Mountains and rivers pray for peace

Chapter 53
In the past two days, there were nothing more than two things that were rumored in the streets and alleys of the capital city.The first thing is that the eldest young master of the Huo family returns to Beijing to be granted the title, and the other is naturally that the second young master died unexpectedly.

In the minds of the simple people, these two strange things came together by accident, but it only fell into the ears of those in the know, but it was not the case.Some people ridiculed, some were unwilling, and some were panicked.

In the main house of Shaomingxuan in Zhenyuan Hou Mansion, Huo Qinglan was trying on the winter clothes sent by Fengxiu Zhuang, with a satisfied smile on his face.It was a small fur coat with moon white embroidery, the patterns on it were all finely embroidered with silver thread, if a person wears it and walks in the snow, his skin will be whiter than the snow under the light of the projected snow.

Xi'er, who was next to her, was helping to smooth out the pleats on her new clothes. She looked at Huo Qinglan's eyes and said carefully, "Miss, the second young master is dead. Are we really not going back home to attend the funeral?"

As soon as Xi'er finished asking this sentence, Huo Qinglan's smile disappeared without a trace, and even a little anger rose in his heart.

She was confidently waiting for the news of Huo Xian's death in Zhenyuan Hou's mansion, but she never thought that Huo Chi would actually be the one who took the place of the dead.

What annoyed her even more was that Huo Chi was so useless, he would forget about it when he died, and he left behind evidence that he was accused of murdering Huo Xian, disturbing the living and still restless.

Huo Chi's sudden death was only found out yesterday when the Qi family sent a young servant to the Hou's mansion to deliver a message, calling her to return to the mansion for the funeral.But she refused to go back to her natal home on the grounds that she was pregnant and was going to the funeral.

Only she knew that she was afraid of seeing Huo Chi's coffin.

Thinking of this, Huo Qinglan came back to her senses and said with an impatient expression: "Unfortunately, I can't help you with what you're going to do when you go back. My mother doesn't need me as a daughter on weekdays, and now it's not my turn to worry about this." It’s a matter of time.”

Before the words were finished, an abrupt voice came.

"You are cruel, you don't go back to the funeral when your brother dies."

The voice was so cold that it could even pass through the thick layer of winter clothes, freezing it to one's bones. Huo Qinglan couldn't help but shudder, and turned around to see when Yuan Shao walked in.

In the past few days, Yuan Shao seemed to be busy with affairs, and he usually left early and returned late, but the husband and wife did not see each other very often.After Huo Chi's incident, the more Yuan Shao saw her, the more flustered she became.But now that Yuan Shao appeared, the panic in her heart did not diminish at all, but she was so frightened that she almost vomited her heart.

"Why is the prince here today?" Huo Qinglan Nuonuo said, then turned to Xi'er and told Xi'er: "Xi'er, go to the small kitchen and make a pot of hot tea that the prince usually likes to drink."

Seeing the indescribably terrifying atmosphere of the two, Xi'er listened to Huo Qinglan's order, slipped out the door as if she had been pardoned, and turned right to the small kitchen.If it is possible, she would like to wait for Yuan Shao to leave before she enters the door of the main house.

While Huo Qinglan and Xi'er were talking, Yuan Shao had already walked from the door of the house to Huo Qinglan with his hands behind his back.

He glanced at Huo Qinglan's new clothes, and then quickly looked away, as if he didn't want to look at her again: "Every time my prince came here in the past, you could not wait to greet me, but you have never asked such a question. "

Huo Qinglan pretended to be calm, and pulled out a forced smile: "Perhaps my concubine's elder brother just passed away, and he was overly sad, and his speech was not very clear."

This time she was planning to use Huo Xian's death as a favor in front of Yuan Shao, but she didn't want to sacrifice her wife and lose her troops.If she sincerely admired Yuan Shao before, now she was afraid of her, the person beside her, because Yuan Shao would crush her as easily as crushing an ant.

"Yes, he is dead, but you are still alive." Yuan Shao glanced at Huo Qinglan's belly and raised a strange smile at the corner of his mouth.

With just one glance, Huo Qinglan almost wanted to jump up, but how courageous was she? After a few seconds, she stabilized her mind: "Master, my concubine brother died for you. He went to kill Huo Xian for you. Now Do you want to kill his own sister before his first seven days?"

Yuan Shao heard the words, but suddenly, like a wild beast, he slapped Huo Qinglan onto the bed with a single slap, immediately, there was a palm print on Huo Qinglan's white face.

"My son asked you to kill Huo Xian, but he didn't let you steal the seal of the Marquis of Zhenyuan to kill him!"

Yuan Shao's patience with the woman in front of him has reached its limit, Huo Chi's not killing Huo Xian is not the top priority, dealing with Duke Ning's mansion needs to be done slowly.It's just that he didn't expect that Huo Chi actually had the seal of Ningguo Duke's Mansion on him, and now that old Yao Jun stubbornly grasped this point, and suspected that the Zhenyuan Hou Mansion had instigated the murder.

Today, Emperor Xiaowen directly scolded Yuan Xianzhi bloody in the court hall, and even the few censors handed over their sons to Yuan Xianzhi to support their own self-respect, and they were suspected of treason.The most hateful thing is that the original soldiers in Qingyang Peak evaporated overnight. Although the army was not large in scale, they were all the best of the best. This time the Hou Mansion must have suffered heavy losses.

Now, the seal of Zhenyuan Hou Mansion was found on Huo Chi's body. After thinking about it, he thought that Huo Qinglan might have stolen the seal of Hou Mansion on his own initiative and asked him to use the seal to go to Qingyang Peak to mobilize troops to murder Huo Xian.

But he was not sure whether the soldiers trapped in Huailin were actually from Qingyang Peak.After all, Yao Jun had Emperor Xiaowen's permission to seal the matter, and no one from the Zhenyuan Hou Mansion was allowed to interfere.

Huo Qinglan was hit by this sudden slap, as if several bees had burrowed into her head: "What kind of seal, I don't know..."

Yuan Shao couldn't help but hesitate in his heart when he saw that she looked confused and didn't seem to be hypocritical.Huo Qinglan may have the courage to steal, but he probably doesn't have the ability.It's just that this thought passed by quickly, but it didn't take root in his heart, but all he needed was a scapegoat.

Yuan Shao smiled sarcastically: "It doesn't matter if you stole it or not. If you want to settle this matter now, you have to steal the seal and instigate Huo Chi to kill people, so that you can get rid of the entire Zhenyuanhou Mansion. Now it's up to you There are only two ways in front of you. The first is to write a confession and find a place where there is no one to finish it, and the second is to give you a glass of poisoned wine and force you to sign it. You choose."

Huo Qinglan pressed her lower abdomen tightly, her jaw was shaking so hard that it almost fell off, her eyes were red, and she said with a trembling voice: "You...I have your child in my belly, are you really so cruel? Even if tiger poison does not eat its children, the prince I can't even compare to a beast?"

She knew that the assassination of Huo Xian failed, and she would definitely suffer a big loss, but she didn't expect Yuan Shao to be so vicious that he planned to kill her as soon as he made a move.

In fact, Yuan Shao had tried to take her life time and time again, but she looked at Yuan Shao's gentle and elegant appearance in front of outsiders, and always felt that Yuan Shao wanted to kill her just to scare her.Thinking about it now, I was blindfolded by ridiculous affection and deceiving myself and others.

Yuan Shao's words made her wake up suddenly, and the abacus in her heart started, she smiled nonchalantly: "My lord, why are you so confused? If you can't wait to push the concubine to plead guilty, outsiders will only You will suspect whether the Zhenyuan Hou Mansion is a guilty conscience, you have to think about it."

When Yuan Shao heard this, a look of impatience flashed across his face at first, but he seemed to have remembered something again, and the impatience on his face was gradually replaced by contemplation.Although Huo Qinglan said this just to survive, it was not completely unreasonable.

Although the seals were found on Huo Chi's body, there was suspicion of abetting the murder in Zhenyuan Marquis Mansion, but there was no solid evidence.

If it were said that Huo Qinglan had stolen the seal at this moment, I am afraid that few people would believe it. On the contrary, it would prove the accusation of the Zhenyuan Marquis Mansion being ruthless and unjust.It would be better to just let Huo Chi, a dead man, be blamed for murdering Huo Xian. If Zhenyuan Hou Mansion suffers a miserable situation, the matter will eventually be exposed as time goes by.

But how to sell this misery?
Yuan Shao was thinking deeply, and an idea flashed in his mind, but he moved his eyes to Huo Qinglan's belly.

(End of this chapter)