Fake concubine, real queen

After all, it is at the foot of the Son of Heaven, the capital of a country, the capital, word of mouth, and news spread quickly——

At the court meeting, the new king fought against the Confucians for his love of generals, and against all opinions, the fact that Jin Feng He was the Duke of Yongguo was soon known by everyone in Bianjing.

The much-loved Lord He Hou disappeared, but there was a very popular Duke Yong.

In fact, long before he ascended the throne today, the first emperor lingered on the sick bed, and handed over the power of state affairs and government affairs to his son. In the past few years, the forces in the court and China had quietly shuffled the cards without a trace, and even after the new emperor ascended the throne, There are no fools who can keep the black gauze hat, and there are not a few confidantes who can be lifted up by the new emperor.

There are a few thorns, but the new emperor has not dealt with them, and is even quite lenient, letting them go, stroked the tiger's whiskers several times, and finally just picked them up high and let them go gently.

It was only then that everyone realized that the emperor was waiting for today——

Those in the court who disliked He Gu, although Lu Yue and Zhao Bingzhi were not the only two masters and apprentices, either they didn't want to attract holy wrath, or they didn't really care about which one the emperor favored. Or those who are inconvenient to speak out because of their status, they can't make trouble for the emperor every day like the officials of Yushitai——

Therefore, it has always been either fighting in secret, or watching with cold eyes.

But today, Dr. Zhao, who was refuted under the eyes of everyone in the Chongwen Palace and who is no longer ashamed of others, took the risk himself, and now no one can understand that He Zihuan is the eyeball of the current Holy Majesty——

If anyone wants to make trouble with him, His Majesty will be the first to deal with him.

As soon as this matter came out, the rumors that had been turned off by everyone almost because of the war in the North became very loud again.

After all, the emperor's love for General He is so great that everyone can see it. There is also Princess Fucheng, the first princess with a different surname to be promoted to the Jin Dynasty since the founding of the Dai Viet Dynasty. She is the first emperor's Princess Qing, and the sister of the present——

But thinking about it this way, it still seems a little weird.

...Even if His Majesty truly cherishes the elder sister who died young, loves the niece, and gave Fu Cheng such great grace, why doesn't he directly pass Fu Cheng to his knees?

Uh... But yes, after all, the child's biological father, General He, is living a good life now, and he only has Princess Fucheng as the jewel in his palm. If His Majesty really wants to adopt him, it will inevitably be a little unloved, not very authentic.

It's just all of these things, whether it's His Majesty's extraordinary love for General He and Fu Cheng, or the appearance of the princess, etc... It's hard to understand the weirdness with common sense, once you think of the very sweet and charming relationship between Your Majesty and General He Bizarre rumors, all the key points have been knocked out one by one, and it seems reasonable——

It's really hard not to think about it!

For a while, the hearts of the court, who had finally settled down because of the Wuling Mansion's victory, began to fluctuate and become uneasy again.

However, He Gu didn't know what other people had in their minds, and he didn't care, he had to rush into the palace to thank him.

It had just been finalized at the court meeting in the morning, and later on, the imperial decree of Jin Feng Yongguo arrived at the Princess Mansion very quickly, and the efficiency of the study in the palace was indeed not low.

He Gu received the decree, changed his clothes, took Zheng Ye with him, and prepared to enter the palace to thank him.

It's just that he never expected that as soon as he left the door of the princess mansion, he saw a black carriage with a somewhat familiar appearance and half-rolled curtains at the gate of the mansion——

As for the two standing by the side of the carriage, one had a natural smile, slender limbs, and a slightly different figure than ordinary men, and the other wore a veiled hat, and his facial features were a bit stern.

These two He Guke are very familiar with each other.

It was none other than Jinshang's personal servant, the current internal affairs officer, Eunuch Zhai, and Chengwei, the head of Qianjiao Weiwei.

When these two people appeared here, it seemed self-evident who was in the carriage.

He Gu turned his head and looked at Zhengye, but before he could speak, that Zhaier stepped forward and said with a smile: "The general has come out, please ask the Lord to wait."

He Gu looked at the half-covered car curtain, and after guessing for a long time, he couldn't guess what kind of medicine was sold in Brother Heng's gourd, so he turned his head and looked around, seeing no one around, then turned his head and said in a low voice. : "How did you... the emperor... the lord just come out like this?"

Cheng Wei said softly beside him: "General, don't worry, everything has been arranged, it's very safe, you should get on the carriage first."

He Gu had no choice but to stop asking, and got into the carriage along the door curtain, and sure enough, Pei Zhaoheng in casual clothes was watching him with a smile on his face.

Today he is wearing a moon-white casual tunic embroidered with dark-colored asparagus bamboo. The style is very simple, but it makes this man's whole body look warm and warm like jade. Hold your waist well, even if you are still sitting at this moment, you still look tall and straight, elegant and elegant——

General He almost looked away.

... Not to mention, since returning to men's clothing, Brother Heng seldom wears white, but today he wears it so casually, but it really complements each other, it's just right, it couldn't be more suitable.

"...Zihuan?"

Seeing that He Gu looked stunned, Pei Zhaoheng didn't respond when he called him twice, he knew the reason clearly in his heart, but he deliberately didn't point it out, he just didn't notice, instead he slightly frowned and asked in confusion: "What's wrong? Huan, but is there anything wrong with me today?"

Only then did He Gu come back to his senses, he quickly shook his head and said with a dry smile: "No...no! There's nothing wrong with it, Brother Heng is like this...very proper! Very proper!"

Pei Zhaoheng finally couldn't bear the corners of his teased lips slightly curved, and then said: "That's good."

He Gu sat down opposite him, and said: "I was thinking of going into the palace to thank you, but when I came out, I saw Eunuch Zhai and Cheng Wei here, which shocked me."

Pei Zhaoheng smiled and said, "between you and me, what kind of favor is there to thank, don't delay the business because of this."

He Gu was taken aback, and said, "Business?"

He said again: "By the way, why did Brother Heng come out of the palace suddenly to see me, but is there anything important? If you come out of the palace quietly like this, if someone finds out, it will spread the word all over the city..."

When Pei Zhaoheng heard this, the smile on his face faded slightly, and he said: "Even if I don't go out of the palace to see Zihuan, the matter between you and me has already been spread all over the city. What's the difference?"

He Gu was choked by him and was a little speechless, before he said after a while: "...So why did Brother Heng come to see me today?"

Hearing this, Pei Zhaoheng said in a gentle voice: "Do you still remember the house I showed Zihuan yesterday? I intend to choose a house for Zihuan to be the future Yongguo Palace, but I can't make up my mind which one to choose. After much deliberation, Zihuan, the owner of the case, went to see it in person and chose it himself, which is the most appropriate."

The melancholy on his face just now had all dissipated, and now his face was normal, He Gu couldn't help but be a little stunned, and even began to wonder if Brother Caiheng's unnoticeable unhappiness just now was just his illusion...

He Gu said: "So it's for this."

After thinking for a while, he said again: "...Actually, I don't pick these, Brother Heng thinks it's good, just point it out to me, I'm happy."

Pei Zhaoheng heard the words but didn't answer him. Obviously, this time, he didn't agree with General He's casualness. He just smiled at him, and then raised his voice and told the people outside: "Let's go."

The carriage was already in, and his arms couldn't twist his thighs. With Pei Zhaoheng's persistence, General He seemed to have no choice but to follow along to see the house. He could only submit.

Pei Zhaoheng picked up a small book from the small table in the carriage, handed it over and said, "Zihuan didn't look carefully at it yesterday, I picked four gardens, and we'll go and look at them one by one later, the drawings are all in this book, Zihuan You can see if there is something you like first.”

He Gu took the book, and was a little moved by Pei Zhaoheng's persistence and determination——

But at this moment, for some reason, He Gu, who was by accident, remembered that before he returned to Beijing, Yan Zhiya told him that Brother Heng had accepted the selection after the election. , intending to imitate Gaozu at the risk of the world's disgrace, and originally thought about how to persuade him when he came back...

But after returning to Beijing, seeing his various actions, everything was as usual, and he was promoted to be the Duke of Yongguo. It seemed that he had no intention of making He Zihuan the second male queen since the founding of the Dai Yue Dynasty...

Since it wasn't him, the one to choose... must be someone else.

As soon as He Gu had this thought, his chest felt tight, as if he was instantly crushed by a huge boulder weighing a thousand catties, and he was so heavy that he couldn't breathe.

Brother Heng...he...he treats me so well, but because he is afraid that I will be sad, does he intend to make it up?

He thought in a daze, took the small book for a while, and didn't open it, but just stared at Pei Zhaoheng who was sitting opposite, with a dazed expression.

"...Zihuan? What's wrong with you?"

He Gu let out an "ah", and then came back to his senses. Seeing Brother Heng looking at him with worried eyes, he smiled and said, "No...it's nothing."

Desire for power, status, wealth... These are the things that everyone is chasing after. He Gujing has gone through his previous life, but he is not so interested in it. Naturally, he doesn't mind what kind of house Pei Zhaoheng bestows on him. The book in his hand Of course, it won't be attractive to him, and it will make him curious.

All he was thinking about at the moment was just the person sitting across from him, that's all.

He Gu absently opened the small book in his hand, but he opened it casually, his eyes glanced across the paper, but he froze for a moment——

The first page of this book, however, is not the landscape painting of the garden that I saw that day, but...it is a small painting.

The strokes of this small portrait are extremely delicate, which shows the caution and carefulness of the painter when he wrote the brushwork. Although the linework is not complicated, it is extremely vivid and smooth. At first glance, it seems to have penetrated the paper and saw the galloping horse in the portrait. , the boy in blue who is aiming at a certain place with his bow held high——

Lightly on paper, high spirits.

He Gu stared blankly in place.

Although the small portrait is just a back view, without the face of the person in the painting, he is very familiar with that appearance and the posture of straddling the horse——

is himself.

He Gu's fingers trembling slightly as he twisted the paper in the notebook, he instinctively raised his eyes to look at Pei Zhaoheng who was sitting across from him, but when he raised his eyes, he found that the man was leaning on the inner wall of the carriage with his arms crossed and his head slightly tilted. The chest rose and fell slightly, the eyelids closed, and the slender eyelashes remained motionless quietly and obediently——

...he actually fell asleep.

It was only then that He Gu realized that there were two bruises under his eyes, which were not obvious when he opened his eyes for some reason, but now that he closed his eyes, he discovered a little clue, it seems... It seems that it is specially used for women. Fendai covered it up.

Although Pei Zhaoheng didn't talk about it on weekdays, his appearance was always very decent, and he rarely lost his composure in front of others, let alone in front of He Gu. Naturally, he had never fallen asleep like this before.

The words He Gu wanted to say were stuck in his throat. He looked at Pei Zhaoheng's sleeping face in a daze, and for some reason, he could see a bit of fatigue from Brother Heng's always meticulous face.

Brother Heng, he...he must be very tired.

... That's right, the first emperor passed away and the new emperor came to the throne. Even though he was already a highly respected and unyielding successor, there must still be countless trifles and countless papers to approve.

The Beirong people took this opportunity to attack suddenly again. He was fighting in the front, and Brother Heng hardly gave him any worries in the back. Whether it was ammunition, food or grass, he was given as soon as he asked for it, and he hardly encountered any resistance along the way. In his previous life, he had to rely on himself for everything under the Prince's command, which was like nothing else, allowing him to devote all his attention to the war without being distracted.

Brother Heng is just a young new monarch who has not been on the throne for a long time and his foundation is not yet stable, but he can do this. Apart from Brother Heng's talent in governing the country, he is indeed a hundred times more incompetent than a prince who has been abolished. How about lighting a lamp, boiling oil, fighting against all opinions, and painstakingly?

Even now that the war is won and he returns to the court safely, he still has to intrigue and work hard with those officials, big and small, in order to give himself and the soldiers of Chenghe a fair reward.

...How could he not be tired and tireless?

He Gu's hand trembled slightly, and when he realized it, the tip of his index finger had almost covered Pei Zhaoheng's side face that had been slightly thin in recent days——

But when he was about to touch the white skin under his finger, which was almost covered with snow on the top of Zongshan Mountain, he stopped suddenly.

Brother Heng... Brother Heng...

... In the previous life, you were also such a person... Day after day, have you traveled a long road for decades?

Aren't you... aren't you tired?

Yes, He Zihuan will be tired... He will lose interest in power, desire and status in this life, and he just wants to be a poor boy who eats soft food and waits to die, but he, Pei Zhaoheng, is also a mortal body. Longer and crueler years, wouldn't he be tired?

He Gu felt that his eye sockets were swollen, and his vision became blurred. He was stunned for a while, and then suddenly withdrew his hand from Pei Zhaoheng's cheek. He lowered his head and took a deep breath, waiting for his vision to become clear again. , then continued to lower his head to open the second page of the little book——

On the second page, it is still a small portrait, but it is not the self straddling the horse.

The young man in the painting is wearing a bright red wedding dress, with a very flamboyant Shu brocade tie flower on his chest. He is holding the rein of the horse and looking up at someone. Seeing the teeth but not seeing the eyes, a little bit of cinnabar between the eyebrows is like a red plum falling in the snow, which makes the originally silly face look a little bit glamorous, but it doesn't look feminine at all.

The other parts of this small portrait are painted very freehand, but there are only the eyebrows and eyes of the young man in the painting, but there is no place that is not careless. Even the slightly reddish complexion in the excitement can be seen, which can be called delicate. After all, it can be seen how many days and nights it took the writer to trace his eyebrows and eyes back and forth.

He Gukan's throat was a little tight, but the feeling in his heart was very strange, as if he was holding a piece of soup wrapped in a cloth bag in his bosom, it was hot and stuffy, and the heavy pressure on his heart made it impossible to ignore.

He flipped through the pages one by one, only to find that on every page of the book, without exception, there was a picture of himself standing in front of the table in the Princess Mansion's study with a very serious expression, holding a wolf cub in his hand. , is concentrating on the appearance of "Preface to the River";

There is the appearance of him standing by the lotus pond in the palace, picking up his trouser legs, pouting his buttocks and touching the lotus pod with concentration, and the appearance of him jumping on the horse for the first time after Brother Heng gave him Yunchai, beaming with joy...

And that year's New Year's Eve snowy night... He was chasing out of Beijing, and fell into the snow on the official road, crying with snot and tears...

When He Gu saw this, his embarrassing and ridiculous expression in the painting was vividly portrayed by the painter's wonderful brush.

Why...how can you even draw something like this, brother Heng is really...really...

After flipping through the pages, the last one, but he is no longer alone——

He Gu took a closer look, the angle of view of this picture... But it seems to be standing under the Xuanhua Gate in the north of the capital city and looking down. Under the city gate in the painting, it is already covered with white snow, and the thick snow covers it. The original appearance of the official road all the way to the north was left, only a vast expanse of white remained, while the people, horses and luggage gradually moved away on the snowy ground, from near to far, from living people in armor to Tiny black dots.

It was... the day he set off for Chenghe.

Holding the notebook in his hands, He Gu just stood there in a daze. It took him a long time to recover, closed the notebook, and looked up at Pei Zhaoheng who was still awake.

For a moment, thousands of thoughts came to my mind, but when the words came to my mouth, they all disappeared, and I couldn't say a word again.

------------------

When Pei Zhaoheng woke up, before he opened his eyes, he heard a familiar, regular and slow breathing sound in his ears.

His mind went blank for a while, and then he remembered that he seemed to be waiting for Zihuan to look at the drawings, leaning in the carriage with his eyes closed to rest, but accidentally fell asleep.

Last night I called someone temporarily, and went to the Ministry of Officials to find Zhao Bingzhi's old file from more than 20 years ago. I found it only after midnight. It was almost dawn, so I simply changed into the court clothes and went to Chongwen Hall without sleeping.

Probably because of this, he accidentally fell asleep for a while.

He thought about the cause and effect, was slightly startled, his eyelids twitched, and immediately opened his eyes, but happened to look into He Gu's pair of black eyes that were staring at him intently, like spots of paint.

"Zi...Zihuan...you..."

He Gu smiled brightly, handed over the teacup that he had been holding in his palm, and said, "Brother Heng is awake? Let's drink some tea to moisten your throat first."