When the play reached the middle of the show, Su Huaijing and Mu Jingxu returned to their original seats.
Rong Tang carefully glanced at the actors on the stage, and only breathed a sigh of relief after confirming that there were no scenes inappropriate for children.
Su Huaijing asked: "Does it look good?"
Rong Tang said decisively and indifferently: "General."
Su Huaijing was slightly startled, looking at Tangtang's righteous expression, then turned back to look at Lu Jiaxi who was about to shrink his head into the chair, and suddenly he had an idea, sat down and smiled: "I thought Tangtang liked it."
Rong Tang: “?”
He was stunned for a moment, his pupils widened, and he looked at Su Huaijing in disbelief: "You know?"
"Know what?" Su Huaijing teased him with a smile, his eyes full of undisguised ridicule.
As the curtain drew back, the candlelight below the stage dimmed. Although it was clearly not yet evening outside, it was already so dark in the hall that one could only see the stage and the companions around him.
Rong Tang and Su Huaijing looked at each other for a few seconds, then Rong Tang was the first to look away.
There was the sound of fabric rubbing against an armchair. Su Huaijing came over and whispered lazily in his ear, "It was clearly Tangtang who was reading a storybook, and it was Ke Hongxue who suggested coming to watch the show. Tangtang wasn't shy when she was reading the book, and she didn't object when she came to watch the show. Why do you want to blame me now?"
The actors' singing voices echoed in the room. The characters in the play sang about life in words, while the audience outside the play watched a life of drunkenness and dreams.
The noise was all faint, and everyone spoke in a low voice. There was an indescribable ambiguity and tenderness in the conversation. The breath fell on the earlobes. Rong Tang's ears turned red unconsciously. He moved half an inch to the side and whispered, "I don't blame you."
Su Huaijing asked: "Is it really not good-looking?"
Rong Tang: “…”
He paused for a moment, recalling the storybook and the few scenes of the drama he had just seen, and said in a muffled voice, "I haven't seen it."
Su Huaijing: “… ?”
He was stunned for a moment, and when he reacted, he couldn't help wanting to laugh, with a smile on his face. He reached over to the armchair, held Tangtang's hand and squeezed it gently: "Don't you want to see it or... are you embarrassed to see it?"
[Damn it!] The system said angrily.
Rong Tang almost agreed!
His eyes were blazing with fire as he stared at Su Huaijing, who smiled brightly and immediately begged for mercy: "I was wrong, I won't ask anymore."
Rong Tang felt depressed and stopped looking at him. He turned around and started to look at the embroidery patterns on the robe with Lord Xiao Lu. The people around him and the play on the stage just passed by.
Su Huaijing was so amused by his series of actions that he lowered his head and laughed for a long time. The trembling confusion that lingered in his heart when he was talking to Mu Jingxu just now gradually subsided.
In the 24th year of Yuanxing, the prince got married and married Xu, the daughter of the Minister of Rites.
The following year, there was turmoil on the northern border, and the crown prince was ordered to suppress it. After two months, the war became intense, and the crown princess Xu Yumin entered the palace and asked the emperor and empress for permission to go to the border to accompany her husband.
The late emperor did not agree, so the Crown Princess had a long talk with the Queen all night long. At dawn the next day, the Queen's guards personally escorted Xu to the border.
A long time after the war, a surviving soldier found the Crown Princess in a village on the border and sent her back to the capital. However, the world in the capital had changed a lot. Xu had lost her husband and her father had also died in the rebellion.
Even if Emperor Renshou was cruel and ruthless, he could not possibly harm the widow of the late crown prince when the country had just been stabilized. Xu Yumin swore a solemn oath in front of the emperor and empress, promising to become a nun, never step out of the nunnery for the rest of her life, and pray for the country with peace of mind.
Su Huaijing did not have a deep impression of his elder sister-in-law. He only remembered that she was a very gentle woman.
She always has meticulous makeup and exquisite hairpins and skirts. Every time she enters and leaves the palace, she is cautious and always lags half a step behind her elder brother. She is dignified and gentle, and there is no fault to be found in her. She is the most suitable candidate for the Crown Princess in the eyes of the aristocratic families.
She was not as majestic and fierce as Princess Duanyi, nor as playful and clever as the late queen. If anything, she looked like a lady from a noble family, gentle and tender, with every move and word being exemplary.
Su Huaijing was still young at that time, and no one taught him many things, so he didn't understand them. But every time he looked up at his eldest sister-in-law and saw the smile on her face that was almost fixed at an angle by a string, he would feel tired from the bottom of his heart and would wonder if his sister-in-law was wearing a mask on her face.
However, during a family dinner, he went to the Imperial Garden alone to chase butterflies, and when he reached a corner he saw a bright yellow piece of clothing.
Yellow is the most honorable color. The emperor wears golden yellow, the crown prince wears bright yellow, and the rest of the princes, regardless of whether they are legitimate or illegitimate, can only wear clothes such as apricot yellow and orange yellow.
The moment the young Seventh Prince saw his elder brother, the Crown Prince, he forgot about the butterflies he wanted to catch and started to look for his elder brother. Suddenly, he heard a sound that sounded like a sigh, but it sounded more like the coquettish voice he heard when he asked his mother for sweets: "I'm so tired..."
The Crown Prince, who had a low and lazy voice and had been praised by the emperor countless times for being steady and respectful and capable of great responsibility, hugged his wife in a corner of the imperial garden, buried his head in her neck, and said without caring about his image, "I want to go home."
Not going back to the East Palace, but going home.
Su Huaijing didn't understand the difference at that time, but he saw that the curve of his eldest sister-in-law's face, who he always thought was very tiring to laugh, changed. She had a little more shyness of a little girl, and a little more dignity of a wife. She raised her hand and patted her husband's back, her voice was light and shallow, like coaxing and persuading: "Hold on for a while, I'll make you Yuanxiao when we go back, okay?"
Su Huaijing then suddenly remembered that the family dinner that day was actually to celebrate his eldest brother's birthday.
The protagonist slipped away from the banquet and went to a corner of the imperial garden with his wife, to escape from the tedious life of the imperial court and watch the moon rise over the branches.
He originally thought that Xu Yumin was lucky to survive the war, and practicing Buddhism in an ancient temple in the mountains for the rest of her life might be a good destination. Perhaps the best protection for her was to have no contact with her old friends.
As for whether sending the child to Dasui was right or wrong, Su Huaijing could not judge whether it was right or wrong, but it was undeniable that between the 25th year of Yuanxing and the first year of Qingzheng, if people had discovered that the former crown prince had a posthumous child, the child would have been strangled before he even learned to speak.
Mu Jingxu's choice was not only because Sheng Chengli took the initiative to find him, but more because he and Su Huaijing actually had the same idea.
Divide and conquer, defeat each one separately.
Select a prince, assist him wholeheartedly, defeat his competitors one by one, and finally weaken them to reap the benefits.
The only difference is that Su Huaijing chose Sheng Chengming and Mu Jingxu chose Sheng Chengli.
The former's maternal family is powerful, but he is reckless by nature and easily instigated; the latter is alone, has no family to rely on, and no favor from the emperor, so he is more easily controlled by advisers.
Neither of them was sincere. In the eyes of the previous princes, Emperor Renshou's children were actually pawns.
After hearing this, Su Huaijing didn't speak for a long time. It was spring, and the sun was setting in the west. He looked at the shadowy banyan tree leaves in the garden. For some reason, he suddenly asked Mu Jingxu, "What if you didn't recognize me?"
Mu Jingxu was stunned: "What?"
The shadows of the trees swayed, and Su Huaijing stared at them for a while. Some of his guesses were too unrealistic and unrealistic. Speaking them out now sounded like a dream, but he inexplicably wanted to know: "What if you didn't recognize me at all, or recognized me only much later?"
"What will you do?" Su Huaijing asked him, "Continue to pave the way for that child, or give up Sheng Chengli and come to me instead?"
"I'll find you." Mu Jingxu answered without hesitation.
Su Huaijing curled his lips, turned to him, and asked, "Why?"
Mu Jingxu was silent for a long time, with a hint of doubt lingering between his brows. He seemed to have no idea why Xiaoqi would ask such a vague and never-happening hypothesis, nor did he understand why he was willing to answer.
He thought for a moment and said, "Because I need you, and you need me."
Because we are all people who walk through this world carrying hatred on our shoulders, because we all know the despair of having our loved ones die, and because we all want to gain a little bit of joy from recovering what we have lost.
They need each other, just like many years ago in the Dayu Palace, when the young Seventh Prince needed his brother to carry him on his shoulders to catch cicadas on the trees.
Su Huaijing asked: "Under what circumstances would you not come to see me?"
Mu Jingxu frowned, not wanting to answer this desperate assumption, and said softly: "Xiao Qi..."
"Brother," Su Huaijing interrupted him, "If you recognized me, but you are unwilling to come to me and recognize me, why is that?"
His expression was so serious that Mu Jingxu had to think seriously.
Although he thought the possibility was very small, he couldn't help but think about it carefully, and then whispered to his hypotheticals that would never happen: "I'm dying, you walk very steadily, we are enemies of each other, and you can go to where you want to go by yourself."
Mu Jingxu paused and said, "If that's the case, I won't look for you."
Su Huaijing was silent for a long time, then leaned back, a smile appeared on the corner of his lips. He couldn't tell what he was thinking, and murmured, "Is that so..."
Because she believed that he could complete her revenge, because of their long-term hostility and mutual attacks, and because she would soon die, it was better not to meet him, not to recognize him, and to let him go on with resentment in his heart, rather than suddenly realizing that her brother was declining and dying due to her long-term targeting.
The Third Prince would never be willing to let his Little Seventh feel guilty because of him; he was his most beloved brother.
But what happened later
Su Huaijing couldn't help but recall that when Shu Dao Pavilion separated, he and Rong Tang were walking along the bank of Jinfen River. He asked Tang Tang why she wanted to be friends with Ke Mu and the others, and Rong Tang blurted out "because of you" and there was a flash of compassion in his eyes.
Because he what? Because he needs a brother.
But Rong Tang clearly didn't know who Mu Jingxu was at that time, so why
Was it because their interactions had allowed Rong Tang to discover something? Was it because his brother had never recognized him? Was it because the possibilities that Mu Jingxu had just answered were all true
Because he had really died once in a world that Su Huaijing didn't know about, and because Rong Tang had witnessed his death with his own eyes.
So Tangtang wanted to change the ending and try another possibility.
It's to save him, it's also to save my brother...
"Huai Jing, Huai Jing?"
He was lost in thought when he heard Rong Tang's voice. Su Huaijing turned his head. The play on the stage had ended. Everyone in the garden left one after another. The life in the play came to an end. Rong Tang asked him, "Are you going home?"
Su Huaijing paused for a moment, then smiled softly and grabbed his hand: "Okay, let's go home."
It is getting dark outside, the sky is filled with sunset glow, and the spring scenery is so beautiful.
Su Huaijing walked under the sky, looked up casually, and a sharp cold look flashed in his eyes.
How many lives do you... owe me
(End of this chapter)