Lonely desert

"I knew you were not a good person, but now you dare to send it directly to your door?" The voice belonged to the Minister of Rites, Zuo Shilang.

He kicked the door open with his foot, escorted me in, and then closed the door again.

Shan Pei heard the sound and came out from the inner room, "Hu Ye! Put down the knife."

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw that Ye Ziyu, the left servant of the Ministry of Rites, is really from Beidi. I think the name Hu Ye should be his name in Beidi.

"Young master, this person must not stay."

I didn't say much, and kept watching Shan Pei, observing the changes in his expression.

As soon as he took back the gentleness of the past, his usual innocent and simple temperament disappeared.Shan Peicai standing in front of me now is more like the prince of Beidi, exuding the wildness in his bones more and more unconcealed.

With a serious expression on his face, he said to Leaf Fish: "You step back first, I have something to say to him."

Hu Ye had no intention of obeying orders at all, "My lord! He is a monster, if we don't get rid of him, I'm afraid..."

"Back off." This time, Shan Pei's voice was a bit more sullen.

Hu Ye hesitated again and again, and finally gritted his teeth, "For the sake of your son's safety, I'm sorry that this subordinate is difficult to obey." As I said that, I felt the coldness on my neck even worse, and I felt a faint pain.

Before he could react, Shan Pei quickly grabbed Hu Ye's knife with his bare hands, so frightened that Hu Ye had no choice but to let go of the weapon.

There was surprise and timidity in his eyes, "Master, you..."

"Who allowed you to hurt him?" Shan Pei stared at Hu Ye with a cold face, threw the long knife in his hand on the ground, and reprimanded: "Get back."

Hu Ye gave me a sideways glance, and although he was angry, he did as he did and withdrew.

There were only me and Shan Pei in the room, he raised his hand to check the wound on my neck, "Let me treat the wound for you first."

Although I couldn't see it, but according to the degree of pain, it is estimated that if Hu Ye was a little more ruthless, perhaps his fate in this mortal life would have come to an end.

I didn't refuse, and let him take the medicine for me.

In the current situation, I don't know what position to ask him, let alone what to say.

And he was speechless.

It wasn't until he put down the ointment in his hand that he hesitated to say, "Why don't you hide?"

What Shan Pei said is obviously known about what happened last night. In the siege last night, I got away with a little Taoism. I never thought that I would become a different kind in their eyes. It has only been a few hundred years, and there will be no Taoists in the world , Taoism?And Shan Pei clearly believed Hu Ye's words.

I looked straight into his eyes, trying to see through what he was thinking, "He can't hurt me, why should he hide?"

He tilted his head, avoiding my sight, and said apologetically, "Ci Chen, I'm sorry, I lied to you."

I thought he would continue to entangle and ask me the origin of my background, but unexpectedly his topic changed so suddenly.So, I followed his words and asked: "So, it has been calculated since you entered Chang'an?"

He sneered, and said with a hint of self-deprecation, "It's not a calculation. Although I mentioned the coming heaven/challenge to my father, I am not ignorant. It is difficult to go back after entering Chang'an, just like an abandoned child. No calculations. Hu Ye is just..."

I coughed lightly, reminded him, and said, "You tell me like this, aren't you afraid that I will sue Your Majesty when I step out tonight?"

"Not afraid." He said firmly, "If it were you, I would admit it."

"but I……"

Before I could say a word, he made a silent movement, looked at my eyes full of clarity, and said slowly: "What I said to you on Chang'an Street was not empty words, and it was me who met in the Jinluan Palace later. I knew it in advance. It was also from that moment that I knew that we were on opposite sides, in different political fields. But even so, I never calculated it, Ci Chen, never.”

I saw his eyes twinkling, and there was a slight touch, and I asked him in a strange way, "Do you believe me?"

Shan Pei was stunned, he didn't seem to understand the deep meaning of my words, he stared at me for a long time but didn't reply.

"Yeziyu is your man. I guessed it last night. I went back to the palace today and didn't mention it to His Majesty. I originally wanted to come here to find out the wind with you. I never thought that he would move faster than me."

He looked at me in astonishment, and after hearing what I said, his eyes began to panic.But at the last moment, his eyes calmed down and fixed on me, and asked: "So you are helping me hide it? Why?"

This time, I dare not confront him head-on.I turned my head and stopped looking at him, and said sadly: "I regard you as a friend, and I am willing to protect your life."

"But I'm not a person from heaven/chao...but..." His words came to an abrupt end.

"The one I consider my best friend is Shan Pei. It doesn't matter whether you are from Beidi or China. If one day you have to fight each other with swords, I..."

I hadn't imagined that day would come.

He suddenly reached out and pulled me into his arms, holding me tight.I was at a loss for what he did, and my body was stiff, unable to answer, but I didn't want to struggle.

After a long time, I seemed to hear his sobs, my shoulders trembled slightly, and I murmured: "I didn't have any hope of returning to Beidi, but now I am unwilling to fall into a pawn, Cichen, how can you Abandon the sky/chao and follow me back to Beidi?"

Heaven/Dynasty, Chang'an City, for me, is just a point that must be passed on the road to cross the catastrophe, so what kind of emotion do I have to be reluctant to part with it?It's just the kindness of the emperor of heaven/challenge, or the "love of homeland" that has been subtly influenced for too long.

I slowly raised my arms and hugged him back, and comforted him: "I can go to Beidi with you at any time, maybe being a king is no different from being a minister, but today/the dynasty governs the vassal states, and the people live and work in peace and contentment, it is a good thing. If war On the contrary, wars are raging everywhere, and it is those innocent and poor people who are tortured by the war, and it is rare to get a peaceful world..."

I don't know where these words touched his anger point, I felt the strength of his hug gradually increasing, and he gnashed his teeth in my ear and said: "Do you really think your emperor is a Mingjun?"

After finishing speaking, he let go of me, staggered back half a step, and continued: "The world is peaceful? If this world is really as you said, why am I here?"

Sensing the change in Shan Pei's mood, I quickly persuaded, "But, if it weren't for the restlessness in the four parts..."

But instead of dissuading him, this made him even more agitated, "Agitation in the four departments? Another agitation in the four departments! He is in the position of the emperor, and you are his people. Naturally, you will all say what he says." letter."

Looking at his appearance, I couldn't help trembling slightly, this is the other side of Shan Pei, or the most real side, and the innocent, simple and ignorant appearance on weekdays is gone now.I listened quietly, not daring to answer a word.

After a while, he looked up at me, his eyes were red, as if he had been wronged in every possible way, he choked up and said, "Ci Chen, I could have been at the mercy of fate, but all these things have changed after I met you. I ,want to go back home."

I approached him, stretched out my hands to hug him, and comforted him, "I'll go back..."

After a long time, his mood gradually calmed down, and he called me, "Ci Chen, do you know that there is a person imprisoned in Emperor Zhaoming Palace."

I have heard about that concubine in Zhaoming Palace, and there are different rumors about her, and the truth is complicated and confusing. I don't care about the emperor's harem, and I have never inquired about it.Shan Pei mentioned her here, could it be that the concubine is related to him?

I distanced myself from Shan Pei, "Did you know her?"

He didn't respond directly to my words, and said to himself: "The emperor never let him show his face in front of outsiders, he didn't even show up at the canonization ceremony, and he didn't let him interact with other concubines. He has been imprisoned in Zhaoming. In the palace, do you know the reason?"

I could see the coldness and contempt in his eyes, and the contempt was also inadvertently revealed in his expression.

"Could it be that the emperor raised her as a pet? So what's your relationship with her?"

Shan Pei sighed deeply, with a strong sense of forbearance, and said word by word: "The people in Zhaoming Palace are my brother Wang."

"what?"

There are many rumors in the palace, but I have never heard the version that Shan Pei said. Although I was extremely surprised, I seemed to have acquiesced in this answer in my heart.

And Shan Pei obviously guessed my reaction, and told me the ins and outs of the matter expressionlessly.

He says……

Nine years ago, Emperor Sui'an led his own army to fight for more than a month. The two sides were at a stalemate. One night, he took advantage of the fog to raid the camp of Shan Mu, the third brother of Shan Pei.

The war came suddenly, the army was unprepared, and the victory and defeat were obvious.Shan Mu escaped under the cover of his subordinates, but Shan Jue, who was ordered by his father to come to help Shan Mu, was left behind.Shan Jue was congenitally ill and not good at martial arts, and he looked sick, like a frail scholar.

After that, there was no news of the sixth prince's birth in the next three days, and when King Beidi reluctantly mourned his son's farewell, the secret envoy of Emperor Suian arrived.

Under the situation of absolute advantage, Emperor Sui'an proposed a peace agreement, not to have one city and one pond in Beidi, not to hurt his soldiers or soldiers, but to send Shan Jue as his concubine, and the war would stop.

Anyone with a discerning eye can see that it is better to believe that Emperor Sui'an has reached an agreement with Shan Jue than to believe in a truce with Beidi.Otherwise, Beidi may not be able to defend the city if he continues to march north with his dominant position.

Originally, King Beidi was unwilling to agree to this humiliating condition and wanted to continue fighting, but the secret envoy took out Shan Jue's personal letter.The words in the letter are not different from what the secret envoy said, and it is also to persuade him to agree to the peace negotiation.

In order not to save the whole family and not to waste Shan Jue's sacrifice, King Beidi endured the humiliation and agreed to negotiate a peace, and Shan Jue never returned to Beidi since that day.

Later, Emperor Sui'an gave him a position and hid him deep in the Zhaoming Palace.From the front to the back, I only heard that Emperor Sui'an got a beautiful woman from a foreign land on the battlefield, and she was kept in the deep palace, so she couldn't be seen easily.

After several years of waiting for news of his son, King Beidi thought that Shan Jue had passed away in Chang'an, so he once again thought of launching a war, and in the end he did.But Tian/Chao is a big country after all, even if Beidi has a strong army and horses, it is not easy to attack. In addition, this battle was betrayed by allies. The war lasted for more than a month, and finally ended with the surrender of the four tribes.

After that, Shan Pei came to Chang'an...

I asked, "Then have you seen your brother Wang?"

He shook his head, "No, but I have inquired about it, and the man said that the master of Zhaoming Palace is still there, but he is weak and weak, so he should not move around more."

After listening, I can probably understand the reasons why Emperor Sui'an did not allow Shan Jue to see outsiders. One was because he was worried about his body, and the other was because of the ancestral system of the heaven/chao.However, if you think about it carefully, the reason for this is mostly the latter.

"So you looked at Zhaoming Palace many times when you were in Shuxuanyuan, thinking how to take your brother away?"