At night, the mouth of the tube.

It was already late autumn, the night wind was blowing, and the cold air was blowing.

In an open space under the city wall, a fire was burning, and four people were roasting around the fire.

"Brother Hinoki, this is your sweet potato. ”

A thin, thin boy in tattered clothes said, handing a piece of roasted, steaming sweet potato to Li Hui.

"I'm not hungry, give it to Xiaoyu. Li Hui said.

A look of pity appeared on his face, and he looked at another skinny little boy beside him, and the little boy was looking straight at the sweet potato in the mouse's hand, swallowing his saliva.

The little boy's eyes lit up, and then he said timidly: "I've eaten a piece, Brother Juni, you haven't eaten it yet." ”

"I don't eat sweet potatoes. Li Hui said lightly.

The old beggar with a wrinkled face next to him sighed: "Xiao Lizi, you have clear eyebrows and beautiful eyes, and your demeanor is neat, but as a beggar, you don't look like a beggar, most of you are from a rich family, and you are down for a while." Alas, Jinyi is used to eating, so naturally he can't eat sweet potatoes. ”

Li Hui couldn't cry or laugh, and said: "What are you talking about? In the late autumn night, the air is refreshing, and I eat sweet potato farts that are smelly, disgusting and diarrhea, and I just don't bother to go to the thatched house." ”

It has been twenty days since he came to Guanzikou, and Li Hui is very familiar with the beggars and scattered people who live here.

Once, a wild dog chased and bit Xiaoyu, and was kicked away by Li Hui, and when he saw that Li Hui was alone, Xiaoyu invited Li Hui to join them.

"It's better than being hungry. ”

Xiaoyu took the sweet potato and said, "If you are hungry for three days, you can eat the soil, who cares about the smell of fart?"

Li Hui was stunned when he heard this, and sighed.

As a death row prisoner, he has experienced countless life and death lines, but Li Hui has really never been hungry.

Hearing this, he smiled bitterly, and the discomfort of hunger was comparable to death. In the past 20 days, Li Hui has hardly eaten a full meal, and he is hungry all day long, without dignity.

Life and death seem to be easy, but in the turbid world, filling one's stomach and having dignity is more uncomfortable than death.

Leaning against the broken wall, he was about to close his eyes, when suddenly a little light flashed in the dark corner, and a pair of bright eyes were looking at him, with a gloating smile on his face.

"I went to the hut. ”

This is the last sentence that Xiaoyu and the other three heard in their lives Li Hui.

"You haven't eaten sweet potatoes yet, so you can go to the thatched house so soon?" Xiaoyu muttered.

"It's so stupid! Brother Hinoki saw that you were hungry, so he deliberately gave you sweet potatoes. Eat a lot of bean farts, where can you eat sweet potatoes and have more farts and diarrhea?"

"Master...... Why did Mr. Yuan let me flow into the mouth of the tube?"

Li Hui was dissatisfied: "You eat and drink spicy food, I almost starve to death." ”

said pitifully, so aggrieved that tears were about to fall.

Lei Shaoxuan couldn't help but smile and said: "If you don't mess around for a while, how can you wash off the cold aura on your body? How can people prove that you are here after the disaster in Pingzhou?"

"The royal palace will never accept unknown people, let alone criminals on death row. ”

Lei Shaoxuan said: "There are beggars in the blind stream, many people have been trapped here for many years, and the only one who can prove their identity is the blind stream of beggars around them. ”

"If you take someone into the palace, you will definitely send someone to investigate, and those three people are the best proof of this. ”

Li Hui was stunned.

It seems that entering the palace must be subject to strict scrutiny to prevent people with bad intentions from sneaking in, but it is not.

The blind stream of beggars proved to be lax, but it was sufficient, because no one would try to mislead and infiltrate the palace through the mouth of the barrel.

The eunuchs who are selected into the palace from the mouth of the tube will only be used as errand servants, doing the dirtiest, most tiring and unpromising hard labor, and there is almost no chance to enter the core area of the palace.

Therefore, even if you can't try to, you won't be able to get in from the mouth of the tube, so those who are selected from the mouth of the tube only need to have the certificate of the person with the mouth of the tube to engage in hard labor.

Not far from the palace was a narrow and dimly lit alley, lined with low houses.

There is an ordinary house in the depths of the alley, gray walls and gray tiles, although it is not big but quite neat, there are two delicate stone lions squatting at the door, Lei Shaoxuan and Li Hui stand at the door, three long and two short sounds, knocking on the door three times in a row.

"Who?"

After a while, a shrill old man's voice came from the courtyard.

"Miserable man!" Lei Shaoxuan said in a deep voice.

After a pause, Lei Shaoxuan said again: "There is no way out, and those who ask for directions ask for guidance." ”

With a "squeak", the door opened.

The small courtyard is not large, and there are four lanterns lit at the four corners, which is very bright.

An elderly eunuch with white hair and sharp eyes looked at Lei Shaoxuan coldly. This is Zhang Shibao, the head of the palace and the direct palace.

"What?"

Knocking on the door and answering were all taught by Yuan Wenbo to Lei Shaoxuan, but Zhang Shibao didn't seem to know what was going on.

"When my brother had been in the mouth of the tube for a long time, he had no way out, and wanted to enter the palace to beg for food. ”

Lei Shaoxuan said, took out a piece of gold, held it in both hands and handed it to Zhang Shibao.

Hearing this, Zhang Shibao turned his face to look at Li Hui.

Li Hui took a step forward and saluted: "Li Hui see Zhang ......"

"What are you?" Zhang Shibao said in a thin voice, "Dare to stand in front of me, kneel!"

When Lei Shaoxuan heard this, his blood suddenly surged, his face was flushed, his hands trembled, and he was about to explode.

"Yes. ”

Li Hui didn't look at Lei Shaoxuan, and knelt in front of Zhang Shibao without hesitation.

Zhang Shibao's face did not change, and he said lightly: "I just came back from the palace errands, and my shoes are a little dirty......

"I'll give you a flick of ash!"

Li Hui knelt at Zhang Shibao's feet, rolled up his sleeves, and was about to caress it.

Suddenly, Zhang Shibao turned sideways slightly, and his right foot suddenly burst out and kicked towards Li Hui's face.

There was a screaming sound of air explosion in the air, and Li Hui's clothes were rolled up by the wind and clinging to his body, and his eyes were full of incredulity.

Lei Shaoxuan's pupils shrank suddenly, and he screamed, and his heart palpitated instantly.

Zhang Shibao turned out to be a top martial arts master, and suddenly got up with a kick, and Lei Shaoxuan didn't have time to react.

If this kick is solid, Li Hui's face bones will be shattered.

Lei Shaoxuan was cold, and suddenly held the Zhan Qing knife.

Whew! There was an explosion in the air.

Zhang Shibao's legs stopped suddenly, and the instep of his foot almost touched the tip of Li Hui's nose.

Li Hui casually flicked Zhang Shibao's upper with his sleeve.

"Your shoes are clean. Li Hui said neither humbly nor arrogantly.

"Alright! ”

Zhang Shibao's face did not change, and it seemed that nothing had happened.

"The palace strictly prohibits people with martial arts from blending in, and that kick just now is just a temptation. You stay tonight to change your clothes and follow me into the palace tomorrow. ”

Zhang Shibao turned around and went back to the main room and said, "Sleep in the wing room, plug in the door." He didn't take a look at the gold in Lei Shaoxuan's hand.

Entering the palace means that the meeting will be far away, in any case, Li Hui's road to the palace has been paved, and the rest can only rely on Li Hui himself.

"A new home, this home, although the wall is not as tall as the wall of Xijing City, the house is more gorgeous, with the King of Wei as a neighbor, with countless stunning beauties as companions, comparable to a prince!" Lei Shaoxuan joked.

"But not a single room is mine. Li Hui said softly: "Don't let you build a house at will, you can still build a grass nest at the mouth of the tube." ”

Lei Shaoxuan was stunned for a moment, sighed and said, "Take care, brother!"

The two hugged each other tightly.

Neither of them noticed that behind the window of the main room, a pair of bright eyes looked at them enviously, and after Lei Shaoxuan left, Zhang Shibao sighed deeply.

The palace supervisor is located at the northwest foot of the royal palace, adjacent to the imperial garden.

"Who is he? Who is he?" Zhang Shibao led Li Hui through the west gate of the palace and walked towards the direct palace supervisor.

"Guozijian student. Li Hui was slightly stunned when he heard this, and decided to tell the truth, "Brother Yi." ”

Zhang Shibao was stunned when he heard this, stopped, and looked ahead.

"Among the people who look down on eunuchs the most in the world, the students of Guozijian are the most!"

Zhang Shibao said coldly: "If he can regard a rootless person as a brother, either he is a saint, or he is a person who ignores all the rules of the world and only acts in his heart, this kind of person does not care about right and wrong, and his heart is as cold as iron." ”

Zhang Shibao's feet were like the wind, and he said as he walked: "You have only one choice to get along with him: either be an enemy with him and never die, or stand with him, even if he is an enemy of the whole world, he will not waver." ”

When Li Hui heard this, he caught up with him in a few steps, and hurriedly said, "Gonggong Zhang, if it were you, how should I deal with it?"

"As a eunuch, you have been spurned by the world, and now someone regards you as a brother, what should you do?"

Zhang Shibao said in a somewhat low tone: "As a eunuch, it is a capital crime to have private dealings with court officials. If you want to save your life or his life, it's best to stay away from this person, or one day, you will meet in life and death. ”

Li Hui was a little confused when he heard this.

What does it mean? Is it on Lei Shaoxuan's side, or away from Lei Shaoxuan?

Li Hui suddenly understood that Zhang Shibao was a person with a story.

The direct palace supervisor is located in the northwest corner of the outer city of the palace, in a small courtyard.

More than 20 eunuchs who had just entered the palace in the courtyard were queuing up to fill in their palace resumes.

"I've been in the palace for more than three months, and I've filled in my resume before, so why do I have to fill it out again?" muttered a eunuch carrying firewood.

"Smack!" the pen-holding eunuch stretched out his hand and slapped the man in the face.

"Don't fill it in, do you? Go back to your bobbin. ”

"No, no...... Father-in-law, I'm blind, please spare me. ”

Li Changhai, the deputy superintendent of the Zhidian Prison on the side, said viciously: "Spare you once, and if you talk more, you will be expelled directly!"

The eunuchs present were awe-struck when they saw this, and no one dared to speak out.

The more than two dozen eunuchs have all been new to the palace in recent months, and they have all recorded their resumes before, but for some reason they have been asked to re-compile them.

Li Hui was secretly shocked in his heart, and vaguely felt that this should be for himself.

Compiling resumes together means that more than 20 people enter the palace together, and they are just one of the more than 20 eunuchs, and no one will pay attention to them.

Zhang Shibao does things without leakage.

However, in this way, the person who does not leak anything, and has the best martial arts, is only the eunuch of the direct palace eunuch, you can imagine how fierce the power struggle in the palace is.

Li Hui studied under Yuan Wenbo, pulled out the cocoon from the clues, and analyzed the situation, which is naturally not a problem.

"If you don't have roots, don't think that you still have a seed, and in the palace, those who have a seed die first. ”

Li Changhai reprimanded: "If you want to learn to be a grandson, the result of making mistakes in the palace is death." ”

"Li Hui, Jingci Palace is on duty to clean; Zhang Zhi, the imperial study ......"

Li Hui was slightly stunned when he heard this, he was able to enter the inner city of the palace to guard and clean the Jingci Palace.

Jingci Palace is the dormitory of Concubine Wen.

The dormitory is divided into the main house, the wing room, the front yard and the back yard.

Concubine Wen lives in the main house, the east and west wings are the study and living room respectively, the front yard is the place of daily activities, the back yard is used as a utility room, and the eunuch and the palace maid are on duty in the backyard, waiting for the call of the front yard at any time.

As a cleaning eunuch on duty, his status is low, and he is not summoned in the front yard, so he cannot appear in the front yard at will.

Li Hui sat on the steps with his eyes closed, and several palace maids were busy on the stone table in the middle of the courtyard.