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

"Ahem." Xie Shoujun raised his fist to his lips and coughed twice. "This is the head of the first Xiongnu general I killed at the border. The general of the cavalry said that this is the most symbolic of honor and military merit for the soldiers at the border."

So, I want to give it to you.

Share my glory with you.

Unexpectedly, this turned out to be the skull of a Hun general and had such a profound meaning. Xie Chengze couldn't help but look at the skull in the wooden box again.

After all, Xie Chengze had seen skeleton molds in modern times. He hypnotized himself that it was just a mold, then he took the entire skull out of the box and placed it on his lap.

He reached out and touched it, then tapped it with his fingers.

It must have been processed with special materials. It feels very smooth to the touch and feels crisp when knocked.

If you could collect all seven, perhaps they could all be used as musical instruments.

When he thought of himself sitting on the city wall and playing a cheerful piece of music with the skulls of seven generals in front of the Hun army, such as the famous divine song "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star", he couldn't help but burst out laughing and couldn't stop laughing.

Seeing that Xie Chengze did not show any fear, Xie Shoujun breathed a sigh of relief and a gentle smile appeared on his face.

He knew that Xie Chengze would not hate this gift. After all, he was a child who could remain calm even when his life was threatened. How could he be afraid of a mere dead object like a skull?

Touching the slippery skull in his arms, Xie Chengze instructed again, "Open the other boxes, I'll take a look~"

Upon hearing this, Xie Jinyu opened another box. Perhaps he knew that he had done something wrong, so he was very proactive at this moment.

The second box was filled with many small boxes. Xie Chengze pointed to one at random, opened it and found a string of wolf teeth simply strung together.

"I plucked these from a fight with a pack of wolves I encountered when I led troops to explore the grasslands." Xie Shoujun looked at the string of wolf teeth and explained its origin. "But this string is quite old and a bit worn out. There are new ones in the box below. If you like, you can ask the craftsmen in the palace to make you a nice necklace."

Hearing this, Xie Chengze couldn't help but widen his eyes, "Is this something you pulled out alive, my brother?"

Xie Shoujun coughed lightly, "Not really, I pulled it out after killing the wolf."

Xie Chengze raised the wolf tooth string and shook it. The sound of collision was very pleasant. He put it on his neck and stretched out his head again, "Anything else?"

The boxes were opened one by one, and Xie Chengze's eyes were hurt again and again. The birthday gift sent by Xie Shoujun was really "wild", with sheep bone whistles, wolf skin drums, eagle bone flutes, and even a complete skeleton of a wolf cub. According to Xie Shoujun's explanation, he originally wanted to send it back to the capital as a pet, but the wolf cub died unexpectedly, so he had to shave off the meat and keep the skeleton.

Xie Chengze looked at Xie Shoujun subtly, "Brother, you are more..."

Xie Shoujun was rummaging through the wooden box, and looked up when he heard this, "Hmm? What do you want?"

Become a pervert!

Fortunately, it was Xie Jinyu who was obsessed with him. If it was Xie Shoujun, Xie Chengze was really afraid that after he died, Xie Shoujun would shave off all his flesh, and then keep his bones as decorations, and make his skin into a human-faced lantern drum or something like that...

Thinking of this, Xie Chengze couldn't help but look at Xie Jinyu with gratitude.

Xie Jinyu received the gaze and tilted her head.

Why is second brother looking at him like that?

However, he did not expect that the birthday gifts sent by Xie Shoujun were so surprising. The gifts he had intercepted before looked quite normal.

Perhaps it was because all the normal gifts had been given out, or perhaps it was because Xie Shoujun knew that he couldn't give out birthday gifts, so he simply put these little border trinkets together in a box.

Xie Jinyu was more inclined to the latter, because the box contained not only those strange things, but also many gifts that looked relatively normal. These normal gifts were obviously those given during festivals. Things like skulls, wolf teeth, eagle bone flutes, etc. were the rare items that would really be given as birthday gifts.

Seeing Xie Chengze couldn't let go of the birthday gift from Xie Shoujun, Xie Jinyu couldn't help but feel a little sour, and her tone became strange, "Brother, maybe you should thank that person for intercepting your letter and gift, otherwise, this sincerity would be wasted."

His words were incoherent and Xie Shoujun looked at him in confusion, not understanding what he meant.

However, Xie Chengze paused slightly. Hearing the possible meaning behind these words, he couldn't help but look up at Xie Jinyu.

Xie Jinyu smiled at Xie Chengze meekly, "Since my eldest brother left the palace, my second brother's temper has become worse and worse. Every year, the birthday gifts I send him are thrown into the lake by him."

He reached out and pressed Xie Chengze's fingers, clasping them firmly on the bed, and said with a smile, "I guess this year, Second Brother won't throw away the birthday gift I gave him, right?"

Xie Chengze recalled that it seemed that the Second Prince would indeed order people to throw the birthday gift from the Crown Prince into the lake every year.

He suddenly felt a little pain in his heart, "They should be very valuable, right?"

Xie Jinyu narrowed her eyes and smiled and nodded, "Yeah."

We have to find a time to fish it out.

Xie Chengze thought secretly. After opening all the gifts in the box, he touched the skull in his arms and said to Xie Shoujun very honestly, "Oh, brother, I accidentally saw the letter you left in the study."

For a moment, the air fell into a subtle silence.

After a while, Xie Shoujun's face flushed suspiciously. He nodded calmly, "Oh? Oh, you, saw it..."

There were two thousand of them. He probably didn't read them all. Maybe he just saw the personal address on the envelope and didn't read the contents...

"I will never be estranged from my brother." Xie Chengze promised with a serious face, "I will never let my brother write a letter with shaking hands but fail to send it to me again."

"Cough-cough-!"

Xie Shoujun started coughing violently, his ears turned red, and his strong body began to tremble.

He, he saw it!

I also saw two extremely shameful letters he wrote!

"You haven't... finished reading it all?" Xie Shoujun asked while coughing.

"Not really." Xie Chengze waved his hands quickly, "I was a little shy when I saw them, so I just read a few and stuffed them back."

After saying that, both of them blushed and started coughing together.

The atmosphere between the two was too good. Xie Jinyu pursed her lips and pinched the finger under her palm hard, vying for the attention of the finger's owner. "I really envy the brotherhood between the eldest and second brothers. Unlike me, I am scolded by the second brother every day."

Xie Shoujun disagreed, "Let's not talk about whether you did something wrong, at least you can still see Xiaoze every day."

Xie Jinyu snorted softly, lowered her eyes and played with the young man's slender fingers under her palm, muttering, "It's different."

It was not until that day when his second brother looked at him without hostility, his eyes full of love and favoritism for his younger brother, that he finally realized that perhaps Concubine Hua was right.

That person is not my second brother at all.

The second brother would not avoid him or hate him for no reason. If he hated him, he would definitely tell himself to find a way to resolve the conflict between them, instead of being more mean and targeting him like that guy did.

He always said to himself, "A gentleman does not speak of strange things, supernatural powers, or gods." There are no ghosts, fairies, or gods in this world.

But when his second brother smiled brightly again, he realized that perhaps there really was a strange way in this world that he didn't know about, which could allow a wandering ghost to take over his second brother's body.

If this is true...

Ten years of companionship, all in vain.