Chapter 432, Hardships

Everyone: ······

Okay, okay, whatever you say is right.

Anyway, you are young and powerful, and everything you say is right.

"Daddy, Mommy!"

Xia Wanwan pounced on her little feet and pounced towards Xia Siheng and Liu Wan in the crowd.

Xia Siheng came forward first, smiling and stretching out his hands to catch his baby.

But.

Xia Wanwan's little feet turned and pounced into Liu Wan's arms.

"Mother, it feels like a day has passed since I last saw you. I miss you so much every night."

Xia Siheng:...

His mouth twitched, and he continued to walk forward, holding Zixing under his armpit, "Zixing, tell me, where do you want to go?"

Liu Zixing was almost choked to death by him. He struggled for a while, then raised his head,

"Master, I want to go to Duke Yan's mansion."

Xia Siheng curled the corners of his mouth slightly, glanced at Duke Yan, and patted Zixing on the shoulder, "It's not that easy to go into someone's house and make trouble."

Liu Zixing lowered his eyes, and heard Xia Siheng change the subject, "But this king can help you do it, but, there is a small request."

"What request?" asked the little boy.

"Don't call me Master."

"Why?"

"Just call me Father like your sister and brother." Xia Siheng lowered his voice and smiled slightly, "What? Is it difficult for you to call me Father?"

"No...no..."

Liu Zixing's eyes suddenly became red.

Ever since his mother married the Ninth Prince, he and his brother have tactfully distanced themselves from their family.

Even though they lived under the same roof, he knew that he was of low status and unworthy of all these wonderful things.

Therefore, he tried to distance himself from their family on purpose, and even discussed with his brother that the two brothers should take their mother's surname.

And he himself never changed his words and always called Xia Siheng Master.

Now, Xia Siheng asked him to call him father, and his mother and sister came to lead him. His empty heart suddenly felt full of love and warmth.

This is the warmth that only a family can have.

Liu Zixing couldn't help shedding tears. He choked a little and called out, "Father, mother, sister."

His hands were held tightly by his father and mother, soothing his nervousness and trembling.

"Good boy, just do what you want to do. Dad is here for you. Remember, no matter what the result is, we have our family behind you."

Xia Siheng patted his shoulder solemnly, his eyes full of relief.

The little guy has grown taller, and his shoulders don't fall down when he pats him.

"Zixing, no matter what choice you make, we will always be a family." Liu Wan was beside him, wiping his tears.

Xia Wanwan smiled and teased him, "You are so old, and you are still crying. Shame on you."

Liu Zixing snorted and looked at Xia Siheng.

Xia Siheng nodded slightly at him to show that he understood.

He strode towards Duke Yan and returned to his previous indifferent expression, "Duke, His Majesty and the Queen Mother are waiting for you in the study, please come in."

He pointed to Yu Linjun behind him and said.

Duke Yan's eyes were dark, but he soon walked towards the crowd, and Xia Siheng was next to him.

Duke Yan took off the token from his waist and threw it to him, "The entrance and exit token of the Duke's Mansion. Their mission should be to assassinate Lord Gu. Lord Gu is not easy to deal with, but he will definitely not kill innocent people. The main reason is that there is Yu family in the Duke's Mansion. As long as Yu family is not dead, you can do whatever you want to her."

After saying that, Duke Yan quickened his pace and got on Yu Linjun's horse.

Xia Siheng threw the token to Liu Zixing, "My sister and I are going to the palace. As a man, you can complete the task by yourself!"

"Yes, I can!" Liu Zixing jumped up, took the jade pendant and said firmly.

Xia Siheng helped Liu Wan and Xia Wanwan onto the carriage, looked at Taoist Qianyun, clasped his fists and saluted, his lips moved slightly, but no sound came out.

But Taoist Qianyun understood his lip language. What Xia Siheng said was, "Thank you Taoist for protecting him."

Taoist Qianyun nodded.

Seeing the group leave, he pointed to the horse beside him and asked, "Do you want to ride as fast as you can, or do you want me to fly you over?"

It was too late.

Liu Zixing was afraid that something would go wrong if he delayed any longer, so he pulled the Taoist's sleeve and said, "Fly."

As fast as possible, the faster the better.

Taoist Qianyun shook his whisk, grabbed Liu Zixing, and jumped up with a light tap of his toes.

The soldier who came on horseback: Wow!

When the few people returned to the capital from Phoenix Mountain and entered the palace, it was already dark and the sky was dotted with stars.

A crescent moon hung high in the sky, like a sneer from heaven and earth to humans.

Human emotions are often the most complicated things in the world. A person's emotions are even more insignificant to the world.

With a complex and uneasy thought in his mind, Duke Yan stepped into Yu's study.

Are his emotions also insignificant and not worth mentioning to the monarch on the high desk?

But he no longer has any way out.

With a thud, he knelt down in front of the Queen Mother and the Emperor. Before they spoke, he didn't even raise his head and kept knocking on the ground.

"Old minister, I am guilty!"

He helped the Donglin people to raise assassins. He wanted his adopted daughter to sit on the throne of the Queen. He once revealed some decisions made in the court to the Donglin people.

He is guilty of the death penalty!

"Dust off, come and take a look." The Queen Mother's gentle call made Duke Yan tremble, and his nose suddenly felt sour.

In all these years, no one had ever called his name like this.

Duke Yan suddenly raised his head, stood up slowly, and walked over.

The Queen Mother placed the new law on protecting girls, which Xia Wanwan had helped draft, in front of Duke Yan, with a gentle smile on her face.

"I made a small change to this law. Wanwan said that it was necessary to protect girls, but I felt that there were so many women who were oppressed or harmed in the world. We cannot only protect girls under the age of fourteen. Even married women should be protected by the law. Take a look. Is this appropriate?"

Two new articles were added to the law.

1. If a woman is hurt, oppressed or deceived by her husband's family, she can file for divorce and report it to the government. The government will verify the truth. If the couple divorces, if the circumstances are serious, the woman has the right to divorce her husband and take away all her dowry without leaving a penny. The husband's family will be recorded by the government and registered with a gray seal. When a woman visits a husband's family, she can go to the government in advance to check whether the family has a bad record.

However, this is not important to Duke Yan.

The important thing is the second article.

"If any woman in Daxia is injured, insulted or slandered, the court will verify it and the perpetrator should pay the same price."

Of course, the perpetrators who pay the price also include everyone inside and outside Daxia.

If the victim dies, the perpetrator should also die.

If the victim is defiled, then the murderer will also be defiled.

The murderer must experience the same death as the victim, and only when the victim is punished can it be considered a life for a life.

This clause really shocked Duke Yang. The Queen Mother's

good intentions made him shed tears.

"Good... very good, Queen Mother, this is very good..."

It's great that Shu'er's revenge can be avenged openly!

The Queen Mother's brows relaxed and she asked someone to roll up the scroll and put it away. "The royal family has never treated your Yan family badly. The old Duke Yan was loyal and died to protect the late emperor. Ever since I learned that you worked for the Donglin people, I didn't believe it at first. Your father was brave and loyal, but I don't believe it. I don't believe you would betray the country."

"When the evidence was placed in front of me one by one, I kept convincing myself that these could not prove anything, and maybe the Yan family had some difficulties. I even... I even thought that if I really saw you standing on the side of Donglin, I would kill you on any charge, just hoping to keep your Yan family's foundation and bloodline."

"I can't bear to see the Yan family, which your father exchanged his life for, suffer such a devastating disaster!"

"But what about you, Chen Bi, what did you do?" The

Queen Mother's eyes turned red as she spoke. She tried her best to suppress her sobbing voice and threw the evidence of the Phoenix Mountain assassins in front of Duke Yan.

Duke Yan's lips trembled palely, picked up the memorial and saw that it was a list of the old batch of Donglin assassins.

The new generation of assassins were all mixed blood of Donglin assassins and Daxia people.

He shuddered all over, the wrinkles at the corners of his eyes were filled with tears, he looked up at the empress dowager, "I... I have my own difficulties." The empress

dowager turned her head slightly, held back her tears, and asked, "You tell me."

"My wife and children met with an accident on the way back from worshiping Buddha. The carriage fell off the cliff and was shattered to pieces. Dozens of guards died on the cliff. Each of them was stabbed fifty-nine times!"

Duke Yan said, and finally couldn't hold back his tears and fell. Thinking of that scene, he felt suffocated with pain in his heart.

Looking at the endless cliffs and abysses, like a giant beast swallowing the lives of his wife and children, his legs and feet suddenly became weak, and he knelt down and cried. How desperate he must have been at that time-

When the Queen Mother heard the number of fifty-nine knives, she clenched the handkerchief in her hand, and her heart trembled fiercely, as if she had guessed something.

She moved her lips and asked with difficulty,

"The murderer... Could it be..."