Cold fragrance and warm jade [Red Mansion Chai Dai]

Wei Ruolan couldn't help sighing.

Chongyu's sudden behavior made him not know how to say what he wanted to question before.

"Forget it, tell me anyway, why are you borrowing my name? You were in a hurry and didn't have a chance to ask me, but now I'm right in front of you."

Chongyu sat down again, frowned and thought for a moment, but shook his head and sighed: "It's not that I don't want to tell Brother Wei, but I don't know how to speak about this matter. I promise, this matter will not have much impact on you, once I have a chance in the future, I will tell the truth frankly, what do you think?"

"Huh?" Wei Ruolan was surprised.

Chongyu smiled wryly and said, "Brother Wei, don't ask any more questions. If I could tell you, I would have acted in your name. How could I not tell you clearly? But now... I really can't help it." .”

He wanted to use Wei Ruolan's name to test whether Daiyu really had other thoughts about Baochai.

Regardless of whether his speculation about Daiyu is true or not, as long as it can be kept secret, these things should not be revealed.

Therefore, even if Wei Ruolan is the one who wants to ask questions now, he can only try to hide it as much as possible.

Wei Ruolan stared at him for a long while, she could only see his helplessness, and after thinking about it, she decided not to pursue it.

"Let's talk about the news over there." He sighed, took out a letter from his pocket, and handed it to Chongyu, "This is from Ziying."

The envelope had already been opened, and Chongyu took it unceremoniously.

After reading the letter with his head down, Chongyu smiled brightly at Wei Ruolan.

"So it looks like Brother Feng is going to vote for us now?"

Wei Ruolan gave a low laugh and said, "It's really thanks to His Royal Highness the Crown Prince."

If it wasn't for the crown prince who knew the plans of the King of Nan'an and was still afraid of going head-to-head with the third prince, and wanted to use this opportunistic way to ascend the throne, the third prince would not have been able to win over so many people who are loyal to the royal family.

"Iron Net Mountain." Chongyu muttered a place name in a low voice.

This is the place specifically mentioned in Feng Ziying's letter, and it is also the place where the royal family goes hunting every year.After the autumn hunting, the royal relatives, dignitaries and dignitaries who are lucky enough to participate in the hunting can also use the fur of the wild animals hunted to make things to keep out the cold.Done well, it's almost winter.

After discussing with the Miaoling tribe in the north, the king of Nan'an County and the crown prince decided to start now and secretly send some soldiers of the Miaoling tribe to lie in ambush outside Iron Net Mountain.During the autumn hunt, even though there were many guards around the emperor, the strength of the guards was much weaker than when the emperor lived in the deep palace, which was just suitable for those who cared.

Although Feng Ziying was a princeling and could win the prince's trust, but this time the person in charge was the king of Nan'an County, Feng Ziying didn't know much about it. He only received a letter from the prince asking him to assist the people sent by the king of Nan'an County.

However, Feng Ziying is the son of General Shenwu, and he is very sensitive to the mobilization of soldiers and horses. It was only during the assistance period that he found out from clues that the king of Nan'an had a big plan.

Before he left Beijing, Wei Ruolan also vaguely reminded him that he was required to pay more attention to the movements of foreign races, so that he would send a private letter to Wei Ruolan after some hesitation when he found something wrong.

"If it wasn't for the prince's royal blood, I would have wondered if he would have been dropped by someone long ago." Wei Ruolan sighed, "Usually when your majesty goes hunting in autumn, the people accompanying him are very nervous, lest something happen. You can't protect His Majesty in those places. How dare the crown prince continue to conspire with the King of Nan'an after he knows that he intends to do something there?"

"Iron Net Mountain is after all a suburban area outside of Beijing. Once an accident occurs, if you are injured, it will be inconvenient to seek medical treatment. In the past, when you went hunting in autumn, there were many people who were not skilled enough and dared to go deep into the mountains without authorization, but were injured by ferocious beasts." people. If the layout is there... if you don't pay attention, you don't know how many people will die."

Chongyu smiled wryly and said: "The crown prince really trusts Nan'an County King too much. He is still the Nan'an County King and does everything for him wholeheartedly. How can he care about these things?"

"This time the autumn hunt happened to catch them all in one go." Wei Ruolan still looked like a handsome young man, but there was endless murderous intent in his words. "On Ziying's side, there is also the son of Jintian Hou. Even if Ziying doesn't cooperate with them, their plan can still go smoothly. On the contrary, Ziying will definitely be placed under house arrest by them, and we will lose a source of information. Ziying checks Know how many people they come in, we can deal with it."

Chongyu still has concerns.

"What about His Majesty's safety? How to ensure it?"

"Don't you know?" Wei Ruolan asked in surprise, "Your Majesty has a shadow guard who is very similar to His Majesty. As long as you know in advance that there is danger, you can let this shadow guard appear on the stage instead of Your Majesty. At that time, Your Majesty will be in the palace and go to the Iron Palace. Wangshan is just a shadow, and the problem will not be solved.”

Chongyu shook his head.

"I've never heard of it."

Wei Ruolan thought about it again, and Fang smiled and said: "I forgot. This matter is extremely confidential. If I hadn't trained with the shadow of the third prince before, I would not have the chance to hear about it. Your father should know, but I'm sure I won't mention it to you for no reason."

"The third prince also has it? The prince..."

"The prince naturally has shadow guards." Wei Ruolan smiled, "But if they didn't know that we had already discovered their plot, how could they think that we would act like this? The shadow is not only similar in appearance to the deity, even many habits have passed If you cultivate it deliberately, unless you get along with it for a long time and are very familiar with the deity, there is little chance that you will find that it is just a shadow!"

Just as Chongyu was about to relax, he remembered another matter and couldn't control the expression on his face.

He asked urgently: "Do you think that that person may have been replaced by a shadow?"

If the real prince, in order to ascend the throne by himself, ignores the country and the country and blindly trusts the king of Nan'an County... It seems that he is not as credible as the prince secretly changing someone.

Wei Ruolan smiled wryly and said: "The possibility you mentioned, why didn't the third prince ever think about it? Long ago, the third prince had tried to determine the identity of the prince. He is still him, just for that position... Sigh!"

Chongyu is silent.

"Don't think about it." Wei Ruolan reached out and patted him on the shoulder, "What we have to do is to support the Third Prince. As for who our opponent is, it has nothing to do with us."

"I understand." Chongyu also put away unnecessary emotions.

Wei Ruolan secretly exclaimed in her heart.

Chongyu's reputation as a genius has long been spread in Beijing. Before Wei Ruolan and Chongyu came into contact, she only listened to Chongyu's reputation and didn't care much about it.

There are many people who have always been talented, but there are not many people who can make good use of their talents, especially those who can perceive the situation and make full use of the external environment, so as not to make mistakes due to arrogance.The geniuses Wei Ruolan has seen in the past have somewhat of their own eccentricities, and it is often difficult to cooperate with others.

But he never saw these shortcomings in Chongyu.

As a genius, he has no pride in his talent.

That's all, but there are some things that Chongyu seems to be able to predict.Exploring overseas, being careful of foreign races, and being wary of enemy countries... these things are unusual for them who have long regarded themselves as the people of the first kingdom.

Wei Ruolan and Chongyu have known each other for a long time, and found that Chongyu established the Lin Family Firm to communicate with other countries, not because of the interest that outsiders thought, but because he really wanted to use it to develop power and even protect this country.

Just like before Chongyu found out what was going on abroad and whether anyone in China wanted to collude with foreigners, he already knew that these countries would definitely become his enemies.

Wei Ruolan can only be thankful that he and Chongyu are friends, not enemies.

"By the way, Brother Wei, you have been in and out of the Beijing Palace quite frequently during this period of time. Have you ever heard of news from the Palace from the mouth of the Prince of Beijing? Especially the lady of the Jia family?"

"Concubine Xiande?" Wei Ruolan shook her head and said, "I really have never heard of it. Although the King of Beijing Jing is the queen's younger brother, it is not easy to enter and leave the palace. Besides, how much news can be spread there? Most of the conclusions are not true or false. The Supreme Emperor and the Empress Dowager allowed some family members of Jiaofang to go in and have a look, but how many of those who were favored to enter the palace could really bring home the information from the palace? A lot of money was sent here!"

Chongyu casually asked, he didn't have any hope at all, now he heard Wei Ruolan said so, he was not disappointed, he just smiled and said: "It's rare for them to give away their vain silver taels to others, but they are still so willing. If it's me, I don't know how to feel bad about it."

Wei Ruolan glanced at him with an expression of disbelief.

Seeing Chongyu's seriousness, he couldn't help but said: "Don't lie to me like that. They only think that you are really going to do business for those petty profits, regardless of your status. Do I think so?"

"Who said I don't care?" Chongyu asked back in surprise, "If you want to live well in life, how can you live without money? My family is indeed not like those rich and powerful families who pay attention to ostentation everywhere, and random spending is an ordinary person The family has been spending months or even years, but there are still a lot of places to use the money. If I don’t want to find a way to get more money, can’t I just sell the official title? Or help those rich people do evil?”

"Maybe some people don't feel much about doing these things, but that's not the case for me. Money is the peace of mind I earn by myself. Although my firm also has things that can only be done with the help of power, it's better than those things. The money I got made me feel more at ease. Brother Wei, don’t tell me that those families have their own property like Zhuangzi’s land. How can they support their extravagance with their Zhuangzi alone?”

Wei Ruolan was left speechless by Chongyu's question.

Fortunately, the Wei family is also considered to be small in number, and this is how they can maintain the dignity of the aristocratic family in Kyoto with their ancestral property.

For those families with a thriving population, even if the offshoots of the family often cannot get much help from the family, the family resources that can be consumed are not small.Each person occupies less, and the more people, the larger the total.In particular, some people still have close contacts with the direct descendants of the clan...

Just looking at Liu Xianglian, a collateral branch of Duke Li's Liu family, who has now become a shabby household in Kyoto, one can guess how the other families are doing.

The Liu family, one of the four kings and eight princes, is now the first-class son Liu Fang, the grandson of Liu Biao, the Duke of Li, and the family has already experienced a situation of insufficient official expenses. Even if the situation of other families is better, how can it be better?

Those aristocratic families who have no shortage of money no matter how much they spend, are indeed doing things of using power for personal gain. Only by relying on the power in their hands and colluding with each other can they keep their wealth.

Wei Ruolan was melancholy at first.

Although he and those aristocratic families have some differences in concepts, they are also considered to be of the same kind, and they are more or less lamented.

But Chongyu frowned slightly at some point.

"Brother Wei, Prince Beijing has frequently invited you to the mansion these days, has he ever told you anything? Is it really just to paralyze the Crown Prince and Nan'an County King?"

At the beginning, every time Chongyu knew that Wei Ruolan had arrived at the Prince's Mansion in Beijing County, he would try to meet with Wei Ruolan so that he could ask Shui Rong if there was any news.

But as Shui Rong often invites Wei Ruolan to the mansion, and only drinks and has fun with other princes and grandsons, and uses frequent walking to cover up the real meeting when something happens, Chongyu doesn't pay too much attention to Wei Ruolan's movements .

Sometimes the dandies in Kyoto can also be useful, Wei Ruolan has a lot of friends, and at this time he is most needed to continue to make friends.

However, there has been much more movement in Shui Rong lately than before. After Daiyu arrived in Rongguo Mansion, Yuan Chun has rarely seen Yuan Chun ordering people to reward things from the palace. There seems to be a real problem.

After self-examination, Yuanchun would go to Rongguo Mansion to reward things every year and festival, even the birthdays of the masters of the mansion, there would also be congratulatory gifts. During this period of time, if something happened in the palace, Chongyu would not believe that Yuanchun would stop rewarding thing.

Wei Ruolan still shook her head.

"If I've heard something, why not tell you?"