Shen Hexuan already knew why he was taken to Datong. He was not surprised to see Yan Sikong, nor did he feel disgusted at the first sight as Yan Sikong had imagined.

Shen Hexuan had been locked up for almost a year and had lost a lot of weight, but his clothes were simple but clean, and his hair was neatly combed. His dignified demeanor had not diminished at all because of being behind bars, and sitting in the cell, he was as calm as if he was on duty at the government office.

Yan Sikong bowed to him and said, "Brother Shen, long time no see."

Shen Hexuan looked at Yan Sikong coldly: "You are finally here."

"Brother Shen, are you waiting for me? I am so ashamed. If I were not so busy, I would have come to visit Brother Shen earlier."

"Are you busy helping Feng Ye annex Qianzhou and Datong, or are you busy recruiting soldiers and buying horses for the King of Chu?"

Yan Sikong smiled and said, "I can't hide anything from Brother Shen. Someone, open the cell door."

The jailer opened the prison door, Yan Sikong walked in with wine and food, and sat cross-legged opposite Shen Hexuan.

Shen Hexuan watched Yan Sikong put the wine and food on the table one by one, and said coldly: "Lord Yan can move freely in Fengye's prison. It seems that he is highly valued by the rebel."

Yan Sikong did not respond, but poured two glasses of wine: "Come, I'll toast to Brother Shen."

Shen Hexuan picked up the wine glass, paused for two seconds, and then splashed the entire glass of wine on Yan Sikong's face.

Yan Sikong closed his eyes, but some of the wine still seeped into his eyes, almost making him cry. He wiped his face with his sleeve and smiled faintly: "This wine was originally given to Brother Shen as an apology. Brother Shen, you can drink as much as you want. Now that you have 'drunk' it, you can curse me however you want."

"Scolding someone who has no sense of shame is just a waste of words." Shen Hexuan said expressionlessly, "You don't have to act hypocritical in front of me. You can kill me or mutilate me as you wish. I will never surrender."

"I am not here to persuade you to surrender."

"Then what are you here for? To laugh at me?" Shen Hexuan's face was grim. "To laugh at me for believing in a despicable person like you and losing Mao Ren."

"With or without me, Maoren can't stand up to the Wolf King's army. The same is true for Qianzhou and Datong. The northwest will be taken by the Wolf King sooner or later. With me here, tens of thousands of soldiers will be saved from death in battle."

"Shameless!" Shen Hexuan said sternly, "How dare you, a traitor who sold out the country for glory, be so shameless! You aided and abetted the tyrant and dragged the entire Central Plains into civil war. How many soldiers died in vain on the battlefield, and how many civilians became homeless? You can never atone for your sins even if you die a thousand times!"

Yan Sikong smiled coldly: "If it weren't for me, wouldn't Feng Ye rebel? If it weren't for me, would the King of Chu be able to live in Yunnan? If it weren't for me, wouldn't the court lose Hetao and Liaoning, causing the national strength to decline, the barbarians to wreak havoc, and the Dasheng country to be in danger?!"

Shen Hexuan growled, "You are simply making up stories! What you have done will cause Da Sheng to fall apart. If foreign tribes take advantage of the chaos to invade, our Han dynasty will be over!"

Yan Sikong also said in a fierce voice: "It is precisely to avoid repeating the tragedy of the Eight Princes Rebellion in the Western Jin Dynasty that I want to support the King of Chu to inherit the throne. The King of Chu is kind and caring. He is very young and has rich strategies. He will definitely eliminate corruption in the court and make the people live and work in peace. I will never let the incompetent monarch of the current dynasty destroy the country of my Han people!"

"You may be able to fool others with this, but you can't fool me!" Shen Hexuan was so angry that his face turned pale. "The King of Chu is only 19 years old and trusts and relies on you in every way. Feng Ye has a large number of troops under his command. If he enters the capital in the future, even if the King of Chu sits on the throne, you and Feng Ye will definitely be in power! You just want to use the emperor to control the princes!"

"Yes!" Yan Sikong roared without showing any weakness, "So what?!"

"You..." Shen Hexuan pointed at him tremblingly, "You have evil intentions! You have evil intentions!"

Yan Sikong took a deep breath and said, "Brother Shen, you and I have known each other for more than ten years. Do you think I am greedy for money or sex, power or fame? Everything I did was despised by the world, but I endured the humiliation and destroyed the eunuch party. I traveled thousands of miles to the side of the King of Chu and laid the foundation for him. I have never been greedy for personal enjoyment in my life. Do you still remember the dinner we had before you left Beijing? I talked to you about my ambitions and ideals at that time. There was no falsehood in them. It was just the way I realized them that you could not accept."

"You have done all kinds of treasonous and evil things, but you insist on giving yourself the name of doing it for the sake of the country. This only makes me despise you even more."

"I don't need any name. I don't bother explaining myself to anyone except Brother Shen. But Brother Shen is different to me. I always believe that one day you will understand me. Maybe you will be the only one who can understand me."

Shen Hexuan said disdainfully: "Ridiculous."

"Brother Shen, don't you want the King of Chu to be the emperor? Brother Shen has taught the King of Chu for many years. Don't you know that he is the real emperor?"

"I hope he will become the emperor, and I am asking him to do so as a monarch. But why doesn't he accept the court's call to surrender and return to be the crown prince? He is willing to rebel for the throne. How can such an unfaithful and unfilial person rule the world with filial piety even if he ascends the throne in the future?"

"If he goes back to be the crown prince, let alone whether he will live to see the day he ascends the throne, how will he avenge Concubine Hui? If he doesn't avenge his biological mother, wouldn't that be even more disloyal and unfilial?"

"You don't have to argue."

"Isn't Brother Shen too naive? If you blindly use rites and morals to constrain people and things in the world, what's the difference between you and those corrupt scholars who seek fame and integrity and those hypocritical saints who have nothing to do with the real world!"

Shen Hexuan's expression changed again and again: "You are so sharp-tongued that you can confuse right and wrong. You secretly helped the rebels to seize my Dasheng territory, and instigated the prince to rebel, but in your mouth, it became a righteous act."

"I dare not say that I am doing this for the sake of justice. I only know that the great world cannot be destroyed by a tyrant and a villain. Only by assisting a wise ruler can I realize my ideal."

"You don't want to assist him, you want to control him." Shen Hexuan pointed at Yan Sikong and said viciously: "Control him together with Feng Ye."

"The world will always belong to the Chen family. When the King of Chu is able to take charge of his own affairs in the future, we will retire with honor."

"Even if you are willing to quit, is Feng Ye willing to quit?"

"The Feng family has been loyal for three generations. If they wanted to rebel, why didn't King Jingyuan rebel when he had all the troops under his command? Feng Ye was forced to rebel by a tyrant and corrupt officials. If he had met a wise ruler, he would have been a loyal official and a good general."

"Only a three-year-old would believe such nonsense."

"Whether you believe it or not, it won't change anything. You are in prison now. Even if you have the heart to serve the country and save the people, it is useless. If you die in prison, it will be a pity for your talent. I am not here to argue with you today."

"What do you want to do?"

"I am here to show you a way out, brother Shen. It is a way that will allow you to display your strengths and live up to your ideals."

"Don't even think about it..."

"I want to send Brother Shen and his family to Yunnan."

Shen Hexuan was stunned.

"A wise bird chooses a tree to roost in, and a wise minister chooses a master to serve. Brother Shen should know in his heart who is the wise ruler who can restore Da Sheng, and who can help you realize your ideal of ruling the country with a family of Qi and leaving your name in history."

Shen Hexuan was silent.

"Or, Brother Shen is willing to sink to the bottom of the water with a bunch of corrupt officials who do nothing but eat corpses and make thundering pots, and accompany that hedonistic tyrant."

Yan Sikong poured another glass of wine, toasted Shen Hexuan, and then drank it all by himself: "I will soon be on a diplomatic mission to Chahar with General Que. This trip is dangerous and I may not be able to escape unscathed. If Brother Shen has figured it out, please tell me, otherwise there may be no turning back."

He put down his glass, stood up and left the cell.

He couldn't have guessed that Shen Hexuan would make such a choice, but he had done his best. If he didn't value Shen Hexuan's talent and care about their friendship, he wouldn't have kept Shen Hexuan until now. If Shen Hexuan continued to be stubborn, then he would die in prison.

After meeting Shen Hexuan, he went to see Feng Xiang. Feng Xiang was not as rigid and stubborn as Shen Hexuan. The reason he refused to surrender was simply because his family was still in Beijing.

Feng Xiang was an unimportant person, and Yan Sikong had no intention of making things difficult for him. He would discuss with Feng Ye to release this person and let him return to the capital alone to bring them a message to shock the court and the public.

——

After returning to the mansion, Yan Sikong was annoyed by the smell of alcohol and wanted to change his clothes as soon as possible, but he was blocked by Feng Hun who came after the smell and kept sniffing him for a long time.

Feng Hun loves to drink, and Feng Ye would feed it from time to time, but it only drinks aged and fine wines, and ordinary wines are not to its liking. Yan Sikong had no choice but to ask the servants to bring a jug of exactly the same wine and feed it to Feng Hun himself.

After Feng Hun finished drinking, he paced around Yan Sikong, and pounced on Yan Sikong from time to time, without any of his usual calmness and coldness. Yan Sikong was really unable to resist it. After being pestered and played with by it for a long time, he was exhausted and panting.

It was not until the sun set that Yan Sikong was able to escape when the servants asked him to have dinner with the Wolf King.

Feng Ye announced to the public that he had broken his leg and needed to rest. In order to keep it strictly confidential, he actually pretended to be bedridden in his mansion, and even had his meals brought to his bedside.

After Yan Sikong entered the room, Feng Ye dismissed the servants, then he got up from the bed, stretched his muscles, and complained: "Lying down for a whole day is more tiring than riding a horse for a whole day."

"We will be leaving in a few days, so just be patient." Yan Sikong said, "Have you discussed this with Quewang?"

"Well, although he can disguise himself to look like me, he is not completely like me, and his voice is also different, so people close to him cannot distinguish him carefully. So I will select two trusted servants to serve him. We will go and come back quickly, and with my uncle's support, it should be no problem."

"That's good."

Feng Ye walked up to Yan Sikong and sniffed: "Why do you smell like alcohol? Does Shen Hexuan still have the mood to drink with you?"

"No, I fed Hun'er some wine and it spilled all over me."

Feng Ye tugged at his collar: "It stinks, take it off."

"I'll go back and change..."

"Take it off here." Feng Ye held his shoulders and looked at him leisurely.

Yan Sikong hesitated for a moment, but still started to undress. Feng Ye seemed to think he was too slow, so he quickly tore open his clothes and turned him over, pressing him down on the couch.

"Feng Ye, don't you want to eat..."

"I'm even hungrier here." Feng Ye took Yan Sikong's hand and put it on his erect penis. Yan Sikong shrank his hand back as if it was burned.

When he was being pressed down and being done with as he pleased, Yan Sikong did not forget to bring up the serious matter in the midst of the chaos: "Feng Ye, I have something to ask... please..."

Feng Ye laughed softly: "Do you want me to go faster, harder, or change positions?"

"I... hope you release Shen Hexuan and Feng Xiang."

Feng Ye paused, then rammed into Yan Sikong's body, causing him to tremble violently. He snorted coldly, "Don't you have a long memory? I told you not to mention other men in front of me, especially at this time."

Yan Sikong hugged Feng Ye's neck and gently stroked his cheek with his forehead in passion, "Let them go."

Feng Ye was becoming more and more excited. He did not respond, but simply embedded himself deeper and more heavily into the man's body and that uncontrollable soul.

——

Before leaving, Feng Ye ordered people to release Feng Xiang, and Shen Hexuan also compromised and was willing to go to Yunnan. Feng Ye disagreed at first, thinking that Shen Hexuan's going to assist Chen Yi would make Chen Yi too powerful and difficult to control, but he was finally convinced by Yan Sikong. Yan Sikong was worried that Chen Yi had no power and was still young. Now that he holds military power, if someone around him plots against him or is instigated by the court to seek power, then they will fail.

After finishing his work, Feng Ye put on Yuan Nanyu's armor and mask. Feng Ye was taller than Yuan Nanyu, but both were very strong. Even with heavy armor on and riding a horse, there was not much difference. He and Yan Sikong, with three thousand guards and generous gifts, went west through the border and headed for the Chahar tribe.

The place where the Chahar tribe is now stationed is not far from Datong, only two or three days' journey away. From a distance, one can see yurts scattered across the grassland and grazing livestock. They did not stay here before, but after negotiating peace with the court, they deliberately moved to a place closer to Datong and Hetao, intending to dominate the wilderness.

Nada Khan's son Turku came to receive them in person, and when he saw the boxes of gifts, he couldn't help but smile. He was very polite to them, and after asking them to station their guards not far away, he took Feng Ye, Yan Sikong and two personal guards to meet Nada Khan.

On the way, Turku first hypocritically expressed his apology to Yan Sikong for killing the Wolf King's envoy, and then told them that the envoys from the court had been staying there for quite some time and also wanted to see them.

Yan Sikong knew that it was him they wanted to see, so he said calmly that according to etiquette, they should pay their respects to the Khan first, and as for the envoys from Da Sheng, he would naturally meet them for a while.