Xia Yuanqiu asked: "Have you noticed something is wrong on this street?"
Zhu Yan said: "Something is indeed wrong. I saw a lot of familiar faces."
Xia Yuanqiu hurriedly asked: "Oh? Who is it?"
"They are my eldest brother's men. It seems they can no longer hold back." Zhu Yan said lightly.
Xia Yuanqiu had never heard Zhu Yan mention his other brothers, and it seemed that he had very little contact with them on weekdays.
"What does your elder brother want to do?" Xia Yuanqiu asked.
Jiang Xin said hurriedly: "Does this need to be said? It must be his eldest brother who wants to seize his position as crown prince and is planning to do something sinister."
Zhu Yan shook his head: "That's not the case. My eldest brother is not a person who is greedy for fame, wealth and power. He likes peace and freedom. He lives in hiding from the world all year round. He does not participate in the battles between the DPRK and China. He will never come to compete for the throne unless -"
"Unless what?" Xia Yuanqiu asked, seeing a hint of worry in Zhu Yan's eyes.
"Unless he is coerced into doing something he doesn't want to do."
Jiang Xindao: "He is a high-ranking prince, who dares to coerce him? Unless this person doesn't want to live anymore, or his power is already overwhelming."
Zhu Yan looked at Xia Yuanqiu and said, "Yuanqiu, do you still remember the one who lived in Yaohua Palace back then?"
Xia Yuanqiu nodded: "Remember, former Queen Zhou."
"That's right, it's Mrs. Zhou. She is fierce and paranoid by nature. Her father has been very cold towards her since they got married. In addition, she fell into an ice pond when she was young and injured her body. She was unable to get pregnant. At that time, her father was still She was just a prince. In order to consolidate her position in the palace, she took advantage of a drunken banquet to stuff her father and her dowry maid into the room. Although it was only that one time, the maid was pregnant with the child. Originally, according to the ancestral system, this child cannot be kept. The Zhou family is the mistress of the family, and the mistress has not given birth, so those other monsters will definitely not be able to have children."
"But Mrs. Zhou ignored the dissuasion and let the maid give birth to the child. It was a boy. Not to mention how happy she was at the time, she immediately had the child taken to her courtyard to be raised. Not long after, the newborn baby The maid who gave birth to the child suddenly died of illness."
Jiang Xin interjected angrily: "I'm afraid he didn't die from illness, but was killed by Mr. Zhou."
Xia Yuanqiu glared at Jiang Xin and said, "Don't always interrupt, let Zhu Yan finish what he said."
Jiang Xin stuck out her tongue at Xia Yuanqiu, stopped interrupting, and listened carefully to Zhu Yan's story.
"This child is my father's first child. Mrs. Zhou thought that after having a child, my father would often walk around in her courtyard. This was indeed the case at first. My father became a father for the first time and he also liked his eldest brother quite a lot. , from time to time, he would go to Zhou's courtyard to sit and play with the children. Unfortunately, the good times did not last long. The children were not yet one year old, so the late emperor took the initiative and adopted two concubines for his father. The two concubines were born soon after. They all got pregnant and gave birth to sons one after another. Since the status of the concubine was not low, the children born were naturally very noble. In comparison, the children in her courtyard seemed to be of low status. After all, they were Although the child born by the maid is raised by his legitimate mother, the blood of his birth cannot be changed."
"Later, when her father was sent to a neighboring country as a hostage, she gradually began to become cold and even disgusted with her eldest brother. As a result, when her father returned to the court, her eldest brother became very withdrawn, did not like to talk to others, and was timid. He was afraid of trouble, so his father no longer liked the eldest son, and Zhou's attitude towards him became even worse than before."