Chapter 176 – Sending a Comrade in Arms

Whether Fan Xian is afraid or not, but things have long happened, just within these few years, perhaps the emperor does not want to be with his most admired son, because of this matter completely break, or perhaps the emperor only knows Fan Xian into the palace, but did not think of the box in the hands of Fan Xian, so it has been silent. It seemed that this was some kind of tacit agreement, a tacit agreement not to pursue that matter, to express a father’s indulgence towards his most beloved son.

And Fan Xian was indeed ruthless enough to himself, even when facing a desperate situation, he rarely used that great killing weapon, the only time he used it was in the middle of the untouched primordial mountains, together with the fact that the key in the dark compartment of the Hall of Containing Light was still there, making the emperor guess certain things wrongly.

Fan Xian frowned and fell into deep thought, thinking of those snow-like flyers, thinking of his entering the palace that day to eavesdrop on the conversation between the Princess and Zhuang Mo Han, his heart suddenly loosened up, realizing that the Emperor’s old man must have thought that he was only targeting the Princess, entering the palace to eavesdrop on the information, not targeting that key.

But what about the letter? Fan Xian could never figure it out. He sat somewhat wearily on the edge of the couch, silent.

In fact, his fear of His Majesty, aside from the possibility that the matter of the chest would be exposed, was also due to another tsubo confusion – a problem that Fan Xian was currently quite distressed about. Because whether he accepted it or not, no matter what, the Emperor was always one of his oldest sons, though certainly not the best one.

Yes, there are three dads in Fan Xian s heart, of which Fan Shangshu is of course the closest real dad, and Chen Pingping is sort of a godfather, except that the emperor …… s figure is also gradually invading his mind.

Chen Pingping s words interrupted his contemplation, “If you say that you don t enter the palace because you are afraid, then you don t go back to the Supervisory Yuan and don t come to see me, what is the reason? Never say that you would be afraid of me as well.”

Looking at the old cripple’s smiling demeanor, Fan Xian sighed in his heart, secretly saying why wouldn’t I be afraid? It’s just that he’s afraid that he won’t be able to resist asking questions after seeing you.

Although he was afraid, he still opened his mouth to ask, because since he had the courage to come, he was naturally prepared and did not want to be the poor jumping insect who had been kept in the dark for the rest of his life.

“How did Yan Xiaoyi’s personal battalion get to Great Eastern Mountain? Why doesn’t the Inspectorate have any intelligence? Why is the situation in Kyoto so treacherous? Why wasn’t there a hint of the officials’ dissension in the Eastern Mountain Road? Why didn’t you return to Kyoto and let the Eldest Princess and the Empress Dowager toss you around and end up tossing yourself to death?”

“This is the plan set by His Majesty and I, of course we have to hide it from the world.” Chen Pingping gave him a cold look and said, “Without showing weakness first, how would these people jump out.”

Fan Xian shook his head, “Don’t lie to me …… I know that you can definitely give a good explanation to His Majesty afterward, but only you and I are the only two people who know clearly that these people were forced by us to go against His Majesty …… And you In your heart, you know that His Majesty seems to be a great success this time, but in fact, you are also walking on a steel cable, and if you are not careful, you will fall into the abyss of 10,000 feet. Since you knew about it earlier, you must have the ability to make this bureau a little better without plunging Kyoto into an all-consuming situation.”

“Just because His Majesty trusts you doesn’t mean I trust you.” Fan Xian stared at Chen Pingping’s aged face and lowered his voice, “This is His Majesty’s bureau, but you have been pushing along with his bureau, and even though you have only pushed a little bit, you have made the dangers facing Qing Guo ten times …… or even a hundred times greater, especially on the side of Kyoto, and even if you want to get rid of the internal dangers, you can’t possibly die So many people …… His Majesty, even if he is ruthless, I think he is not willing to see this last situation.”

“There are dogs in the world, who will expel them?” After a long time of silence, Chen Pingping opened her mouth and said, “Fighting a dog naturally requires all of them to be killed, and I am afraid that His Majesty will be soft-hearted …… this explanation, pass?”

“Not passable.” Fan Xian moved two steps in his direction, holding his thin hand, and said in a deep voice, “Even if the reasoning makes sense, His Majesty’s heart will be uncomfortable, especially if you think about it slowly afterward, there will always be problems.”

“What problems can there be? This is the grand plan set by His Majesty, and I …… am just an executor.” Chen Pingping naturally pulled her hand out of Fan Xian’s and said indifferently, “You should also not think too much, there are not too many complicated things in the world.”

“No?” Fan Xian’s heart was filled with worry and irritation as he stared into his eyes and said, “Then tell me, why did you let Shadow assassinate the driver on the Hanging Temple?”

“Why there was an extra wound on the back waist of Master Qin’s corpse!”

Chen Pingping slowly looked up and frowned at Fan Xian, “You went to see the corpse?”

Fan Xian nodded and said, “I know that it was the Shadow’s strike ……” He said with a bitter smile after a pause, “But since I saw it, naturally I don’t have that wound now.”

“I didn’t expect you to be so meticulous.” Chen Pingping said, “The shadow’s strike at the Hanging Temple was indeed directed by me, and you can go before His Majesty to denounce me at this time …… But you should be clear that the shadow originally had two mysterious identities, and no one knows about this except you and I. His Majesty doesn’t know about it either. ”

Fan Xian said angrily, “Even so, you still refuse to say?”

“Say what?”

“Why did Elder Qin betray His Majesty?” These were the words that the Eldest Princess had told Fan Xian to ask Chen Pingping before she died, and at this moment, he finally bravely asked.

“Betrayal never needs a reason.” Chen Pingping was as cold and stern as ever.

“You had Shadow kill Qin Ye, were you afraid that I would ask something out of him?”

Chen Pingping sneered, not even bothering to answer his words again, waving his hand to send off his guests. Fan Xian stared at him coldly, and after a long time his gaze softened hopelessly, and he said in a beguiling tone, “I know that you’re afraid of dragging me down, and that’s why you’re cutting off. But such a big thing …… you also have to think about yourself.”

Chen Pingping’s heart was tender, but her face showed little, saying, “You’re thinking too much.”

Fan Xian was silent and speechless. Although Chen Pingping had refused to admit it, he knew from the other party’s attitude that his guess was definitely right, that the Qin family must have been involved in the matter of the Taiping Farewell House back then, and that the reason for their betrayal was because of their own rise to power.

Qin old man what kind of character, although already dying, but know that, if his majesty really want to use Fan Xian, then to sweep the things of the year clean – the Qin family will die. So the Qin family must rebel, is this reasoning. It was just that behind this reasoning, a bloody, ghastly truth was revealed.

Fan Xian stood up and looked at Chen Pingping for a long time in silence before saying, “After all, it’s my father, my mother, you’ve been working so hard for so many years, it’s better to think about yourself more.”

“I don’t have a few years to live. You also said that.” Chen Pingping laughed.

Fan Xian looked at him with some bitterness and said, “No one can deal with him.”

Chen Pingping was silent.

Fan Xian was about to leave, but suddenly spoke up and said, “I have the case.”

Chen Pingping raised her head, but looked at the young man who had already walked out of the doorway with great determination, and could not help but shake her head, thinking that even if the box was in your hands, so what? This matter can’t drag you into it.

I don’t know how long it took, but a middle-aged man in regular clothes walked into the compartment where Chen Pingping was, and sat down beside him, exactly where Fan Xian had been sitting earlier.

“No one can defeat His Majesty.” The middle-aged man said in a harmonious voice, “This is something that An Zhi and I think the same way.”

This middle-aged man was no one else but Fan Xian’s lord father, Minister of Household Fan Jian. It was not known when he also came to Chen Garden, and it was even more unclear why he was speaking so openly and freely with Chen Pingping – legend in the official circles had it that within the first ten years or so, the two of them, Chen Pingping and Fan Jian, were always incompatible, and it was not until Fan Xian entered the capital that the relationship between the two sides gradually improved.

Chen Pingping closed her eyes and calmly said, “The box is in his hands, do you know?”

Fan Jian smiled faintly and said, “This child, putting that chest right under the bed, and thinking that he could hide it from everyone under the sun to go, is also really cute.”

Chen Pingping opened her eyes and glanced at him, saying, “In your own house, don’t you still have the ability to help him keep his secret?”

“This ability is still there.” Fan Jian said calmly, “His Majesty put two nails in my house, one of them An Zhi found out early, and the other one died early. Anyway, this kind of nail doesn’t cost any money, so His Majesty doesn’t care.”

“Doesn’t care? If he doesn’t care, he wouldn’t have brought all the Tiger Guards to the Heavenly Sacrifice at Dadong Mountain this time, and then given them to that madman, Si Gu Jian, to hack and play with.”

Chen Pingping looked at him with slight mockery and said, “You, this person, the only thing you’ve done in your life is to be small-minded, and all your strength has been put into those tiger guards, and now that these tiger guards are dead, no matter how many people you’ve hidden in them, there’s not a single one left …… His Majesty’s hand is really ruthless.”

“Yes, I don’t have much strength left.” Fan Jian smiled bitterly, “So I had to resign and return home.”

He looked at Chen Pingping and said with a cold smile, “And how much better can you be than me? In the battle of Zhengyang Gate, thousands of your elite of the Supervisory Yuan died, and when His Majesty mixes in a few more handfuls of sand in the next two years, what else can you do but learn to sue for old age from me?”

Chen Pingping laughed coldly and said, “As long as Fan Xian is still alive, His Majesty will not put deadly force on the Supervisory Yuan, what am I worried about …… Rather, it’s Lin Ruofu, the old fox, who has endured for so long, and finally watched for an opportunity to give his precious son-in-law all of the people he has hidden in his hands, and the result is that he is now in the middle of the battle. …… I’m only afraid that at this time he is vomiting blood in Wuzhou.”

Fan Jian also laughed and said, “The others all thought that the officials of the Lin system followed An’s efforts to resist the crown prince, and afterwards they were sure to be heavily rewarded, but I didn’t realize that his majesty had been waiting to see this scene, and saw that the last of Lin’s son-in-law’s people had jumped out of the way, and even if they are not good enough to do anything about it now, but where there is still a possibility for them to turn over in the future.”

“The external enemies and internal troubles have been removed, and all three of us old guys have had our bladders cut in half.” Fan Jian sighed, “Your Majesty is truly a wise and brilliant man with a great talent in his chest.”

“It must be recognized, just as it was many years ago when we began to follow him.” Chen Pingping closed her eyes and said slowly, “He was, is, and will be the most powerful one in the world.”

After a dead silence, Fan Shangshu sighed and said, “I hid in King Jing’s residence in Kyoto because I was not worried about the situation in Kyoto, and I had long since seen that there was a problem with the Ye family, I just didn’t think that …… it turned out that His Majesty was a great master.”

“Your Majesty’s unfathomable strength, I did guess some of it.” Chen Pingping said indifferently, “It’s just that I didn’t expect that old monster Ye Liuyun, but he suddenly sided with His Majesty.”

“Both of us have only guessed one side of His Majesty, if ……” Fan Shangshu suddenly stopped talking.

Chen Pingping knew what this old comrade was about to say and said calmly, “There is no if. Because after that incident, you never refused to trust me, and I never refused to trust you …… but never thought about that person who should be trusted the most, whether something went wrong.”

“Anzhi once said something.” Fan Shangshu said, “If I and you trust each other more, may things will be much better …… It was that time that I knew that this son is marvelous, we hide it so tightly, but he can still guess this thing.”

“He is the son of Little Leaf and His Majesty, of course he is marvelous.” Chen Pingping frowned, in his heart, he still held the highest respect and admiration for His Majesty the Emperor.

“When did you guess that His Majesty is a Grandmaster?” Fan Shangshu was extremely light-hearted at this time and asked casually.

“Some years ago.” Chen Pingping’s brows gradually stretched, thinking of the events of that year. At that time of the year, the Great Wei was still standing right in the center of the continent, the country was extremely powerful, and when the Qing Kingdom started its northern expedition at the very beginning, the battles were extremely difficult. Especially in one battle, His Majesty the Emperor, who was still the Crown Prince at that time, was seriously injured, his whole body was stiff and unable to move, and he almost lost his life, thanks to Chen Pingping sacrificing his life and forgetting about his death, and only saved him after a thousand years of hard work.

This was one of Chen Pingping’s most famous deeds, on par with the thousand-mile raid that captured Sean at the cost of a broken leg.

Fan Shangshu frowned and said, ”What’s wrong with that? We old guys still keep thinking that it was after that serious injury that His Majesty lost his martial …… skills back then he was a fierce general.”

“There is something odd about that injury.” Chen Pingping slowly said, “The stiffness of the whole body, definitely not caused by trauma, I and Ning Talent took care of him all the way, of course, it is clear, it should be a problem on the meridians, it seems that the meridians are all broken …… This thought that he was dead, and cried for several times, who knows that in the end, he actually came back alive again. ”

“The person who can still live with a fully broken meridian, I haven’t seen it.” Chen Pingping opened his eyes, looked at Fan Jian, slowly said, “But then saw a similar guy …… is your son.”

“In the matter of the Hanging Temple, Fan Xian’s meridians also suffered a great loss, but it was not yet as horrible as your majesty’s year, and later in Jiangnan, he should have learned the skills of the bitter old bald man, which gradually got better.” Chen Pingping said, “His Majesty doesn’t have Fan Xian’s good fortune, he didn’t learn the Heavenly Dao, how did that injury get better?”

“You have spent less time with His Majesty than I have over the years.” Chen Pingping continued, “No matter how well His Majesty can hold back, some details will always slip through the cracks. When Fei Jie returned from Tanyu State about the overbearing kung fu technique practiced by Fan Xian, and also about the serious consequences that this overbearing true qi might cause, it made me think of His Majesty who was stiff and in the shape of an invalid back then.”

“On the Hanging Temple was trying to push a little bit to see what his bottom card really is …… only to have Fan Xian get in the way.”

Speaking of this, he glared at Fan Shangshu, because at that time, it was this father who had let his own son go to the rescue and make his mark, but instead, he had misplaced Chen Pingping’s grand plan.

“All asked and understood, so let’s leave it at that, and you need to figure out some things about this matter.” Fan Jian stood up sprightly and said, “I’m going back to Tanyu State to retire, if you’re free, you can also come and see me.”

Chen Pingping was silent, knowing how her old comrade thought, whether His Majesty was invincible or not, he was ultimately Fan Xian’s real father. No one knew that Fan Xian was a traveler who carried a distinctive attribute in his soul, and these two elders just assumed according to common sense that even if Fan Xian knew the truth, he would be caught in a dilemma.

The two of them didn’t want Fan Xian to live a life of too much pressure, so they had to figure out this matter.

Chen Pingping gently rang the copper bell placed beside the table, and after a clear ring, the old servant who had served him for many years came in and carried him to the wheelchair.

“I’ll see you off.” Chen Pingping lowered his head and coughed, coughing a bit hard, his sleeves were full of spittle, and it was only after a long time that he calmed down and said in a self-deprecating manner, “Nowadays this body is getting worse and worse, and having been hit by a bit of a small poison, I can’t even cure it for a long time.”

Fan Jian quietly looked at him, did not say anything, and walked towards the outside of the mansion. The old servant behind him pushed his wheelchair and followed, not going far, in front of the construction site, the two of them tacitly stopped, looked at each other, and bowed to each other.

“I’ve figured it out.” Chen Pingping said to Fan Jian.

Fan Jian didn’t answer right away, but instead looked down and pondered for a moment, wondering if the words were true or not. He knew exactly why Chen Pingping had come to see herself off, because many years ago, their party had once traveled to the shores of the Eastern Sea, had once co-polymerized the Taiping Farewell House, and had once created a great situation; however, as the years passed, some people died, some changed, and some had to retire – when he himself resigned from his post and returned to Tanyou State, he was left in Kyoto in the company of Chen Pingping alone His Majesty, it was thought that he would feel lonely as well.

As Fan Xian said, in these ten years, he and Chen Pingping were suspicious of each other, and their dealings gradually became less and less, but it didn’t erase the comradeship of those years.

The wind is always blown away by the rain, and when it’s time to exit the stage, you have to retreat completely. Lin Ruofu wasn’t a member of the trio back then, so he didn’t retreat thoroughly enough, while Fan Shangshu wouldn’t make this mistake. Before His Majesty’s heavenly authority, there didn’t seem to be any too good choices for his own people other than to retire.

Before Fan Jian left, he frowned and asked one last question, not avoiding that old servant, “Since you doubted me back then, why did you ask Wuzhu to take him to Tanyu?”

Chen Pingping sat in her wheelchair, bowed her head for a moment, and slowly responded, “Because I knew you had paid for it, so I wanted to continue to see your heart.”

A self-deprecating and sad smile spread across Fan Jian’s lips as he waved his hand without saying anything else.

Looking at Fan Jian’s departing figure, Chen Pingping gently tilted on the wheelchair, her fingertips subconsciously knocking on the armrests of the wheelchair, sighed, and said softly, “It’s good to be gone, it’s good to be gone ……”

Immediately afterward, this dark leader of the Qing Kingdom muttered to himself in a bleak mood, “After all, he is his own father, how can I bear to force him.”

The old servant pushed his wheelchair back in silence, listening to the old Lord Dean say wearily, “You say, how can it be so hard to make a person die?”

Chen Pingping didn’t know how many amazing things he had done in his life, didn’t know how many dangerous hardships he had faced, but he had never been as disappointed as he was today. Because the enemy he was facing was undoubtedly the most powerful one he had ever met in his life, and that one was actually unable to find any weaknesses at all.

The old servant hissed, “It shouldn’t even involve the young lord.” He could already see the heaviness in his master’s heart, so he tried his best to open up.

“Even if His Majesty can find out anything, but after the Hanging Temple and in the Little Snow Valley, I’ve already made An Zhi nearly die twice, could this still not sever my relationship with him? An Zhi’s luck has always been good, his majesty will certainly not suspect him, this matter is just like that.” Chen Pingping was a little afraid of the cold and pulled the blanket towards her body.

Fan Jian is ready to go, Chen Pingping has given up, Fan Xian has figured it out, the biggest problem in the world seems to be solved, however, these three people know in their hearts, if there is no big fluctuation in the future, then this pot of oil can be covered by the lid of the pot, but once something happens, the oil will pop up and burn everything cleanly…. -Not to mention the boiling oil in the heart, the people scalded hissing pain.

In the Qing Dynasty Kyoto gradually stabilized, the Northern Qi capital and the city of Dongyi, but fell into a cloud of sadness.