How can I bow my head and serve the powerful officials?

"That's right. I have a friend," Xie Chengze cleared his throat, "whose family inherited the position. Logically speaking, his younger brother is the legitimate son and should have inherited the position after his father died."

"But his steward's son wanted to support him to inherit the position, so he planned to get rid of the legitimate son..."

"That friend didn't want to go along with the gang, so he wanted to kill the housekeeper's son..." Xie Chengze raised his hand and rubbed his neck fiercely, "But if he kills him directly, the housekeeper will definitely notice it, which will lead to a lot of trouble. Therefore, my friend doesn't want to use a too obvious assassination method..."

Hu Lai blinked his eyes and said in confusion: "Your Highness, why don't you just say that the friend is you, and the housekeeper's son is the master of the man who bribed me with gold cakes? Why are you beating around the bush? This is not a question of love, but you still use friends to confuse me."

Xie Chengze: ...

That’s right, he’s not asking about emotional issues, why is he using friends as a pretext?

"Okay, it's me." Xie Chengze admitted it generously.

"This person wants to push you to the throne, so he must want you to be a puppet emperor!" Hu Lai pondered for a moment and analyzed seriously, "After all, you were really vulgar in the past and were very easy to be manipulated by others. Unlike His Royal Highness the Crown Prince, he is cunning and difficult to deal with."

Xie Chengze: "...Can you get to the point?"

"Of course, his purpose in pushing you to the position is either to gain power or to replace him. I wonder what your son, the housekeeper, wants?" Hu Lai asked.

"Replace it." Xie Chengze said very affirmatively.

"Then may I ask if the other party has any children?" Hu Lai asked again.

"No." Xie Chengze shook his head.

"That's easy." Hu Lai thought it was a serious and difficult question, but he didn't expect it to be so simple. "To ascend the throne, this person must ensure that he is intact. Only then can he give birth to his own bloodline and inherit his own throne..."

"As long as we do it secretly..." Hu Lai glanced at a certain part of Xie Chengze with a fierce look in his eyes, "Castrate him, and he will be a eunuch. What's the point of becoming an emperor? He still has no offspring to inherit the throne!"

Xie Chengze: ???

Xie Chengze opened his mouth wide, then closed it again, "Is there any other way... His martial arts are unfathomable. I'm afraid of losing my men, and I'm also afraid of being recognized by him."

"Is that so..." Hu Lai stroked his beard and thought, "Is this person obsessed with martial arts? I happen to have a secret book of martial arts here. If you want to practice this skill, you must castrate yourself first."

Just as Xie Chengze was about to say that the other party wanted to rebel, how could he castrate himself, he saw a sinister smile on Hu Lai's face, "We can tear off the first page that says castration, and let him practice this secret skill. He won't feel anything strange at first, but after practicing for a long time, he will go crazy. By the time he reacts, it will be too late to save him. Then we can cut off that part of his body--"

Xie Chengze: ...

You can't get along with your self-castration, right?

"I shouldn't have asked you. I'm sick too!"

Xie Chengze left angrily, leaving Hu Lai standing there alone, scratching his head innocently.

Why is he still so angry? He still has several dirty tricks that he hasn't told you yet!

Are you really not going to listen to it anymore, Your Highness? It will really be very useful, Your Highness~

……

Shenzhou is not far from Liaozhou. By the time they arrived in Liaozhou, the official road had been cleared to be passable. The army quickened their pace and within two days they reached Tianshui City where Xie Chengze was.

Upon learning that Shen Yuan had brought people back, Xie Chengze excitedly went to the city gate to meet him, but he never expected that Shen Yuan actually brought the army with him!

Looking at the huge crowds of soldiers in the distance, Xie Chengze swallowed hard, his eyes filled with excitement.

Shen Yuan!

You're such a freaking genius!

Who can be more obedient and hardworking than a soldier? Not only do they work hard without complaint, they also don't cause trouble or complain about anything, and they have more strength than ordinary people to dig and carry ice!

With the help of these soldiers, the Ice Sculpture Festival will be held as scheduled, and they can also serve as security guards to maintain order on site.

Not only that……

Xie Chengze turned around and ran down the city wall, running towards the troops coming from afar.

Shen Yuan saw Xie Chengze from a distance. On the snow-white road, the red color was particularly eye-catching, like a running little rabbit whizzing towards him. He usually looked lazy like a lazy cat, but now he was running very fast, and his red fur coat was almost fluttering.

Shen Yuan couldn't help but curl his lips. He saw that the young man seemed not satisfied with the speed of running. After running a short distance, he began to release his feet and slid towards this side quickly, rubbing against the slippery snow surface.

But in just a moment, he had slid most of the distance. Although his speed was very fast, the young man's body was crooked every time he stopped, and he looked very dangerous.

"Nonsense." He muttered softly and led the herdsmen towards the young man. The young man was indeed too proud of himself and was sliding when he was suddenly tripped by something and fell forward!

“Fuck—” Xie Chengze subconsciously covered his precious face, but the expected pain did not appear. He only heard a warhorse neighing, and the man flew up and took the red in his arms, and then a steady and helpless voice sounded, “Do you like running around so much?”

"Ahem." Xie Chengze coughed lightly with a guilty conscience, then looked through the man's waist to the other man riding a horse behind him. He felt that he looked very familiar, "Could that man be..."

"That's right, the eldest prince." Shen Yuan pulled the man to attention. "When you were young, you had a good relationship with him."

Suddenly, a figure popped up in Xie Chengze's mind. From that perspective, it seemed like he was following behind a calm young man, pulling his sleeve and calling him "Big Brother".

Childhood memories?

Xie Chengze remembered that when he first arrived, his memory of his childhood was quite vague, but his memory after the age of nine was very...

Very... very what?

Xie Chengze suddenly covered his head.

Strange... How come he vaguely remembered that he seemed to have inherited the original owner's memory? When did he suddenly forget it?

Instead, the memories of childhood suddenly became clear.

"What's wrong?" Seeing that Xie Chengze was a little strange, Shen Yuan asked worriedly.

"It's okay." Xie Chengze shook his head and turned his gaze to the armored man who dismounted.

The other person's face was indeed similar to Xie Jinyu and Xie Zimiao. He could confirm that the person in front of him was Emperor Jian's eldest son Xie Shoujun. This face also gradually overlapped with the face of the calm boy in his childhood memory, which made him inexplicably feel a sense of dependence in his heart.

It’s obviously the first time I’ve seen…

Is it because the eldest prince has a calm and simple temperament, rarely participates in power struggles in the original text, and would not kill himself, so he trusts him for no reason?

Xie Chengze stared at the man striding towards him in a daze, without moving his eyes away for a moment. Just as Shen Yuan's expression beside him became more and more serious, he suddenly slapped his hand and remembered something important.

He suddenly pounced on Xie Shoujun who was walking over, hugged him tightly on the back, and said excitedly, "Brother! I missed you so much!"

The unexpected hug made Xie Shoujun's whole body stiff. He looked at the young man in his arms who raised his head and smiled at him. His beautiful appearance could not resist that clean and pure smile. His heart softened, but he was also a little at a loss.

He had made a lot of mental preparations when he came here, thinking about what kind of expression his second brother would have when he saw him. If he was indifferent, how should he respond? If he was cold and distant, how should he respond?

But I never thought that he would pounce on me so passionately, just like when we were little, still soft and clingy like a kitten.