk less than too much.

Pei Tan knew the way, he took me and Cui Bicheng from Xuanwu Gate to Qilin Temple.

As soon as I walked in, I felt that the atmosphere was a little weird.

The prince is not here.

The empress and concubine Du Gui were dressed in court clothes, each with a chair, sitting in the main hall, and my mother was also there, but she didn't wear court clothes, she was just in plain clothes, sitting at the bottom, and the people around her were all dressed in the colors of the imperial guards. But it looks strange, I don't know where it came from.

I just followed Pei Tan and walked through the door when the door of the Qilin Hall slammed shut behind me and locked, Cui Bicheng was blocked from the outside.

The group of people inside were as pale as the gorgeous paper figurines.

My mother gave me a very complicated look, closed her eyes in despair, didn't speak, and didn't even look at me anymore, she just counted the bodhi beads one by one with her fingers.

This made my heart skip a beat.

With my mother's courage as big as a melon at two hundred and five, it must be a big deal to make her wilt. Maybe today I, my mother, and Lao Cui will all have to confess here.

But when I think about it, there is no other way at the moment, I can only hold the idea that the boat will be straight when it reaches the bridge, and take one step at a time.

I laughed and walked in. I couldn't go anywhere else anyway. I said, "Which excerpt is this empress singing? Is it "Three Niangs Teaching the Son" or "Hongmen Banquet"?"

Really cold.

No one pays attention to me, it's like throwing a stone into a pool of stagnant water, sinking to the bottom, and there is no splash.I picked the chair farthest from the queen and sat down, and a little eunuch brought me a bowl of hot tea over there.

Concubine Du Gui suddenly said, "My lord, I am under the order of the empress to investigate a corruption case in the Forbidden Palace. Please don't hide the following inquiries from Your Highness."

Weathering case?

Looking at my mother's listless appearance, I guess the third child must have stabbed the empress about the fact that my mother was not perfect when she entered the palace.The last time my mother put Concubine Du Gui together in front of my father's hospital bed, her narrow-mindedness must be holding a grudge. My father is now fainting, so I don't know how the Queen and Concubine Du Gui are trying to hide the truth.

Me, "Excuse me, Your Majesty the Imperial Concubine."

She said, "Does Your Highness know that Cui Bicheng, who is responsible for the Manufacturing Bureau, is involved in a huge case, and the Three Judges strictly ordered him to be imprisoned in the Imperial Prison. It seems that letting him out is a crime of treason. Does the prince know?"

I was sloppy, "I haven't seen such a decree, I don't know very well. Anyway, Cui Bicheng was not released by me. I saw him come out, and I was still wondering."

Concubine Du Gui chased after her, "The lord is saying that the matter of Cui Bicheng leaving the prison without permission has nothing to do with you?"

I nodded, "Well, it doesn't matter."

Concubine Du Gui, "Then, the curfew order has been issued in the harem, how dare you ask the prince why he left the palace at night?"

Me, "go to the grave."

Concubine Du Gui, "Why did someone go to the grave?"

Me, "my uncle."

She glanced at me and said, "My lord, you said that the matter of Cui Bicheng leaving the imperial prison privately has nothing to do with you, but the matter of you leading him out of Xuanwu Gate overnight and leaving Yongjing must have something to do with you."

I didn't speak right away.

Concubine Du Gui forced another sentence, "Pray to the king, if you don't go out of the palace at night when you are called, you are suspected of communicating with foreign ministers and plotting wrongdoing, if the prince explains."

This is a tricky hot potato.

The point is, I did do this bad thing and was caught by Pei Tan.If I say that I don't know anything, and I'm lying clearly, I won't be able to make a false accusation, and I will cause trouble for myself instead.

……

What should I do?

My mind was spinning like a wheel fetching water, I tapped my fingers on the table twice, and suddenly thought, anyway, I’ve already done wrong to Wen Zhan, and I’m sorry to him, after all, I’ll take the blame and apologize .

I smiled and said, "I have been summoned. It is the edict of the crown prince. He knows about Cui Bicheng and I leaving the city."

Empress Pei snorted with a sneer, extremely disdainful.

Miss Du, "Do you have proof."

Me, "It's an oral order."

At this time, the gate of the Qilin Palace was suddenly opened by someone. I haven't seen clearly who is coming. In this huge palace, except for Empress Pei, everyone else, including Concubine Du Gui who was holding a chicken feather as an arrow, stood up. When he got up, the group of maids, eunuchs, and the nest of guards all knelt down.

I turned my head and saw, yes, the prince is here.

Wen Zhan's face was like water, and he was speechless. He looked here, but his footsteps were stagnant.

I searched, and he didn't seem to understand what happened like this.He's just very deep in the city, he doesn't speak, and he doesn't express it.If I hadn't known him too well, I wouldn't have paid attention.

He raised his hand, indicating that these people were flattened.

Suddenly, the chilly Qilin Temple became even colder. If I didn't pay attention, I thought that autumn had come early.

Wen Zhan didn't look at me. He walked up to the queen and bowed to salute. Concubine Du left and gave him her chair.

The queen also pretended to say, "Sister, you sit here. The prince is a junior."

Concubine Du Gui answered obediently, "This is the ancestor's rule, and my concubines dare not go beyond it."

Hey……

My teeth were almost knocked out by these two posing milfs.

Wen Zhan didn't look at Concubine Du Gui either, he asked the queen, "Why did the queen mother let her son come over?"

The queen reached out and patted the back of Wen Zhan's hand gently, signaling him not to speak, she nodded slightly at Concubine Du Gui, and asked her to continue.Concubine Du Gui is also happy.

I wanted to find a crack in the ground to get in.

It's really evil on the ground in Yongjing, what to be afraid of, what to come.

Wen Zhan and I had such a quarrel, and now we are carrying him behind our backs, using him as a top tank for me and Cui Bicheng, and now he is sitting there, I am ashamed and ashamed, I really don’t know how to confront him?

She said to Wen Zhan elegantly, "His Royal Highness, the concubine has offended you a lot. If you dare to ask His Highness, do you know that Cui Bicheng, a repeat offender, was prayed for by the King Jiaozhao? He went out of the palace privately, suspected of adultery. Foreign minister, intending to plot rebellion?"

Well, this time it's not an interrogation, just laying out my crimes on me.

Me, "Young concubine, just ask questions, don't talk nonsense. You, a woman in the harem, why haven't you seen the last instruction of the Taizu's 'Don't let women and state affairs' still stand outside!"

-

Unexpectedly, my mother suddenly scolded me, "Chengyi! Shut up!"

I was taken aback by her scolding.

Her eyelids drooped, she seemed to sigh, she stood up, put the bodhi beads aside, and knelt down facing the Qilin Hall.

"Empress, the concubine will bear all the responsibility for any crimes. Chengyi was deprived of education at a young age. He is young and ignorant. Please don't be as knowledgeable as him, Empress."

"mother……"

I wanted to pull her in the past, but she was on her knees, and I couldn't move her.

"Mother, get up, why do you say one thing and say another thing. It's nothing to do, don't be frightened by their pretentious tricks. When the time comes, if you fall into their trap, then we have no reason to go."

Neither the Queen nor Concubine Du Gui was moved by it.

Concubine Du Gui said in pure and elegant official words, "Prayer King, no matter what, it is a serious crime to pretend to be an imperial edict. If you confess your guilt at this time, I think you are young and ignorant, so you can be punished lightly."

I thought, I must die.

As the saying goes, if you keep the green hills, you don't have to worry about no firewood.When my father wakes up, I can turn the situation around by crying to him, but once I confess my love, it will be written in black and white, and I can't reverse the case.

I used my strength to arrest my mother.

"Mother, get up. The emperor is seriously ill now, so they set up traps indiscriminately, trying to entrap us. Don't be afraid, the Dazheng court is neither Pei nor Du, we still have something to reason with!"

--"presumptuous!"

Empress Pei's paper face was bulging with veins, twisted enough.She slapped the table next to her hard, and the jade bracelet on her wrist was smashed.

"Come here, take down the king of prayer for this palace! He has no respect for his elders, pretends to leave the palace, makes friends with foreign ministers privately, intends to plot rebellion, and is imprisoned by the clan's mansion."

Those guards over there were about to come and arrest me. At this moment, another voice aroused coldly, "Stop!"

Everyone shivered, but no one dared to move.

The prince suddenly said, with a low voice, full of authoritarian and terrifying courage, "Queen Mother, all the ministers know about Chengyi's leaving the palace. It was his son's order to let him go. He did not correct the order, nor did he plan. Reverse, he just wants to go back to Ranzhuang to visit the grave. This farce ends here!"

Wen Zhan stood up suddenly, ignoring the queen's obstruction, stepped in front of me, grabbed my wrist, and said, "Let's go."

"not me……"

I almost got pulled over by him.

Empress Pei shouted angrily, "Prince!"

Concubine Du Gui was like a little vixen, she leaned beside her and said in an elegant voice, "Your Majesty, it's unknown if the crown prince has been deceived. After all, the whole thing is so unbelievable. Haven't we been deceived for 20 years?"

Empress Pei stood there for a long time, as if time had frozen.

She asked Wen Zhan to leave here and sit in the main hall of Qilin Temple again, like a statue.

Then, Empress Pei sighed like a benevolent person who eats vegetarian food and recites Buddha, "Forget it, that's all. The cause of yesterday, the result of today... I didn't want to do everything right, but now..."

She ordered softly, "Let her in."

In the back hall of the main hall, supported by two maids, a person walked out.

I seem to have never seen such a person, she is no longer a person, she is like a piece of dead wood.Her hair was long, gray and disheveled, buttoned up on her head like a bird's nest, and her skin was shriveled and wrinkled, like cracked land during a severe drought.

There seemed to be a layer of rust all over her body.

how old is she

Eighty, sixty, fifty?

Maybe she is only in her 40s, but she is already withered and dying.

Empress Pei walked over slowly, she didn't dislike the filthiness of this dead wood man, the empress stretched out her hands softened by the balm, and took the hand of the strange woman, she comforted her softly, "Don't be afraid. Letting you out of the cold palace today is not to harm you, but just to make you recognize someone."

Then, Empress Pei slowly led the strange woman to my mother, and said softly, "Look at her carefully, think about it seriously, do you know her?"

That woman looked up and down at my mother with dull, numb eyes like a dead person. Her eyes moved, and only there could show that she was still a living person.

The surroundings were dead quiet.

After a long time, the woman shook her head slightly, like the last dead leaf on a dry branch in late autumn, trembling in the cold wind.

"No...don't recognize..."

She moved her lips and said.

That sound is extremely unpleasant, like the moss that has dried up and died in the dark corner.

The queen raised her hand and ordered someone to bring over a silver basin and a hot cloth towel.There is hot water in the basin, and there is a strong smell of medicinal juice.Over there, a palace man poked a cloth towel in front of my mother, and my mother took it, dipped in the hot medicinal juice in the silver basin and scrubbed her face.

What's the situation?

So weird, so inexplicable, so close to a nightmare.

Everyone held their breath and looked at my mother. In the end, she wiped her cheeks clean, handed the cloth towel to the palace maid, stood up, turned her face away, and looked at everyone.

……

Damn mom, my grandma!

The red birthmark on my mother's face disappeared without a trace!

Her skin is fair and clean, her eyes are bright, her brows are as blue as black, and her face has a bit of Cui Bicheng's style of Jiangnan beauty.

God!

Am I dead?

Maybe only if I die, can I enter such a ridiculous world.

Empress Pei was not surprised, she asked the woman again, "Look at it this way, do you know who she is?"

……

Over there, there was the sound of water dripping from a jade bottle, one drop, two drops, three or four drops, as if a lifetime had passed.The haggard woman did not speak.

Empress Pei pointed at me again and said, "Do you know... who is he? He is the eldest son of the emperor..."

"Pray for Wang Chengyi!"

ah! ! ——

The woman suddenly let out a beast-like scream, which felt like the Shura Prison in the Hell of Wronged Souls, the howling released by the animal realm after being tortured by tyranny.

Her hands were waving, grabbing at random, the queen quickly let go of her, and she rushed towards me like a man-eating monster, she grabbed my clothes, just like that, with hatred .

She looked up, and I saw that her face had completely changed.She seemed to have died long ago, but she was resurrected at this moment, maybe just to grab my foot.

"No! No!—You are not Chengyi! My son Chengyi is dead! Already dead!!—He was trampled to death, he died, he was still so young, he was just born, he rushed Laugh at me!"

"..."

"He's smiling at me."

"Chengyi! Chengyi! Chengyi! Chengyi! Chengyi! Chengyi!—"

"You should be the crown prince of Dazheng, the emperor of the people!"

I was so frightened that my whole body trembled, and everything I saw began to distort. I couldn't hear or see anything except this woman's voice.My heart was tearing and beating, beating step by step, getting weaker and weaker, as if it was about to die.

Seung-yi!

Seung-yi! ——

……

Such a voice seems to come from the eighteenth floor of hell.

I do not understand.

If Chengyi was her son, if Chengyi had already died, if...

So who am I?

Hahahahahaha!

That woman laughed like a ghost, she pointed at my mother and yelled, "It's all about you, a vicious woman, you killed my son in order to let your evil son who cheated outside the palace ascend to the throne. Ah ah!"

"My son was trampled to death...he died...he died..."

Then she started drooling again, talking to herself dully, "Chengyi, haha, retribution, retribution. I met your wife, a beautiful alien princess, she is still pregnant with your child, it's me, ...I killed her, I trampled her to death, her baby came out, it was full of pus and blood...haha..."

I'm about to throw up.

Empress Pei sneered and said, "Master Cui, you are charming and bewitching the lord, messing up the palace, disturbing the blood of the royal family with a lowly son of unknown origin, you are falling into the emperor's incompetence, destroying the law, ashamed of the world, ashamed of the people under the nine springs!" Ancestors!"

"Queen!" My mother suddenly knelt down. She walked on her knees, hugged the queen's legs, and cried with her head up. "Everything is done by the concubine, and has nothing to do with the emperor. He doesn't know anything, queen, you can't involve the emperor."

"Presumptuous!" Empress Pei slapped my mother severely, "Bitch! How dare you gossip about the emperor to absolve yourself of your sins? You've got your heart to die! You've got your heart to die! Even if you exterminate the nine clans, you won't be able to atone for your sins! "

"Come on!"

At this time, Concubine Du Gui brought over the queen's golden policy and golden seal.

Empress Pei pointed at my mother who was already limp on the ground, and said sharply, "Withdraw her seal, she will be exempted from all titles, and sent to death row. And..."

Empress Pei looked at me with knife-like eyes, "The emperor's eldest son, Cheng Yi, has a messy lineage. Now all his titles are revoked, and he will be placed under the care of the clan's residence. He will be punished after investigation."

"Mother!"

Wen Zhan stood up from the large throne. He seemed to be about to say something, but Empress Pei was faster than him. Her cheeks were flushed and her expression was extremely excited, like a red-eyed executioner.

She walked over, put her beautiful hands on Wen Zhan's shoulders, and a creepy smile appeared on her perfect face decorated with rouge and gouache.

She said softly in Wen Zhan's ear, "Prince, mother knows your thoughts. For so many years, mother has always known about your suffering, but he dared to ignore your feelings. It's really embarrassing for him to reject you." Know that the sky is high and the earth is thick! He will not dare in the future, because he is no longer a prince, no longer a prince, you can do anything to him, remember, anything!"

Wen Zhan looked at me, and I also looked at him.

There was a complexity in his eyes that I couldn't bear at all.We just looked at it like this, and it seemed that in this short period of time, the grievances and hatreds of half a lifetime flowed like running water.

Wen Zhan is on the throne, and only he can sit firmly on it.Distant light crept in from outside the carved door, illuminating the insignificant wooden chairs, official kiln tea cups, and even the pearls on the queen's hair, but it couldn't shine into Wen Zhan's eyes.

His gaze was suffocating.It was like those entangled vines and lotuses in the Forbidden Palace. They were thick and beautiful, but they could strangle the neck of every living person, twisting and strangling until death came.

Then he lowered his eyelids and said softly, "Don't hurt him."

He turned his back on me.

He turned his back on me when I needed him most.

I think, maybe I will never forget it in my life.