On the main hall of the Hunting Palace, the ministers were on both sides, and Wei Song, the minister of households, knelt alone in the hall.
Li Yanzhen glanced around for a week, her eyes finally fell on Wei Song, and she spoke slowly: "Someone just told me that Wei Aiqing was collaborating with the enemy and betraying the country..."
Before he could finish his sentence, Wei Song's hunched figure trembled suddenly, and he opened his mouth and exclaimed, "Your Majesty, this old minister has been wronged!"
Some of the courtiers secretly took a breath, and the voices of discussion rose quietly, and the gazes they cast suddenly varied.
Li Yanzhen raised her hand, and the hall fell silent for a while, and he continued, "Why did you come here suddenly?"
The captain of the guards came out and knelt down. Looking back, there were two guards pressing a man up to the hall. He asked Wei Song, "Dare you ask if this is from Wei Shangshu's mansion?"
Wei Song looked sideways at the man kneeling tremblingly, and replied, "Yes, it's my attendant."
The captain of the guard retracted his gaze, leaned over to his superior, and placed a letter with his hands above his head, respectfully saying, "Report to Your Majesty, I will be patrolling the inside and outside of the Hunting Palace at night, and seeing someone acting sneakily near the residence of the Hun envoys, come forward to check. Later, I found this person. The minister saw that he was hesitant to answer, and he was hiding something in panic, so he took the letter. The minister did not dare to slander the important officials of the court, why is it the crime of collaborating with the enemy and treason?" Said: "Your Majesty will know after reading the content of the letter."
The eunuch consciously got down and took the letter, opened it and handed it to Li Yanzhen. After a cursory glance, Li Yanzhen frowned, didn't speak for a while, and read it carefully.
The captain of the bodyguard stood up straight and said, "Wei Shangshu said in his letter that he could help the ninth princes of the Xiongnu forge a covenant and obtain the five cities, thus expressing his intentions. There are many words in the letter that are close to the Xiongnu, and he even bluntly stated that he is willing to serve the Xiongnu... "
"What nonsense!" Wei Song interrupted him with an uncontrollable voice, trembling all over.
There was already a commotion among the crowd, whispering.
Chu Mingyun looked at Wei Song expressionlessly, Su Shiyu frowned slightly, they could see clearly, Wei Song's face paled inch by inch following the words of the captain of the guards, and now he was pale.
Suddenly, someone sighed in the broken voice, "So that's how it is," Minister of Industry Yue Yuxuan looked straight at Wei Song, and suddenly realized, "At the beginning, Lord Wei and Lord Chu were arguing endlessly, and they insisted on ceding the land to form an alliance. The reason is reasonable. I thought that Mr. Wei, as the Minister of the Household, really cared about the people's livelihood, and I admired it in my heart and wanted to support it. I didn't expect..." He slowly shook his head, "It was just to present a gift to the Xiongnu. "
"Every word of that day came from the bottom of my heart!" Wei Song said, "The Huns and I, the Great Xia, have a blood feud for generations. Even if we can temporarily put aside our exchanges, how can I betray the country and bow to the Xiongnu!"
Yue Yuxuan turned his head and sighed, and stopped answering.
"Master Wei, what I wrote in the letter is true." The captain of the guard said again, "What's more, the messenger of Master Wei was arrested at the Xiongnu's residence?"
The guard caught the head of the guard's gaze, and the hand on the shoulder of the attendant loosened slightly.
The entourage raised his head and lowered his head hurriedly, saying: "Yes, tonight, the lord told me to deliver the letter, and he also told me that the content was important, and I had to hand it over to the Xiongnu prince. , just stood outside and waited. The little one was just following orders... Really, really didn't know anything!"
The head guard looked at Wei Song, "Is there anything else Mr. Wei wants to say?"
"I'm the one who sent him to deliver the letter overnight." Wei Song closed his eyes and turned to look at Su Shiyu, "I don't know the content of the credible."
Su Shiyu looked at him puzzled, and the head guard also looked at him in confusion, and asked, "Since the letter was written by Lord Wei, how could Lord Wei not know the content?"
"Master Su!" Wei Song's thin hands clenched the embroidered carpet on the hall, and the blue veins appeared, "You still don't plan to speak!"
Chu Mingyun frowned, seeing that Su Shiyu was also stunned for a moment, and asked, "What did Mr. Wei mean?"
"Isn't the person who came to entrust me to deliver the letter tonight, your lord?" Wei Song's voice was hoarse, "It was you who said you had something important to convey to me, and it was you who asked me to deliver it tonight, and it was you... Let me keep it a secret. !"
His heart was full of astonishment, the hall was silent for a while, his voice was hoarse, and he slammed into the huge hall.
Chu Mingyun was stunned for a moment, and suddenly recalled the hurried footsteps outside the courtyard, the figure in the white shirt who was blocked, the face of Su Shiyu who turned around under the dim light, the smiling eyes that avoided his sight, and... Under the mask That totally unfamiliar face.
His eyes were dark and dark.
Su Shiyu frowned, but his tone was flat: "But I didn't ask Lord Wei to send a letter."
"Master Su... did you really refuse to recognize it?" Wei Song stared at Su Shiyu and asked.
Before Su Shiyu could speak, Lu Shi, the Minister of Punishment on the side, couldn't help but want to ease the tense atmosphere, and said with a smile, "Master Wei, don't worry, since you said you saw Master Su tonight, why don't you think about the time? Maybe you remembered it wrong?"
"Xu three quarters."
Hearing this, Lu Shi's face became extremely ugly, and he hesitated: "...Master Wei, are you sure it is Xu Shi?"
"It's definitely not wrong." Wei Song said decisively.
The smile on Lu Shi's face froze and gradually faded. After hesitating for a long time, he said in a low voice, "Master Su was in the room at the moment, and I personally sent the punishment to the Ministry of Justice."
Wei Song looked up suddenly, in disbelief.
Lu Shi was heartbroken when he met his gaze.
"... Lu Shi?" Wei Song's voice trembled, "You and I have known each other for many years, but you don't believe me anymore?"
"Of course I believe you," Lu Shi gritted his teeth, "but whether it was my accompanying officials or Tiancha Gong'e, I saw Master Su never leaving."
Wei Song was almost unsteady on his knees, trembling and barely holding on to his body, "Master Su... Master Su..."
"Enough." Li Yanzhen said unbearably and sighed, "I believe that Su Aiqing will never intend to rebel, and no one needs to say more."
Chu Mingyun glanced meaningfully at Li Yanzhen.
In the hall, Wei Song slowly raised his head, and his movements seemed to be exhausted. Tears streaked across the old face in a blink of an eye, "Your Majesty believes in Lord Su, but you don't want to believe in an old minister?"
Li Yanzhen had a look of embarrassment and did not answer.
"Thirty-seven years!" Wei Song said mournfully, "Since the old minister entered office, he has assisted three generations of emperors in the past thirty-seven years. The old minister did not hesitate to sell all his property in order to prepare the army supplies; after your Majesty ascended the throne, the natural disasters continued, and it was also the old minister who worked hard to support him. Before the hardships and dangers, there was never a hint of retreat, so why should the old minister betray the country now, Your Majesty!"
The hall was silent.
Xu Yin, the minister of military affairs in the remote area, lowered his voice and said to the person beside him: "You see the current situation, it seems that the Soviet Party is going to fight infighting?"
Most of the people in the Chu Party looked on with cold eyes, and the people beside him sneered and didn't speak bluntly.
After a long silence, Li Yanzhen turned over the letter in his hand, facing the important officials in the palace, "I understand what Aiqing said. It's just that this letter... is indeed Wei Aiqing's handwriting."
This sentence was spoken very lightly, like a sigh, and fell silently, but it sounded like a thunder in Wei Song's ears, splitting his head, leaving his mind blank.
After a long time, Wei Song suddenly walked forward on his knees, until His Majesty, he slowly raised his head and looked directly at Li Yanzhen, with tears streaming down his face, but his tone calmed down, "This is the end of the matter, the old minister can't argue. It's just the crime of collaborating with the enemy and treason, which the minister will never understand. recognize."
"It has been thirty-seven years since the minister Wei Song came into office, from beginning to end, and there has never been a single moment of favoritism, and never a moment of disobedience - I hope Your Majesty will see it clearly!"
Wei Song suddenly bent down and kowtowed, his wrinkled forehead hitting the jade steps.
There was a muffled sound, and under the messy white hair, the dark red blood slowly spread out.
Li Yanzhen was stunned, something stuck in her throat, unable to swallow.
Chu Mingyun opened his eyes, and inadvertently glanced at Lu Shi's eyes wide open, trembling all over.
Su Shiyu closed his eyes and was speechless, and suddenly remembered the inexplicable question of Chu Mingyun earlier—
"Anyone staring at you all the time?"
The hand hidden in the sleeve tightened slightly.
The commander of the Imperial Guard followed Chu Mingyun into the house with sincerity and fear.
This adult has always been very moody, but at this moment, his expression is indifferent, and the commander is more and more frightened.
Chu Mingyun turned around and sat down, the commander followed a step, but stepped on something soft. He looked down, then took two steps back abruptly, glanced at Chu Mingyun who was leaning on the chair, and then looked at the corpse on the ground, stunned and unable to return to his senses.
"Wei Song is dead." Chu Mingyun said suddenly, unable to hear the slightest emotion.
"My subordinates heard about it." The commander replied, "Sir, this corpse is..."
Chu Mingyun glanced casually, and Su Bai tapped the armrest with his fingers, "Look carefully at the soles of his boots."
The commander squatted down according to the words, looked down, and there were a few white flowers mixed with wet mud and dust along the edge, "This is..." The commander carefully identified, "Tumi flower?"
"The eyes are good." Chu Mingyun chuckled lightly, "When I stopped this person outside the courtyard, he wore Su Shiyu's face, although the mask has been burned by me, but you can always recognize this outfit by looking at it. right?"
The commander responded incessantly, with cold sweat on his forehead. He didn't have to admit it deliberately, he almost thought it was the Censor who was killed in the panicked glance just now.
"Then you should know who Wei Song was entrusted to deliver the letter," Chu Mingyun said slowly, "and you should also guess where he stepped on this tea millet flower."
Only the southern foothills are full of forests.
The commander knelt down in panic, "Sir..."
"Is it because I didn't write the defense for you clearly, and let people enter the hunting palace from Nanlu?"
"No, of course not," the commander stepped forward in a hurry, "it's a subordinate, it's a subordinate who is lazy, and it's the subordinate's fault that he didn't change the guards as you ordered. The subordinate thought that he had been..."
"I can't enforce the order, the guards are negligent." Chu Mingyun interrupted him, "Can you get rid of the death of this minister of households?"
"Please forgive me! It's my subordinate's dereliction of duty, and the subordinate knows it's wrong!" The commander hugged Chu Mingyun's leg recklessly, his face pale, "This subordinate is willing to go through fire and water for the adult, and swear allegiance to the death, the imperial army is in your pocket. I beg your lord to raise your hand, and don't tell your majesty!"
Chu Mingyun frowned, "Let go."
The commander hurriedly let go of his hand and repeatedly kowtowed, "I beg your pardon! Wei Shangshu has a high position. Once His Majesty knows, his subordinates will definitely have no way to survive..."
"Okay," Chu Mingyun said impatiently, "If I plan to kill you, can you still be here?"
The commander suddenly understood, and secretly heaved a sigh of relief.
"Thank you, sir." He leaned down obediently, and pressed his forehead against the toe of Chu Mingyun's shoe, "The gift of your life, my lord, is unforgettable."
"Oh—?" Chu Mingyun tilted his head to look at him with a smile at the end.
"Don't worry, my lord, from now on, whether it is me or the Imperial Army, I will be under your control."