It is the beginning of summer, and the lotus flowers in the pond are beginning to bloom, with lush lotus leaves.

Zheng Biyu sat in the cool corridor to cool off, listening to the maid reporting the situation in the princess's mansion. She frowned slightly and asked, "The princess doesn't want to get married again?"

The maid nodded and said, "His Royal Highness ordered the arrest of the princess's attendants, tortured them severely, and interrogated them about the deal they had made with the Yelu tribe. They found out the attendant who instigated the princess to have contact with the Hu people. That person was a loyal servant of Princess Yiqing. He instigated and deceived the princess and provoked the Yelu tribe in order to start a war so that he could rescue Princess Yiqing."

"That loyal servant said that he originally wanted to help Princess Fukang seize the position of Crown Princess..."

The maid paused.

Zheng Biyu said calmly: "Go on."

The maid replied, "The servant said that he wanted to use the relationship between Princess Fukang and His Royal Highness the Crown Prince to influence the court, but Princess Fukang was useless, so he could only take risks and persuade Princess Fukang to form an alliance with the Hu people, deceiving her by saying that he would help her restore her country. When she married and went to the grassland, His Royal Highness the Crown Prince would definitely send troops to rescue her, and he would have the opportunity to fish in troubled waters."

"When the princess learned the truth, she locked herself in her room and refused to eat or drink."

A hint of sarcasm flashed across Zheng Biyu's eyes.

She was determined to get married at first, but now that she knows she was cheated, she doesn't want to get married anymore.

In her eyes, diplomatic affairs are nothing but a joke.

It's a pity that the Yelu tribe is wild and cunning, and it's not so easy to deal with. Now various forces are mixed in, even Nan Chu has intervened. It's too late for her to regret.

…

In the princess's mansion, after Li Xuanzhen interrogated Princess Yiqing's servants, a layer of gloom covered his handsome face.

The attendant asked: "Your Highness, how should we deal with this slave?"

Li Xuanzhen said nothing and drew his sword.

There was a flash of cold light, and the servant was instantly silent.

Blood spurted out, soaking the sleeves of Li Xuanzhen's robe.

Several followers in the room looked at each other with surprise on their faces.

With a bang, Li Xuanzhen threw away the blood-stained sword and went to find Zhu Luyun.

The guard broke open the door and found Zhu Luyun hiding on the bed in the inner room with her knees hugged, motionless and her face pale.

Li Xuanzhen walked to the bedside, and blood from his clothes dripped onto the floor.

"You colluded with the Hu people?" His voice was strangely cold. "Yunniang, you are the princess of Wei and a descendant of the Zhu family. How dare you collude with the Hu people?"

Zhu Luyun deceived him, and she did reach an agreement with the Yelu tribe.

Back then, the Zhu family swore to defend Xiaoguan to the death to prevent the powerful Hu cavalry from marching south. How many Zhu family members shed their blood in Liupan Mountain?

She actually colluded with the Hu people!

Zhu Luyun trembled and raised her face: "In order to restore the country, I can sacrifice everything. Aren't you Li family now allied with the Hu people? Why can't I cooperate with the Hu people?"

Li Xuanzhen became even angrier: "You are forming an alliance? You are plotting treason!"

She is stubborn, arrogant, extreme, and will do anything to get revenge, but these are nothing, but she shouldn't have promised to give Helan to the Yelu tribe after restoring the country!

Zhu Luyun's lips were pale and bloodless: "Your father forced me to do this! He sent people to monitor me, and I couldn't leave Chang'an! If I don't cooperate with the Yelu tribe, I can't leave Chang'an at all!"

She sneered.

"My mother wanted to take me to Quanzhou, but it was you, the Li family, who stopped her. Li Xuanzhen, I am not a princess of Wei. I am a prisoner of your Li family! I would rather cooperate with the Hu people than be imprisoned by you, the Li family, for the rest of my life."

Li Xuanzhen was silent for a while, his eyes slightly lowered: "You also know that your mother wants to escape to Quanzhou, she wants to go to sea. Your mother is a woman, if she is not desperate, why would she go to sea alone?"

Zhu Luyun's mother was a palace concubine, and she knew better than anyone what would happen to the concubines and children of the last emperor if they fell into the hands of people with bad intentions.

How miserable was the death of the concubines and palace ladies who were abandoned in Chang'an by the last emperor?

The Li family rescued her, raised her, and gave her a shelter. Li De did use her, but he also gave her the honor of a princess and never had any intention of killing her.

Does she think she will be free if she escapes from Chang'an?

What awaits her is only a brutal and bloody massacre.

Zhu Luyun turned her face away and pursed her thin lips.

Li Xuanzhen looked tired, rubbed his eyebrows, turned around and left.

When I reached the door, I heard suppressed sobbing from behind.

"Brother Changsheng..." Zhu Luyun turned her back to him and wiped her eyes, "I don't really want to separate from the Hu people. I just want to leave Chang'an..."

Her alliance with the Yelu tribe was only a temporary measure. She wanted to leave the Li family, save her aunt, and restore her country. Her servants advised her to cooperate with the Hu people, and she agreed.

Li Xuanzhen is the son of my enemy, so I can't marry her. So who can I marry?

She didn't expect that the servants had been deceiving her. The servants were loyal to Princess Yiqing, and she was just a pawn of the servants.

Li Xuanzhen walked out without looking back.

A figure swayed in front of the door. Zhu Luyun's maid knelt at his feet and cried, "Your Highness, the princess has been deceived. You must save her! The princess is so noble and so delicate. How can she marry the barbaric Hu tribe?"

Li Xuanzhen closed his eyes, shook off the maid, and left without saying a word.

The entourage quickly followed.

The master and his servants returned to the East Palace. As they stepped onto the corridor, they heard an argument coming from the study.

Wei Ming was still discussing the candidate for the bride with others.

Li Xuanzhen walked slowly to the window and looked inside through the gap.

The five or six people in the room were all his confidants.

Qin Fei stood in the corner and said in a low voice, "Princess Fukang is of noble status, and the Seventh Princess is also a royal family. Princess Fukang is a bit stubborn, how can she let the Seventh Princess take the blame for her?"

Wei Ming glared at him with a look of hatred: "The Seventh Princess is the Second Prince's biological sister!"

Qin Fei suddenly became timid.

Wei Ming raised his hand to signal, and the eunuch beside him came forward with a lacquer tray. He first picked up a stack of blank papers and motioned Qin Fei and others to pass it around.

"These papers are soft and flexible, with uniform thickness and are not easily eaten by insects. How much do you think one hundred sheets cost?"

One person said, "This paper is indeed soft, clean, white and smooth, and can be used for writing or painting. One hundred sheets for six hundred coins?"

Wei Ming shook his head: "Sixty cents."

The other five people were shocked, even the rough man Qin Fei opened his mouth wide. Although he was a military general, he knew how expensive paper was. How could such good paper be so cheap?

Wei Ming picked up a few more books from the lacquer tray.

Qin Fei took one of the books, flipped it open casually and glanced at it, but couldn't make out anything interesting.

Several other scholars exclaimed in surprise.

One person said, "I have never seen such an exquisite binding method."

Another person said, "Let's not talk about the binding method. Look at the articles inside. How were these paintings printed? The lines of each painting are clear. It is really ingenious."

Several people sighed and asked with a smile: "Which great scholar wrote and published these books? Why haven't we heard of them?"

Printing books is not an easy task. They had assisted Prime Minister Zheng in printing the calendar of the new dynasty and were well aware of the hardships involved.

Wei Ming said expressionlessly, "It's the Seventh Princess."

Everyone was stunned.

Wei Ming pointed at the papers and said, "These papers are just ordinary papers sold by Xie's bookstore. In addition to these, there are also expensive gold-sprinkled paper and peach blossom paper. Of course, there are also cheaper coarse papers. Among them, the most popular among scholars is the inexpensive cotton paper. The people in Jingnan area call this paper Xie's paper."

"As for these agricultural and medical books, they were also produced by the Xie family. They not only wrote, printed and sold books in bookstores in various places, but also allowed people to borrow books and provided paper for them to copy books. The library in Jingnan has collected tens of thousands of volumes of books. Every day, scholars and literati come to ask for books. The Xie family accepts everyone and only charges one cent per person."

Everyone's expression suddenly froze.

Why can aristocratic families prosper from generation to generation and produce talented people?

Why is there such a clear distinction between aristocratic families and poor families?

Because the aristocratic families not only monopolized power and wealth for a long time, they also completely monopolized knowledge.

Children of aristocratic families start to learn to read at the age of four or five. They have wise elders, knowledgeable teachers, rich collections of books, inheritance accumulated from generations, and profound family education.

What about children from ordinary families?

The consumption of paper and ink alone can bring down a family, and an ordinary family may not be able to cultivate many scholars even if they mobilize the entire family.

Rich families don't have to worry about money, but they don't have many books at home. It's hard to collect a set of the Four Books, let alone those precious works of great scholars. After going through so much trouble, they finally got a copy full of errors. There is no teacher to consult, and they may not be able to correctly understand the meaning of the book even if they read it a hundred times.

Several people in the room were born in poor families. They worked hard and endured a lot of hardships to get to where they are today. However, due to their family background, they could not hold high positions and would always be inferior to the children of wealthy families.

They are probably the only ones in the world who can understand the profound meaning behind Xie family paper and the Xie family library.

Let knowledge be spread among the people, so that ordinary people can afford paper, can afford to buy books, and can read all the books in the Xie family collection without spending a penny.

Benefiting all people, the contribution will last forever!

Everyone's expressions were filled with excitement. "Are these really the Seventh Princess's ideas?"

Wei Ming nodded. "The direct line of the Xie family has been cut off. They acted low-key and did not publicize it. It took me half a year to find out that the person who ordered the opening of the library was the Seventh Princess. The person who presided over the writing of the agricultural book was also the Seventh Princess. She ordered people to set up a bookshop in Jingnan. Every day, a thousand people collected and sorted books and wrote articles."

Everyone exchanged shocked looks.

Qin Fei showed a puzzled look. Since the Chief Secretary knew that the Seventh Princess had done so many good things that benefited generations, why did he still want to harm the Seventh Princess?

He scratched his head and said, "The Seventh Princess is kind-hearted and cares about the world. She is not inferior to any man. We should not let her marry in our place."

Several others gave him sympathetic glances.

Wei Ming was too lazy to pay attention to him and looked at the other people. "Not long ago, at the Spring Banquet at the Prime Minister's Mansion, the Second Prince bought a pot of peonies for the Seventh Princess, spending tens of thousands of gold. I deliberately spread the news, and sure enough, someone scolded the Second Prince for being extravagant. The Seventh Princess accepted the flowers, but she did not attend the Spring Banquet that day. Instead, she sent someone to send the flowers to the Prime Minister's Mansion to compete for the flower king. In the end, the pot of flowers won, and the Seventh Princess sold the flowers to a wealthy merchant. She used all the money from the sale of the flowers to resettle refugees. The next day, the number of memorials impeaching the Second Prince decreased by half."

He paused.

"The Seventh Princess may seem gentle and virtuous, but in fact she is scheming and scheming. She is also a beauty. When she leaves the palace, young men from aristocratic families rush after her. How many officials will be her lovers in the future?"

Wei Ming looked serious.

"The Seventh Princess will be a great threat to us. As long as she stays with the Second Prince, he will have a better chance of winning."

So, since you can kill two birds with one stone and get rid of the Seventh Princess and the Second Prince at the same time, why not let the Seventh Princess marry in his place?

Everyone was silent.

Qin Fei said nothing.

Wei Ming turned around and bowed to where Li Xuanzhen was standing: "Your Highness, you can't be soft-hearted this time."

Li Xuanzhen was silent for a long time, and then he heard the hoarse command: "Revenge for my mother... Changsheng slave, avenge my mother..."

A chill ran through my body.

He stood in a dark corner and nodded.

Wei Ming was overjoyed: "I'll arrange it right away!"

The prince finally had the heart to be cruel to the seventh princess.

…

On this day, Yao Ying was tying her hair in front of the mirror when two eunuchs suddenly came to the outside of the palace.

"Your Majesty, the Emperor has summoned you."

The author has something to say: The Chinese New Year is coming soon. Please remember to wear a mask when you go to crowded places recently, and wash your hands frequently when you go home.

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Thanks to the little angel who cast the mine: Wen Qing

Thanks to the little angels who irrigated the nutrient solution: Xie Zhinan, Puppet, Green Little Party, Ear Wood