Chang'an is good

As the door of the Buddhist hall was pushed open by a servant from the outside, a thin figure appeared in Ma Wan's sight along with the light leaking from the door.

It was already the end of March, and the beginning of summer was just around the corner. The visitor was still wearing a thin cape. Under the cape, he wore a silver-gray embroidered bamboo robe, which complemented the gentle and elegant aura around him.

He didn't walk into the Buddhist hall in a hurry, but his eyes found Ma Wan at the first moment.

Ma Wan, who stood up and looked in the direction of the door when she heard the noise, never missed his searching gaze.

Looking at each other, Ma Wan's heartstrings tightened and her eyes were red. She wanted to call him "Prince" like before, but she couldn't.

She hadn't seen him for many days, and she had no idea of ​​his attitude and thoughts these days, as well as his purpose at this time, so being in such a situation, she didn't dare to speak rashly, and she didn't know what to say.

The moment their eyes met, thousands of thoughts flashed through Ma Wan's mind.

It all started with the letter home she received last winter...

In the letter, her grandfather asked her to secretly investigate whether Yu Zeng, the head of Prince Rong’s palace, was secretly involved in the affair. He also gave her very clear clues - before Yu Zeng entered the palace, two familiar companions were sent to the palace. Entered Prince Rong's Mansion as a servant. Many years have passed, one person is no longer alive, and the remaining person came to Yizhou with King Rong.

According to Ma Wan's investigation, that person is now a minor steward in Prince Rong's Mansion in Yizhou. In terms of talents and qualifications, this person is only average. In terms of birth and origin, he is not as good as the children of those families in Prince Rong's palace. He can get a managerial position only after many years of hard work.

Therefore, objectively speaking, this person was not considered to be reused by King Rong, but since his grandfather had made it clear, Ma Wan could only try to do it.

It was precisely because of this person's situation in Prince Rong's palace that Ma Wan was able to "smoothly" win her over as the crown prince's concubine.

After that, this person secretly treated Ma Wan, the crown prince's concubine, and made many clever gestures of kindness, revealing that he was willing to be used by Ma Wan to please her.

Once, Ma Wan chose the opportunity to ask this person about the past events related to Yu Zeng, the head of Sigongtai. The person did not show any abnormality, nor did he deny that he had known Yu Zeng when he was a child. But he told Ma Wan that after Yu Zeng entered the palace, the two gradually had no chance to interact with each other. In the end, he lamented that "same people have different fates."

Although he did not provide any valuable information, the other party seemed to have a normal reaction, and he answered very carefully and attentively, without evading or perfunctory.

But after this person left, Ma Wan felt chills in her heart and felt unspeakable uneasiness.

Because the other party's reaction was so "normal", even when she asked Yu Zeng, she didn't even show a trace of surprise, and this was an old incident that was older than her age... The other party was not curious at all. How did she know? Why would she ask?

Is this a sign of being a smart person, or is there another reason?

That night, Ma Wan stayed up all night, thinking a lot about the steward, about Prince Rong's Mansion, about her grandfather and the saint...

The next day, she went to pay her respects to Princess Rong as usual, but when she was about to leave, she was stopped by two women who saluted and said that the princess was ill and asked her to go to the Buddhist hall to pray for the princess.

As a daughter-in-law, especially the daughter-in-law of the Li family, it is very common for her mother-in-law to attend to her illness or pray for blessings. She has also taken the initiative to propose it, but the princess always smiled and said, "It is enough if you have this heart."

So this could not be what the princess meant... Thinking of the conversation between herself and the manager yesterday, it was difficult for Ma Wan not to think too much.

She subconsciously said that she wanted to go back and prepare something first, but the two ladies-in-law showed toughness in their respectful attitude, saying only that "the servants will prepare everything they need for the Crown Princess."

At that moment, Ma Wan's mind roared, there was no chance of anything left.

The steward must have informed King Rong about her inquiring...

Admittedly, her snooping methods were not very clever... But looking at the huge Rong Prince's Mansion, eyes were staring at her everywhere, and no one could be used by her. She had no more reliable and comprehensive methods at her disposal.

The most important thing is that her grandfather told her in the letter that she "must find out the matter"... In such a situation, the word "must" itself represents risk-taking and no matter the cost.

But if such a secret thing is true, is it really something she can find out at any cost?

Ordinarily, my grandfather would not be so whimsical, and neither would a saint...

She was not stupid, so from the moment she read the letter from home, she realized that the significance of this errand might not lie in the answer, but in the process of her obeying orders.

She sensed something strange and was aware of the danger, but she had to follow her grandfather's arrangements... She only still hoped that Prince Rong's palace would be "innocent", and privately hoped that the saint could dispel her doubts through this matter.

But these days, she was not completely unaware of the changes in the situation in Yizhou. The string in her heart had become extremely tight and thin without realizing it.

On the first night of spending the night in the cold Buddhist hall, the string in Ma Wan's heart finally broke when the maid Lan Ying couldn't help crying.

She could no longer deny that her attempt to explore the connection between Yu Zeng and Prince Rong's Mansion had probably touched upon something taboo about Prince Rong's Mansion, or at least Prince Rong, or perhaps she had stepped into something that she had no right to know. In a certain aspect of the overall political struggle...

And as the ten, twenty, and fifty days passed, Ma Wan gradually realized that as the eldest granddaughter of the current right prime minister and the eldest concubine of Prince Rong's palace whom the saint had decreed to marry, she was treated like this by Prince Rong's palace. The formal house arrest here shows that Prince Rong's Mansion is no longer as afraid of the court and saints as it used to be...

Even just looking at this move is enough to explain the dissent of Prince Rong's palace, isn't it?

And a few months have passed, grandfather, saint... Do you know her current situation?

This question seems to be meaningless. When her grandfather wrote the letter, he had already predicted that she would be in a worse situation at this time or worse than this time... But could she blame her grandfather for being ruthless to her?

She married into Prince Rong's Mansion not because her grandfather forced her to do so, but because she knelt down and begged her grandfather to let her marry... At that time, she said she was doing it for the Ma family, but that was not the case.

As for the saint... After she became the crown prince of Prince Rong, she never got any really useful news for the saint. On the contrary, she repeatedly explained and testified for Prince Rong's palace...

In the eyes of the saint, she was probably already an extremely disappointing and useless waste. This time, she just turned this waste into a discarded one.

Ma Wan often couldn't close her eyes all night long. When she recalled everything that happened after she married into Prince Rong's palace, she realized that she was really naive and ignorant, and everything was full of absurd traces of self-deception.

She believed that King Rong was kind and believed that he would not be rebellious, but was the human heart really that simple?

She has always been looking forward to the "solution of both worlds", so when looking at matters related to Prince Rong's Mansion, she unconsciously fell into a bias.

She believed that what she could do was limited, and there was no one available in this Prince Rong's Mansion, but all the available people and things would never appear out of thin air. Has she really tried to manage it with her heart? She didn't, because subconsciously she didn't want to "separate" herself from Prince Rong's Palace, and she didn't want Prince Rong's Palace, especially her husband, to regard her as a scheming spy with no sincerity.

So she has been acting passively and perfunctorily, never actively facing up to her situation.

It was probably her own fault that she was in such a situation at this time.

But...what about him?

From beginning to end, what attitude and mood did he take towards her? Are those sounds of music and those promises false?

Waiting day and night, just when Ma Wan was almost feeling discouraged, that person suddenly appeared.

At this moment, their eyes met, and Li Lu approached her, with guilt and pity in his eyes, but he turned it all into one sentence: "Wan'er, I'm here to take you back."

Take her back? Ma Wan was stunned, and finally said: "Mother, is she... cured?"

For her, this was naturally not the most important thing, but nominally she was praying for Princess Rong. The maid who came to deliver the meal had said that she could leave after the princess recovered from her illness.

Furthermore, other than that, it is inconvenient to speak rashly at the moment.

Li Lu looked at her and said in a warm and noncommittal voice: "Wan'er, come back with me first."

As he spoke, in order to reassure her, he reached out his hand to her.

Ma Wan looked at the hand stretched out to her. It was white, thin, and slender, but seemed to have heavy determination and the strength to take her away.

After such a long time, as the eldest son of Prince Rong's Mansion, he must have known the real reason why she was under house arrest... From a standpoint, there was no right or wrong, but it was her who spied on his family first.

Ma Wan's mind was in a state of flux and she didn't make any move for a moment.

Li Lu took another step closer and gently held Ma Wan's hand. He noticed that the hand was much thinner. Li Lu's fingers tightened slightly and held Ma Wan's hand tighter. His movements seemed to contain Infinitely distressed.

But he didn't say anything more, he just held her hand and walked out of the Buddhist hall. The pace is unhurried, but calm and firm.

The servants guarding outside the temple saluted without anyone stopping them.

The sun was dazzling outside the Buddhist hall. Ma Wan looked around and realized that it was late spring.

The bright spring scenery and the warm palms of her sweetheart silently comforted and dispelled the cold darkness, fear and uneasiness that enveloped her body and mind these days.

But all the emotions were destined to never be completely relieved. She already had many clear answers in her heart, as well as too many questions she wanted to ask.

But should she take the initiative to bring it up? Or should you pretend nothing happened and continue to play your role?

Reason and emotion were intertwined and contended. When Ma Wan was at a loss, she had already returned to the hospital where she had not seen for a long time.

What surprised her was that Li Lu chose to take the initiative to explain everything to her——

Before that, Li Luping vacated all the servants in the room.

Lan Ying, the dowry maid who came back from the Buddhist hall with Ma Wan, stood still where she was.

Ma Wan saw this and said, "Lanying, you should go out first."

Lan Ying, who dreamed of tearing off the red thread between her daughter and Prince Rong, was reluctant to do so. She was very afraid that the girl who had finally begun to see the situation clearly would be intoxicated by this charming Prince Rong again!

But facing her girl's gaze, Lan Ying also knew that this was not the time for her as a maid to be willful and domineering. The girl was walking on thin ice at the moment. As her maid, she had to be more cautious in every move she made than before.

Lan Ying could only bow reluctantly and retreat, closing the door.

In the inner room where there was no third person, Li Lu took Ma Wan's hand and asked her to sit down on the couch next to the window.

He did not sit down, but knelt down in front of her and gently held her hands in her lap.

For Ma Wan, who was in panic, this action was a sign of comfort, a sign of goodwill, and a sign of lowering her posture.

Ma Wan felt something was wrong and wanted to get up, but his hands were held by him.

He looked at her thin and bony hands, lowered his eyes to hide the look of pity, and said in a hoarse voice: "Wan'er, I left late, and I have made you suffer in the past few months."

Ma Wan's eyelashes trembled slightly: "Your Majesty..."

"My father... indeed has the intention to cause trouble." Li Lu looked up at her and said with a complicated expression.

Ma Wan was stunned, not because of his words, but because he actually chose to explain it to her.

"During this period, I had a lot of arguments with him about this..." There was a trace of struggle in Li Lu's eyes: "But my father said that the general trend is the trend of the times and the people's will. Even if he refuses to follow the general trend, the saint will never tolerate it. The existence of Prince Rong's Mansion is bound to lead to injury, and it is not his choice."

"Besides, now that the world is in chaos, as a descendant of the Li family and the son of the late emperor, my father has an unavoidable responsibility to treat the people of this world..."

Li Lu's voice gradually became lower, and it seemed difficult to evaluate what was right or wrong. It seemed that he was just an indifferent person who had nothing to do with the world, and being forced to be involved in these sharp and cruel life-and-death struggles was a kind of cruelty to him.

Ma Wan felt confused after hearing what he said.

This is the first time since the two got married that they have raised this issue related to their political stance.

"Wan'er, I have always known that the reason why you married me was because of the saint's instructions..." Li Lu looked up at Ma Wan and said, "But I can also sense that you treat me sincerely. ?"

This question made Ma Wan's heart hit hard.

In such a complicated position, she has clearly tried to spy on the secrets of Prince Rong's palace, but the people in front of her are still willing to believe her sincerity... This is very important to Ma Wan, who has become an abandoned child and is on the verge of life and death. It has extraordinary significance.

His eyes were filled with sincerity that didn't require her to explain, just her answer.

Ma Wan, who had been tense, still didn't speak, but tears suddenly rolled down her eyes.

Li Lu seemed to have gotten the answer. He held her hand harder, but with a look of cherishment and joy. The ends of his eyes were also a little red, and he said in a confessional tone: "Wan'er, in the beginning I treated you. Indeed, I once felt defensive..."

"But this precaution has all disappeared at some point... I gradually realize that you and I are the most compatible people in this world. It is truly a great blessing for me to be married to you in this life."

"These days, my father and I have been discussing for a long time..." He said: "Wan'er, I can't live without you, let alone see anything happen to you."

Ma Wan burst into tears again, so it was he who begged King Rong to save her?

An update from the first day of the Lunar New Year, wishing everyone a happy New Year! Thank you for your tolerance and understanding~