Pei Ji hesitated: "At the beginning of the year, have you ever been to Ganliang?" ”

"I once heard my nephew mention that he was being followed by an unidentified person when he was out." As he spoke, his gaze looked at the scar on the door of Li Yan's face.

Li Yan said: "I was just about to talk to my master. Over the years, I have missed my master very much. At the beginning of the year, I deliberately went to Ganliang and wanted to visit. However, after arriving, thinking of my current identity, and worried that rushing to the door would bring trouble to the master, or inconvenience to the master, he hesitated again and again, and finally did not dare to disturb the purity of the master, and retreated, just to see Pei Erlangjun, because he had admired him for a long time, so he followed, the original intention was to make friends, all to blame me for not being good, because of the improper behavior, so that Pei Erlangjun misunderstood, presumably the master worried. ”

When Pei Ji heard Pei Xiaoyuan describe the appearance and demeanor of that person, he had already vaguely guessed in his heart that it might be Li Yan.

"It's a nephew who is too reckless! It hurt His Highness to this point! I make amends to His Highness on his behalf! Pei Ji immediately bowed.

Li Yan stopped him, saying that he had a precedent. Pei Ji could only give up and said, "I am very grateful to His Royal Highness. Seeing His Highness in front of him today, I was relieved. His Royal Highness often came to the Eastern Capital when he was young, and this time again, if he is free, why not stay for a few more days, I have nothing to do, and I can accompany His Highness. ”

Although Li Yan was listed as a secret criminal of the imperial court, he was still a teenager when he left, and now nearly 20 years have passed, and his appearance has already changed greatly, even if ordinary people see it in person, they will not recognize it, if he is willing to stay for a few days, it is not a big problem. Therefore, Pei Ji said this very sincerely.

Li Yan smiled and said: "I am a prisoner of the imperial court, and if my master is willing to come here to see me tonight, it is already a great risk, how dare I dare to expect to be able to listen to my master's teachings in the morning and evening as before?" After he said this, he stared at Pei Ji, lowered his voice, and said softly: "I can't hide it, I have the courage to come here to ask for a meeting, in addition to visiting my master, there is also another matter, begging my master to guide me." ”

Pei Ji immediately gave up his hand: "Your Highness, please say something, I don't dare to bear it." ”

Li Yandao: "Back then, my father, who was the prince and orthodox, was persecuted by the current saint, not to mention the loss of his position and his life, but he was even named the name of forcing the palace, and since then he has become a sinner, and he will never recover. And how can he be virtuous, but relying on the merits of Shigong, Shenhu General and others, he took the opportunity to win the hearts of the people, eradicate dissidents, and slaughter innocent superiors. In terms of brazenness, no one in the world can stand out! Not to mention, the heinous crimes he did to the Divine Tiger General! In order to prevent him from returning to Beijing to protect my father, he colluded with foreign enemies, borrowed a knife to kill people, and killed the general and 800 martyrs! Every time I think of the grievances between the general and the prince of Peifu, I am indignant for them. Where is the day? ”

"Yan Bucai, in the years of living outside, I have also been lucky to get the sympathy and assistance of some like-minded people with lofty ideals, when the time is ripe, conspire to great things, if I can realize my wish and bring the court back to the righteous lineage, the first thing I do must be to restore the name of the general Zhaoxue!"

Li Yan didn't dare to claim to be talented, but he was taught by his master and many great Confucians since he was a child, and he also knew a little about the way of the emperor. If I can realize my wish, I will make great efforts to govern the country, innovate by appointing talents, reduce punishments, and be good neighbors and borders, so that the world will be peaceful, and everyone will be able to live and work in peace and contentment! ”

His face showed extreme forbearance and solemnity, and when he said this, he paused, closed his eyes for a moment, opened his eyes again, stared at Pei Ji in front of him, and continued: "Don't misunderstand, master. I came to see my master today, and I didn't mean anything else when I said that. I also know that my master has suffered a lot in the border land over the years, and now he finally has a rare sense of purity, how dare I disturb? I only plead, when my deed is completed, my master can return to the court with my virtuous nephew, and I hope that my master can be my wife again, the head of a hundred officials, and help me achieve a great cause! ”

What answered him was Pei Ji's silence.

Li Yan suddenly knelt in front of him again: "If the master thinks that what Yan Zhi said is a great rebellion, he can immediately tie me up and hand it over to the imperial court, and Yan will never dare to complain!" ”

Pei Ji walked slowly to the pavilion, turned his back to Li Yan behind him, looked at the wild plain at the bottom of the mountain, where countless ancient tombs of kings and heroes had been buried, and after a while, he said, "Your Highness, please get up." I couldn't have done that, no matter how reasonable. But, IMHO. ”

He looked back and looked at Li Yan behind him.

"Even if one day, Your Highness, you really fulfill your wish and become the lord of Chang'an, I'm afraid I won't be able to obey my fate."

Li Yan froze for a moment and slowly tilted his head.

A pillar of cold silver moonlight slanted in through a corner of the remnant pavilion and fell on his raised face. His face was as pale as paper.

"Master, you don't want to be my concubine anymore, and I'm no longer your imperial grandson, are you?"

He smiled wryly and asked a quivering question.

"Master and the people of the Pei family, you are the people my father relies on and trusts the most. After my father goes, you can endure humiliation and burden for the sake of the court, serve the current emperor as the master, and even, marry the princess for the sake of your nephew, however, you are disappointed in me after all, and you have also seen me, and you don't want to teach me anymore, right? ”

Pei Ji turned around slowly.

"Your Highness, I believe that if you get what you want, you will do everything in your power to be the best king you can achieve. However, unless the current saint is willing to return the throne to you, and the court is stable and excessive, otherwise, if you want to return to Chang'an, it must be a bloody storm, or even a big fight. But Your Highness, how could he do this with a saint today? He's not someone you can easily take down. Therefore, if you get what you want, the order of the court, which has been finally formed again for nearly twenty years, will surely collapse again, even more completely than before. ”

"Your Highness, if there is no change in the previous Jingsheng, you can become a ruler of the world, but that's all."

"Once you recapture Chang'an by bloodshed, even if it is just a drop of blood, many dormant careerists in the world will smell the smell of blood and jump out, and then follow suit. At that point, you won't be in control. And the Holy Dynasty really can't withstand the chaos like the end of Jingsheng again! ”

Li Yan slowly stood up from the ground. Pei Ji continued:

"Your Highness, your question is correct. Prince Jingsheng has a deep affection for my Pei family, and the Pei family should have repaid the favor, taking the prince's lineage as orthodoxy and serving His Royal Highness as the king, but I was willing to be the king's minister back then, and today I dare to refuse His Royal Highness's good intentions and refuse to serve you anymore. Why? ”

"The chaos of the year was not the disaster of the king. It was he who led the troops and horses to win the hearts of the people, and then put down the rebellion. Although his subsequent actions were cold, he was not to blame in this matter. ”

"It's different today. The world is peaceful, and the Quartet is also peaceful. Your Highness, you are hateful and obsessed, it is also human nature, I can't stop Your Highness from what you want to do, but what Your Highness did was just out of the selfishness of the family. My Pei family has always been loyal, but it is not one person and one king, it is the court and the world. ”

"The people used their own body fat and even flesh and blood to worship the nobles of heaven and the ministers of the Manchu Dynasty, why? Those who work hard govern people, and those who work hard govern people! They hoped to receive the benevolent government of the imperial court. What is benevolent governance? As Meng Shengyan said, the worries of the world first, the joy of the world after the world, and the joy of the people. So much for. ”

Pei Ji looked at the young man in front of him whose face was pale and stood like a pillar, bowed respectfully to him, and bowed solemnly.

"The time is also, the momentum is also."

"Your Highness, the old minister has the courage to implore Your Highness to think twice."

After a long time, Li Yan raised his sleeves, wiped away a residual tear on his face, and returned the salute to Pei Ji, who was still kneeling on the ground, with a faint smile on his face, and said respectfully: "There is a disturbance to the master." Li Yan was taught. ”

After he finished speaking, he walked down the pavilion and left, and his figure entered the forest.

Li Meng walked out of the shadows and followed closely.

At first, Li Yan only kept moving forward, and his pace was hurried. He kept walking, and the moonlight fell on his face through the sometimes dense canopy, reflecting the faint smile on his lips that was sometimes bright and dark, but never disappeared, until he walked out of the woods, and left the remnant pavilion far behind, he suddenly stopped, and stood in a mottled night shadow, at this time, his lips were tightly closed, and the smile finally faded completely.

He looked up and closed his eyes.

"Punish him."

After a moment, he opened his eyes and commanded calmly.

It's October.

On the evening of the seventh day of the first lunar month, Pei Xiaoyuan rode out of the city, came to the bank of Weishui in the north of the city, found a wild bank with no one along the river, and dismounted.

The green head who came with him hurriedly jumped off the horse, took the incense, wine and other things he brought, looked left and right, found a place closest to the water's edge, went down, put away the things, and then retreated to the side.

After Pei Gu died that year, after many negotiations with Xifan by the imperial court, after several rounds, his body was finally able to return to his hometown for burial. Cui Niangzi was also buried with her husband.

Weishui goes east, joins the big river, and also flows through the hometown of the east of the river.

Tomorrow's wedding, Pei Xiaoyuan will not be able to return to his hometown, so he will come to the bank of Weishui to pay tribute to his relatives at this moment.

He washed his hands by the water, wiped his hands with a plain towel, took the incense and lit it, held the incense with both hands, towards the east of the river, knelt down at the water's edge, silently prayed, bowed to the incense, finished, inserted the incense into the incense burner, and then waited, and when the incense burned out, he sprinkled all the incense ashes into the Wei water, drank three glasses of wine, poured into the water, and watched the white ash gradually dissipate in the waves that slowly surged eastward, and after a long time, he still stood by the water, his back was motionless.

As the autumn sun sank under the western mountains, the sound of twilight drums was faintly heard, and a few alarmed waterfowl flew across the river that had turned dark and dark, and swept into the dark depths of the wilderness on the opposite bank.

Qingtou knelt down in the direction of the current, and bowed a few times reverently, then got up and called Lang Jun.

"Flowing water can send messages! The general and Cui Niangzi will soon know the good news, and they will definitely be happy for Lang Jun! It's getting dark, so Lang Jun should go back. After being troubled by them for so long during the day, it was hard to get out, and Lang Junying was also tired, so hurry back and rest early to recuperate! Prepare to go to the palace tomorrow to welcome your relatives! This is a top priority, and we must not delay! ”

As soon as he got up in the morning, Chengping and many children from various guards in Beijing trapped Pei Xiaoyuan in the restaurant on the grounds of celebration, took turns to drink, and did not allow him to leave. Judging by their intentions, they want to take advantage of this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to get him completely drunk, preferably so drunk that he even misses tomorrow's greeting, anyway, he is not afraid of big things when he sees the excitement. It was Qingtou who saw that the situation was not good, and he was afraid that the master would marry by mistake if he was really drunk, so he ran to call Han Kerang, and then fished out the half-drunk person from the restaurant. He squinted wildly, woke up, and here he was.

After Qingtou finished persuading, seeing that the master really listened to him, he turned around and went ashore, rejoicing in his heart, and hurriedly went to the river to collect the incense burner and other things.

Now the sky was getting darker and darker, and the wind outside the city was getting stronger, and the branches and leaves of the chaotic forest on the grassy beach near the river were surging and the sound of the wind rushing through the treetops.

Pei Xiaoyuan walked along the river bank and took the lead in walking towards the golden crow that stopped in front. Suddenly, he hesitated, stopped, and moved his fingers slightly.

With a sudden, unusually sharp and strange sound, three short arrows suddenly shot out from the chaotic forest on the opposite side at the same time, whizzing towards him.

Pei Xiaoyuan's hand was raised at this time, and in an instant, he pulled out his waist knife, which never left his body, hanging on the strap, and cut off the first crossbow arrow that came first. Then dodge at breakneck speed, dodging the two small arrows that followed closely behind.

The bolts missed, and they hit the rocks by the river, and the arrows struck two shallow pits on the rocks, and they swirled to the ground. It can be seen how powerful the arrow is.

"Lang Jun! Wait for me—"

Qingtou had just come ashore with an incense burner and other things at this time, and he didn't know what was going on at all, so he raised his feet and rushed towards Pei Xiaoyuan.

The first wave of the three crossbow arrows passed, followed by a second wave of short arrows whistling from the same position in the forest.

"Get down!" Pei Xiaoyuan turned his face and shouted at Qingtou.

However, it was too late, and the little man had rushed to the front, and suddenly saw the crossbow arrows shooting in this direction, and was stunned, and his hand shook, and the incense burner smashed on the ground, but the man froze in place, and lost his reaction for a while.

Seeing that one of the crossbow arrows was shooting towards him, Pei Xiaoyuan, after blocking the other two, pounced on him and pounced on him.

He paused, looked up again, shot his gaze to the opposite side, jumped up from the ground with his sword, and without giving the other party any chance, he rushed into the forest like lightning, and slashed at a dense bush.

With the sound of branches breaking, a masked man sprang out from behind the pile of bushes, holding a repeater that could fire three arrows at a time.

The man didn't expect that six short arrows in succession would all miss. Seeing that the hiding place was discovered again, he couldn't help but be horrified, and he could only draw his knife in a hurry.

Pei Xiaoyuan spun the blade sharply and slashed directly at the masked man's head and face.

The man knew that he wanted to see his face, the cold blade pressed the top, the killing intent pounced, desperately dodged back, the chest was slashed by the blade, and a knife more than a foot long was pulled out, and the blood suddenly surged.

The others fell to the ground, and saw Pei Xiaoyuan pounce again, knowing that Fang Cai's assassination failed to succeed, at this moment, he was alone, and he was by no means his opponent, and he randomly released the three short crossbows that Fang had just loaded and had not had time to launch, and took advantage of the last short opportunity to fight, got up from the ground in pain, covered his injured chest, and ran towards the opposite Weishui.

Pei Xiaoyuan shot down the three short crossbows, turned around and chased after them, chasing them to the water's edge, but after all, he was still a step too slow, and the masked man had already plunged into the river, causing a splash, and then he was swallowed by the current, and disappeared along with the dark red blood on the water.

After Qingtou reacted, he crawled and hid behind a nearby stone, poked his head and looked nervously, and saw that the masked man was injured by Lang Jun, and jumped into the water in embarrassment to escape, leaving Lang Jun alone to stand by the water's edge with a knife, he breathed a long sigh of relief, hurriedly jumped out from behind the stone, and ran again.

"Lang Jun is wise and martial! Beat the assassin away! He happily rushed to Pei Xiaoyuan's side, "If it weren't for Lang Jun to save me, I'm afraid it would have been gone!" Thank you, Lang Jun! With that, he snorted and spat at the surface of the water where the masked man had just jumped into the water and escaped.

"Do you know who Lang Jun is? Dare to attack Lang Jun! I think he's an old birthday star who hanged himself for a long time—"

Suddenly, his words stopped abruptly, and his eyes were fixed on Pei Xiaoyuan's left arm.

A thin column of blood was slowly flowing down his arm, dripping to the ground.

"Lang Jun, you have been hit by an arrow!"

He finally saw clearly that a short arrow was stuck in Lang Jun's left shoulder, and he couldn't help but scream.

At this time, Pei Xiaoyuan had already put away his knife, raised his right arm, wrapped it around his shoulder, grabbed the shaft of the short arrow with his hand, and pulled out the arrow cluster from his left back shoulder at once.

I saw that there was a ball of flesh and blood that had been twisted out of the arrow cluster, and the wound was constantly gushing blood, which was extremely terrifying.

"Lang Jun!" Qingtou's eyes straightened when he saw it, and he shouted loudly. "How did you force it out yourself!"

"Probably poisonous on the arrows. Do you still have wine, fetch it for me! ”

The cold sweat on Pei Xiaoyuan's forehead trickled out, gritted his teeth, and commanded in a low voice.

Qingtou jumped up, galloped to the horse, took the wine bag, and according to Pei Xiaoyuan's instructions, he trembled and helped him wash his wound with wine, and after using up the wine, Pei Xiaoyuan tore off a piece of his shirt from his middle coat, asked Qingtou to tie the wound tightly for him, temporarily stopped the bleeding, and then rushed back to the city.

He did not return to Yongning's house, and quietly went to the government office. Soon, He Jin arrived in a hurry.

He had been a military doctor in the army in his early years, and he was well-informed, picked up an arrow brought back by Pei Xiaoyuan, sniffed the arrow cluster, and licked it again, his face suddenly changed.

"Lang Jun, this cluster of arrows is indeed poisonous, quenched by dragon blood poison, it is a kind of snake venom. Although it is not easy to extract, it is very precious, and it is impossible to use it in large quantities, but I have seen it in the army before. If the cluster of arrows is quenched by fresh snake venom, the person who is hit by the arrow may be afraid of his life. However, after two hours, the toxicity will slowly dissipate. The longer it takes, the weaker the stool becomes. Fortunately, Lang Jun pulled it out in time, looking at the breath and smell of this arrow, it should be that the assassin had not been able to find a chance to attack for a long time, and when he finally could use it, the poison that had been quenched had disappeared a lot. Still, there should be remnants. Lang Jun must not be negligent! ”

After Qingtou came back, he recovered from the great fright at the beginning, and kept squatting in the corner holding his head and wiping his tears, and he blamed himself in his heart. Call the Imperial Doctor! It's all my fault! If it weren't for me, Lang Jun wouldn't have been shot! After saying that, he was about to run out.

"Stop!" Pei Xiaoyuan drank him.

He Jin hesitated, and also persuaded: "I think Qingtou has a point." Also, Lang Jun, you are not lightly injured this time, tomorrow to welcome relatives to the church, the etiquette is cumbersome, not easy, I am afraid that Lang Jun you will not be able to persevere. I think the princess is also a reasonable person, so why don't you discuss it with the princess and see if you can postpone it......"

"Don't tell the princess about my injury! As for the marriage, everything is ready, how can it be postponed because of such a minor injury? ”

"Lang Jun!" He Jin really felt uneasy.

"That's it! There is no need to say anything more. ”

Pei Xiaoyuan's gaze swept over He Jin and Qingtou and said.

His face was pale at the moment, and his tone was very calm, but the categorical meaning of his words was very obvious.

Chapter 94

The cool silver moonlight poured in through the half-open windows of the dormitory, illuminating a faint curtain of tents in the hall. In the corner of the tent in the depths of the couch, Su Yu suddenly woke up from his dream, only to feel that the sound of "don't return" sent by the wind in his ears was still there, lingering.