Chapter 42 The Night Outside Kyoto
“Do you remember last year when I used black fists to beat up Guo Baokun, and the Kyoto government wanted to take me in for questioning?”
“Remember.”
“Remember this year’s chun exam case, the Ministry of Justice wants to take me for questioning?”
“Remember.” Fan Si Zhe looked at him with some doubt, thinking that his brother said this, could it be that he still wants to remind himself of the majesty of the Qing law? But the problem was that both of these pile cases ended up unsettled, just proving that in places like Qing, power still overrides the law, clearly a negative example.
Fan Xian smiled, patted his butt, and said, “In both times, you beat …… the officials with a stick in your hand, and although it was mainly because of your arrogant and overbearing nature, you always had an affection for my brother, who has been with me for less than two years, and at this point, I believe that I have not misread you. ”
Fan Si Zhe’s buttocks were covered in bruises, biting his lower lip in pain, and said, “Then you were still so hard on him earlier!”
Fan Xian laughed and said, “For one thing, I’m really angry, so I won’t hide it from you, and for another, if I don’t beat you up, how can I make the people of Kyoto really believe that our old Fan family style is still strict? Half of it is theater, half of it is real.”
Fan Si Zhe suddenly said in a daze, “Brother, the north is so important that …… it will really be handed over to me?”
Fan Xian responded, “You prove yourself first.”
Fan Si Zhe clenched his teeth, revealed a hint of fervor, and said in a hateful voice, “Cheng! I’ll be able to do it.”
Fan Xian nodded, and glanced at the red herald of the Moon Embracing House who was sleeping beside his brother, and said with a slightly raised eyebrow, “When I copied the building yesterday, I realized that this woman does have a few feelings for you …… I’m your older brother, so of course I’m clear that you have a very hard and ruthless heart. But when it’s time to soften, you can also soften a bit, perhaps you will find life will be much more interesting.”
Fan Si Zhe, after all, is still young, the first time in the matter of men and women, face embarrassed slightly red, answered.
The two brothers said something else in the carriage, when the carriage gave a slight lurch, and the two knew that it was time to part ways. Fan Xian shook his head and said: ”This trip is difficult and dangerous, although you must still have a grudge against me, but I think that in the future, you will understand my good intentions …… As for the father’s side, you should not have any grudges, and you should know that in this world, in addition to parents and brothers, it is very difficult for anyone to be truly good to you! I’m not going to be able to do that. You were expelled from Kyoto at a young age, Aunt Liu will naturally be sad, and I’m afraid that father won’t be very happy either.”
Fan Si Zhe nodded with a grim face. Looking at Fan Xian’s figure as he walked off the carriage, thinking of the days ahead, he couldn’t help but feel a void in his heart, his eyes flushed with moisture, indescribably difficult to speak of.
“Brother, pick me up early.”
Fan Xian’s figure as he stepped off the carriage stiffened and responded, “Don’t worry, I’ll take care of everything soon.”
Looking at the carriage that gradually disappeared into the night, Fan Xian couldn’t help but be in a trance. He himself could not be considered a good person, so why was he demanding that Si Zhe be a good person? Perhaps his own earlier explanation was right, the relationship between people was really subtle, Wang Jingwei thought that he didn’t want his son to be a traitor as well, Hitler might prefer his son to paint.
Of course, these two did not have the opportunity to practice to Fan Xian, but he has seen the decades of the rise and fall of the two brothers, Sean and Zhuang Mohan, deeply thought, chi, chi, chi, chi, chi, chi, chi, chi, chi, chi, chi, chi, chi, chi, chi.
That pair of legendary brothers, Sean secretly for Zhuang Mo Han how much to do, no one knows, but he has been hidden in the darkness, concerned about the brother’s clean name and die without recognizing each other, has been a very remarkable thing.
Zhuang Mo Han, at the age of seventy or eighty, when he had almost run out of gas, and his personal reputation had reached the peak of his life, in order to get his brother out of trouble, he did not hesitate to throw away the beliefs that he had been endowed with all his life, and traveled all the way to Nanqing to frame Fan Xian, the price he paid was not just as simple as it appeared to be, but he had completely given up the things that the Zhuang family cherished the most.
Coincidentally, before these two men of the year passed away, both were accompanied by Fan Xian.
Fan Xian looked at the far away carriage and sighed in his heart for a while, not knowing whether Si Zhe would hold a grudge against himself or not, and even more so, not knowing that in the distant future, if there was a day when he was trapped in the darkness and could not pull himself out of it like Sean was, whether Si Zhe would do whatever it took to save himself like Zhuang Mo Han did.
The night wind blew through the hillock outside of Kyoto, Fan Xian mockingly shook his head, thinking that with Si Zhe’s nature, at most he would be willing to lose tens of thousands of taels of silver for himself …… If the number of this silver is even more, I’m afraid that this money grubbing and ruthless little guy will have to be more evaluated to evaluate it.
Yan Bingyun stood by his side and suddenly said, “You really are a very hypocritical person.”
Fan Xian asked with interest, “Why do you say that?”
“You take advantage of everyone around you, but it makes it seem as if you’re doing the other person a favor ……,” The corner of Yan Bingyun’s lips curled up slightly.
Fan Xian calmly replied, “You don’t have a brother, you simply can’t understand this kind of feeling ……I am indeed doing it for his own good, although the means may be a bit too much and the effect is not necessarily good ……But there’s no way, my experience ability can only do this one degree …… At least, in the future, I can say to myself that for Si Zhe’s growth, I did my part as an elder brother.”
“This is exactly the second point I wanted to make.” Yan Bingyun nodded, “You are still a very ruthless person.”
Fan Xian was silent, knowing that he would continue.
“Second young master Fan is still young, and the situation in the north is very complicated …… You were able to ruthlessly expel him from Kyoto and make him disappear, cutting off the possibility of others holding you to ransom, I think that such an absolute move, even your second highness didn’t think of it.” Yan Bingyun said indifferently.
Fan Xian didn’t have much of a smile on his face, instead he asked, “How do you think people should spend their lives?”
This was the fourth time, after Ruo Ruo, Si Zhe, and Wan Er, that Fan Xian had asked a bystander regarding Ostrovsky’s thousand-year-old question.
Yan Bingyun was slightly stunned and shook her head, “What I think about is very simple, as an official of the Supervisory Court, to be loyal to His Majesty, to be loyal to the Kingdom of Qing, to be rich and strong, and to unify the world.”
“Unify the world?” Fan Xian sneered, “What’s the point of that?”
Yan Bingyun froze again, as a young generation of Qing, growing up in a period of rapid expansion of the country’s power, they had all developed this kind of thinking from the bottom of their bones, and had never thought about why it was necessary to unify the world at all, and no one else would have asked it like that either. Today, when Fan Xian suddenly asked, he was at a loss as to how to explain.
“The world is divided into three parts, and there are small countries in it, so war is inevitable, and the people are displaced …… Since this is the case, why not unify the world and get rid of the plague of swords and soldiers forever?”
After thinking for a while, he tried to clear his thoughts.
Fan Xian shook his head, “I’ve never believed in the nonsense of the world’s momentum, divided for a long time, united for a long time. A unification lasts for hundreds of years, a division lasts for hundreds of years again, if the divided kingdoms don’t have the ambition to unify the world, where would the wars come from? Great unification …… is not a way to eliminate war to bring peace, but a fruit that tempts the world to commit to war. If everyone didn’t think so, wouldn’t the world be at peace?”
Yan Bingyun glanced at him and mocked, “This is a very childish thought on your part.”
“I also understand.” Fan Xian sighed, “But when I was alive, I very much didn’t want to see something like a war, the number of people who died at the hands of people in our courtyard in a year was about four hundred, and with the river breaking its banks in August, it is estimated that several tens of thousands of people have already died, so if the war really starts, in just a few months, I’m afraid that more than a hundred thousand people will have to die.”
“Even if the conflict can be suppressed temporarily, it can’t last. One day the war will break out.” Yan Bingyun snorted, “Even if you collect the four great patriarchs as fighters in the future and forcefully suppress the ambitions between the royal families, what will happen after you die?”
Fan Xian smiled and said, “After I die? After I die, even if it floods.”
Louis XIV’s most blatant declaration finally caused Yan Bingyun’s face to change, and he sighed while shaking his head, “And just when I thought that you were a benevolent person hidden under the darkness, I heard and understood this sentence, and realized that what I said just now was still quite polite …… You’re not only ruthless, but you’re also an extremely selfish person. ”
“Misunderstanding isn’t it? I told you last time that I’m not a saint.” Fan Xian suddenly frowned, flirting with the other party, “But nowadays it seems …… as if …… it wouldn’t hurt to be one.”
“A saint who is in charge of the Supervisory Court?” Yan Bingyun looked at him like a ghost.
“Then what are you going to do with your life?” Yan Bingyun asked in a very rare manner like those vain talkers in the Northern Qi Shangjing.
“I’m going to live it well.” Fan Xian said a nonsense sentence, then without waiting for him to respond, said smilingly, “This time, when Si Zhe traveled all the way north, it was really troublesome for you father and son.” To send a person unknowingly across the entire Qing Kingdom, in addition to supervising the movements of officials in the various counties and roads, the Supervisory Court, which held the network of foreign spies, went around letting loose, or even supervising and stealing, but it really couldn’t do this.
“You are my superior.” Yan Bingyun replied very directly.
Fan Xian understood his thoughts and said, “I will file this matter with the dean.”
He continued, “You know what? The last time the legation left the capital, the first night was spent in this pine forest wrapped around the camp at our feet ……” He touched his nose and smiled to himself, “At that time, there was Si Li Li, the red herald, in the legation. Today, Si Zhe was expelled, although his condition is much more miserable than mine at that time, but I also captured a red herald to accompany him, it seems that neither of us brothers will have much of a lonely journey.”
Yan Bingyun shook his head with a bit of a headache, having a hard time adjusting to Fan Xian’s shameless facade that he would only show in front of his close subordinates and friends, so he turned to ask, “There’s nothing to worry about now, what are you going to do?”
Fan Xian laughed bitterly, “The other party is a prince, do we really dare to kill him?”
Yan Bingyun said indifferently, “It seems to me that there’s nothing you wouldn’t dare to do.”
Fan Xian’s heart moved slightly, and he said with a smile, “It seems that you are really a person who understands me …… But there is no hurry, first, I will make Hongcheng’s reputation stink, and then I will toss those people under the oldest two, and force the Cui family.”
Finally he said softly, “I will no longer manage the matter of holding the moon building, you help Shi Yanli to deal with it, as for how to do it later, you are solely responsible, anyway, in the aspect of playing conspiracy, your talent is really too much higher than me.”