Xue Ke looked at him and asked, "Do you hate the emperor?" ”

The prince smiled: "Ke'er, have you ever heard a sentence that the heavenly family has no father and son?" There is no love and hate between kings and ministers, and if you talk about feelings, you can't survive. ”

Xue Ke also smiled, laughing so much that he was about to burst into tears.

The prince held her hand with his backhand, obviously blowing outside for a long time, and his hands were cold and had no temperature.

"There's a half-rainbow pavilion over there, go in and sit."

That piece of terrain is low, and the Banhong Pavilion is built according to the situation, and when you look through the window, it is as close as the water surface in the distance. If it rains, people are in a boat. When it is half sunny and half rainy in summer, there are often rainbows lying on the water, and enjoying it from the pavilion is another beautiful scenery.

It is a miniature scene, and there is no superfluous furnishings inside.

The prince saw that the mattress was still clean, although there was no charcoal fire, there were windows on all sides, and it was not very cold, and said softly: "Ke'er, you can sit with me for a while." ”

Xue Ke nodded, looked at the prince and sighed again: "It's really not easy for His Highness to look like this." ”

The prince also smiled, and said for a while: "Since then, I don't talk to people much, I have to carefully read twice in my heart when I talk to anyone, and later, do you remember, you once entered the palace with Mrs. Xue, when you were only five or six years old, Rongxi Gonggong, that is, the big eunuch around his father before the emperor, many princesses and princesses have to stammer, training a little palace maid who has just entered the palace, everyone praises him for strict palace discipline, only you run up and say, this palace maid is only eight or nine years old, you are such a big person, why do you always scold her?" ”

Xue Ke also smiled: "Really? How come I don't remember? ”

The prince said: "I guess you have done a lot of this kind of thing, of course I don't remember." I thought, how can there be a fool like you who laughs and scolds out of his heart? ”

Xue Ke looked out the window, the window was made of enamel crystal, and the moonlight came in, reflecting on the collapse and the ground bit by bit, which looked extremely cold. She smiled: "My father and mother have spoiled me since I was a child. ”

The prince nodded: "Later, I often heard about your feats in the palace, what scared the little son of Jingwen Hou's family, and what debunked the fake tricks of the Taoist priest of Maoshan, I thought, how can General Xue have a daughter like you." Later, for a period of time when I was very depressed in the palace, I asked my father to go to the Western Army, and my father ordered me to supervise the army and let General Xue take me. ”

She knew that the prince had been in the west for four years, but she didn't know why it was so simple. I couldn't help but laugh and asked, "Is the West Coast interesting?" My mother often said that the place she wanted to go to the west was the west, and she wanted to see what the place where my father fought all his life was like. ”

The prince seems to recall that period of time, he has been living in the deep palace, more than ten years old people are like living for several lifetimes of old man, to the west he knows, the original days are not only business calculations, power struggle, he understood the magnificence of the world for the first time, the first time to understand the duties and significance of the king, what is called "the Son of Heaven guards the country, the king dies in the community", what is called "inch inch of rivers and mountains inch of blood".

The prince's voice was distant and flying: "It's really bitter and beautiful, there is no grassland to see, no Gobi can be seen, no desert can be seen, the lake in the desert is very clear, the snow on the Tianshan Mountains has not melted for thousands of years, and there are large fields of wild flowers under the mountains, do you know what we do when we are not fighting?" ”

"You can't guess!" The prince's voice gradually became gentle: "Do you know what you are in the heart of the generals of the Western Army?" ”

"Oh? What is it? ”

"The people of the west do not worship the Bodhisattva, do not believe in Taoism, they believe in a lot of gods, there are eagle gods, there are wolf gods, the most sacred in their minds is the goddess of the Tianshan Mountains, said to be a very beautiful girl, in order to protect their own people, when the enemy caught up with the jump into the sand lake, so the Tianshan Mountains fell for two whole months of snow, the enemy were frozen to death in the mountains, the people can survive at the foot of the Tianshan Mountains. Ke'er, in the hearts of the generals of the Western Army, you are the goddess. ”

Xue Ke couldn't help but laugh, "You can lie to your heart's content, I don't believe it anyway!" Expression.

The prince also looked at her and smiled: "General Xue has a portrait of you, no matter where you go, the first thing is to hang your portrait." When we're not at war, we're looking around for gifts for you. There was a general soldier Gao who once found the trace of the wolf in the Tianshan Mountains, and he was so excited that he took two small teams to hunt the wolf, but he was picked up by the passing Yue Governor, killed the wolf, and pulled out the wolf's teeth. Do you remember? ”

Xue Ke couldn't laugh at it now, she did remember the wolf tooth, it was very big, she was very rare for a while, she would receive a lot of strange gifts every time, daggers, slingshots, sheep bone crutches, snow lotus petals, and various colors of fur, and a lot of things that could not be named and did not know the purpose, her mother also wondered where her father got these gifts, where did he come to collect them all these times, but she didn't know that they were all collected by the generals of Zhengxi.

The crown prince looked at her surprised expression and smiled again: "The first battle I commanded was won by you for me. ”

At that time, General Xue learned about the other party's elite route, the west is vast and sparsely populated, and it is not easy to find out the enemy's position. Afraid that he would lose, General Xue asked him to stay in the city with a small team.

Who knew that there was a branch of the enemy army near the city, seeing that General Xue took the men and horses out of the city, this group of cavalry came to attack the city, and it came quickly, fast and fierce, although he said that he was the prince supervising the army, he had no combat experience at all, and there were only more than 200 guards in the city, so they didn't necessarily listen to him.

The prince was anxious in his heart, and remembered what General Xue said to him after the training a few days ago: "Your Royal Highness the Prince, the most important thing for a general to be a general is to understand his own soldiers, you have to know what your soldiers are thinking, what do you say they are here to die for?" Is it for the sake of military salaries? Is it for the court's reward? ”

He was also puzzled, and looked at General Xue, whose face was particularly solemn in the sunset: "Your Highness, they are desperate because they know that behind them are their parents, wives and children, and they fight on the battlefield, so that their parents, wives and children can live in peace." ”

At that time, the situation was urgent, and the city was lost, and no matter how many troops were spent to recapture it in the future, the people of the city fell into hell in an instant. The prince ordered the portrait of Xue Ke to be taken out from the general's barracks and hung on the city gate, and all the soldiers went out of the city to prepare for battle.

He waved everyone to be quiet and asked, "Who is hanging on this wall?" Do you know each other? ”

At a slight level, the generals who had entered the general's barracks recognized it: "This is a big girl!" "Those soldiers who have never seen it have only heard it, and they are curious at the moment, pushing and shoving, wanting to see it clearly.

He said in a deep voice: "Now that the general is out of the city to fight the enemy, there is only us in the city, who is behind us?" ”

Everyone looked at each other, not knowing what he meant, could it be that General Xue had already arranged an ambush?

He continued: "There are no more fighters behind us! Behind us are our parents, wives and children, our big girls! We lost the city, and they were slaves! It's death! ”

His words splashed into a pan of oil like boiling water. He drew his sword: "Defend the city to the death!" ”

"Defend the city to the death!" The shouts of the soldiers shook the heavens and the earth.

The portrait fluttered in the wind, and the little girl in the painting stared at the battle for her life in front of the city with clear eyes.