Jiang Qing

The missions of Jiang and Liang stayed in Pingdu for about ten days and then left. After that dinner, Li An and Zhao Yuansheng never saw each other again.

There have been many local changes this year. The two fiefdoms of Jinxi and Nanyang have been restored to ordinary state capitals. In order to avoid suspicion, the prefects of these six prefectures have to be re-appointed. The list is going to be presented to Zhao Zhen after a year for the final decision.

Halfway through the planning, Bai Bingchen looked at the proposed list of the three states in Nanyang, slightly startled.

Originally, he wanted to leave this position to Xie Huaide.

With the merits of the Nanyang Rebellion and the recommendation of Bai Bingchen, Xie Huaide can be a governor of the state.After a few years of local experience and good performance, he can be transferred to Pingdu.

He is young but does not follow the trend, and has the ambition to serve the country. Given time, he will definitely become a minister of the Li country.

After the major event is over and the court is settled, Zhao Zhen will definitely need more pure ministers to govern the country. At that time, Xie Huaide is the most suitable candidate.

It's just a pity...

Bai Bingchen sighed lightly, with a layer of sadness in his eyes.

He had been in a high position for many years and had promoted many officials, many of whom Bai Bingchen favored and wanted to focus on training. Unfortunately, in the endless struggle, they fell one by one halfway, but he, a sick man, survived.In other words, it was their lives that protected him and carried him to sit firmly in this high position, just like Guo Zhengyang and Xie Huaide.

Mei Shao has also been busy mobilizing Pingdu Nianxia's defense for the past two days. It was still dark yet, but she came back in a hurry.

He moved quickly, but slowed down the moment he stepped into the door of Bai Bingchen's study, and touched a bulge in his arms.

Bai Bingchen looked up at him, took the tea he handed over naturally, and moistened his throat.

Mei Shao turned behind him and pressed his temples for him. Bai Bingchen turned sideways, leaned on him, hugged his waist, and closed his eyes.

"Tired?" Mei Shao couldn't help but said, "What are you doing so hard, it doesn't matter if you present it to His Majesty a day later."

"It's almost New Year's Eve. I want to hand it in before the end of the year, so as not to have a bad year." Bai Bingchen yawned, and asked in a low voice, "Is there any news from Zhang Jiudai?"

"No, people left at the end of autumn, and the place of exile is far away. The weather has always been bad, so it would be nice to arrive next year." Mei Shao touched the clothes he was wearing, which were moderately thick, and asked: "If you are sleepy, go first." Go to the small couch to rest for a while? Is there still some time before dinner?"

Bai Bingchen moved a bit, and complained unconsciously: "Sitting for a long time, my legs are numb, and I can't move. Let's take a rest like this."

Mei Shao squeezed his leg twice, and Bai Bingchen felt a slight pain in his numb leg, as if there were small sharp thorns, and he couldn't help snorting.

The next moment, he felt in a daze that he was weightless, and when he opened his eyes, he realized that he was being hugged by Mei Shao.

Bai Bingchen wrapped his arms around his neck habitually, found a stable place to rest his head, and let Mei Shao carry him to the small couch without moving, and then the two of them crowded together on the small couch.

Bai Bingchen closed his eyes, rubbed against his chest, and frowned slightly.

"The situation is fairly stable now, so it's okay for you to take a break." Mei Shao ran his hair and analyzed: "Jiang Guo is too busy to take care of himself now, so he doesn't want to join hands with Liang Guo. Now the army is considered smooth, and after two years Three years later, His Majesty has more than one army in his hands, the Shenyang Army."

Bai Bingchen was still in a daze at first, but after hearing what he said, he opened his eyes instead, and asked, "Do you know anything about the third prince of Jiang Guo being hit to death by a deer?"

He paused and asked, "Is it related to Li An?"

"Do you still remember the Li Xunshu who wanted to trade the mine with you when you were in Yanzhou? Li An is currently teaming up with him, cheating on the third prince's hunting horse, and blaming the eldest prince Li Xunshi. But I think Li An's attitude is not that he really wants to help him ascend to the throne of God. The two of them have their own grievances against each other, but it is just a temporary cooperation. The information provided by Li Xunshu, Li An's hand, Jiang Wang may have noticed something, and he did not What evidence, in order to stabilize the court, Li An was sent as an envoy, and he did not want him to be involved in the torrent of his son's seizure of the throne."

Bai Bingchen nodded and asked, "Have you been in touch with Li An?"

"No." Mei Shao sighed, "He is in a difficult situation in Jiang Country, and he is still not completely sure that he can hide the correspondence. Therefore, we have made an agreement that he will write to me on his own initiative if there is any situation. This It happened to happen that he was going to be an envoy to the Li country this time, so I didn't know how he was in the Jiang country this year."

"One-way connection..." Bai Bingchen murmured, "The risk is a bit high."

Mei Shao tapped him a chestnut lightly, Bai Bingchen covered his head in pain and looked up at him, "Why?"

"No more headache?" Mei Shao looked at him with a half-smile, "I can take care of Li An's affairs. I can tell you what you want to know, but don't worry about it over and over again. The same is true of your own political affairs. Don’t tell me that all the officials under your command have nothing to do? They need you to master everything? Take the selection of the magistrates of Nanyang and Pingdong as an example. The old man, he can't do this idea well, and you need to worry about it?"

"Teacher, he is not young, he has no son under his knees, and he is busy at the end of the year. I am not... um..." Bai Bingchen was touched by Mei Shao's finger, sealed what he wanted to say, and looked at Mei in doubt. Shao.

"He doesn't have a son, but he has a daughter who almost became your wife. You are not regretting it, and rushed to court your ex-father-in-law, right?" Mei Shao lowered her head and said in a low voice: "I heard that The little lady of the Cao family is a well-known Xiaojiabiyu..."

Mei Shao's finger went all the way down, tapped on Bai Bingchen's heart, drew a circle and said aggrievedly: "You have something to do Zhong Wuyan, nothing to do Xia Yingchun, after you use me to calm down Nanyang, you are going to get rid of my poor wife gone?"

Bai Bingchen tapped his lips and said with a broken smile, "If you were Zhong Wuyan, what would King Qi Xuan want from Xia Yingchun?"

Mei Shao's eyes flickered, she gently bit his fingertips, rubbed them together, lowered her eyes, and said deliberately: "Then if your lord marries a wife, can I still come to your lord's house? If she drives me away When I leave the house, can I hide behind your lord? If your lord sleeps peacefully, I will hide under your lord's bed. If your lord writes, I will hide under your lord's table. My lord..."

"Don't hide." Bai Bingchen tapped the corner of his lips, "I have misbehavior, doting on my concubine and destroying my wife, I'm blinded by sex, I just want to always..."

Bai Bingchen watched him close his eyes, moved his brows slightly, kissed the corner of his lips lightly, and slipped his hand along the hem of his shirt.

"Ah!" Mei Shao reacted and was about to reach out to stop him, but Bai Bingchen came out with a dozen letters.

"Is this why you said you wouldn't hide it from me?" Bai Bingchen nodded his nose, "You're dishonest."

"I just didn't think about how to tell you." Mei Shao whispered, "How did you find out?"

Bai Bingchen leaned against his chest again, and tapped it with the back of his head, "It's so thick that it's hidden in front of his chest. It's bulging. I'll know it when I lean on it."

"Also." Bai Bingchen rubbed his clothes with his neck, "You usually wash up when you come here, but today you don't smell like saponin. You must have something urgent to come to me, but I don't know why you didn't say anything. .”

"You're despising me!" Mei Shao crouched down and tightly covered Bai Bingchen on his clothes, "Huh? You despise me?"

Bai Bingchen was tightly covered by his hood, and he struggled to poke his head out to block Mei Shao's head that was always on his neck.

Mei Shao grabbed his wrist and pressed it on the couch, leaning over Bai Bingchen's body and arching wildly for a while, "Didn't Yanfang wash up, why does his body smell so good?"

Bai Bingchen's face was burned by his rascally behavior, and he pretended to be angry in a low voice: "What are you talking about?"

Mei Shao buried in his neck and let out a long sigh, "If only you smelled exactly like me."

Mei Shao sighed and secretly wanted to take out the type letter in Bai Bingchen's hand, but Bai Bingchen didn't fight with him, he let go and looked at him with a smile.

Seeing his expression, Mei Shao silently stuffed the letter back in her hand, and muttered, "Aren't I afraid that you will spend more time thinking about it and feel uncomfortable?"

Bai Bingchen raised his eyebrows, opened a letter and read it halfway, then stood there in a daze, and asked, "Where did you come from?"

"Isn't this the day when officials from all over the world send their performance reports? Sun Zhe sent them along the way, saying that they were the relics of the Marquis of Jinxi found in the public house in Shencheng." Mei Shao glanced at Bai Bingchen's face, "Marquis of Jinxi He is an orphan, so it is not a problem for his relics to remain in my hands, I thought about sending them to the eldest princess's mansion, but I am not sure about the eldest princess's attitude."

Bai Bingchen folded the letter, stuffed it back again, pressed it flat, sighed and said, "It's not up to us to decide what attitude the eldest princess will have, but these letters are for her, let her deal with them. Although Jinxi Hou has passed away, but the love for her is still alive."

-

Early in the morning of the winter solstice, the frame of the princess's mansion went to Famen Temple.

The abbot of Famen Temple cleared away the pilgrims early, waiting for Zhao Jinghe to offer incense and pray for blessings.

After Mei Shao brought Ling Che's body back to Pingdu, he was buried near Famen Temple according to Zhao Jinghe's wishes.Today is the winter solstice. After Zhao Jinghe got up early to go to Famen Temple to offer incense, he would go to Cangshan Mountain to see his brother in the afternoon.

The sound of the bell broke through layers of green waves, Zhao Jinghe put a stick of incense on the aftertaste of the bell, and knelt in the hall alone.

It wasn't until noon that Zhao Jinghe walked out of the Buddhist hall, and the servant girl immediately went up to support her. According to the usual practice, she went to the back of the hall to have a vegetarian meal, rest for a while, and then Zhao Jinghe went to Cangshan Mountain.

Turning around a small door of the Buddhist hall, Zhao Jinghe saw more than a dozen monks chanting sutras in the sutra hall. He stopped to listen for a while, and suddenly saw a figure with a slender figure indistinctly in the place where the sutra flags were hung in the sutra hall. It's gone in a flash.

Zhao Jinghe broke into the sutra hall in two or three steps, raised the sutra flag, but there was no one behind, she almost thought that she had been mistaken just now.

The little monk who led the way followed her into the Buddhist hall, joined hands and said, "Is the benefactor looking for something?"

Zhao Jinghe came back to his senses, collected his expression, and went out with the little monk, "It's nothing."

She seemed to inadvertently ask: "Master, are all the pure cultivators here men? Are there any female cultivators?"

The little novice replied: "The whole gate of Famen Temple is full of men, and Shi mainly looks for female cultivators, and the nearest one is Jizhao Nunnery."

Zhao Jinghe smiled and said, "Thank you, Master, for your answer."

When they reached the clean room, the novice monks went to the vegetarian room and retreated quietly. Zhao Jinghe ate half a bowl of rice porridge and picked up some side dishes. Then he stopped his chopsticks and asked the maid beside him, "Do you remember Cao's congee?" Is it my little lady?"

The servant girl thought about it carefully, and replied: "Your maidservant remembers. The young lady of the Cao family was originally engaged to Lord Bai, and she was the one who told the princess about the whereabouts of Miss Lu in the case of the dark marriage, and then she heard about it. After being frightened, my body became weak all of a sudden, and my spirit was not very good, so the Cao and Bai families could only settle their marriage, Master Cao sent the young lady of the Cao family to Qingxiu."

"Then do you still remember which nunnery she was sent to clean up?"

"Princess, you asked your servant to deliver some things to Miss Cao at first, but the servant went to Cao's mansion to ask, and said that it was sent to a Zhuangzi in another place of Cao's family."

Zhao Jinghe lowered his eyes and thought about it. The servant girl took a look at her face and asked, "Does the princess want to check on the young lady of the Cao family?"

Zhao Jinghe shook his head, his eyes were still thinking, and he sighed softly, "Maybe I was dazzled and misread."

After being distracted for a while, Zhao Jinghe lost his mind. After going to Cangshan Mountain in the afternoon to offer incense candles, he went back to the mansion early to rest.

The maid staying at the mansion said that Mei Shao sent some old things of Ling Che in Shencheng, so Zhao Jinghe told them to put them on the table, went to relax, turned around, and stayed alone in the room for a while.

Begging Zhao Zhen to save Ling Che was the moment when she lost her composure, and then waited for the news that Ling Che had died in battle in Shencheng, and Mei Shao brought back Ling Che's body, but Zhao Jinghe didn't have any major emotional changes , Zhao Zhen found several reasons for her to enter the palace to relax, but he didn't feel that there was anything wrong with her.

The phrase "Emperor brother" in front of the hall that day seemed to be an illusion.

Zhao Jinghe was silent for a long time, but finally reached out to the wooden box on the table and opened it while sitting on the bed.

There were about a dozen letters neatly stacked in the wooden box, from top to bottom, mixed with old and new, and some of the edges were frayed, and the color was quite dull.

Different envelopes were stamped in different places. Zhao Jinghe took a cursory glance and found that most of them were from Shanxi. There were also a few from Pingdu, and the top one was from Pingdong.

Zhao Jinghe took the top one, opened it, and read it. It wrote some of Ling Che's experience in Pingdong. His writing style is simple, and most of them are just straightforward descriptions of the local customs, some delicious and fun places. , It didn't look like something Ling Che could do with his usual temperament.

Zhao Jinghe even tore open a few letters like this, the contents inside were all the same, some even just talked about the local seasons.According to what Mei Shao sent someone to say, these were Ling Che's relics left in Shencheng, but why did Ling Che carry them with him like a treasure with just a few plain and self-talking letters?

Looking at the bed of letter paper, Zhao Jinghe felt that he was a little dazed, trying to figure out what he meant here.

Zhao Jinghe was also tired after a day of bumping on the road today, so he casually gathered up the bunch of letters and stuffed them under his pillow. Halfway through the stuffing, he suddenly found that the first letter was double-sided, and the back was carefully written with various words. Ingredients, water, and cooking method of tea.

More than half of the tea recipes on it were drunk by Zhao Jinghe every morning, and even praised by the maids. Did he make all these?

Zhao Jinghe pursed his lips slightly, and turned over the rest of the letters one by one. Deep and light strokes of pen and ink fell on the dark side of the letter paper, and a few strokes were vividly written on the paper——Wish the Eldest Princess Wanan.

There is such a sentence written on the back of every piece of letter paper, and all the murmurs to myself turned into distant messages, words that cannot be said, and letters that cannot be delivered.

Only the latest one had the courage to write her name on the back.When he only got some light from Zhao Jinghe before he led his troops to Pingdong, he finally acted presumptuously and put on paper a name that he didn't dare to say. The incense candles are all ready, and there are some playthings, I don't know if they suit the princess's wishes.The spring is warm, Pingdong is not as rainy as Sichuan, and the light rain in Qingming is not bleak, Ling Che wishes from a distance, Jinghe Chang'an.

Among all the letters, only this one is like this, because only at this time, Zhao Jinghe responded to him a little bit.

But they stopped at this point to respond, and everything stopped at the moment of Ling Che's death.In this life, they can't take another step forward, even if there is only one step between them.

Zhao Jinghe accepted the letter silently, without any expression on her face, she fell asleep on the letter without dreaming.

When the night was dark, she woke up naturally.

The lights were not lit in the house, and Zhao Jinghe didn't call for anyone, he fumbled and poured himself a cup of tea.

It's already yesterday's old tea, it's slightly bitter and cold, and it sticks in the chest, and it doesn't even have any vitality.

In the dark night, a tear silently rolled down Zhao Jinghe's face.

The tea in the cup is cold, not the green lotus he made.

There will never be new tea styles again.

There is no rain tonight, but the wind is whimpering and cold.