Tie your hair, change your clothes, cleanse your face, incense, wrap your waist, and wear jade.
Zheng Xiu took some tea and dressed neatly under the service of four skillful maids.
Feng Bei looked at the four maids with different looks, who were proficient in playing, playing and singing, touching Zheng Xiu up and down with their eight hands. She calmly looked away and frowned slightly: "Why do you need to do this when you see an emperor."
Fengbei became Xie Luohe, and Zheng Xiu became Gongsun Mo. The two lived in the Richan Valley for ten years, but now that they have returned to reality, everything is very different from Fengbei's impression.
Even though she already knew that Zheng Shan was Zheng Xiu and Gongsun Mo was also Zheng Xiu, Feng Bei still could not completely connect the middle-aged man with a big beard in the valley to the richest man in his prime and elegant life.
A sense of fragmentation.
The chaotic time and space, and the indistinguishable experience between reality and reality gave Feng Bei something called a "sense of fragmentation" in his heart.
Zheng Xiu knew very well, and Feng Bei also knew very well that the gap between them could not be eliminated in just a few words.
This is one of the reasons why the two of them clearly know each other inside out and have no secrets. They have even shared the same bed for ten years, but now that they have returned to reality, they still cannot completely break through the thin layer of window paper.
If it weren't for Zheng Shan, if it weren't for the experiences in cannibal paintings, Feng Bei and Zheng Xiu would belong to two worlds, two parallel lines that go their own way and never intersect.
"After all, that is the emperor."
Zheng Xiu didn't feel any anxiety or uneasiness in his heart, but only felt relieved that "it's finally here."
These days, the threshold of his Zheng family has been almost broken by high and low officials. They may have received some rumors. Now that the emperor is here, this may be the reason why the officials come to build relationships.
After walking out of the room, Qing Shisan smoked a cigarette in front of the arch in the main courtyard.
He looked at Zheng Xiu.
Ji Hongou sat on the wall with her legs crossed.
They looked worried.
As the saying goes, they don't go to the Three Treasures Palace for nothing, and the emperor's low-key private visit in disguise is not a good thing for them.
"There are people from the Secret Service hiding around Zheng's house."
Qing Shisan said something.
"It doesn't matter, the emperor comes here to see me. He must have something important to do."
Qing Shisan understood, hesitated for a few seconds, whistled a few times, and asked the brothers who were secretly competing with the Secret Service to retreat.
On the roof, shadows moved, one after another flashing past.
The Brotherhood is elusive, and so is the Secret Service.
"Secret Department...Secret Factory."
Zheng Xiu suddenly remembered the "Jianghu" that was lost in history two hundred years ago, and thought of those knights with free and easy temperament, and he felt a bit melancholy and sighing for no reason.
Qing Shisan stepped forward and grabbed Zheng Xiu's hand, gesturing a few words in his palm.
Zheng Xiu nodded and walked towards the door.
Feng Bei followed silently, and after a few steps, Zheng Xiu said with a black line: "Don't make trouble, it's not a conflict with the emperor. Why are you following me? Did I ask you to take action?"
Zheng Xiu made a serious face: "This is outside."
The implication is that you have to listen to me outside.
The room is separate, so you can do whatever you want.
"Meow!"
The fat orange cat jumped out from the flowers on the side, jumped on Feng Bei's shoulder and stood, looking at Zheng Xiu with wide eyes.
"Look, Xiaofengmiao thinks so too."
"All right."
Although Feng Bei was confused about the emperor's sudden visit, when Zheng Xiu said this, Feng Bei had no choice but to agree.
One person and one cat watched Zheng Xiu go away.
Zheng Xiu pushed open the heavy house door alone.
A canopy-covered chariot was parked. The driver, who was simply dressed and whose bulging shoulders looked powerful, had his legs on the horse's butt and lowered his head without saying a word. A beautiful maid in a goose-yellow dress stood quietly.
Beside the chariot: "Please, Mr. Marquis, come into the carriage and have a chat."
The street in front of the gate was deserted. It must have been arranged in advance before the emperor went on tour.
"Zheng Xiu, the Marquis of Zhonglie, has met with His Majesty."
Zheng Xiu bowed his hands to Wei Yangzun who was hiding behind the curtain.
His other memories may be fuzzy, but he remembers clearly the fact that "Marquis Zhonglie does not need to kneel down when meeting the emperor."
"No gift."
The maid opened the curtain for Zheng Xiu, and Zheng Xiu got into the carriage without hesitation.
Wei Yangzun was wearing a navy blue robe, holding a folding fan in his hand, and a jade-inlaid cap on his head. He was sitting on the side of the carriage boldly, his eyes bright and energetic. This look made Zheng Xiu almost laugh out loud -
—Because this outfit somehow reminded Zheng Xiu of a wealthy man who went out in disguise to enjoy the scenery and drink wine.
"Marquis Zhonglie, how are you these days?"
Unexpectedly, the first thing Wei Yangzun said was to care about Zheng Xiu's health. Apparently, Zheng Xiu's "serious illness" a few days ago caused an uproar in the city, and it naturally fell into the ears of the emperor.
Zheng Xiu made a look of tears of gratitude: "Thanks to Your Majesty's concern, Marquis Zhonglie is deeply grateful. Now, there is no serious problem."
Wei Yangzun rarely showed a humane smile, and scolded him half-jokingly and half-seriously: "You, there is no need to pretend to be groveling in front of me. Your temper is exactly the same as your father's. You will accept soft things but not hard ones. Besides, your father is still alive.
When we were young, we fought together on the battlefield and had a life-long friendship. Now that you and I are no longer in power, you are my descendant, so there is no need to be too cautious."
Um?
Zheng Xiu was stunned for a moment, and his heart suddenly trembled. Is this playing the emotional card?
While pondering the emperor's thoughts, Zheng Xiu leaned back, leaned on the soft back, changed to a more comfortable sitting position, and said with a smile: "Then Marquis Zhonglie will obey the imperial edict."
The emperor's words were reasonable. Zheng Xiu had to listen to him and not be too restrained, so he changed his posture. But he couldn't be restrained and regarded the emperor's power as nothing. This showed that he didn't take the emperor seriously.
Wei Yangzun saw that Zheng Xiu changed his movements slightly, and he guessed Zheng Xiu's little thoughts, and laughed and scolded: "You little clever guy."
The emperor seemed to be in a good mood.
But the more the emperor behaved like this, the more Zheng Xiu felt that something was not good.
Next, as if he were an elder visiting relatives, Wei Yangzun asked about Zheng Xiu's business, and even talked about the recent drought and floods in the south due to heavy rains. Zheng Xiu immediately offered to donate money for disaster relief, and he had never spent money.
Not even a frown.
“Very good.”
The emperor smiled slightly and nodded. He did not refuse the rich man's kindness.
"Although you are richest in the world, you still care about the people, which is rare and valuable. Your reputation has long been known to the world."
Zheng Xiu quickly added: "No, Marquis Zhonglie plans to donate the disaster relief funds in the name of His Majesty."
"Can."
The emperor nodded calmly again, calmly.
The two were playing Tai Chi in the carriage, which was not painful. The emperor knew that this little money was not a big deal to Zheng Xiu, and Zheng Xiu's heart was enlightened, and the things mentioned above were not a big deal at all.
After talking about the disaster relief, there was silence in the carriage for a while.
Neither the emperor nor Marquis Zhonglie spoke.
Zheng Xiu was naturally waiting.
After a moment of silence, Wei Yangzun smiled and said, "What do you think of Ye Weiyang's Night Master?"
Coming!
Zheng Xiu's eyes narrowed. The emperor actually came to visit about Ye Weiyang?
Does he know that he and Ye Weiyang are fighting?
Also, when Feng Bei and the monk entered the city, although they managed to hide it from the officers and soldiers, they may not be able to hide it from Old Wei.
Feng Bei was chased by Ye Weiyang outside. The noise was so big that it was impossible to completely hide it.
But, how much did Wei know?
In an instant, Zheng Xiu's mind was racing with thoughts, but a puzzled look appeared on his face: "Night Lord? I have heard about it a little bit, but I haven't seen it at all."
"oh?"
The emperor's eyes narrowed and his back straightened. At this moment, Wei Yangzun, who looked like Zheng Xiu's elder in front of him, once again became the emperor who wielded the power of countless lives and deaths. The emperor's majesty leaked, and the air in the carriage suddenly solidified, like
There was an invisible hand pinching Zheng Xiu's neck.
"mystery."
When the emperor asked a question, there must be an answer. Zheng Xiu's previous sentence was not an answer, so the emperor just said "oh". After Zheng Xiu answered the word "mysterious", Wei Yangzun's straight back curved again and he sat back on the soft cushion.
.
He closed his eyes and said in a calm tone: "Yes, mysterious. This person is always elusive. He always appears in front of me as a puppet. It has been twenty years, and I have never seen his true self.
It’s okay.”
"It's even hard for me to know whether he is alive or where he is now."
Zheng Xiu was silent.
Silence is golden at this time.
"But, it was precisely because of him that Da Gan enjoyed twenty years of peace."
The emperor sighed, opened his eyes again, and looked at Zheng Xiu: "Did the death of the raven have something to do with you?"
Zheng Xiu's brows jumped.
What is supposed to come always comes.
This is not so much a question as it is a rhetorical question.
Zheng Xiu's hair stood up all over his body. When he was thinking about how to answer, Old Wei smiled and waved his hand: "I said that you are not a court official, and I am not wearing a dragon robe now. You don't need to be restrained. Do you want to answer this question?
Answer, as far as I am concerned, there is no difference, it is just an extra question. If you don’t answer, that’s fine!”
Zheng Xiu's silence seemed to be a kind of "answer". Facing Zheng Xiu's silence, Wei Yangzun did not show any displeasure. Instead, he chattered more and more.
"Over the years, I have watched you become rich little by little."
"You use many novel methods to make money, but you know how to make money in a proper way."
"A close confidant of mine once advised me late at night, saying that your Zheng family's wealth is beyond imagination. He is afraid that I don't know your little tricks, and he is also afraid that I have gradually fattened up this fierce tiger like you."
"I said that I was never afraid of people who were greedy for money. Later, I sent him to the border."
"Later, I watched helplessly as you wooed the down-and-out masters one by one and took them for your own use. You, the Zheng family, were hiding dragons and crouching tigers, growing bigger and bigger. At this time, someone else warned you, 'Zheng family raises tigers, which is a danger, so you can't keep them.
'Hehe, finally, I gave him a glass of poisonous wine, promising his family ten generations of wealth and no worries about food and clothing."
Wei Yangzun used the calmest words to describe his "preference" for Zheng Xiu that he had secretly shown over the years. It was just a preference from the emperor. Not everyone was blessed to lose weight. Just these two paragraphs cost countless lives.
Zheng Xiu looked at Wei Yangzun in surprise. He had never known about these things. He suspected for a moment that Wei Yangzun had fabricated these two things to play the emotional card, but he soon gave up on this stupid idea.
In my impression, Wei Yangzun was an emperor who disdained such despicable tricks to win people's hearts.
"I admire your benevolence, your wisdom, and your sense of proportion. When your father died on the battlefield, you were left alone, and I felt uneasy. So I made an oath in my heart twenty years ago.
, even if you grow up to be a playboy when you are young, I will still find a way to make you become the most arrogant and domineering playboy. But no one expected that in the end, you will become what your father wants."
Zheng Xiu didn't know what to say for a moment.
Because, he vaguely noticed that when Wei Yangzun said these words, the cause and effect were connected, and what he wanted him to do.
Wei Yangzun talked a lot every time he met Zheng Xiu. Zheng Xiu's deepest impression of Wei Yangzun was the "Three Questions of the Emperor" issued by the dying emperor in front of the prison camp in a reluctant tone before the drastic changes in the world line.
". Even after a hundred years, that incident is still vivid in his mind, and Zheng Xiu cannot forget it.
Today's emperor is so powerful that he exudes majesty in his words. Zheng Xiu, who has penetrated deeply into the art of painters, also vaguely feels an indescribable sense of oppression.
"The Night Lord has disappeared."
"But actually, I never really believed in him."
"Twenty years ago, the Northern Barbarians invaded again. He made great contributions in that long war. I thought the world was peaceful, but suddenly there were many strange forces and chaos in the world. It was still him who took the initiative to stand up.
, share my worries."
"You may ask, why do I still use him even though I don't trust him? And allow him to have great power and be independent from the six ministries?"
"Haha, it's very simple. I don't need to trust people when I use them. As long as they can be used, then they will be used."
"Recently, in the memorials submitted from various places, mysterious cases have occurred frequently, but today Weiyang is like a pile of scattered sand."
"Word-eating monsters, water ghosts, fox fairies, ghost brides, empty graves for thousands of people, hundreds of ghosts walking at night... Do you know that these days, looking at the evil spirits filled with memorials, it is both ridiculous and sad! I seem to hear it.
From north to south, people all over the world are wailing, but nothing can be done."
"I vaguely noticed why that person disappeared for no reason." A second ago, Wei Yangzun was still as calm as water when he spoke. Suddenly, two rays of real anger burst out of his eyes, and the hanging curtain shook violently and made a rustling sound.
"He hid in the darkness again, as if he was mocking my powerlessness!"
"I can't live without him?"
"I can't live without him?"
"Am I not worthy to be the king of Daqian?"
"Am I not the right one?"
Wei Yangzun asked four last questions, not about Zheng Xiu, but about himself. Every time he asked, the curtain swung. When he asked again, the curtain swung again. A small white hand stretched out from the outside and gently pulled it.
curtain.
"Please, Your Majesty, please calm down."
The maid said softly.
The anger in Wei Yangzun's eyes dissipated without a trace in an instant, and a faint smile appeared on his face again. He looked deeply at Zheng Xiu: "Someone must handle his affairs for me. Just for the sake of peace in the world.
"
"It's late at night, and I'm falling asleep. I need someone to take care of the world for me at night, to be my master in the middle of the night - the 'king' of the night."
Zheng Xiu listened, and he understood that the "king" mentioned by Wei Yangzun naturally did not mean the "emperor" that conflicted with him. Instead, it referred to the title of "king, duke, marquis, uncle, son, male" in the title of Daqian.
The "Prince" in.
Zheng Xiu smiled bitterly and didn't know how to answer for a moment.
Wei Yangzun closed his eyes, waved his hands tiredly, and sighed softly: "I'm old. People like to chatter when they get older. If you don't like to hear it, I will talk less when I come back. It's not appropriate for you to have just recovered from a serious illness.
You stayed out for a long time, go back."
Zheng Xiu got off the carriage.
Wei Yangzun's hand suddenly stretched out from the curtain. He pointed at the beautiful maid: "If you like this girl, let her serve you... If you don't like it, do whatever you want."
When the maid in the yellow skirt heard this, her delicate body stiffened slightly, but she knelt down in front of Zheng Xiu without any complaints. She raised her head and tried to let Zheng Xiu see her appearance clearly. Her eyes were calm: "My maid Yin Qingqing, I have met Hou.
Master, I am still a virgin, I hope you will not abandon me."
While speaking, Yin Qingqing's beautiful eyes could not hide the look of pleading.
Zheng Xiu had mixed feelings in his heart, but he still happily handed over the chariot: "It's in my eyes! Thank you, Your Majesty, for the reward!"
"Okay! Go back to the palace!"
The driver smiled and winked at Zheng Xiu: "If your father was half as old as you, why would you let the only son of the Zheng family pass on? Hahaha!"
The canopy-covered chariot rode away from this place.
Chatting with the emperor about daily life, and even being given a woman. For others, it would have been a big feast for several days, a great event to pay homage to the ancestors and fulfill the wishes. But Zheng Xiu brought Yin Qingqing back to Zheng's house, and when he closed the door tightly, there was a look on his face.
It became painful.
"Stand at the door and don't come in."
Zheng Xiu pointed to an open space next to the gate and said to Yin Qingqing.
Yin Qingqing looked calm, bowed and saluted: "Yes, sir."
She quickly adapted to her new identity.
He hurriedly returned to the compound, where a group of people were already waiting nervously.
As soon as Zheng Xiu arrived, Qing Shisan and Feng Bei were the first to greet him, with a little Feng Meow squatting on Feng Bei's head.
Of course Feng Bei stayed silent and asked the emperor directly why he came here.
"Go in and talk."
Zheng Xiu only brought a few close friends inside. As soon as he sat down, Jing Xuemei gave him a cup of hot tea with a cold face.
After taking one look at Jing Xuemei, Zheng Xiu admired her cold and licking personality.
"What exactly is he looking for you for?"
Feng Bei vaguely heard some of it, but not completely.
Zheng Xiu drank the tea at a suitable temperature in one breath, and then said with a complicated expression:
"Old Wei... wants me to be the new night master!!"