The face of the eldest princess kept changing, and she was silent for a while and said: "You want to tell me to cherish what I have now? If I continue to mess around, if one day the father no longer loves me, he will casually treat me Is it right to marry? At that time, I'm afraid I won't send someone to check the details of the man first, right?"
Fang Jie quickly shook his head and said: "Your Majesty will not be really bored, I can feel His Majesty's love for you. Just now I just made a metaphor, but it doesn't mean that. I just think, Your Highness, you feel sorry for yourself. At that time, most of the children in the world were actually more pitiful than you."
"how come?"
The eldest princess said: "You also said just now that children from ordinary families can throw themselves into their mother's arms to act like a baby, and wait to ride on their father's shoulders to have fun. But I have already forgotten what the queen mother looks like. It’s been a long time since I’ve been close. You said that most of the children in the world are more pitiful than me, but I don’t think... Ordinary people are poorer, but children can see their parents every day, and they can act like a baby, play tricks, and cry .”
"Your Highness, that's because you don't understand ordinary people."
Fang Jie said seriously: "When you are envious of them, they are envious of you ten times and a hundred times. The children of ordinary families have to go to work in the fields at a very young age. Parents don't have so much time to love their children in order to make a living. ?They go out early and come back late, with blood blisters on their hands and feet just to make ends meet. And the children, at a very young age, have to learn to take care of themselves, wash their clothes and cook by themselves."
"Things that His Highness does not like to eat, they will regard as delicacies. Clothes that His Highness does not like to wear, they will regard as colorful clothes. Toys that His Highness does not like, they will regard as treasures."
Fang Jie smiled and said: "Your Highness envies that they can spend all day with their parents, but they envy His Highness being carefree. It is true that they spend more time with their parents, which is something to envy But your Highness, you have much more than them...Your Highness, you said that you have forgotten the appearance of Empress Daxing. However, I can't even imagine what my mother should look like."
"well… "
The eldest princess sighed a long time: "It turns out that this world is full of unhappiness."
"Your Highness is wrong again."
Fang Jie said: "In this world, there are more happiness."
"Your Highness feels unhappy because what I just said is pitiful. But you think, Your Highness, if the children are unhappy, then what is the purpose of the parents' struggle? Parents, who are not for the sake of their children? Struggle? Maybe they will neglect their children, isn’t it to give their children a better life? To be happy is actually very simple... As long as you reduce your greed a little bit, you will be much happier.”
"Your Highness just said that in order to see His Majesty more often, you would not hesitate to cause trouble... I think this is indeed a good idea. However, this method cannot last long, because His Majesty will think that you will always be an ignorant child. "
"You mean, I can't do that again?"
The eldest princess asked: "But how can I ask my father to spend more time with me?"
"First try to understand His Majesty's fatigue... The Sui Dynasty is so big, with tens of thousands of people and a vast territory, how hard does His Majesty have to work every day to take care of such a large family business? If Your Highness can understand this, you can understand Thank you for your majesty's hard work. Then... as a daughter, when your father is tired, you should be more obedient, pass a cup of tea, rub your shoulders and beat your back... I think it should make people feel better."
"So you are a nice person."
The eldest princess glanced at Fang Jie, took a deep breath and said, "No one would talk to me about such a thing."
Fang Jie smiled and said, "Because you, Your Highness, make people feel the distance."
"distance?"
The eldest princess didn't understand.
Fang Jie said: "Because your Highness is always losing your temper, the servants and your friends will be afraid... They are afraid that they will accidentally offend His Highness and cause disaster. This is the distance, The distance that makes people feel weak. In fact, the reason why His Highness feels lonely is because you lack friends... Your Majesty is too busy, but if His Highness can make some friends, you will experience another kind of happiness."
"friend?"
The eldest princess shook her head: "I have no friends."
Fang Jie said: "That's because His Highness isolated himself at a high place."
"Shut up!"
The eldest princess glared at Fang Jie and said angrily: "Don't think that I just said that you are a good person, so you have the right to criticize my life. Are you showing off that you have friends? If you say another word, I will be pulled out Your tongue!"
Fang Jie was taken aback, thinking that His Highness could turn his face faster than turning a book. A second ago, he could chat calmly, but a second later, he seemed to be a different person. He froze for a moment, then simply closed his mouth and took a step back without saying a word. The two fell into silence, and the atmosphere immediately became a little cold.
Seeing that Fang Jie stopped talking, the eldest princess became even more angry: "Do you think it's difficult for you to talk to me?"
"I still want a tongue."
Fang Jie said seriously: "Your Highness said just now that I will pull out my tongue if I don't shut up. Has Your Highness ever seen my tongue pulled out? I have seen it... When I was in the border town, I caught the spy of Meng Yuan who was lurking into the city. The interrogation is over." After that, the person's tongue will be pulled out first. The mouth will be opened with iron pliers, and then the clip will be inserted into the mouth to clamp the tongue. The person behind will hold the spy's head, and the person in front will pull it out... Sometimes The whole tongue can be pulled out, sometimes it will be broken."
"Blood is sprayed out like a waterfall. Your Highness may not know that the blood that has just been sprayed out is warm and has a fishy smell. The taste of blood is not only fishy but also a little sweet, and it is thicker than water A lot. People whose tongues have been pulled out, the blood gushing out of their mouths flows down their jaws, soaking the front of their clothes in no time. People who have lost their tongues often have two outcomes. First, they bleed too much Died. Second, the lucky ones became dumb."
"enough!"
The eldest princess covered her ears vigorously: "I don't want to hear any more."
Fang Jie sighed: "I just want to tell Your Highness that a human tongue is not a gecko's tail, it can grow back if you pull it out... You are a princess, and sometimes a single word can determine a person's fate. Pulling someone's tongue out may be just a scare word. But the guards don't think so, they will really do it. When you see this man next time, he opens his bloody black mouth with no tongue and Your Highness greets you, what will your Highness think?"
"ah!"
The eldest princess yelled, her face as white as paper: "Please...don't say any more."
Fang Jie glanced at the eldest princess expressionlessly, and said after a moment of silence: "Your Highness, you just see too little. You know that pulling out your tongue is a terrible thing, so you will use it To scare people. But you have no idea, what the hell is going on. You are complaining that you don't get much fatherly love, but have you ever thought... You have three sisters, three other princesses, I haven't seen His Majesty for a whole year."
Hearing these words, the eldest princess suddenly raised her head, opened her mouth but didn't know what to say.
Fang Jie said: "Your Highness, maybe you will think this way, because the status of the other three princesses is not as noble as yours, it is natural for His Majesty to treat them coldly. But how does Your Highness know whether they are suffering or not? What I said today The words have already crossed the rules. But every word I say is from the bottom of my heart. If I want the princess to be happier at this moment, I can at least tell a joke for an hour, but what happens after the joke? Your Highness is still not happy."
"Let His Highness see other people's suffering, and then think about your own suffering, it's really nothing."
Fang Jie thought for a while and said, "I dare you, Your Highness, please go out of the palace for a walk."
"Out of the palace?"
The eldest princess was stunned for a moment, then nodded: "Where are you going?"
"Just walk around."
…
…
vegetable market.
The old cripple led Fang Jie to find the ten vegetable markets outside the palace for the elite.
Fang Jie walked in front, and the eldest princess, who had changed into ordinary clothes, followed behind. She looked at this dirty and chaotic place curiously, with surprise in her eyes. Her beautiful boots stepped on the dirty ground, and soon the boots became dirty. She carefully avoided the passing pedestrians, lest her clothes be dirty.
The two maids following her held their noses, as if they couldn't bear the stench of this place.
The last time Fang Jie came here was the middle of winter, and the dirty water on the ground was frozen. But now that the weather has warmed up, it's getting more and more messy here.
"Chang'an City... how can there be such a place?"
She couldn't help asking.
"There are many places like this in Chang'an City."
Fang Jie said as he walked, "In the lives of ordinary people, how can there be so many silks and satins and so many gold and silver jewels? Your Highness, your box of rouge is enough for an ordinary family to spend for a month or even a few months." You see... the fish seller once had two children, one of whom died of smallpox. The second child was raised until he was ten years old, but his body was too weak due to premature birth, and he had no money and could not afford ginseng nourishment. , and died after the last illness at the age of ten."
"The peddler, his wife was in poor health and couldn't conceive. But in order to continue his incense, he still had a child. As a result, he died during childbirth, but the child was saved. Therefore, this peddler would tie the child to himself every day When you’re hungry, you feed some rice cereal, and when you’re sleepy, you sleep in a basket. The wind, the sun, the sun, the freezing and the rain, the child and his father are always together, but are they happy?”
At this time, the cry of a child was heard in the distance. The Eldest Princess looked in the direction of the voice, only to find that a skinny middle-aged man who was well dressed was slapping a child hard. The child was only six or seven years old, and soon his face was red and swollen from the slap.
The child who was beaten cried and shouted: "I dare not ask for it anymore, I dare not ask for food again. Grandpa, please, don't beat me again."
Beside him, a boy who looked even younger, wearing beautiful new clothes, held candied haws in his hand and smiled triumphantly while eating.
A rather pretty woman knelt on the ground and begged the middle-aged man to stop beating her. Her shoulders twitched violently, looking so helpless.
"How did that child offend him? It's so vicious!"
The eldest princess gritted her teeth and asked.
Fang Jie shook his head: "That's his child too. That man is the owner of this vegetable market. This land belongs to him. The vendors have to pay him to set up a stall here. The children who eat candied haws and the children who are beaten are both It belonged to him, but the difference is that the little boy who ate candied haws was born to his wife, while the little girl who was beaten was a child of a concubine. The one who knelt on the ground begging for mercy was his concubine, the mother of the child."
"ah!"
The eldest princess exclaimed, and her face became extremely ugly.
"Your Highness thinks that child is pitiful?"
Fang asked.
"Why didn't the woman resist?"
"Because he is a concubine."
Fang Jie said: "The child is also the boss's blood and blood, and he is also his own. But in his eyes, it is no different from a slave. If the concubine is a son, then he will not inherit a son from him when he grows up. The property of copper coins. If it is a girl, it may be ruined by her biological father when she grows up."
"Why... why is this happening?"
The eldest princess murmured, with sadness in her eyes.
"There is no fairness in this world."
Fang Jie said lightly: "It just depends on what mentality you use to look at it."