Hello Chang’an

Ayun approached the old man, keeping three steps away.

The white-haired old man smiled and praised her: "You are very smart."

"I'm not very smart." Ayun's little face was full of seriousness: "I'm only a little smart. My mother, father, and gentlemen taught me well, and I learned very well."

The admiration in the old man's eyes grew stronger, but he slowly asked: "Can you call me my aunt?"

Ah Yun was puzzled: "The emperor is my mother-in-law, why can't I call him?"

There is infinite intimacy and trust hidden in children's legitimate questions.

The old man didn't answer this rhetorical question. She looked at the girl in front of her carefully, especially her young eyebrows, and couldn't help but said: "You are very similar to her, just like she was when she was a child."

"Of course, my grandma always said the same thing." Ayun was a little proud, but suddenly something came to his mind: "How do you know what my grandma looked like when she was a child? Have you seen my grandma too?"

The old man nodded lightly without explaining in detail.

Ayun has figured it out on his own: "That's right, my mother-in-law is the emperor. Since you live together in this imperial city, I must have met you."

As soon as Ayun finished speaking, she suddenly couldn't help but leaned forward slightly and looked at the dragon staff held in the old man's hand. The little girl carefully counted the number of dragon claws carved on it, and couldn't help but feel surprised - this kind of dragon was clearly hers. Only A Niang, the emperor, can use it.

Ayun couldn't help but look at the person in the bamboo chair with curious eyes: "...Are you also the emperor?"

The old man's voice was very soft: "It used to be."

Ayun blinked: "So, your surname is also Li? Are we a family?"

"We are a family." The old man said, "But my surname is not Li."

Ayun said "Ah": "Then why did you become the emperor?"

"This is a long story..." the old man asked the girl: "Do you want to hear it?"

Ayun thought for a while and nodded honestly.

The old man asked Gong'e to bring a chair to Ayun.

Among the palace people who came to look for the concubine, a chamberlain walked over quickly. After saluting the old man, he respectfully said to the concubine: "Your Highness, please go back with me. Sir, I'm afraid you will be impatient..."

"Then you go back and tell your husband so that he doesn't have to wait any longer." Ayun sat down on the high chair. His feet could not touch the ground, but he spoke very simply and neatly: "I don't want to hear it today. History, I want to hear stories.”

The chamberlain knew the princess's temperament and did not dare to persuade her. He said "yes" and withdrew. He asked two chamberlains to guard the palace gate and asked the two palace ladies to go back and deliver the message.

The palace ladies who conveyed the message left in two groups, while the guarding servants lowered their heads attentively, not daring to be careless.

Over the years, the people living in this palace have never appeared in front of others, and they have never set foot here. Over time, this palace and its owner have become a kind of taboo. Without an edict, No one dared to mention getting close.

At this time, the former emperor was slowly telling an ancient story to the next emperor in an ancient voice.

This story begins with the family of a small official in Luoyang.

This family's surname was Ming. One day, in the inner house of the Ming family, there was a loud cry of a baby being born.

A young Taoist priest passed by and knocked on the door, claiming that the house was surrounded by auspicious aura.

Nowadays, the world values ​​Taoism, but although this Taoist is young, his tall and thin figure has an inexplicable air of immortality surrounding him. The disciples do not dare to neglect, so they ask the master of the house for instructions, and invite the people in with great courtesy.

After the Taoist saw the newly born baby, his expression gradually changed. He no longer had the youthful calmness at the beginning. He actually expressed happiness to the owner of the family and asked why he was so happy. The Taoist said "I am very happy" and said: This girl has Imperial appearance.

These words could not surprise the Ming family, only frighten them - the Li family was so stable, and if these words were spread, it would cause disaster.

Ming's father immediately darkened his face and scolded the man for talking nonsense and cheating. He immediately drove him out and ordered his family not to mention the matter.

Ming's father, who was busy with official duties, quickly forgot about the matter, but his wife, the mother of the baby, kept it firmly in mind.

That is a mother who is different from ordinary people.

This mother believed in Taoism and practiced Taoism. She wanted to leave home several times to practice Buddhism, but her husband tried his best to stop her.

She didn't want to be trapped in the back house and keep giving birth to children. Her ambitions were contrary to her real life, which made her extremely painful.

After giving birth to her second daughter, less than two years later, she was forced to give birth to a third child. She finally went a little crazy. She practiced cultivation in the back house, wore Taoist robes, and even made elixirs.

One day, before her cultivation was complete, she went crazy. She stared at her little daughter's face and touched her bones. Suddenly her expression changed drastically and she yelled that her little daughter was indeed a disaster.

From then on, she would often take her little daughter and kneel down in front of the statue of Tianzun to reflect and swear not to harm the world, or she would repeatedly hit her little daughter with a fly whisk in her hand, claiming that she would eliminate her daughter's sins.

The girl grew up slowly like this, from being frightened and crying at first to being calm and tolerant later.

The girl's father was transferred to work in another place and could not come back for more than a few days a year.

The girls' elder sister was afraid of their mother, and although she couldn't bear it, there was little she could do to help.

One day, this elder sister held her sister in distress and cried. Then she revealed to her sister the reason why her mother did this. She only said that it might have something to do with the Taoist who came to visit her back then - she told her about the Taoist's prophecy about the appearance of an emperor.

At that time, the girl only thought it was ridiculous. Did her mother regard her as a disaster star and evil spirit just for such an unsubstantiated statement?

Her mother became increasingly crazy as she practiced hard but made no progress.

One day, her mother pressed her head into a water tank, gritted her teeth and said that she was a bad luck star and asked her to wash away her sins.

But she was about to suffocate, and her mother seemed to have forgotten that she was fourteen years old.

The fourteen-year-old girl struggled to raise her head and pushed her skinny mother away.

The girl's head was covered with water, and the water droplets dripped down, soaking the green bricks under her feet.

And her mother fell down, her head covered with blood, blood beads rolling down, dyeing the stone steps in front of the door red.

Even so, the mother struggled to stand up and still wanted to hit her.

As her mother stood up and fell down again, she watched quietly without any panic or guilt.

What is maternal love? She had never experienced it in a single day.

And if there really is so-called cause and effect in this world, then since her mother planted the cause in her body, she should swallow the bitter fruit.

She calmly lifted her feet and left, leaving the servants to help her mother in a panic.

Her father, who had always been absent, finally came back, slapped her and banned her. Although the father is always absent, it does not affect the implementation of paternal authority at all.

My sister came to see her and cried, saying that she was their mother after all.

She asked her sister, had she ever experienced the feeling of being strangled by someone's neck or drowning in water?

My sister was silent, so I had to ask her again what she needed her to do.

Naturally, she would not make unrealistic demands to embarrass her cowardly sister. She only said that she wanted to read and practice calligraphy. So my sister brought her a lot of paper, ink, and books, and asked her to copy them carefully.

Those books were either Buddhist scriptures, telling her to let go of love, hate, anger, and delusion and all her delusional thoughts;

Either she is a female admonisher who teaches her that she must be a virtuous woman who follows the rules and obeys her own rules.

She looked around and felt that it was all a conspiracy. All the Taoist theories are shameless whitewashing.

But she didn't have the ability to contend with this conspiracy.

Looking at the locked door, she suddenly thought of the Taoist's prophecy, and for a moment she hoped it was true, even if it sounded ridiculous, and she didn't even know what the imperial city looked like.

She was fourteen years old that year, and through the closed doors and windows, she clumsily imagined what the imperial city should look like.

Soon, she was finally let out because her mother died.

He died of inadvertent treatment. To be precise, my mother refused to take the medicine prescribed by the doctor and drank the talisman water and took the elixir, so she died.

She knelt in the mourning hall, feeling that her mother had died at her own fault.

At that time, she could never have imagined that just two years later, she would actually arrive in front of the imperial city she had imagined.

After being selected by the imperial court, she was sent to Beijing by her father who had no chance of promotion.

Before entering Beijing, she reached out to her father and asked for some money, saying bluntly that she needed to take care of herself.

The father looked at her for a moment and asked someone to fetch it.

Being chosen to stay was expected, but this was just the beginning. Even if she didn't believe the prophecy, she would never be willing to stop at the position of a small talent.

Her background is too ordinary, and she does not have the stunning beauty that can outshine others, but she feels that the latter is a good thing.

She restrained all her cold and hard edges and was willing to be a green leaf for others. She behaved as if she had read the commandments of a woman well, neither fighting nor grabbing. Even when she knelt down to salute and was stepped on by the concubines with embroidered shoes as a warning, she still He just lowered his head, looking as if he thought he was humble enough to be in the dust, and there was really no threat at all.

Someone was killed, someone died by killing someone else, and she was still here.

She has also killed people, borrowed a knife to kill someone, and the person died with the knife without knowing it was her fault.

Yes, she has been killing people a long time ago. She is not a good person, and she has never wanted to be a good person. She wants to be a living person, a living person with dignity.

She has been waiting for an opportunity.

Empress Changsun, who had another miscarriage, was devastated. The opportunity she had been waiting for came.

One day it rained heavily, and she, who rarely went out on her own initiative, came to the Queen's Palace and sent handwritten scriptures to pray for the Queen.

"It just so happened" that the emperor was also there.

She knew that the young emperor was obsessed with calligraphy and painting.

The emperor saw the handwriting that copied the scriptures at a glance.

Her calligraphy is extremely good, which is the result of copying scriptures since she was a child.

The emperor noticed her for the first time and asked her name.

She answered her name - Mingzhe.

The emperor added to his interest, and the cover letter was rarely used for women.

She said: My father said that if the word is too bright, it should be blocked.

The emperor sent her to bed that night, and when he was **** her, he said with a smile that he wanted to see what kind of treasure she was hiding.

She seemed flattered, but actually she was sneering inwardly.

The so-called deep love between the young couple and the queen is nothing more than that.

The so-called emperor is nothing more than that.

Every time she went to bed was no accident, and it was even more natural that she was pregnant.

After she became pregnant, she avoided all open and covert attacks and took the initiative to fall under the wing of a childless noble concubine. She avoided all man-made disasters, but who could have imagined that God's will would be against her.

On the day she gave birth, the sky was strange, with thunder and thunder but no rain.

It coincided with a severe drought in Shu. Under the provocation of some concubines with ulterior motives, ominous rumors spread to the government and the public.

The emperor had a headache at that time and did not even look at her children. After that, he was neglected and forgotten for a long time.

She became a wise concubine in a miserable situation. As for how to be a good mother outside of this status, she did not know and was not interested, and her mother never taught her.

She loves Axiao more because Axiao is a boy and he hopes to be her helper.

But God still refused to be on her side, and even seemed to be determined to go against her. Ah Xiao was born weak, and no matter how much care and attention was given to him, he still did not get better. On the contrary, Ah Shang was stronger and smarter than ordinary people... She sometimes thought, If there really is God's will in this world, then this God's will really deserves to die.

In order to leave that remote ghost place, she tried all the methods, begging others and herself, but all were in vain. She was either ignored and sighed, or humiliated and trampled on.

The days gradually became like a pool of stagnant water, and Ah Shang was like a brightly colored little fish, swimming around, jumping around, and bumping into each other.

She never expected that this little fish would accidentally find a way out, changing the lives of mother and daughter, and even changing the situation of the world.

Empress Changsun had a miscarriage when she was in the East Palace and it was difficult for her to have another child. The family and the emperor selected the third prince to raise him under the Queen's knees. However, the third prince who grew up was not as mature as they imagined.

But the child was still young and there was still room for polishing, so the emperor chose a whetstone for the third prince - Li Shang, who pretended to be Li Xiao.

From day one, she knew the emperor knew the truth.

At that time, it was the first time that Ah Shang pretended to be Ah Xiao. Ah Shang himself rarely appeared in front of the princes. Even though he had deceived a group of young children in the chaos, it was impossible to deceive the emperor.

A whetstone that comes from a humble background, is willful and bold, and hides such a big lie is the most qualified whetstone, because it can be discarded at any time, and it only takes one sentence of deceiving the emperor to plunge into the abyss.

Ah Shang has been walking in Linyuan since the first day. As a mother-in-law, she knew this very well, but she did not tell him in a hurry. The more afraid the child is, the more likely he is to make mistakes.

It was a huge gamble with her life, but she had to do it.

And Ashang is better than anyone expected. That child is like a seed. At first, people assumed that it was an ordinary grass seed. But when this seed finally had the opportunity to be irrigated by the sun, rain and dew, it quickly grew. The ground grew into a towering tree.

She had to make the emperor still think that Ashang was controllable. She was very qualified to play the role of a frightened and disturbed concubine.

The third prince was not sharpened by Ashang. Ashan's excellence made the child even grind to pieces.

Perhaps when there was no one around, the emperor would think with regret, how great it would be if "Li Xiao" was really Li Xiao.

Both the government and the public are urging the establishment of a heir apparent. There are still many interest groups headed by the Changsun family who support the third prince. However, the emperor is hesitant. He feels that it is too early. The third prince, including those princes, still need to temper themselves.

She thought that at this time, what she had to do was to cut off the most solid relationship between the third prince and the emperor - Empress Changsun. (End of chapter)