Chapter 300 Spring is Coming
The sun was setting in the west, and the palace was completely silent, with only the occasional sound of chess pieces falling, or...
"Hey - wait, I got off at the wrong place."
Li Jifeng quickly picked up the chess piece and placed it in another place, then raised his hand, "It's your turn."
Xie Tingzhou stared at him for a moment with an unpredictable look on his face. Li Jifeng couldn't help but ask, "Why are you looking at me?"
Xie Tingzhou said nothing.
"Really, I'm not pretending." Li Jifeng added: "I'm really not pretending now. My chess playing is really at this level. I never find the right method. This is my only shortcoming. I asked your wife to play two games with me but you refused. You are stingy."
Xie Tingzhou raised his hand and blocked the piece he had just placed.
Li Jifeng looked at the chessboard, then looked up at Xie Tingzhou. After a few rounds, he said, "Let's play another game."
Xie Tingzhou spread his hands, and the eunuch beside Li Jifeng hurriedly handed over the banknote, and whispered to Li Jifeng, "Sir, there is only one left."
"Look, your young master is coming back to kill me." Li Jifeng rolled up his sleeves, quickly packed up the chess pieces, and complained.
"Now the whole world is in your hands, and you have the nerve to win my money. What do you lack?"
"No." Xie Tingzhou remained calm, twisting a banknote in his hand, "How many people can this banknote support? Do you know?"
"You can't support me anyway." Li Jifeng said, "Come on, come on."
"What are your plans for the future?" Xie Tingzhou asked, twisting a black piece between his fingers.
Li Jifeng was leaning lazily on the carpet, without shoes on, only wearing white socks, with a pillow under his arm.
"My only wish in life is to be a free and easy king. You are born to be a hard worker. You do all the hard work. You can just give me any title of kingship."
Xie Tingzhou didn't say anything, just looked up at Li Jifeng.
Li Jifeng touched his nose and settled for the next best thing, "Or you can make me a marquis, I'm not that picky, and then give me tens of thousands of silver coins every month to spend, to show that you are a great emperor."
With a click, Xie Tingzhou placed a piece down. "You have a good plan."
"Hehe." Li Jifeng laughed shamelessly: "I just said that chess skills are my only shortcoming.
The ability to settle accounts must be my advantage.”
"So is shamelessness your shortcoming or your strength?" Xie Tingzhou asked.
Li Jifeng put down the chess piece, "Xie Yun, you are so boring now. I am the crown prince of the previous dynasty who accepted the surrender. This great humiliation is not worth tens of thousands of taels of silver per month? This is my face."
Xie Tingzhou raised his lips slightly and glanced at Li Jifeng's face, "How can your face be worth so much money?"
Li Jifeng counted on his fingers, "Let me do the math for you. If I hadn't opened the gate to surrender, would you have had to attack? War costs money, right? Hundreds of thousands or even millions of taels of silver. And then there's the city wall. If your catapults come over and damage the wall, won't it cost money to repair it? Will it cost hundreds of thousands of taels of silver? I haven't even finished the math yet."
"I am happy to do so." Xie Tingzhou said, "I am happy to destroy the city wall and repair it with my own money."
Li Jifeng was at a loss as Xie Tingzhou had already figured out his personality. To deal with a scoundrel like him, he naturally had to be more scoundrel than him.
"I don't care." Li Jifeng held Xie Tingzhou's hand and said, "You support me, that's for sure."
"I'm not your father."
"I am your brother, closer than your own brothers." Li Jifeng said loudly, "If you really want to be your father, I can call you that. Whoever has more money is your father."
"That's not necessary." Xie Tingzhou suddenly reached out and took something from the side and threw it into Li Jifeng's arms.
At first glance, that thing looked like a handkerchief. Li Jifeng picked it up and unfolded it, only to realize that it was a Taoist edict. After reading it, he chuckled.
"I knew it, brother."
More than a month has passed since Li Zhaonian's death, and the end of the year is approaching.
Li Jifeng put away his things and asked, "You have been delaying the ascension to the throne, but you want to wait until after the New Year?"
On the day Li Jifeng accepted the surrender, some court officials committed suicide on the spot, but the influence of the government quickly dissipated, and some of the officials who had vowed not to become traitors to their country are now attending court normally.
There was a major reshuffle in the court. There were no longer any four great families in the world, and no one dared to mention that they held power.
Now that the court has been basically back on track, the next day, Xie Tingzhou sat on the throne of the emperor, but the matter of ascending the throne has never been put on the agenda.
The court officials mentioned several times that the country cannot be without a ruler for a day, but Xie Tingzhou still did not make any statement.
"But there is one person." Li Jifeng suddenly said: "Is Jiang Ji your man?"
"No." Xie Tingzhou said decisively.
Li Jifeng's face was full of doubt. "I always feel that I can't see this person clearly. He has no party or faction, and seems to be floating in between. Tsk."
Li Jifeng shook his head, "I can't see clearly."
Outside Shengjing City, an ox cart was moving slowly on the official road.
The driver was a vigorous old man with a wine bag hanging around his waist, and a handsome young man was sitting in the back of the carriage.
There were many people along the way heading towards Shengjing, but these two were the only ones going in the opposite direction.
"Why do so many people go to Shengjing?" the young man asked.
"These are all people who fled before the war broke out." The old man said, "Everyone thought Shengjing was going to be in chaos, so everyone ran away. Hey, who would have thought that this country would change its master so peacefully."
"That's right." The old man raised his chin, "In recent years, they have all come back again."
The young man held up his cloak and looked at the pedestrians and carriages along the road, muttering, "Yeah, who could have thought of that?"
The old man turned around and looked at the young man. He had an outstanding temperament and looked like he was not an ordinary person.
I couldn't help but ask curiously, "I see that you have an extraordinary temperament, you must not come from an ordinary family. Why did you go south alone without any servants?"
"You are wrong, old man." The young man shook his clothes and said, "I am just an ordinary scholar, otherwise why would I dress like this?"
The old man glanced at his ordinary clothes and asked, "What are you doing going south at this time?"
"I'm traveling." The young man said, "Maybe I'll stop somewhere to rest, find a school to be a teacher, or write letters to people to earn money before continuing on my journey."
The old man nodded. "It's just that it's very cold right now, and the journey is a long way. Why don't you wait until spring?"
Jiang Lianzhi looked back and could vaguely see the towering city walls of Shengjing.
Jiang Lianzhi seemed to see a fire.
The fire started by Xie Tingzhou and Shen Yu will continue to burn, burning away a century of accumulated snow and bringing the spring of Shengjing to faraway places.
Jiang Lianzhi smiled and said, "Did you see it? Winter is over and spring is here."
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