Chapter Twenty-Four: The Queen's Secret

As soon as he returned to the outer palace, he received a summons from the queen.

Entering the queen's bedroom, she was immediately surrounded by the intoxicating aroma, and the queen was still wearing clothes as thin as cicada wings, and her ice muscles appeared, and the spring color was sultry. Although she had seen through her femme fatale, she still couldn't help her heart beat faster.

There was no one else in the house, and the queen smiled and bowed, personally presented a fragrant tea, and asked, "Pi Jun is doing well lately, but the slave family is worried." ”

"Thanks to the Queen, it's fine. He held the fragrant tea in his hand, but he didn't dare to drink more.

"I have already told King Ba about you and Iga about you, and he has no objection, but he is afraid of the priests, and it is difficult to express his position clearly. ”

"If King Ba doesn't agree, can I still marry the princess and inherit the position of prime minister and priest?"

"Don't worry, I have a way to convince him, in fact, King Ba is also dissatisfied with the excessive power of the priests, but he can't find a suitable opportunity, if you inherit this position, King Ba is very willing in his heart. Since you are a novice and there are no cronies in the valley, it is a great thing for him to return the power to the King of Ba. ”

"What if the priest sees through this and takes action?"

"There is no evidence, and there is no support from King Ba, what action can he take, what really worries me is that Liya, this little girl, seems to be hard-hearted with Han Bao, and even ignored my call, Han Bao's expression when he saw me was very unnatural, and it seemed that he knew the inside story of the matter. In a little more than five months, Han Bao will be eighteen years old, and after the coronation ceremony, Han Bao will be able to marry Yiga as his wife and inherit the position of prime minister and priest, which will not be easy to do. ”

"Didn't you say that Liya has already made up her mind to Han Bao, the two are now like glue, how could Han Bao abandon Liya and marry Princess Yiga?"

"No matter how beautiful a woman is, if there is no special means, she will always get tired of being played by a man for a long time, and this matter is related to the life and death of the Chu family, under the pressure of the priest, Han Bao may change his mind, so the top priority is to take the initiative, you have to step up your contacts with Yiga, and win the favor of King Ba, marry Yiga as a wife as soon as possible, and inherit the position of the prime minister's priest, at least inherit the position of the prime minister, because this position does not stipulate hereditary. ”

"When do you think it is appropriate for me to marry a princess?"

"The sooner the better, preferably within a month. ”

"I would like to take the liberty of asking you a question, but I don't know if I can tell you. "There is not much time left, and I have to get to the bottom of something as soon as possible.

"It's almost a family, just ask any questions. The queen showed a special closeness, and her jade fingers slashed at my chest.

"How did the queen know the old Chinese language, and how did she make a feud with the priests?"

"This is the big secret in the valley, even the king of Ba doesn't know, this matter has to start from the king of Wu more than 3,000 years ago. During the Battle of Muye, King Wu of Zhou invited many countries and tribes to fight together, including the Ba people. After King Wu ascended the throne, in order to thank and appease the vassal states, he married several of his sisters and daughters to the princes and kings. At that time, it was the seventh princess of King Wu who married into Ba Kingdom, because she was young and sick, and there was also a royal doctor, that is, my ancestor, who came to treat the princess and manage the government and politics, and secondly, to monitor the actions of King Ba and prevent rebellion. "The queen leaned close to me, and her eyes showed mixed emotions.

"For hundreds of years, the Imperial Physician has enjoyed a high status. But since King Ba hired a prime minister priest Chu Yin Gan from the state of Chu, he cleaned up the government and expelled the imperial doctor's family from the palace, and since then he has been reduced to a commoner, making a living by digging medicine and curing diseases. This incident is not recorded, and later priests did not know, but the official dialect of the Central Plains, as the language of my hometown, has been secretly passed down from generation to generation, and the sacred mission given by the king of Zhou has also been kept in mind. Now the opportunity has finally come, first, to take revenge, and second, to repay Zhou Tianzi's kindness. ”

The queen finished the story with excitement, resting her head on my chest, her eyes filled with tears, and she began to weep as if she wanted to vent her grief that had been pent up for two thousand years.

I was dumbfounded, I didn't expect that the seeds of hatred had germinated for more than two years, and time was so condensed here that it seemed like only a few years to me, an outsider.

Bidding farewell to the queen's reluctant eyes and leaving the palace, I want to find Han Bao and talk to him at once. So he walked towards Longge's coppersmith shop, and met four middle-aged men, although they were wearing linen clothes, their styles were more elaborate than ordinary natives, and they also had some more ornaments on their bodies. When he saw me, he pointed and looked unfriendly.

No one gave way when I passed them, so I took a detour and looked back to see them still glaring.

Nothing had ever happened before, but on the contrary, all of them were very humble when they saw me, for I was a messenger of the Emperor and a friend of Hanbao, and of "extraordinary" wisdom, and my invention was spread far and wide in the valley, and the coppersmith shop of Longge had received many orders for scissors. Several waterwheels have also been built along the creeks in the valley, and my reputation surpasses that of the priests of Hanbao.

Longge didn't see Hanbao there, so I had to go back to Hanbao's house to look for him. On the way, I met the four men again, and this time not only did they not give way, but they stopped me from making a detour.

"Outsider, I want to talk to you. Although it was in the native language, I could barely understand it, and they called me "Stranger," as the priests called me, and not "Lord Messenger" as the others called me. I was a little stunned, but I still stopped and waited for the next sentence.

"You're the messenger of the Emperor, but it's not the right time, maybe you should go back sooner, or come back later. It was one of the elders who spoke, and this man had an iron face and a tiger tattooed on his chest, and he was not angry.

"What do you mean by that?" I was not intimidated by his prerogativeness, knowing that I was almost a head taller than them when I stood in front of them.

"You are very clever, you have invented many strange things, and you have the favor of the queen, but you should not be entangled with the princess, the princess belongs to the treasure, and the priesthood belongs to the treasure. It was another man who spoke, and he actually had a delicate pair of scissors hanging from his waist.

"I don't understand what you mean, Han Bao and I are good friends, and I will never take away what belongs to him, I ...... with Yiga" In the face of these strangers, I really don't want to answer this question, and it's not easy to answer.

But what you do is not convincing. ”

"How can I convince you?" I was a little annoyed by the question, I had planned it, but I couldn't tell these unrelated people I didn't know.

"We are the lords of the four of the seven caves in the valley, and we are the faithful followers of the priest and the treasure of Hanbao, and even if you marry Yiga, we will not worship you as the prime minister's priest. "It turned out to be four cave masters, no wonder they were dressed differently from ordinary natives, but I don't know if Liya's father is also among them. Why are there only four? Then the other three must be the followers of the queen or the king of Ba, and they came to talk to me, did they come to talk to me spontaneously or were they instructed by the priests?

"I have already told you, I have not said that I want to marry Iga or aspire to the position of prime minister and priest, I just want to live a peaceful life. ”

"But it is precisely because of you that the originally very peaceful life in this valley has made waves. The blue-faced man suddenly raised his voice and looked up at me.

"So what am I going to do to satisfy you?" I was so angry that I almost had a seizure, but when I thought about it, what he said was also true, if I hadn't appeared, there would have been no one to compete with Han Bao for the inheritance of the prime minister's priesthood, and there would have been no empathy with Princess Yiga, and the queen's conspiracy would have no suitable carrier, all because of my appearance, which made all this impossible happen.

"Wherever you came from, you should go back there. ”

"What do you mean ......"

"Since you are the messenger of the Emperor, you should go back to the other side of the deep stream, tell the Emperor of the Valley, and ask the Emperor to bless us with safety. ”

I finally understood what they meant, and understood the meaning of the two "unless" of the priest and queen, and returned to the other end of the deep stream, where the white tiger, the soul of the Emperor of Di, lived, and undoubtedly forced me into the mouth of the tiger. But this kind of request is also reasonable, who called me the envoy of the Emperor of the Emperor? It is a matter of course to report to the Emperor, which is fundamentally different from the sacrifice of the tiger.

I felt that my days in the valley were numbered.