What does Rong Tang think
Rong Tang felt that the development of things deviated from the original work and was far from the direction he knew.
He was a little confused.
If the facts were exactly as Ke Hongxue said, the Second Prince's party lost a scholar, the Third Prince lost the favor of Emperor Renshou, and the Fifth Prince, the male protagonist himself, had a lame leg.
No one got any advantage. Just as Su Huaijing said, even if someone was going to profit from this farce, it could only be him.
But what if... it's not true
Rong Tang couldn't help but doubt these things.
First, it is a fact that Xia Jingyi's son-in-law Zhang Baoshan had his own army in the southwest and embezzled military pay. The incident should have happened in the winter of the tenth year of Qingzheng. There was a heavy snowfall and the Southwest Yi tribe sent a small force to disturb the border. The court sent an imperial envoy to supervise the army and discovered this dirty case. The ironclad evidence cannot be refuted. It is not like now, instead, the scholar who submitted the memorial to the second prince's party was charged with slander and false accusation and the matter was hastily settled.
Secondly, the Third Prince Sheng Chengxing had left the palace and established his own residence last year, and Emperor Renshou even rewarded him with a Song Garden. If he were to be recalled to the palace and made to kneel in the Great Buddhist Hall to chant sutras and reflect on his mistakes simply because of the death of a nanny, this punishment would be too severe, and it would be embarrassing for Concubine Hui and Marshal Xia, and it would have a bad influence on the Sixth Prince, who was Sheng Chengxing's half-sister. This was not a decision that Emperor Renshou would make.
The third thing, and the one that surprised Rong Tang the most, was how could Sheng Chengli break a leg
Sheng Chengli, as the male protagonist of Tian Dao, has experienced all kinds of hardships since childhood, but in the final analysis, these hardships were all written by the author to train him and add skill points and talent points to him. It is impossible for them to cause any indelible scars on his body.
Although Dayu had no explicit laws, it was almost a consensus among the royal family that people with disabilities could not be crowned as emperors. Although Sheng Chengli was an abandoned child in the cold palace, he was still an heir to the throne. If he was lame and unable to walk, how could he succeed to the throne in the future
How could Heaven allow him to actually face such a crisis
Unless the imperial physician was lying, or this was simply a smokescreen by Sheng Chengli. Otherwise, from Rong Tang's perspective, this point was fundamentally untenable.
None of the three things were consistent with the original work, none of them had ever happened, and none of them were within Rong Tang's understanding.
When Ke Hongxue asked him this, he lowered his head, picked up the teacup, took a sip of tea strategically, and said, "I don't understand."
The hot pot was bubbling, night had fallen outside the window, and Shuling Street was as lively as ever. Sitting in the elegant room of Shudao Pavilion, I could still hear the drunken feasting in the Gilded Tower and smell the fragrance of red sleeves in the Jinfen Tower.
Rong Tang put down his teacup and said nonsense without changing his expression: "I have been stupid for nine years. Everyone in Beijing knows it."
With a "bang", Lu Jiaxi's chopsticks accidentally hit the edge of the table and then rolled to the ground with a clatter.
Rong Tang opened his big innocent eyes and looked at Lu Jiaxi's surprised eyes for a moment, then young Master Lu immediately bent down in panic to pick up the chopsticks.
Not knowing where it rolled to, he picked it up for a long time without getting up and just squatted on the ground.
Ke Hongxue came back to his senses and blinked. His always romantic and affectionate eyes were filled with surprise. He opened his mouth but said nothing for a long time, looking at Rong Tang.
Rong Tang looked back at him, calm and innocent as always.
Ke Hongxue remained silent for a century, then clasped his hands together and said, "It was my fault for being so rude and accidentally touching upon the young master's sorrow. I shall be punished."
As he said this, he poured himself a full glass of wine and drank it all in one gulp.
Rong Tang raised his eyebrows and lowered his head to eat the hot pot meatballs in his bowl. From the corner of his eye, he caught a glimpse of Su Huaijing looking at him with a smile on his face.
"What's the matter?" he leaned over and asked in a low voice.
Su Huaijing also spoke softly: "When Brother Tangtang starts to prevaricate, it's really... hard for people to refute."
Rong Tang paused, blinked, and pretended not to understand what he meant: "I have been stupid for nine years, but I never told anyone that, did I?"
I don't know which word in this sentence touched the villain's mind, Su Huaijing was stunned for a second and then laughed, feeling both cheerful and lazy. At the age of seventeen, he was naturally full of vigor and vitality. He sat upstairs drinking and dining with friends, and his laughter was countless times more intoxicating than the chirping of cicadas on a summer night.
Su Huaijing looked away, the smile in his eyes still lingering, his eyes fell lightly on the table, and then said: "Mr. Lu, haven't you found chopsticks? Ask the waiter to change a pair for you."
Before he even finished speaking, Lu Jiaxi quickly stretched out a hand from the edge of the table, holding a pair of bronze chopsticks in his hand: "Found it, found it, I just had a leg cramp, a cramp."
He stood up hurriedly and quickly glanced at the people present. Seeing that none of them had any intention of continuing the previous topic, he sat down with lingering fear and hastily wiped the sweat from his forehead while wiping the chopsticks.
Rong Tang was watching with great joy from the side and for some reason wanted to tease him, but as soon as he uttered the word "Lu", Lu Jiaxi's eyes, full of resentment and pleading, came over. Rong Tang was instantly struck and suddenly felt a bit like a feudal patriarch who forced his juniors to perform at the dinner table, so he shut up immediately.
Lu Jiaxi breathed a sigh of relief, wiped his chopsticks and continued to work hard. When everyone put down their chopsticks, he burped belatedly and asked, "Are you all...full?"
"… "
Ke Hongxue couldn't help but close her fan and tapped him lightly on the head, saying angrily: "With your temper, it's okay for you to be in the Hanlin Academy, but if you join the six ministries, won't you be eaten by those old foxes?"
Lu Jiaxi opened his eyes and glanced at him, his eyes uncontrollably glancing at Mu Jingxu, and then he said naturally: "But... the Shaoqing of the Dali Temple is my fellow apprentice."
When Lord Lu was talking to Ke Hongxue just now, he seemed very confident and didn't feel it was shameful to have a backer. However, when he was glanced at by Mu Jingxu's cold eyes, he immediately panicked and quickly looked away, using Ke Hongxue's figure to block himself.
Rong Tang was once again touched by his cuteness and couldn't help but smile softly. Then he saw that Mu Jingxu, who was so scared of Lu Jiaxi, had an unchanged expression, as if frozen by frost.
But he and Mu Jingxu have been together for two lifetimes. He may not be able to see the deeper emotions, but he can see the more superficial ones clearly.
Mu Shaoqing was not at all displeased with Lu Jiaxi's words just now, which were trying to get close to him and make friends with him, and even planned to use him as a backer to bully others. On the contrary, Rong Tang looked at him and even felt that there was a hint of acquiescence and indulgence on his face.
He found it interesting, and asked Ke Hongxue when he went downstairs: "Don't you think your senior is very generous to young Master Lu?"
Rong Tang had something to say to Ke Hongxue, so Su Huaijing naturally stood behind him with one shoulder away, while Lu Jiaxi and Mu Jingxu walked in front.
A man who is extremely socially phobic, and even the robes of the Hanlin Academy cannot hide his immaturity. He is naive and nervous, yet occasionally reveals a hint of youthful grace. A man who is as majestic as a mountain and as still as snow, and the bustling world passes by him without even a trace of staining his neat and clean white robe.
The two of them stood together, neither speaking to the other, one calm and the other frightened.
But when Lu Jiaxi panicked and accidentally stepped on empty air, Mu Jingxu immediately took action, grabbed his arm, and said in his usual cold and emotionless voice: "Be careful."
Ke Hongxue saw this scene from behind, and instead of feeling jealous as Rong Tang thought, she was stunned for two seconds, then smiled and said, "That's good too."
Rong Tang was slightly surprised: "Aren't you jealous?"
"What is there to be jealous of?" Master Ke asked back, "If there is one more person who can make him feel that this world is at least a little interesting, I would be more than happy. Besides-"
He glanced back calmly, and before Su Huaijing looked back, he retracted his gaze and said softly, "Senior brother may think he is a bit like a younger brother."
Rong Tang was really confused now: "Lord Mu has brothers, why have I never heard of them?" Not only now, but even in the previous two lives, he had never heard Mu Jingxu or Ke Hongxue mention them.
Even though Master Ke was drunk, he said nothing about Mu Shaoqing's news.
There was an official who wanted to find something to hold against Mu Jingxu to bring him down. Someone suggested that he start with Ke Hongxue, but the other party sneered and said, "That grandson of Ke Wenrui? Believe it or not, I would roast him on the fire or fry him in the oil pan, and I would not tell his senior brother any bad news. If I let him go back alive, the first thing I would do is draw a topographic map of my mansion and give it to his senior brother, waiting for the day when the imperial edict falls on me and the Dali Temple brings people to confiscate my house."
Rong Tang suddenly realized that even though they were in the same camp in their previous two lives, they seemed to have never been completely honest with each other.
Instead, they are now scattered. Ke Hongxue does not work for the male protagonist, and she is too lazy to get involved in the fight for the throne. However, she becomes more and more reckless in her conversations.
Ke Hongxue lowered her eyes, waved her fan to cover her lips, and said lightly, not knowing whether she was afraid that Mu Jingxu would be sad or just talking nonsense, "He's been dead for many years."
Rong Tang was startled. Before he could say anything, he heard Ke Hongxue speak again. He looked a little lonely and stared at Mu Jingxu's back: "It would be great if there was a magic medicine in this world that could bring the dead back to life."
It is not only the body that is brought back to life, but also the soul that has passed away returns to the body, which can be considered as resurrection.
But the world is full of things that are unattainable.
Ke Hongxue closed his fan and walked downstairs in two or three steps. A customer finally arrived and was led upstairs by the waiter. They passed each other. Ke Hongxue caught up with Mu Jingxu and pushed Lu Jiaxi aside in a very generous and mean way: "Don't you have a fellow student of your own? Why are you bothering me?"
Ke Hongxue asked Mu Jingxu with a shy smile: "Brother, I will go back to Jiangnan next month to worship my ancestors. Do you want to take an errand and go with me?"
Mu Jingxu glanced at him sideways and said something that could not be heard clearly due to the noise in the room.
Su Huaijing came over from behind, leaned forward and held Rong Tang's hand, lowered his head and asked with a smile: "Would you like to go shopping on the street before going home? I'll buy you a few more sets of clothes."
Rong Tang nodded with sparkling eyes and said, "By the way, order a few sets for yourself, and buy some for mother. When you return to the palace, bring them back to her as gifts."
"Okay." Su Huaijing agreed with a smile and asked casually, "Do you want to buy it for the prince?"
Rong Tang frowned when he heard Rong Mingyu's name and rejected it immediately: "No need, my father has a lot of salary and he has no shortage of children and concubines, so naturally someone will send him one. Let's save some money, it's not easy to make money."
Su Huaijing's eyes curved with a smile: "I will listen to my husband."
Four people walked out of the hall in pairs. Lu Jiaxi hadn't recovered from being pushed by Ke Hongxue yet. He stood there, sniffing the chili in the air, and covered his stomach that was about to burst: "..."
Why on earth did I go out for a walk with Brother Ke instead of going home after work
(End of this chapter)