The trial of Liu Jin ended quickly, although Liu Jin has always refused to confess, repeatedly saying that he was wronged, and even made several fuss in the court, crying and shouting to see the emperor to appeal, but even if he refuses to confess in the face of ironclad evidence, he is powerless to return to heaven.

On March 13, shortly after the case was submitted, Zhengde's holy decree came down, and Liu Jin was sentenced to Ling Chi for the crime of rebellion, and the three clans were exterminated; There is no need to wait for the execution after the autumn, Liu Jin, like King Anhua, is a heinous person who has committed the crime of rebellion, and after the verdict is handed down, he will immediately prepare for the execution.

In the evening, the spring rain sprinkled on the streets and alleys of the capital, moistening the heaven and earth, although it was only the end of the Shen period, the sky was already very dark, and the shops on both sides of the street were also lanterns in their hands early; The heat between the tea cages slowly spilled out of the light and drifted into the drizzly sky.

At the door of the prison of the Criminal Department, a few horses stopped under the stone steps in front of the door with white gas, several people wearing robes and hats turned over and got off the steps, a tall man stepped forward and handed over the name post, the jailer guarding the gate was bored endlessly, but after seeing the name post, he immediately straightened his chest like a chicken blood.

"Hey, it's the masters of Song Hou Ye and Jinyiwei, I don't know how the villain can help?"

"My lord wants to go in to visit a prisoner, and ask my brother to be accommodating."

"I don't know who Marquis Song is going to visit? Our rule here is that family members must make an appointment to visit, and some prisoners are not allowed to visit, small ......"

"Can Hou Ye Song still make it difficult for you?" The tall man interrupted the jailer's words, reached out and took out two silver ingots of ten taels from his arms, and slapped them in the jailer's hand with a snap: "Divide with the brothers, find a few girls to put out the fire after you get off duty, I see that you seem to have a little bit of a weak brain, it seems that you have been holding back for too long." ”

The jailer's eyes were bright, and he said kind words in his mouth, and with a light touch of his hand, twenty taels of silver were hidden in his sleeve, and without saying a word, he turned around and beckoned to open the small door, and a group of mermaids rushed into the courtyard. With the silver to open the way, things were done neatly, and after the tea, Song Nan was already in the corridor of the Tianzi No. 1 death row cell.

The cell boss walked down the dark and smelly aisle with a lantern, and from time to time there were weeping and scolding voices from the cells on both sides, and from time to time thin hands reached out through the cracks in the fence, trying to grab the clothes of the people walking in the aisle. The cell boss and one of the jailers shouted loudly, and mercilessly hit the outstretched arm with a club, and the ghost cried wolf.

"Song Houye, don't be surprised, the people who come in here are basically no way to live, these guys are also very arrogant, do you think, people who dare to do any bad things like murder and arson outside, anti-corruption, what kind of pure people can be?" The cell boss turned around and explained.

Song Nan waved his hand and said, "I understand, where is Liu Jin detained?" ”

The cell head said: "In the single room in front, Lord Song, the imperial court strictly prohibits visiting prisoners before execution, and the villain has made an exception for you; You hurry up, don't let the little one be embarrassed, the above knows, the villain is afraid that this job will not be saved. ”

Hou Dabiao reprimanded: "What are you talking about? Don't you know the rules when we don't know? I lost the errand of the Criminal Department, and Lao Tzu arranged for you to be the errand of the Beizhen Fusi Prison, which is more oil and water. ”

The cell boss nodded and did not dare to say more, and after a moment the group came to the end of the corridor, where two jailers stood in front of the door of a cell and bent over, and the cell boss took out a large set of keys and unlocked one of the locks on the door; One of the jailers on duty also took out a key and opened another lock, and the cell door was actually opened.

"Master Hou, people are inside, you talk slowly, I'll wait outside." The cell boss laughed.

Song Nan nodded and said, "Hard work, Hou Dabiao, I will give these brothers a reward of ten taels of silver, you are all waiting outside, and I will go in alone." ”

Hou Dabiao, Wang Yong and others agreed to the promise, standing outside the cell door to guard, Song Nan lifted the lantern, stretched out his hand and pushed the heavy wooden door, squeaked, the cell door opened gently, and after stepping in, in the dim light, I saw that the cell was empty, and there was no one on the messy grass shop; Song Nan took the lantern around, and saw a cloaked figure sitting cross-legged in the corner, it was Liu Jin.

Someone came in the cell, but Liu Jin was unconscious, and he didn't look back, like an old monk in a trance. Song Nan hesitated for a moment, hung the lantern on the hook on the wall, put down a food box on the straw bunk, slowly took out the food, wine and meat brought from it, and poured a glass of wine full.

"Who's coming? The people who can come to see me at this time must not be my relatives and old friends. Liu Jin suddenly spoke.

Song Nan straightened up and arched his hand at Liu Jin's back and said, "Father-in-law Liu, I'm Song Nan." ”

Liu Jin's body shook, slowly turned his face, and a pair of sharp eyes were like lightning between his messy hair, like two sharp knives stabbing at Song Nan.

"Who should I be, it turned out to be Lord Song, didn't you harm our family enough? Our family has reached this point, you still come to show off, right? ”

"Father-in-law Liu, let's use some wine and food first, the food in this prison must not taste very good, and my father-in-law probably hasn't eaten anything in the past few days, come on, eat something, no matter what, the stomach is full."

Liu Jin snorted coldly and got up slowly, and there was a clanging sound on his body, which was the sound of handcuffs and leg irons; Bang, bang, Liu Jin walked to the grass shop step by step, stared at Song Nan for a long time, and suddenly stretched out his hand and swept all the wine and food on the grass shop to the ground, and suddenly there was a chaotic sound of ping-pong.

Outside, Wang Yong, Hou Dabiao and others heard the strange noise, and hurriedly asked loudly: "My lord, what happened?" ”

Song Nan shouted, "It's okay, don't come in." ”

Liu Jin sneered: "Song Nan, what are you doing with hypocrisy? Our family is here today thanks to you, what kind of good person do you want to pretend to be, what kind of well-behaved person do you sell? I didn't expect that our family would be framed by you, a villain, and would die at your hands. ”

Song Nan shook his head, stretched out his hand to pick up the fat chickens and pig's trotters that fell on the ground and put them in the food box, raised his head and looked at Liu Jin and said, "Father-in-law Liu, why are you angry with wine and food?" These things don't mess with you. Yes, it was I who designed you to be knocked to the ground so quickly, but I don't agree with what you say you are innocent. I didn't need to get to this point between me and you, if you hadn't attacked me several times and wanted to kill me, I wouldn't have done this to you, and you brought it on yourself today. ”

Liu Jin sneered: "It's so lightweight, if I hadn't recommended you many times in front of the emperor back then, how could you be where you are today?" Now you will take revenge, but you have come to speak up. ”

Song Nan said coldly: "Father-in-law Liu, if you still talk like this until now, it doesn't mean anything; You seem to have been kind to me all along, and you want me to bow down before you and only look at you, but I don't want to, so you are my enemy everywhere. You know in your heart who is between you and me, when you and I first met, if I hadn't been around from it, how would you know what would have happened in your heart; If I hadn't persuaded the emperor to keep the few of you, what would have happened to you? And after that, what did you do to me? Rhetorical promise me to give me the position of commander of the Jinyi Guard, but secretly used his hands and feet, pulled out a Shi Wenyi, and you also suppressed me everywhere on the way to patrol the border. That's not all, when Liu Liu and Liu Qi rebelled, you instructed Gu Dayong to hold my troops and want me to die in Xin'an. King Anhua made a rebellion, you ordered Li Zeng to assassinate me on the street in Ningxia, what you did to me, how can you blame me for treating you like this today. ”

Liu Jin's face turned pale, gritted his teeth and said: "You want our family to die, our family wants you to die, is there anything wrong with this?" ”

Song Nan said: "In this case, why are we still entangled with these today?" If I had been removed from you, you would not be today; You have today's disaster, and you shouldn't blame me for being ruthless to you, we shouldn't blame each other. I came here today only because we used to be old friends, and your father-in-law Liu is also the number one person, so I came to visit you. The old man will go, I will visit, this is the number of courtesies that Song Nan can do, if you don't appreciate it, I have nothing to say. ”

Liu Jin was silent for a long time, suddenly sighed, slowly sat down on the grass bunk, and said softly: "A few years ago, our family felt that you were not an easy generation, our family once thought, if you and I join forces, who in the world has an opponent?" It's a pity that things have come to this point, although our family is ruined in your hands, but I still admire you, you are smarter than me. ”

Song Nan shook his head and said: "You are wrong, you are not destroyed in my hands, you are self-destruction; At first, I did have a cooperative relationship with you, and I didn't deny that I wanted to make it through the alliance with you, but then I finally found out that you and I are not all the way. You are too selfish and arbitrary to allow anyone to be better than you. And some of your practices are really unacceptable, I am not talking about the matter between you and me, but the matter of the Ming Dynasty; You don't know much about government affairs, but you like to point fingers and come up with some policies that bring disaster to the country and the people, causing panic in the hearts of the people and chaos in the world, and this is where you have failed the most. ”

Liu Jin sighed: "I am loyal to the emperor, isn't that enough?" ”

Song Nan smiled: "You are indeed loyal to the emperor, but the purpose of your loyalty to the emperor is to seek greater power, which is false loyalty; The real loyal minister is to consider the Ming Society and help the emperor to sit firmly in the country, which is the real loyalty. Do you know why you seem to be very powerful, your power is all over the inner and outer courts, all over the Ming Dynasty, and once you get to this point, you don't even have a person to speak for you? Those who usually slap you up are the most fierce accusations against you, have you ever thought that you would be knocked down so lightly? This qiē is all self-inflicted, and the means by which you maintain them is not emotion, but profit; It's not to convince them of support, but to coerce and suppress, so as soon as you fall, no one will save you, and you will only fall into the well with your life, which is your sadness. ”

Liu Jin sighed, suddenly stretched out his hand, grabbed half a pot of wine in the pot and poured it down, and then fell on top of the straw shop.

Song Nan got up silently, took off the cloak on his body and put it on Liu Jin, and said, "In any case, you and I have known each other, and I came to see you out of my morality." You can only sue you, everyone wants to live, and live better, and the first thing everyone needs to do before they want to take away their lives is to be prepared to meet the price that comes with it. You Liu Gonggong is like this, and so is my Song Nan. In the next few days, I will order someone to entertain you with good wine and food, Gonggong Liu, let's say goodbye, I won't say goodbye, because I'm afraid we will never see each other again. ”

Liu Jin was silent, swaying with the smell of alcohol, Song Nan turned around and walked towards the door, and the moment he opened the prison door, he suddenly heard Liu Jin muttering behind him: "Actually, you and I are the same people...... My way...... That's where you come, haha...... How can you escape the arrangement of fate? ”

Song Nan didn't move, and said without looking back: "You are wrong, my fate and your fate are like clouds." ”