After passing Longchong Gate, Shunshui whispered to his brother Shunfeng.
"My Lord is deliberately ignoring the other princes, right? It's so refreshing. They made such malicious assumptions about my Lord that night. It made me angry. My Lord treats them as his brothers, but they made my Lord so sad. It's best to ignore them."
"Don't talk about the master behind his back, don't cause trouble for the master, and do your job well."
Shunfeng was worried that there might be a spy from one of the princes in the palace who was watching them. Now that the princes had all reached adulthood, the signs of the fight for the throne were becoming more and more obvious. If someone used their words as a pretext to attack the prince in the future, wouldn't that be asking for trouble?
Naturally, the old people who used to serve the Empress Dowager were left in the Cining Palace. During the months that Yinzuo was away, they were the ones who took care of the flower garden. Now it was late autumn, and the most eye-catching flowers in bloom were the large chrysanthemums. Yellow, white, pink and red were the most common ones, which was not surprising. The rarest ones were the black chrysanthemum and the green chrysanthemum.
Kangxi specially ordered the Imperial Household Department to deliver two pots of flowers this morning, which happened to be in full bloom.
Yinzuo admired them for a while, then took tools to loosen the soil for other flowers and plants. Loosening the soil and weeding are essential if the flowers and plants are to grow well, and some of them also need to be fertilized.
Yinzuo was unwilling to delegate these matters to others, so the others were waiting outside the flower garden. At this moment, a familiar figure quickly rushed in.
"Brother! Let me help you!"
The tone of the visitor was cheerful and lively. Yinzuo knew who he was before he even looked up. He smiled helplessly and said, "Fourteen, shouldn't you be in the study room now? You're skipping classes again. The Emperor will come to check your homework after the court is over."
The fourteenth brother squatted down beside his sixth brother and helped him support the half-man-high plant that was about to fall.
Then he laughed and replied, "The Emperor hasn't been to the study room for nearly half a month. He is busy. Besides, I know everything that the master taught me, and I don't have to take the imperial examination."
"So what do you want to do in the future?" Yinzuo looked at him curiously.
"I want to lead the three armies to fight in the northwest!" Speaking of this, Old Fourteen was full of fighting spirit and youthful vigor.
Yinzuo smiled and nodded.
"If the emperor knew, he would definitely be very happy. Then you should study military books and practice riding and shooting. You will need good strategies to deploy troops in the future. Swords have no eyes on the battlefield. Even if you are a general, you need to fight yourself."
"Of course! Sixth brother, just wait and see. In the future, I will definitely become a majestic general, more powerful than fourth brother! Even more powerful than eldest brother!"
"You are quite courageous. Okay, my future general, please help your brother move this plant to the flowerpot next to it."
Fourteen smiled foolishly while working hard to pick up the plant and put it into another prepared flowerpot.
"Sixth brother, I heard from the eunuchs in the Palace of Heavenly Purity this morning that you ignored the other brothers after leaving the court. Are you angry with them? I knew that you ran away in the middle of the night for no reason. You must have been wronged! Tell me, and I will help you beat them up to vent your anger!"
Yinzuo couldn't help but laughed out loud.
"How old are you? Normally, everyone just gives in to you and doesn't argue with you. Do you really think you are better than anyone else? Don't let me get you wrong. I just don't know how to get along with them. Let's leave it at that for now."
"Yes! I also think that Sixth Brother, you shouldn't pay attention to them, especially Ninth Brother and Tenth Brother. I am your biological brother, and you should spend more time with me." Fourteenth relied on his young age and acted shamelessly in front of his biological brother.
"Okay, I'll spend more time with you. Anyway, you've already skipped class today, so why don't you come back to my house with me this afternoon? I brought you some little things from Jiangnan."
Yinzuo shoveled the soft new soil into the new flowerpot, poured two buckets of water into it, and then stood up, holding his lower back.
When the Fourteenth Brother saw that his brother was not feeling well, he immediately rushed over to support him.
"Your waist hurts, right? I told you long ago to let those servants help you, but you refused to listen. If I hadn't come today, would you still have this waist?"
The tone was both distressed and worried.
"The tone of your voice is especially like that of Fourth Brother. We are indeed brothers." Yinzuo joked with a smile.
"Who is like him! He is so cold all day long, as if everyone owes him money!" Old Fourteen wanted to roll his eyes when he thought of him.
"Sixth brother, he might be jealous of you. I heard that Fourth brother had the opportunity to change the jade disc to the name of the Empress Dowager."
Hearing this, Yinzuo frowned slightly, held the fourteenth brother's hand, looked at him and said to him seriously: "Fourth brother is not that kind of person, don't talk nonsense, the three of us are brothers after all, whoever said this in front of you is deliberately provoking and has bad intentions, you stay away from him from now on, do you hear me?"
After hearing this, Old Fourteen muttered unconvincedly: "No way, Bage doesn't seem like a bad person. He often brings me gifts and takes me out of the palace to play."
"Did it be the Eighth Brother who told you?" It was the first time that Yinzuo knew that the seemingly gentle Eighth Brother would actually stir up trouble behind his back.
"Someone in Myna's mansion said it. I don't know if Myna said it behind my back and his servants heard it." Fourteen was also a member of the royal family, so he reacted immediately.
"No matter if he said it or not, since he is from his family, he is not strict enough in disciplining the royal family. You should have less contact with him in the future. The same goes for the other brothers. They are all different now than when they were little. I don't want you to get involved in their disputes."
"I know. As long as you are here, Sixth Brother, I will never take the initiative to look for them." The Fourteenth Brother was very happy now. He felt that Sixth Brother really cared about him, his younger brother, the most.
"Well, let's go. I'll take you back to the palace to eat delicious food. Remember to ask the people around you to go to the study room to ask for leave and say that I took you out of the palace, so that the emperor won't scold you if he finds out."
"Sixth brother still loves me the most!"
By the time Yinzhen finished his official duties, it was already evening. When he came out of the palace, Su Peisheng was the first to greet him and lift the curtain and close the sedan door for his master.
"Get the sedan chair and go back home!"
Yinzhen lifted the curtain on the side and ordered, "Go to the Sixth Prince's Mansion."
"Hmm!"
"Change the route to Sixth Prince's Mansion!"
The fourteenth prince liked to wield swords and sticks, so Yinzuo specially asked an old blacksmith in Jiangnan who had passed down the craft for more than ten generations to make a tough long sword for him.
"This knife is sharpened. Be careful not to hurt yourself or others." Yinzuo warned him before handing it to him.
Old Fourteen responded happily, pulled the long sword out of the scabbard, liked it more and more the more he looked at it, and immediately started dancing in the courtyard.
Yinzuo was eating snacks and drinking tea in the pavilion, admiring his brother's heroic demeanor and applauding him from time to time. As a result, the fourteenth brother, who was dancing with a sword in the courtyard, became even more excited.
Yinzhen, who was standing in the corridor, watched for a while with his eyes narrowed and an unclear expression. Su Peisheng, who was standing next to him, shrank his neck, feeling a thick and dark evil aura emanating from his master, and could not help but take a step back.
Shunfeng, who was standing behind Yinzuo, was the first to notice the figure of the Fourth Prince. He knew very well that the Fourth Prince and the Fourteenth Prince were naturally incompatible. They often engaged in verbal battles with each other in order to snatch their master and suppressed each other to the extreme. So he quickly stepped forward and reminded his master.
"Master, the Fourth Prince is here, and he is standing in the corridor looking over here."
Yinzuo subconsciously turned his head to look over, and the moment he saw his brother's figure, he stood up and walked forward with a smile.
"elder brother!"
When Old Fourteen, who was brandishing his sword vigorously, heard the sound, he immediately put away his sword and looked over there with a not very friendly expression.
"You're off duty? I thought you were going back home. You didn't even tell me you were coming. I didn't even know."
Yinzhen clenched his hands, which were originally behind his back.
"I wanted to ask you to come over for dinner, but I didn't expect that Old Fourteen would be here with you. Doesn't he have to go to school today? He skips classes and is disrespectful to teachers. He's getting worse as he gets older. You shouldn't indulge him all the time."
Old Fourteen, who was walking over, happened to hear these words.
"How am I disrespectful to my teacher? Is it gentlemanly behavior to talk about your own brother behind his back? I think you are the sinister villain!"
Yinzhen looked at him steadily and said, "Scolding your brother in person, is this what you have learned in these years? I think you have learned nothing."
"You!" Old Fourteen was still young after all, and he couldn't hold it anymore. He raised the long knife in his hand and was about to fight with him.
Seeing that the situation was not good, Yinzuo quickly grabbed his wrist and stopped this farce of brothers killing each other.
"Okay, stop arguing. Fourteen, you've been practicing martial arts for the whole afternoon, so you must be tired. In that case, why don't we go to my brother's house for dinner and visit my fourth sister-in-law and Honghui. I haven't seen them for a long time."
"Oh! I dare not step into other people's homes, for fear of being infected with bad luck!"
"Fourteen!" When Yinzuo heard such inappropriate words, his expression became serious and he stopped his brother.
Old Fourteen curled his lips and stopped talking.
Yinzuo sighed in his heart and explained to his brother: "Brother, Fourteen is not..."
"Let's go. Don't make your fourth sister-in-law and the others wait too long."
Yinzhen interrupted Yinzuo. He didn't want to hear Yinzuo's words to excuse Yinzhen, as this would make him think that Yinzuo was on Yinzhen's side. After he finished speaking, he turned around first without any intention of saying hello to Yinzhen.
Yinzuo breathed a sigh of relief and quickly followed.
"Brother, you're not angry anymore, are you?" Yinzuo asked quietly, pulling his brother's sleeve.
Yinzhen looked straight ahead, but his tone softened: "For your sake."
"That's good, brother. Are you very tired in the Ministry of Revenue? After I came back, I could hardly find you." Yinzuo asked as he walked forward side by side with his brother.
Old Fourteen, who was forgotten at the back, was extremely angry. He watched his sixth brother being abducted by that man. He was so angry that he gritted his teeth and followed him.
"Well, I'm a bit busy lately at the end of the year. Why don't you come to the Ministry of Revenue to help me?" Yinzuo was very good at arithmetic, and Yinzhen knew it.
"The Emperor said that he has other tasks for me, but if you need my help, I'm here anytime." Yinzuo would not refuse to help his brother.
The Fourteenth Brother said sarcastically, "Oh! I thought you were so powerful, but you're still asking for Sixth Brother's help."
Yinzhen coldly hit back: "If I don't look for Yinzuo, will I look for you? Forget it. I'm afraid that the emperor will see the loophole at a glance and dismiss me from my position. In the end, I will have to take the blame for you."
"you!"
Yinzuo, who was caught in the middle, felt particularly troubled at the moment.
The author has something to say:
Old Fourteen: He is my biological brother!
Fourth Brother: He is my biological brother.
Old Fourteen: He watched me grow up! He spoiled me since I was little!
The fourth child: I watched him grow up and I spoiled him since he was young.
The slightly inferior Old Fourteen was so angry that he almost fainted.
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
