I see the snow

At the same time, in an inconspicuous inn in Hoshino City.

Xihuai went to Huacishu to hide in the capital of the stars alone, surrounded by assassins.

It's just that he sat down at the table opposite Huacishu as if he didn't see it, and looked into Huacishu's eyes calmly.

Two people dressed in white faced each other, one was indifferent and the other was unpredictable.It's just the same, all of them are peerless.

"Tell me why you're here."

Hua Cishu opened his mouth first, he smiled and looked away from Xi Huai's face, looked at the cups on the table, poured a cup of tea for each other, and said softly: "What do you want to get, and you are going to get it?" What are you going to exchange with me?"

"The one who used my hand to serve Yinzhichuan with the Dream Grass is you, isn't it?"

However, Xi Huai did not answer, but instead asked another question.

Huacishu didn't mean to hide it at all, he responded "ah", with a half-smile, and replied:

"That's right. The Seventh Young Master of Zhen Guo Gong's Mansion is easier to get into the set than I imagined. I just added the Dream Grass to the kit you gave him, and he put it next to his body without even looking at it. I never leave my body every day. I fell into the trap so easily."

Xi Huai: "..."

"Although we are both Mingyue Wuqing, he and I are completely different people."

Huacishu smiled, flipping the cup with his fingers, his eyes showed a cold look, and said: "If something has passed through my hands, it will be tested eight times if not ten times... How can he trust people so easily? Really?" I don't know if I should call it happiness or stupidity..."

Xi Huai's fingers were hidden in his sleeves, and he clenched his fists silently.

"Oh, yes."

As he said that, Huacishu raised his head again, looked at Xihuai with a half-smile, and said, "Speaking of which, it's thanks to our Mr. Ye that it went so smoothly. It is difficult for the government of Zhen Guo to sneak in... I really admire how to gain the trust of the seventh son of the Yin family. I really admire you. If you are free, Mr. Ye, please give me some advice..."

There are some things that I have done before, so I don't have the right not to allow others to mention them.

Even if every word sounds like a knife slashed across the heart.

"I really like the way you look now."

Looking at Xi Huai's face, Hua Cishu narrowed his eyes and said with a smile.He seemed to have succeeded in some evil intentions, caressing the white jade cup in his hand comfortably.

"Don't you really understand?"

However, Xihuai's pale lips suddenly smiled, and he looked at the flower tree like revenge, and asked word by word: "If you don't understand, then who is the person who spent ten years trying to find out where that person is?" Woolen cloth?"

Huacishu's expression froze while holding the winning ticket, and the next moment the hand holding the cup was really suspended in the air, as if frozen.

"Stop talking useless things."

Xi Huai said in a hoarse voice: "You should know better than me the feeling of trying to exchange everything for someone else...give me the antidote of the dream grass, and I will give you the information you want. After waiting for ten Nian, don't you really want to get her back soon?"

The air seemed to be stagnant, and the small inn was filled with the smell of tension.

"Are you threatening me?"

Huacishu stared at Xihuai fiercely, until this time, the lord of Shangjing, who had always seemed a little weak, showed his real minions.He looked at Xi Huai with icy cold eyes, and asked, "Why should I trust you? A spy who can't even get rid of blood revenge? Or do you think that you can get even the hundreds of elite assassins I went to Beijing to have?" Information not available?"

"Tang Shaoxue."

However, Xihuai only uttered these three words, and Huacishu was already defeated.

He sat quietly in the afterglow under the window, his mutilated body confined in a wheelchair made him look so fragile, so pale, so... sad.

The black-clothed assassin named "Sixth Brother" also leaned on the window with folded arms, looking at him without saying a word.

Yes, but anyone who has been under the Assassins of Shangjing will know that the Lord of Shangjing is looking for someone.

She was probably a woman, extraordinary and mysterious.Not only has Huacishu, who is known by numerous elite assassins and ranks second in Zhonglu Information Network, been unable to find her for ten years, there are even rumors that even the people in Jinglou have a close relationship with her——Huaci once Shu also spent huge sums of money to send people there, and wanted to ask the Ji family from Jinglou to help inquire, but was unexpectedly rejected.

But why Huacishu wanted her, her appearance, name, origin and identity, no one knew.

Therefore, when Xihuai said that name, Huacishu's heart was shaken as one can imagine.

"How about it, is this chip enough?"

Xi Huai sighed, and said: "Give me the antidote for the Dream Grass, and I'll tell you who she is and where she is now..."

"You speak first……"

Huacishu's lips and teeth trembled, as if she had searched for a long time to find her own voice: "Tell me where she is first... Is she doing well, and I will talk to you about the conditions."

"Do you think I'm a fool?"

Xi Huai looked at the person in front of him with compassion, as if he hadn't thought that the famous Master Mingyue and the Lord of Shangjing would show such a gaffe when he heard the name of the person he had been thinking about.He said: "You give me the antidote of the dream grass first, and then I will tell you her whereabouts."

"..."

This is probably really a painful choice, Xi Huai saw Huacishu pinching the snow porcelain cup until the fingertips were white.

"Gu Xuedu is less than three hundred miles away from the city of Hoshino..."

After a long time, Huacishu said in a hoarse voice: "I must ensure that when he comes, Yinzhichuan cannot use guns. Otherwise, the capital of stars and fields may not be so easy to take down... Yes, it is true that I want to know her news, but I also hate Sheng Yang. After all—"

After all, the person who caused him to become what he is now, the one who sadly never has the right to be close to her, is this sinful city...!

Lord Shangjing closed his eyes, and when he opened them again, he said to Xihuai, "You don't want him to die either, do you?"

"...Then, I can give you the antidote. But you need to guarantee that you can only take it after Sheng Yang's subjugation. Otherwise, once Yin Zhichuan uses the soldiers of the world, he will be the mortal enemy of son Shunhua... …At the same time, Yinzhichuan might also die in battle. Presumably that is not the result you want. If you can achieve this, I will make a deal with you."

"I can't promise you."

This was already a huge concession, but Xi Huai didn't want to refuse it.He frowned slightly: "I can't rest assured that he waits until you take down Sheng Yang—if it takes ten years for Yan Qiren to break into the Starfield Capital, then it will take ten years for me to detoxify him?"

Besides... Yin Zhichuan probably won't be able to wait until that time.

Yin Zhichuan coughing up blood came to Xi Huai's mind.

The two sides confronted each other silently, and Huacishu didn't say a word.

"Give me three days."

After a long time, Hua Ci Shu drooped his hands, retreated, and said in a low voice. "In three days, I will tell you my answer."

He probably finally had a weakness that he couldn't give up: no matter what, he couldn't miss the person who had been missing for ten years...

Xi Huai nodded: "You can rest assured. Yinzhichuan..."

The boy paused for a moment, "No matter what, it is impossible for him to fight to the death for Sheng Yang... He and I are both people who have been betrayed by this world and the world."

Huacishu didn't speak any more, he just made a silent gesture, raised his hand, and signaled the entourage around him to put their weapons into their sheaths.

Xi Huai got up, and when he was about to step out the door, he turned his head and said, "I'll give you a clue, as a bonus before the deal."

"I heard the name Tang Shaoxue from Ji Wuhen. He is Yinzhichuan's best friend... So, you should understand that if you want to get Miss Tang back, you'd better not find me. I also pray that Yinqi can survive."

Huacishu didn't move, he seemed to be extremely tired, sitting there with his feminine pale hands resting on the wheel of the wheelchair.

Looking out the window, it looks like a child who has grown old since birth.

……

The little beggar has been living here in Yinzhichuan for more than ten days.

It was okay at first, Yin Zhichuan watched him go out every day, begged for food and came back, patted it clean, and sat under the corner to eat.

Gradually, as the battle situation became more and more tense, the situation in Hoshino City became extremely turbulent, and it was difficult for the little beggars to ask for food.

"There are snacks in the kitchen in the courtyard, you can eat them."

Seeing him go hungry for several days in a row, and unable to sleep in the middle of the night because of hunger, Yin Zhichuan felt a little compassion, and casually talked to the little beggar on the roof.

The child was probably really hungry, bent over into a shrimp, hugged his knees, and lay curled up under the corner of the wall.

His face was also pale, and he said nothing.

But even so, he shook his head and said, "No... I don't eat what you get."

"Don't eat the food that comes from you?"

Now Yinzhichuan found it interesting, he raised his eyebrows, and asked, "Then how do you get food every day? Don't you just—"

beggar?

Yin Zhichuan paused, did not say the last two words, probably also felt that it was not good to speak to someone face to face.

But the child had obviously guessed what he hadn't said, the boy shook his head slightly, lowered his eyelashes and said, "No, no. I regard you as my friend... I won't beg for things like a friend. "

"..."

Yinzhichuan was dumbfounded.

"Don't you still have a pot of copper coins?"

After a long time, he turned his eyes, returned to his usual casual look, and asked, "Why don't you use that money to buy some food?"

"That's the silver I use to buy next year's flower seeds."

The little beggar still shook his head: "It will be gone after the money is spent. I still need to use this money to buy a big house in the capital of stars and fields."

"..."

Yin Zhichuan's stone-throwing hand stopped: "Next year."

The corners of his lips curled up, unable to tell what it meant, as if he felt a little funny, but also a little sad: "The capital of the stars, how can there be any next year..."

His eyes fell on the bright yellow but distant moon on the roofs, his voice was low and inaudible, as if he was talking to himself.

The little beggar did not hear.

...It's also fortunate that I didn't hear it, otherwise, this stubborn child who has great hopes for the Starfield City next year may not be able to accept the Starfield City that Yinzhichuan expected, which is about to be wiped out.

At the beginning of the third year of Chongxin, Yanqi people fought 150 miles away from the capital of the stars.

It can almost be said to be at the foot of the royal city.

Looking northeast from the tallest Junzi building in the capital of Hoshino, you can even see where they are stationed.

This is the first time in history that an army from another country has penetrated into such a hinterland of Shengyang, which can almost be said to be an unprecedented and unprecedented humiliation.

But even so, Shen Yan still couldn't go to court every day and deal with the news from the front line in a timely manner.

Countless speculations and rumors spread everywhere, but whenever things were about to reach a critical value, he would suddenly appear in front of everyone and visit the ruling and opposition parties in person.

... just the face behind the crown, haggard and weary.

"What happened to you today?"

In the evening, Yinzhichuan sits on the ridge of the roof drinking and watching the sunset as usual.

But the little beggar walked back with his head drooping and his hands empty, and sat in the corner with his knees hugged without saying a word.

A dejected look.

"It's nothing."

He said sullenly, "I had a fight with someone."

In fact, if you look carefully, you will find that his clothes are also very dirty, as if they have been tugged with all their strength, and there are still a few shoe marks on them.

Yin Zhichuan thought it was a little funny, because looking at his appearance, his nose was bruised and his face was swollen, it probably wasn't "fighting with someone", but "being beaten up".

Every day when the little beggar came back, he would take out his little earthen jar, put the newly collected money in it, and then shake it to listen to the sound of hope inside.

But on this day, instead of taking out new copper coins, he just poured out the old silver deposits and counted them one by one on his knee.

While counting, shed tears.

"Battling" teardrops fell on his knees, melting away the dirty stains on his knees.

The boy covered his eyes with his sleeves, stroked his forearm violently, and twitched the tip of his nose.

"What's the matter?"

Seeing his appearance, Yin Zhichuan couldn't help asking again.

"No, nothing."

Yin Zhichuan looked at his heartbroken and wronged look, it didn't look like "nothing" at all.He stroked the wine glass in his hand and asked casually:

"You lost a fight with someone? The money was robbed? It's nothing. Where are they, go, I'll get it back for you."

"No, no."

However, the little beggar was sobbing, and said: "They said that Sheng Yang was about to perish, and the Holy One didn't do anything... The adults in the court didn't want to care about our people, they were just busy running for their own lives, that's why I fought them. "

Yinzhichuan: "..."

"I told them not to say that, but they didn't listen, returned it, and scolded me..."

The little beggar's face was mottled with tears: "I have no choice but to say that if they continue to behave like this, I will report to the police, and they will rob me of all my money..."

"..."

Yin Zhichuan didn't know whether to comfort him or help him, he just wanted to laugh but didn't know what to say.After a long silence, he whispered:

"Now the cities outside the capital of Hoshino have been lost in sevens and eighties. Whether they surrendered or rebelled, they do not belong to Sheng Yang. If you sit on the roof and look out, you can see which cities are ignited every day. , the Yanqi people's line has advanced tens of kilometers... What they said is not wrong."

"But how can you criticize the Holy Majesty?"

The little beggar opened his eyes wide, with a face like a cat, looking immature and a little cute: "Heaven, earth, king, master, this is the truth that I know even if I haven't read the book. They said that the king and our Shengyang What is the difference between being a parent official and shaking people's hearts and doing things for Yanqi people? They are our Shengyang's traitors!"

"..."

For a moment, Yin Zhichuan didn't really want to talk to this kid anymore.Because he felt a little speechless and didn't know where to start.

But after a moment of silence, the young major general still chose to continue speaking, trying his best to be as patient as possible: "No, that's not the case. You empty out the 'Heaven, Earth, Monarch, Parent and Teacher' in your mind now, and listen to me explain another truth. "

The little beggar frowned and looked at him with his head tilted.

"Do you know what a country is?"

Yinzhichuan started with a sentence, and asked: "Before the beginning, there was no country. There were only tribes gathered together."

"People hunt, reproduce, rest, and defend against foreign enemies together. Collective living can allow them to achieve a higher survival rate...but at the same time, there will be disputes when there are too many people. Internal disputes are likely to cause internal friction, which is not conducive to the development of the group. In order to solve this problem, the people in the tribe decided to formulate a set of systems to be observed together, and then elected a manager. This manager supervises the implementation of the system, reduces internal friction within the group, and promotes faster development of the tribe. "

The little beggar looked at him in bewilderment for a while, as if digesting the meaning of the words, and nodded after a while.

"However, the managers spent most of their time supervising the implementation of the tribal system, and they are no longer able to participate in labor."

Yin Zhichuan went on to say: "He served for the tribe. So, in order to ensure his basic living needs, everyone in the tribe gave some of their own hunting income to reward the manager. That is what we call taxes."

"It turns out that our taxes are used to support the salaries of officials in the court?"

There was a look of surprise in the child's eyes.

"Yes."

Yin Zhichuan said lightly: "Therefore, high-ranking officials from famous families and descendants of aristocratic families have nothing to be arrogant about. The origin of their families at the beginning is that the common people donated their own income to them."

"..."

The little beggar opened his mouth wide, almost about to put down an egg.

"Official salaries are only a small part of the tax expenditure."

Yinzhichuan said: "The rest will be filled into the national treasury and used for other purposes. For example, resisting the invasion of foreign tribes, building weapons when fighting for fertile land, and improving the existing living environment of the tribe... These are all natural. Expenditures withdrawn from the treasury. That is, the income from taxes collected at ordinary times."

Little beggar: "..."

"So do you understand why?"

Yin Zhichuan asked: "A tribe needs a manager to help them manage the group, so the identity of 'official' appeared; in order to select the most capable people to be qualified for this position, the 'Chunwei Kaoju' appeared. '; In order to reward and motivate the warriors who defend this tribe, people will grant rich privileges and respect... The core of the operation of this tribe and the country is not the king and officials, but the people!"

The little beggar was stunned, and Yin Zhichuan took a deep breath.

"It's never been 'a country can't live without a king', but 'a country can't live without its people'."

Yin Zhichuan said in a low voice.He looked at the little beggar, with some kind of sadness in his eyes: "But, do you know that you are so important?... You don't know, because they deliberately obliterate it. They tell you, 'The imperial power is bestowed by heaven, and the blood is humble' Every time an official does a good deed for you, you need to be grateful...as if this is some kind of great grace. But in fact, this is what they are supposed to do. There is never any distinction between the king and the people. status. You, and thousands of ordinary Sheng Yang people, are the masters of Sheng Yang...!"

The rhetoric that overturned the previous concepts made the little beggar's mind messed up.

He thought of what he had overheard outside the school, "Heaven, Earth, Monarch, Parent, Teacher", "The ruler must die, and the minister must die"... He subconsciously wanted to refute something, but he couldn't say it.

"Are you a prosperous nobleman?"

Yin Zhichuan asked him: "What can you gain by defending Shengyang's ruler? Is it so difficult to believe that you are not an ant... but a human being?"

Little beggar: "..."

"No, it's not." He subconsciously said, "This is not right... Who did you listen to say, this is not right!! I, I..."

"No one told me."

Yin Zhichuan looked down at him sadly: "I hated studying since I was a child, and I never went to school. I don't know what the teacher told you. But these are my own ideas."

"I……"

"Are you going to report on me?"

Yin Zhichuan asked him: "Say I'm treason? Ha, but I'm afraid you don't know that my father, brother, and my blood relatives have already been charged with this crime."

"You, you are..."

"I am Yinzhichuan, the seventh son of Lord Zhenguo who is 'collaborating with the enemy and treason' and has been reviled by thousands of people."

Yinzhichuan said with a blank face.

The little beggar fell to the ground.

The plaque of the gloomy but once glorious "Zhen Guo Gong Mansion" hung above his head.

At that moment, Yin Zhichuan felt very happy.

He looked at the helpless little beggar amusedly, and felt a kind of vengeful pleasure in his heart.Taking pleasure in others' misfortune, watching with cold eyes, being indifferent... all kinds of complicated emotions appeared in his heart, bringing an indescribable feeling of soreness.

The little beggar gritted his teeth, and his cheeks bulged tautly—even if that action would affect the wound on his cheek, the pain made his entire facial features twitch, and his face wrinkled into a ball.

But he still propped his hands behind his back, rubbing his hands and feet against the ground and taking a few steps back.

Then he struggled to get up, turned around suddenly, staggered, and ran out without looking back.

Yin Zhichuan looked at his back, didn't speak or hold back, just drank another sip of wine, and sat on the roof indifferently.