Hypocrites

The ancient banyan tree rushed straight and went deep into the palace, startling countless attendants flying all the way. Xinzhou rushed over when he got the news, his face was full of surprise.

The leader said: "Master Yuan Cheng presented a tree to His Highness, wishing His Highness will last forever and be blessed forever."

Xinzhou was stunned for a moment: "My lord, you are welcome, where should I put this...?"

There was an open space in front of Liang Heng's bedroom, right by the lake, the convoy transported the tree there, prepared their own shovel, and dug the tree hole on the spot.

Shen Yu and Xinzhou watched the heated scene from the sidelines.

Speaking of which, Liang Heng rarely received gifts from his subordinates.Compared to Qiu Qianli, isn't it a faster shortcut to please the current prince?

"Your Highness is still snoozing?" Shen Yu asked, and the two went to the bedroom together.Xinzhou said: "I was still asleep when I left, I don't know if I'm awake now."

Stepping into the main hall, I saw several beauties on the side of the couch, their skirts were lightly untied and their shoulders were slightly exposed, and they surrounded Liang Heng like flower clusters.Liang Heng's sleepy eyes were hazy, and he was about to wake up, trapped in the beauties, with an ambiguous smile on his face.

Xinzhou: "..."

Shen Yu: "..."

"Your Highness, let this concubine serve you." Mei Ji untied Liang Heng's belt, and slender fingers pierced his chest.

"Is this a morning sideshow?" Shen Yu asked patiently.

Xinzhou clasped his hands together: "These are some maidservants sent by Niu Yuan! I haven't had time to make arrangements, why did I climb up on the couch by myself?"

"Oh!" The beauties are delicate spring flowers, who were killed by the angry Shen Yu like an autumn wind, and picked up the dizzy Liang Heng to shake up his spirits.

Liang Heng finally woke up and yawned.

"Brother Yu, good morning—oh? Where are the sisters from?"

Shen Yu's anger was turned into rain before he vented it, and he blushed immediately - his classmates called him Brother Yu, mostly as a nickname for jokes, but Liang Heng pronounced his words rigidly, as if he was called brother.

"It was sent by Niuyuan this morning," Xinzhou explained without losing the opportunity, "Master Niu said that at the last spring banquet, His Highness liked a few beautiful maidservants very much. At that time, he didn't entertain well and forgot about it. Get up, hurry up and send an apology to His Highness, and serve you happily."

Liang Heng recognized two of the faces, but they were not the maids who accompanied the wine at that time, because Liang Heng was able to avoid the punishment of killing with a single sentence.

The woman said: "Your Highness bestowed my sister with the grace of immortality and survival. We will be reborn together. From now on, we will be His Highness's people in life, and His Highness's ghost in death. You can do anything His Highness wants to us!"

She said resolutely, and shed tears again, still the same as when she was submissive in Niuyuan.

Liang Heng was dumbfounded, and said in a daze, "I... didn't want to do anything? I don't like you either? What's going on with Niu Lu? Is he unable to support himself? Send it to me?"

After going out of the gate, Liang Heng was even more stupid. Seeing that his beautiful courtyard had been dug upside down, and a huge ancient banyan tree was standing across the gate, His Highness wanted to walk sideways.

"Tree... I remember the tree," Liang Heng said with a guilty conscience, "It seems that I asked for it from Qiu Qianli. Ah haha, did you really give it to me? What happened to the two of them today, one gave a woman and the other a tree? "

His Highness is His Highness, even if Niu Lu's dog is killed, Niu Lu will have to make a smile, so that he can raise more dogs in the future.

As for Qiu Qianli, it is not known whether he has discovered the missing handwriting.Compared with Niu Lu, Qiu Qianli can only be more tyrannical and heartless, and his mind is deeper. When dealing with him, he must be cautious and thoroughly eradicated.

However, at present they only have the bribery relationship between Qiu Qianli and Ruyang County Sheriff, and the more important figures hidden in the dark have not yet surfaced.

To Shen Yu, whether it is Niu Lu's dog or Qiu Qianli's slaughterhouse, it is just a black spot attached to the gorgeous surface of Wangdu City. When one digs it open, there is a deeper decay and darkness inside.Once these shady things appear in front of everyone one day, they have reached the point where medicine and stone are useless.

The sick and weak emperor struggling in the deep palace, his meager light of life is dying, and what is left to his youngest son, who is not yet as weak as the crown, are three wolves, tigers and leopards who will choose fat and devour them.

There is the South Army inside, and the Shixing Army outside.And the only one who can support Liang Heng is his uncle, the prime minister who was born as a literati.

The power ministers rose again and again. Emperor Wenshen chose to appoint eunuchs to fight against the Han clan who threatened him, and destroyed the northern army controlled by Han Wei and Han Ying. The eunuchs controlled the southern army. Since then, new threats have emerged.

When Liang Weizi faced Han Wei alone and decided to risk everything to regain power, he might not have imagined that he would leave the same situation to his only son.

Shen Yu sometimes guessed that maybe the purpose of the emperor summoning the four masters of the world for the crown prince was for this reason.He hoped to gather as much strength as possible for the prince at the last moment of his life.Civil servants are weak, but they also have a backbone. They will devote themselves to being the rails that maintain the dynasty and buy time for the young king who has not had time to grow up.

That being the case, then let Niu Lu and Qiu Qianli become a letter of honor for him to stay with Liang Heng.

Liang Heng sat in front of the court and supervised the work, seeing his small yard being disfigured beyond recognition, he was very heartbroken.

"This tree can't do it! It can't be moved!"

The workers wanted to shovel away an existing tree in the courtyard and move the place for the ancient banyan tree, but Liang Heng stopped them.

"This tree is as old as I am," Liang Heng told Shen Yu, "I heard from Xinzhou that it was planted by the court lady sent to take care of me when I was born."

He suddenly mentioned the maids, reminding Shen Yu that Cui Ji had entrusted him to help find the maids serving in the palace, but Shen Yu had never seen a woman in the palace for so long.If you don't count the beautiful girl sent by Niu Lu this morning.

"Has there ever been a maid in the palace?"

Liang Heng shook his head: "I haven't since I can remember. Very early on, my empress sent her personal maids to take care of me, and they were all released from the palace not long afterward."

That's a pity.It seems that it is a long way for Cui Ji to find his brother and sister-in-law.

"You can ask Xinzhou," Liang Heng said again, "he was already eleven or twelve years old when he came to me, so maybe he remembers what happened at that time."

And Xinzhou is not in the Chu Palace right now, asked about his subordinate Huangmen, and said that once a month, he usually takes half a day off to go home and visit his parents.For some reason, Shen Yu remembered the last time he met Qiu Zhiyuan outside Qiu Zhiyuan's residence.

Leaving the Chu Palace, walking up the Chi Road, passing through Xiluli, Shen Yu looked at the gate of General Qi Lang's mansion with hesitation.

The gate was open facing the street, guarded by four guards.Just as Shen Yu was passing by, Xinzhou came out of Qiu Mansion with his head down, and the two bumped into each other.

After a moment of relative silence, Xinzhou first showed his usual gentle and polite smile, but with some reluctance: "Master Counselor, are you leaving early today?"

Shen Yuyuan wanted to pretend that nothing happened, but when the words came to his lips, he suddenly changed his mind: "If I don't leave early, I won't meet you."

Xinzhou's face collapsed.

"I saw it last time too," Shen Yu said, "You take half a day off every month just to listen to Qiu Gong's orders? Does Your Highness know? He keeps you by his side all day, but you turn to Qiu Zhiyuan to please him?"

"This is not a place for talking," Shinshu said, "Come with me."

He led the way, and took Shen Yu all the way to the dark street, passed through the dirty shops, and came to a family.

Low walls, narrow doors, thatched roofs.

Xinzhou pushed open the fence gate, showed it to Shen Yu, and said in a sad tone: "I asked for leave to go home and visit my parents. This is my home."

His parents were old, wearing tattered and mended clothes, sitting on the threshold, hunched over weaving rattan baskets, and when they saw their son bringing guests home, they poured water and wiped the kang head clean.

Shen Yu still remembered Xinzhou's vigilant and disgusted look when he heard that Liang Heng had gone to Dongluli, and mentioned that the lowly people lived there mixed together.Never thought that Xinzhou's own home is in Donglu.However, this is reasonable, no matter how high the position Xinzhou holds beside Liang Heng, he can only have one slave.

"Master Counselor," Xinzhou knelt down opposite Shen Yu, and said, "Do you know how many kinds of people there are in this world?"

At this time, the delicate eyebrows of the young man in front of him became mature and steady.

Shen Yudao: "Please tell me."

Xinzhou smiled: "In this world, there are men and women..."

He looked through the door and saw his parents sitting on the ground weaving rattan baskets for sale, making sure that the distance would not let them hear his voice——

"And eunuchs."

"I am a round older than Your Highness. At the twelfth year of the year, today I searched for handsome men from all over the world, and brought them into the palace as a gift for a person. I think you already know this person. These young men are all only Eleven or twelve years old is the best age to purify, there is me, and there is Qiu Qianli."

When Xinzhou said this, Shen Yu was taken aback. He didn't expect him to have such a connection with Qiu Qianli.It's just that later one became a glamorous court official, and the other became a despised eunuch.

"At that time, Qiu Gong had already held the Southern Army in his hands and became one of the actual managers of Wangdu City. His Majesty's move was not only to cater to his preferences, but also to send his own eyeliner by his side. Such thoughts, Qiu Gong naturally However, it’s just that he doesn’t care. What was given to him is a plaything, not a person. A small plaything can’t be found in the palm of his hand, so what secrets can he find out? Qiu Gong prefers boys with beautiful looks. Qianli can please him the most. In order to survive, and to live decently, Qiu Qianli can bear anything. As for us clumsy people, he will be sent to the royal palace that just has a little master. , all sent to the little prince, and they will be useless.

His Highness was still in his infancy, and the people who took care of him at first were the people around the Queen.Qiu Gong sent us to replace all of them, so that from the emperor to the prince, his subordinates are all around him.Counselor Shen, maybe you can't understand. For people like us, men and women are different from us. Even though His Majesty summoned us, after we become eunuchs, we have only one leader. That is Qiu Gong, who is also an eunuch.

Qiu Gong often told us that the imperial power is the only protection, and in order to obtain this protection, eunuchs must become the closest people to His Highness.And stupidity is the key to influence a person, so it is best for Your Highness to read less, not to read, it is better to indulge in gentleness, play with things every day and lose one's mind..."

Shen Yu was not surprised, rather, he had noticed the unusual atmosphere there as early as the first day he stepped into the Chu Palace.Cui Xian, Ma He, Xie Lan, these well-known scholars in the world, ran away in anger one after another, refusing to teach Liang Heng, and they were also behind the scenes of the palace's eunuchs.

Xinzhou smiled miserably: "But your highness is pure and gentle, and you can't teach a gentle person badly. He has a natural compassion, even when facing the yellow door attendant who made mistakes and violated the rules, he never beat, scolded and reprimanded him, and he was always kind. Kind words and approachable. Your Highness treats me... like a real brother...I can't betray His Highness. Qiu Gong wants to get information about His Highness's actions, without me, there are others who are willing to be his subordinates, who doesn't want to follow Qiu Gong?"

"So you became this person?" Shen Yu said, "In order to protect the crown prince in front of Qiu Zhiyuan? What kind of person did you make His Highness into in front of him again?"

Xinzhou's tone was erratic, and his expression couldn't bear it: "Naturally, he has no ambitions and short-sightedness. Only such people can make Qiu Gong feel at ease."

Shen Yu's heart seemed to be pinched by invisible hands, and there was a burst of unbearable heartache. Anger and sourness surged up, almost gushing out of his throat.

Your Highness...Liang Heng...

Liang Heng's serious profile while reciting the book, and his focused expression when copying his words, all appeared before his eyes one by one.Such a person is unaware that he is bearing such a notorious reputation.

"Why did you tell me this?" Shen Yu suppressed his cold anger and questioned Xinzhou.

Xinzhou said: "Because you bumped into my secret, and I don't want you to tell His Highness. It's useless to tell him, I don't want to make him sad."

Shen Yu sneered: "You have confidence in me, why should I believe your words?"

"You have only two choices," Xinzhou said calmly, "Trust me, let the illusion continue. Report on me, change to another person, and tell Qiu Gong the whole truth about His Highness's hard work, and the fact that he has a trusted confidant around him. "