The warm lips touched and then separated, like a butterfly flying over flowers, pausing briefly, leaving a slight itch, and then flapping its wings to fly to the next place.

Xue Shu's throat tightened, and he subconsciously licked his slightly dry lips. He turned his palm over and placed it against his own, interlocking their fingers.

Yin Chengyu did not move away. Instead, he slid his fingertips lightly across the back of his hand.

He faced the light, and the overly strong sunlight coming in from the window made his outline a little blurred, as if coated with a soft halo. His skin was flawless like porcelain under the strong light. His rosy lips were slightly curled, and his eyes were sparkling, as if inviting.

Xue Shu looked at him for a few breaths, then lowered his head and kissed him.

As his lips and teeth moved, he made a vague promise: "I will... obey your Highness..."

Yin Chengyu looked up and cooperated with him.

The sunlight was strong at noon, and even the wind was hot. The windows of the study were open, and occasionally patrolling soldiers passed by, and the sound of their footsteps caused a flurry of pushing and pulling.

Yin Chengyu leaned his back against the wall, his hands on Xue Shu's shoulders, as if trying to reject but also to keep him.

Even her voice was nasal: "That's enough..."

"I'm very happy." Xue Shu stepped back a little, not kissing him so fiercely anymore, rubbing his nose against his, lips pressed together, halfway between them, "I have been without a father since I was a child, and my sister has been taking care of me since I can remember."

He gently yet firmly grasped the hand on her shoulder, slid his palm down along the wrist, slowly inserted his fingers between the fingers, clasped them tightly against the wall, and sighed with satisfaction.

"It is said that widows are prone to gossip. My mother had a very hard life raising my sister and me alone. She was kind and gentle, so she was inevitably bullied. Those gossipers accused my mother of being unfaithful to her husband, saying that she had an affair with the Tartars and that my sister and I were bastards. My mother was afraid of getting into trouble, so she just let them talk and scold her. When I was three years old, I followed my sister and caught rats and snakes in the middle of the night and threw them to the homes of those gossipers."

Thinking of those gloomy past events, the anger that had subsided began to surge up again, triggering the latent violence.

Xue Shu closed his eyes and tried to bite him again.

Yin Chengyu fought back, licking the blood stains at the corners of his mouth, and panting, "It turns out that I have never done anything good since I was a child."

"How can good people survive in this cannibalistic world?" Xue Shu laughed briefly and licked the water stains from the corners of his mouth. "Later, as my sister and I got older, no one dared to gossip in front of my mother..."

If anyone cursed his mother, he and his sister would stop the man and son of that family and beat them.

A bone is worth a bad word.

After that, no one dared to bully them anymore.

No one is born evil, but a fatherless child who wants to protect his mother and live well will always be more brutal than others.

That cruelty is just a mark left by the cruel world.

Yin Chengyu sighed, stroked his eyebrows with his fingers, and kissed his eyes again: "I won't do that again in the future."

There will never be such a world again, and he will never suffer like this again.

Xue Shu hummed softly, turned his head, and rubbed his nose lightly against his palm: "I have a prince."

Xue Shu already knew about Ying Hongxue's affairs, and Yin Chengyu no longer hid it from him and expressed his intention to recruit him.

Originally, he was still worried about how to dispel Ying Hongxue and He Shan's hostility towards the court. Now that he had Xue Shu, he could let him act as a lobbyist, killing two birds with one stone.

However, after Ying Hongxue left Xiashizhai, he became extremely cautious and stayed in Fuhuling near Xiashizhai.

The terrain of Fuhuling is complex, with many hills and valleys. It is difficult to track its whereabouts if you hide in it.

Xue Shu sent out the Xichang guards to follow them for four or five days before they finally found their hiding place.

Just as he was about to lead a group there himself, a spy came to report that the Red Army was attacking.

After Shi Hu was robbed by He Shan that day and nearly 3,000 people were taken away, he had to change his plan temporarily and return to Xishizhai to reorganize his troops. It took him four or five days of hard and soft tactics, and he reluctantly gave up a lot of advantages before he finally stabilized the morale of the army.

On the other hand, Marquis Anyuan had already sent people to urge Shi Hu twice. Shi Hu could no longer delay, so he picked a day and led his troops to attack Yidu City.

However, because something went wrong in the middle, he became more cautious. Although he fought, he fought very perfunctorily. After being defeated in a head-on battle with Xue Shu, he stopped fighting and only clamored outside the city of Yidu for two days. Then, without waiting for the opponent to retaliate, he withdrew his troops overnight and retreated to Xishizhai.

Yin Chengyu got the news and said, "Without He Shan and Ying Hongxue, the Red Army is really useless."

He was just being arrogant for a moment, relying on the geographical advantage of Xiashizhai.

"Your Highness, are you going to send troops?" Xue Shu said, "The spies reported back that Marquis Anyuan's confidants went to Xishizhai twice in the past few days. They must be extremely worried. If things drag on like this, and the Second Prince doesn't show up in time and can't wait to be the hero who 'turns the tide', I'm afraid the news of his death will be reported back to Wangjing first."

Yin Chengzhang fell off a cliff and there has been no news for several days. It is inevitable that people will think he is dead.

By the time the news of his death spread all over Kyoto, reenacting this act would probably have a much less-than-expected effect.

"It's time to send troops." Yin Chengyu flipped through the memorials sent by his subordinates. Officials such as Pang Yi and Ding Changshun who embezzled disaster relief grain had been brought to justice, and most of the embezzled disaster relief grain had been recovered. Now he has ordered all states and counties to recalculate the number of people affected by the disaster and distribute relief grain. Together with the relief grain transferred from surrounding granaries, it should be able to help the people of Shandong survive the famine.

The famine problem was temporarily solved, and the next problem was to deal with Yin Chengzhang.

"Xiu Shi Zhai has a favorable geographical location, but its weaknesses are also obvious. There is no water or food in the mountains. Once trapped, it will be a desperate situation." Yin Chengyu said: "There is no need to fight them head-on. You only need to lead your troops to besiege Xiu Shi Zhai for ten days or half a month, and then order people to persuade them to surrender every day. When the water supply is insufficient, the rebels will disintegrate from the inside out."

Xue Shu accepted the order and immediately went to mobilize troops and make preparations.

When he reached the door, he was stopped again: "Now that you have to fight, you can't go to find Hongxue in person. I will send someone else to invite her. Do you have a token?"

Xue Shu thought for a moment and said, "I don't have any token. If I see someone, I'll just say 'Frogs are croaking at half past three'. If it's really my sister, she'll understand."

In the past, whenever his sister took him out to meet someone in the middle of the night, they would use the sound of frogs as a secret signal.

The next day, Yin Chengyu summoned Marquis Anyuan and told him his thoughts: "The rebels are becoming more and more arrogant, and we must not let them go any longer. I have ordered Xue Shu to lead troops to besiege Xishizhai, and I want to personally supervise the battle in the next few days."

When Marquis Anyuan heard that he was going to send troops, he was delighted at first. But when he heard about the siege, he became suspicious: "Your Highness wants to adopt the siege strategy?"

Yin Chengyu nodded: "Attacking the city is inferior, attacking the heart is superior. The rebels are trapped in Xishizhai and are short of food and water. The people will be in chaos and it will be easy to capture them."

"This...isn't it taking a little too long? And we don't know whether the rebels have stored food in the mountains." Marquis An Yuan advised carefully.

"As long as we can reduce casualties, the longer the better. The rebels are just ordinary people. If we can force them to surrender voluntarily without bloodshed, that would be the best."

An Yuanhou had a bad feeling in his heart again, but he looked at Yin Chengyu's expression and didn't see anything unusual.

The prince has always acted leniently, so it is not surprising that he does not want to engage in a head-on battle and only adopts a siege strategy.

Suppressing the uneasy feeling in his heart, Marquis An Yuan bowed and said, "Your Highness is wise."

…

After leaving the hotel, An Yuanhou returned to his own residence. After considering for a long time, he dressed up and quietly left the city.

Yin Chengzhang, who was almost exhausted from staying at the farmhouse, was very surprised to see him and quickly welcomed him in: "My Lord, is the Crown Prince going to take action?"

Marquis Anyuan nodded and said, "The Crown Prince has sent Xue Shu to attack Xiashizhai. I will go to Xiashizhai to supervise the battle in person soon. This is our chance."

Yin Chengzhang clenched his fist, suppressed his excitement and asked, "When will we start?"

"In a few days."

Marquis An Yuan was cautious by nature, and he always felt that something was wrong, so he wanted to wait and see for a few more days to make sure everything was safe before taking action: "The prince wants to trap the Red Army to death, but if the two sides do not fight, it will be disadvantageous for us to fish in troubled waters. So why not wait a few more days, and when the rebels in Xishizhai can no longer endure, I will let my trusted aides provoke them to fight to the death. Then I will arrange for our people to disguise as the Red Army and attack from the front and back... I will definitely make the prince go without return."

"Once something happens to the Crown Prince, the army will be in chaos. Your Highness can return in the chaos and save the situation. Afterwards, all you need to do is say that you were injured and recuperating in the mountains, and you came back when you were better, and you just happened to encounter the chaos and that's how it will be resolved."

Marquis An Yuan thought over the plan in detail and found nothing missing. He felt relieved and said, "Your Highness will need to take people to Fuhu Ridge to wait for a while in the next few days. If I succeed, I will notify Your Highness with three rockets as a signal."

Yin Chengzhang agreed to everything, and after going over the plan with him again, he led his men to Fuhuling that night.

Xue Shu led his troops to surround Xishizhai.

Xiashizhai was built on the most precipitous peak of Fuhuling, with steep cliffs on three sides and only one slightly flat side with stone steps carved out for people to pass through.

Now that the only exit has been blocked, the people in Xiashizhai have no way to retreat.

The troops of the Four Guards Camp set up camp below Xishizhai.

Yin Chengyu and Xue Shu stood side by side in front of the battle formation, looking up at the stockade on the high ground: "Cui Ci has already left."

——Because Xue Shu could not go in person, he could only let his confidant Cui Ci go to find Hong Xue with a handwritten letter with the prince's private seal.

In fact, he could have waited until the battle at Xishizhai was over before looking for her, but Yin Chengyu was always thinking about the death of Ying Hongxue in his previous life. Calculating the date, it was around this time that Ying Hongxue had the accident.

Although it seems that Yin Chengzhang and Ying Hongxue will not have any conflict in this life, and Ying Hongxue should not die at the hands of Yin Chengzhang again, Yin Chengyu is still uneasy in his heart, so he simply sends someone to invite Ying Hongxue back to avoid any more trouble.

Xue Shu said "hmm" with a hesitant look on his face: "I hope it goes well."

——He had reason to worry.

In the early years, the Jiayuguan area was often harassed by Tartars. They would take advantage of the city's lax defenses to rush into the city, burn, kill, and loot, then retreat. By the time the government troops arrived, the Tartars had long disappeared.

The local people have suffered for a long time and have their own ways to deal with it.

Whenever they heard that the Tartars were coming, they would quickly gather up the food and other valuables at home and hide in the nearby mountains and forests.

The Tartars found nothing, so they also went into the mountains to search.

They hid so many times that they gained experience and developed their own way of hiding and avoiding the Tartars.

If they occasionally encountered a lone Tartar, they would even set up a trap and rob him.

It took the guards of the West Factory four or five days to find any trace of Ying Hongxue and his group, probably because Ying Hongxue had been deliberately hiding his tracks.

If he went there in person, he would certainly be able to meet the person, but if it was Cui Ci, it would probably take some twists and turns.

At this time, Cui Ci did as Xue Shu expected, and he lost.

He touched the ashes that were still warm on the ground, guessing that the person must have left not long ago, and then he continued to follow the traces.

But just after he walked a mile, he heard the sound of wind in the grass and woods beside him. Sensing danger, he rolled to the side to avoid the arrows, but unexpectedly his body lost weight and he fell heavily into a deep pit.

As soon as he climbed up in pain, another net dropped from above and completely caught him. He Shan threw away the bow, tightened the rope, lifted him up easily, and went to find Ying Hongxue to claim credit.

"Boss, the man has been arrested."

He Shan threw the rope net to the ground, feeling very proud.

Recently, Ying Hongxue discovered that someone had been following them and spying on their whereabouts, so he deliberately set up a trap to lure the snake out of its hole.

But when she looked at Cui Ci's attire, she was a little confused: "Are you from... the West Factory?"

He Shan was greatly surprised when he heard this. He turned over the rope net and tried to see what Cui Ci looked like: "Is he a eunuch? Why can't I tell?"

Cui Ci was caught off guard and fell into a deep pit. He was then roughly dragged over in a net by He Shan, causing him to be seriously injured. He heard the conversation between the two people while he was dizzy and dazed. He had no time to explain anything and only shouted out the code word that Xue Shu had said.

"Frogs chirp at half past three!"

"What is he talking about?" He Shan was puzzled.

Ying Hongxue frowned, gave He Shan a look, and asked him to untie the net. Her expression was a little serious: "Where did you hear this?"

Cui Ci got up from the ground in a panic. He was stunned for a moment when he saw Ying Hongxue's face, and then he said quickly: "The prince sent me here. I am Xue Jianguan, Xue Shu's man."

He quickly took the letter out of his sleeve and handed it to Ying Hongxue: "You will understand after reading this letter."

Ying Hongxue took the letter and read it, her brows almost knotted.

When He Shan heard the name "Xue Shu", he understood something. He knew that Ying Hongxue had a lost brother: "It's not a scam, is it?"

Ying Hongxue was also thinking about this question, but only Xue Shu and she knew the secret code, so there was a hint of hesitation in her eyes.

"Why did Xue Shu ask you to come?"

Cui Ci said, "Supervisory Officer Xue was ordered to lead troops to besiege the Red Army, so he couldn't spare time. But he missed his family so much that he had to send me here. Please go and talk to me."

After saying this, he suddenly realized that Ying Hongxue was also a member of the Red Army, and his face became a little embarrassed.

It was true that the prince sent troops to besiege Xishizhai. Ying Hongxue was hiding in Fuhuling, so he naturally heard the news.

After thinking for a moment, she said, "I'll go with you."

He Shan got a little anxious when he heard this: "Then I'll go with you!"

Ying Hongxue gave him a warning look and said to Cui Ci, "I still have some things to tell you. Please wait for me in front for a while."

Cui Ci understood the hidden meaning of her words and immediately stepped back tactfully.

Ying Hongxue looked at He Shan and quickly explained, "Only Xue Shu and I know this secret code. Whether it's true or not, I have to go and take a look to feel at ease. But you and your brothers can't take risks with me. Now that our hiding place has been exposed, we shouldn't stay in Fuhu Ridge for long. I will take him out by a detour, and you and your brothers will immediately withdraw from Fuhu Ridge and ambush near Yidu City. If there is a scam, you can take advantage of the city's defense being empty and capture Yidu City, and then use Yidu City to exchange for me."

He Shan's words were all blocked by her. After holding them for a long time, he just held her hand and said reluctantly: "Then be careful."

Ying Hongxue smiled, shook his hand vigorously, and walked towards Cui Ci.

Riding a horse in the forest was inconvenient, so the two of them walked out, one in front and the other behind.

Ying Hongxue was on guard. While asking about Xue Shu's recent situation, she asked him questions calmly.

Cui Ci had sensed something and thought that this person was most likely Supervisor Xue's sister, so he could only tell her everything he knew.

The two talked as they walked, and it took them nearly an hour to get out of Fuhuling.

Once we got on the official road, we went faster.

Cui Ci had long noticed that Ying Hongxue had some difficulty walking, but Ying Hongxue refused to ask for his help, so he could only send out a signal and ask the servants waiting nearby to drive a carriage to pick her up.

The two waited on the official road for three quarters of an hour, and then they saw a carriage speeding towards them in the distance.

The wheels of the carriage rumbled past, causing the ground to shake slightly.

Ying Hongxue frowned and looked around, only to feel the vibrations under her feet becoming more and more obvious. It was not the carriage that was causing the vibrations, but the entire ground, and even the mountains in the distance were shaking slightly.

She suddenly realized something and ran towards the open space quickly: "Run! It's a ground dragon turning over!"

The author has something to say:

#Sister and brother reunion#

Gou Gou: I found a younger brother or sister for you (proud)

Sister: What a coincidence! I’ve also found a brother-in-law for you.

Your Highness:?