I wanted to embrace my master and return home

"Can'er, do you know what the outside of the palace looks like now!" Ming Qing took the wine glass from his hand and looked at him coldly.

Gao Motang frowned, swallowed the wine in his mouth, and said: "Didn't you already allocate funds for disaster relief? You said that the Northwest General is upright and has no corruption, so I entrusted him with the transportation task. Doesn't he look good now?" How long will it be wasted."

"You don't understand the situation outside at all. Refugees are pouring out of the palace, slapping the city gate and calling for His Majesty to help!"

"What are these guards doing? Anyone who dares to trespass in the forbidden area of ​​the palace can just shoot them with arrows." Gao Motang didn't care, showing disgust.

"..." Ming Qing turned pale with anger. He single-handedly set up sixty soup kitchens outside the palace. Every day, the money was spent like running water, and half of the Ming mansion was emptied out. Still can't feed the people of the king's capital.

One day when he went out to investigate in the city, he was surrounded by officers and soldiers, and the people were driven far away, but he could still see the appearance of those people clearly, with deeply sunken eye sockets, red rashes on the backs of exposed hands and necks, and some even had It festered, and I saw many rumored people with demon patterns.

The previous shelters where the plague patients were held did not work. As long as the rain is still falling, the plagues will spring up like bamboo shoots one by one, infecting each other.He saw people running around in the rain, the acidic rain was pouring on the festering affected areas, the people kept groaning "Ai yo" and "Ai yo", and corpses covered with white cloths kept coming out of the refuge. carried out.

"As the ruler of a country, your people are homeless, can't even eat enough, and are suffering from serious illnesses, yet you are drinking fine wine and tasting delicious food in this Nuanxiang Pavilion... ..." Ming Qing clenched her fists with a stern face.

The king’s meal consists of 28 dishes, and the swallow’s fin and abalone are often wasted. Since Gao Motang took the throne, none of those bad habits have changed. Even if there are 88 dishes on the table, he still eats as usual Like a dog that has been hungry for a few days, it has no signs of eating.

This has a lot to do with his childhood environment. Chang Can'er was born in the backyard of the Clothes Bureau, which is the poorest place in the palace. Most of the people there are maids who have made mistakes, and they only have one meal a day. Meals and meals are the lowest and least, and the maids themselves can't eat enough.

Chang Can'er can only serve one meal a day. At most, there are two steamed buns and a bowl of pickled vegetable soup. When there is less, there is only one steamed bun. Sometimes the people in the food delivery department are lazy and don't want to deliver or the delivery is too small, and Chang Can'er will be hungry. Stomach, because the maids cannot be hungry, if they are hungry, they will not be able to work well, and if they do not work well, there will be no next meal.

That's why Chang Guan'er grew up hungry and full when he was a child, so that no matter how rich and luxurious his life will be in the future, even if he has a surplus, he will try his best to fill his stomach without leaving any gaps. .

Gao Motang became impatient the more he listened to Mingqing's persuasive teachings: "The big deal is to allocate a few more batches of disaster relief funds. It's not as serious as you said. The treasury can't be drawn too much, otherwise how will the Ministry of War maintain it?"

"Since you know that the national treasury cannot be empty, why do you hand over the disaster relief funds to the household ministers every time? You know that more than half of the money has gone into their pockets. What are the people waiting for? It's the tip of a knife, it's resistance. The threat of execution, if the former king is alive and sees you governing like this, seeing me who was ordered to assist the emperor..."

Hearing this, Gao Motang's eyes suddenly turned cold, his face changed, and he interrupted him: "You also know that you are a courtier, and I am the emperor, so you can give the disaster relief funds to whoever you want. Is it possible that you really want to fulfill it?" The absurd decree of the father before his death, you want to do justice for the heavens, and make the lonely and useless king yourself?"

Ming Qing felt cold: "How could you have such an idea..."

He took a deep breath: "I would like to assist you. It is a dream when I was young. I would like to accompany you for the rest of my life. It is a promise I made when I was young. I will not distrust you like the previous king. I just hope that you can shoulder the responsibility of being a monarch." .”

"Responsibility...responsibility..." Gao Motang bowed his head, he didn't know what to think, he curled up and said slowly: "I am the child of a lowly court girl, born in a pickle jar, even if I wear this dragon robe , and is still a person who grew up in the most inferior part of the palace."

"My mother thinks I am a disaster star, and Aunt Tao thinks so too. She said that I have been a monster since I was born, and I am the destiny disaster star of Chaoyang Kingdom. My father also doubted me all my life, and he refused to hand it over to the last moment. Believe me, heh, the scourge of destiny, fuck the scourge of destiny!" Gao Motang's eyes were red, and he swept the things on the table to the ground, smashing the wine glasses and plates all over the floor.

"In the past ten years I have known you, I have never felt that you are a catastrophe of destiny, nor do I believe that there is such a thing, Guan'er, you can't give up your life and deny yourself because of the prejudice of a few people. everything." Ming Qing softened her eyebrows and told him seriously.

Mingqing is a gentle person, with exquisite yushu, bright and bright talent, gentle, courteous and thrifty, like a fairy.He also knew that for so many years, Mingqing had always regarded him as Guan'er, which had never changed, and he was the only one who was changing.

"I... I'm really not a disaster star, but why can't I do anything well, why..."

Ming Qing straightened his shoulders and said seriously: "Look into my eyes, Guan'er is not a disaster, but the monarch of a country. The people are suffering, and the monarch cannot just sit back and ignore it."

The next day, Gao Motang promised Mingqing to go out with him to investigate the epidemic outside the palace. He and Mingqing sat in a carriage, and outside the carriage there were palace people holding a nine-foot umbrella covering them. The umbrella surface was made of molten iron. No rain.

Gao Motang saw the real appearance of the Chaoyang Kingdom after leaving the palace with the singing and laughing voices and carved beams and painted buildings. Every few steps, he could see corpses strewn across the street. The rain turned the sky gray.

Refugees living outside are robbing the few porridge. The thin ribs of the refugees are exposed, as if they have been hungry for several years. With demon patterns, it was hard to tell whether they were humans or ghosts for a while.

Gao Motang watched, his heart panicked, he didn't dare to look any more.

"I want to go back alone, get up, get up and drive back to the palace."

Mingqing immediately stopped her: "Your Majesty! You promised me that I will investigate the people's situation for at least an hour today, and we will protect you from refugees."

Gao Motang swallowed, and continued to sit back.

The palace team walked all the way to the shelter where the epidemic was most severe. The volunteer doctor wrapped in white cloth was ordered by Mingqing to carry a shoulder pole to the front of the carriage, and lifted the white cloth on the shoulder pole. An unrecognizable "monster" "It came out.

He was covered in erythema, shaped like wolf teeth, and irregular. Half of his face was festered, and it was still corroding. The bones of the eye sockets could be seen in the depths, and the eyeballs were also rotten. Not to mention the skin on other parts of the body, everywhere. They are all festering rashes, bleeding with pus and blood, and there is no normal skin on the whole body. The most terrifying thing is the wolf tooth markings, which are criss-crossed and mutated into monsters.

Moreover, this person was still alive, his chest was heaving violently, his mouth and nose were filled with air, and there was a hoarse inhalation sound in his throat. He looked extremely painful, but he didn't have the strength to get up.

Gao Motang looked at the pole on the ground in shock, and blurted out: "What kind of monster is this!"

"This is your people." Ming Qing said.

"..." Gao Motang was unable to speak for a long time, and even stepped back.

"Reporting to Your Majesty, Taifu, this person is from the most serious group of patients in the shelter. He can't live for two days like this. His whole body has started to rot, his skin is almost gone, his high fever doesn't go away, his throat is so swollen that he can't breathe. , If you insert a hose into your throat, you can live again, but the wounds on your body will continue to fester, and you will have difficulty eating, and the final result will be your whole body rotting and dying of pain." The doctor said.

"Did you hear that, Guan'er." Mingqing held his cold hand, looked at him firmly and said, "This is the pain your people are suffering now, do you still want to escape?"

He asked the doctor to open the iron door of the refuge, and saw that the inside looked like a hell on earth, with thousands of people lying densely, groaning in pain, and constantly reaching out to scratch the monsters on their bodies. There are striae and rashes, some are lingering, and some have not moved.

The demon marks on their bodies are different, but each has more festering faces, and each is more scary than the other. The skin peels off to reveal red textured bones. It hurts to touch, but they won't die immediately. The only thing they have in common is their eyes. There was no light inside, a dead despair.

Suddenly, someone noticed the gorgeous carriage sedan chair and the huge iron umbrella at the entrance of the refuge. The carriage had the imperial emblem of Chaoyang Kingdom on it.

"Yes, it's Your Majesty! It's from the palace!" Someone shouted.

"Your Majesty... Your Majesty! Your Majesty is here, everyone, look, your Majesty is here to save us!"

The refugees who were able to get up for a while got up and rushed towards the door. They forgot the pain caused by the festering on their bodies, as if they saw the sun of Chaoyang Kingdom, the hope for so many days!

"Your Majesty! Your Majesty, help me, my wife is gone, my child is gone, help me..."

"Your Majesty, you are finally here. I beg Your Majesty to be merciful and find a doctor to save my daughter. The women are willing to be cows and horses..."

"Your Majesty is here! We are saved! Your Majesty is here... We are saved, so we don't have to die!"

The officers and soldiers gathered around to block the crazy people. If so, Gao Motang was afraid that someone would break through the line of defense and run towards him. He lowered the curtain of the carriage, and heard the desperate and longing cries of the people in his ears. The people may be shining , or gloomy eyes imprinted in his mind for a long time and could not dissipate, at this moment, he just wanted to run away.