The King of Liang, the feudal lords outside the town, and the generals inside

Listening to Yan Xun's breathing that night, Bai Yu slept very peacefully, until when the sun was high, someone knocked on the door a few times.Bai Yu turned around in a daze, and rubbed twice in the warm arms of the person beside her.

Yan Xun was also awakened by the knock on the door, he moved his body, subconsciously patted Bai Yu's back, and asked lazily, "Who is it?"

The servant outside said: "General, Madam, please go over there. Something happened at the Minister's Mansion."

Upon hearing this, Yan Xun woke up suddenly, and Bai Yu also opened his eyes, looking at him in confusion.

"The Minister's Mansion? Is it your younger brother?" Bai Yu pushed Yan Xun, "Hurry over."

Yan Xun hurriedly put on his clothes, opened the door and went out quickly, followed by Bai Yu.

Princess Chunyi was anxiously waiting in the main hall, when she saw Yan Xun coming, she wiped away her tears and said, "Xun'er, your brother is missing!"

"Mother, don't worry." Yan Xun helped Princess Chunyi to a chair and sat down, then turned to ask the messenger from the Minister's Mansion, "What's going on?"

After Yan Zun's incident, Yan Jun asked him to kneel in front of the ancestral tablets for an hour every day. These days, he didn't leave a day, so he went back on time.Yan Jun stopped this kind of punishment half a month ago, intending to expose this matter.

Yan Zun didn't need to go to the ancestral grave anymore, he just stayed in the mansion all day without going out.When he lost his official position, he lost his salary. Yan Xun ordered people to send money and things over every month, and there was no shortage of food and clothing, so no one cared about what he did every day.

Until two days ago, the servants in the Minister's Mansion suddenly couldn't find him.I thought he was going out to play or went back to the Yan Mansion to visit his parents, but two days passed and there was still no news of him.

After listening to the servant's narration, Yan Xun was furious, but he had no other choice but to arrange for someone to go out to look for it.

Bai Yu talked with Princess Chunyi for a while, and slowly calmed her down.Yan Zun is not a child, and his martial arts are also very good, so nothing will happen to him.But what made Bai Yu faintly uneasy was that he was afraid that Yan Zun would not correct himself after learning this lesson, and would do even more outrageous things.Yan Zun's nature is not bad, he was quite chivalrous and courageous when he was young, he really didn't want to see the two brothers quarrel to the point of life and death before giving up.

The gust of wind outside the window rustled the thin paper on the window, as if some ferocious beast was howling and trying to rush in.The queen held the swaddled baby in her arms and looked down condescendingly.

"After being tortured for so long, you still refuse to speak?"

Lying on the ground was Lan Yan, the empress dowager's confidant.

Since the empress dowager's collusion with King Zhaowu was revealed, in order to deter the empress dowager, the emperor had planned to execute Lan Yan and Lan Xi.Bai Yu advised him to save Lan Yan's life for the time being, and let the queen personally interrogate her.

"The servant doesn't know anything, what does the Empress want the servant to say?"

The third prince looked at her obediently and quietly in the empress's arms. His jet-black fetal hair was soft, his smooth little face was pink and white, and his eyes looked like the imperial concubine when he was a child.

Looking at the infant child, hatred and grief frantically tore and twisted in the queen's heart.

She asked again: "What exactly happened in the Compassionate Ning Palace on the day the noble concubine gave birth?!"

Lan Yan took a hard breath, "The imperial concubine gave birth, and the empress dowager summoned the imperial doctor Wen Po to deliver the birth. These empresses and empresses all know about it."

The queen was silent for a while, and gritted her teeth, "Lan Yan, I have always been lenient, in order to accumulate blessings for the children. But if you insist on forcing me to be cruel, I will do anything Come out!"

Lan Yan tightly closed her eyes and said nothing.

"Come on!" the queen yelled angrily, "Take off her clothes for this palace, and throw her into the guard's room!"

Lan Yan's eyes widened in shock, staring at the queen in disbelief.Some eunuchs had already pushed her to the ground and tore her clothes.

"Don't! Don't!" Lan Yan came back to her senses, screaming and struggling desperately, "Your Majesty, please forgive me—!"

The queen remained unmoved, covered the third prince's ears, and made a gesture to leave.

Seeing that the queen was about to leave, Lan Yan finally broke down and shouted: "Your Majesty! I said, I said—!"

The queen stopped and turned her head, "If there is a word that is not true, I will let you know how powerful it is!"

On this day, Qianzheng called Baiyu back to the palace, and asked him to accompany him to the long-established Tianshi to watch.

Tianshi Temple is located in the south of Shangjing, with two rows of weeping willows and several poles of green bamboo dotted in front of the gate.Two small sedan chairs slowly descended in front of the gate, the bearer raised the curtain of the sedan chair, and the two got off the sedan chairs respectively.

This Taoist temple has three courtyards. On the central axis are the hall of worship and the back hall, with more than ten side rooms on both sides.Cigarettes are lingering in the hall, and the sound of Guqin reverberates around the beams.

"It looks pretty good." Bai Yu looked around, "What do you think, Master?"

Chu Zheng nodded, unable to hide his delighted expression.

The furnishings in the food hall seem simple and unpretentious, but there is a hint of grandeur that has been refined to the extreme.There are portraits of Zhengzheng on the wall, and the huge shrine enshrines the three gods of Yuanshi, Lingbao, and Daode. The statues are all so huge that they can't help but feel awe.

Sitting on the futon in front of the altar was a Taoist priest in black with a pale face and a haggard figure. He was holding his breath with his eyes slightly closed.

Bai Yu didn't know about the Taoist priests in the Temple of Heavenly Masters, they were also dressed in ordinary clothes, no one knew their identities, so they didn't prepare to greet them, so they were free.The two masters and apprentices looked at the food hall, and walked around to look around.

A Taoist priest came out of a side room and said: "The girl's injury has healed up, please take care of her from now on."

The young woman behind him was carrying a green cloth bundle, her fair face was as round as a moon disk, and her eyes were also round almond eyes.

"The Taoist priest's life-saving grace will definitely be repaid in the future." The girl said.

Bai Yu glanced at it inadvertently, and her whole body was shocked.

He has seen that woman!

When he first arrived in Shangjing, he was tricked into the palace by the queen mother, and was almost dragged out and beheaded. Fortunately, he met the noble concubine outside the Palace of Compassion and Ning, and this woman was following behind her at that time!

She is the concubine's maid of honor!

And she obviously recognized Bai Yu, she stood there in a daze, and after a while, she rushed forward, plopped down on her knees, and said with tears in her eyes, "I beg Your Highness to be the master of my mother!"

That day in Fangfei Palace, Huanyan was combing the concubine's hair with rose oil, the concubine rested her chin leisurely and said, "Let's go out with me for a while, the weather is fine today."

"Yes." Huan Yan said with a smile, "I heard that there are a few new red-crowned cranes in the imperial garden, and the empress just happened to go and have a look."

Several red-crowned cranes in the imperial garden brought a pair of newly born young red-crowned cranes, with white feathers, standing gracefully and independently.He didn't panic when he saw someone, he just walked away slowly and leisurely.

"Look, ma'am, how cute those two little red-crowned cranes are!" Huan Yan said.

The noble concubine walked slowly while supporting Huanyan's hand, her growing belly made her movements quite inconvenient, and she had to rest after walking for a while.

Huanyan helped her to sit down on the big bluestone behind the rockery, and squatted down to massage the imperial concubine's swollen calf.

The imperial concubine was a little unhappy, "Ben Gong's legs and feet are swollen and ugly. Every time the emperor comes, I am worried that he will hate him."

"Your Majesty is overthinking, why would the Emperor hate it? Your Majesty worked so hard to conceive a dragon fetus for the sake of the Emperor, and it's too late for the Emperor to feel sorry for you." Huan Yan said, "My Majesty is just relieved. After the little prince is born, there will be an imperial doctor to help him take good care of him." , Empress's figure will naturally recover."

The imperial concubine thought for a while, then nodded and said: "You are right, after my sister gave birth to the prince and princess, she is still fine. Then I will not be afraid."

Just as Huan Yan was about to speak, she suddenly heard someone behind the rockery say: "Empress Dowager, be careful where you step."

The imperial concubine frowned, and didn't want to salute and say hello, so she whispered: "Shh, quietly, don't let her find out that we are here."

Huanyan said "hmm", stopped talking, and concentrated on massaging the imperial concubine.

But the queen mother said: "Hey, I'm old, it's really useless. Hey, where did the red-crowned crane come from?"

"It was sent by the emperor a few days ago. I heard that it was what King Liang wanted. Doesn't the Queen Mother like it?"

A maid said: "Ah, the Empress Dowager was pecked by a crane when she was young. Let them watch it, and don't allow those red-crowned cranes to run around!"

The queen mother smiled and said: "It's okay. It's just a few cranes. The Ai family is not afraid. It's just that the emperor was ignorant when he was young. He went to tease the crane cubs in the garden and annoyed the big crane. In order to protect him, the Ai family let the crane give it to him." pecked."

"The empress dowager has a deep affection, she really has a loving mother's heart. I think the late emperor and concubine Zhen can feel at ease under the nine springs."

As soon as these words came out, there was a terrible silence in the air.The imperial concubine didn't realize that there was anything wrong in these words for a while, but an inexplicable fear overflowed from the bottom of her heart.

The queen mother's voice carried a bone-biting chill, "What did you say?"

Huanyan Xuxu said to Bai Yu, "After that, the Queen Mother stopped talking and walked away. The servants and the empress didn't hear anything, and didn't think there was anything wrong at that time. But after returning to the palace, the empress gradually became a little bit distracted. Restless."

Bai Yu suddenly shuddered, as if someone's hand was tightly pinching his throat, and there was a terrible thought circling in his mind, which could almost force him to break out in a cold sweat in this late autumn.

The Queen's words that day echoed in Bai Yu's ears again:

"I begged the queen mother on my knees at the time, and said to her, 'The queen mother also experienced the pain of giving birth in October, how can she bear to let her sister suffer like this'. After saying this, the queen mother's face became very strange, I can't tell what's wrong, but I just feel that something has jumped in front of me at that moment, but I can't see it clearly."

Bai Yu's heart trembled suddenly, and even the tone of her voice changed, "When the emperor was alive, the queen mother had not given birth to a child for many years. It was after the mother and concubine got married that she suddenly announced that she was pregnant. Still premature, right?!"