At the end of the secret passage is a step, and a door appears.

Ah Xi took out the key and opened the lock. There was a secret room inside.

There was a huge iron cage in the secret room. The cage was not a beast, but a man.

The man sat cross-legged on the futon, his eyes closed, as if he was meditating, but he seemed to be asleep. When he heard the sound of the door opening, the man did not move at all.

He was wearing a gray robe and had white frost on his temples. Perhaps because he hadn't seen the sun for a long time, his pale skin was not covered with blood. But his handsomeness when he was young could still be seen on his clear and energetic face.

Ah Xi said loudly: "Sir, the princess is here to see you."

The man still didn't open his eyes. Ah Xi wanted to say something else, but the concubine waved her hand to stop her.

There was a stool outside the iron cage, which was not painted and the surface of the stool was polished. Obviously, people often sat on it.

Ah Xi brought Hu bench and sat down for the concubine.

The concubine looked at the man in the cage and sighed helplessly. The secret room was as quiet as death, and even Ah Xi couldn't help but hold her breath.

"You go out." The concubine said to Ah Xi.

Ah Xi turned around and walked out of the secret room. As many times in the past, she squatted on the stone steps with her knees in her arms.

Ah Xi also has a sister named Ake. Their mother was a palace maid who came with Princess Jinhuan. Later, she married the guards in the palace. Ake was nine years old. Ah Xi died when she was eight years old. Ake and Ah Xi replaced their mother and gradually became the confidants of the concubine.

Ah Xi didn't know who the man was locked in the secret room. This man has been here since she was very young.

Every day, Ah Xi and Ah Ke would take turns to deliver food to this man. They would do laundry and deliver food to this man. Every now and then, they would deliver books. After a few days, they would send a few more books and exchange the original books.

Men never talk to them, and even when they came, men looked like this today, closing their eyes and silent.

In the secret room, the concubine said quietly: "The King of Fu has rebelled. The new emperor killed the King of Fu's only grandson. Although the King of Fu is still resisting, it is at the end of his strength. The old knowledge of you and me before will either be dismissed from office or resigned. A new master has been replaced in the palace. Everything has changed. In today's Great Wei, if you can't go back, I can't go back either."

The man remained silent, as if he had not heard what the concubine said.

The concubine had long been used to his silence.

She smiled bitterly: "You must think I'm ridiculous, right? Even though you know you don't care about me, I still like to talk to you. It's been so many years."

"I know you hate me, hate me to trap you here, but have you ever thought about it? If I didn't keep you, do you think you and your family can survive?"

"Do you think you have a huge secret in your heart, and King Fu will let you go? Can the Empress Dowager and the Emperor let you go?"

"Do you think, in their hearts, which is more important, the matter of the killing of the old king of Tartar by his own son or the escaping of the princess?"

"Do you think the princess who came to marry him can really go back?"

"What a great thing now. The person you feel sorry for has long run away. Maybe she has become a child and lived a happy life. And I, this woman you despised, stayed in Tartar instead of her, married Lao Wang, but married Uncle Wang, and then inherited by the new king and became the concubine of the new king. Do you think if she had become a real princess, she would have accepted this reality? She would not, she would have regarded it as a shame. If she had not escaped back then, she would have committed suicide long ago, so how could she talk about peaceful coexistence between the Great Wei and the Tartar for more than ten years?"

"So, I did nothing wrong, I stayed in Thart instead of her, never did anything wrong."

The concubine kept saying it as if she was venting her anger, as if she was talking to the man, and even more so for herself.

Gu Zu

She clenched her fists, her nails sank into her flesh, and she felt pain, which made her more awake.

She has always been sober.

When her parents died, she lived under someone else's roof and lived in her uncle's house. She wanted to please her uncle and aunt, but she just wanted to have a good marriage.

Although she was obsessed with the handsome Tanhualang, she never thought about it all night that she knew that the man was far away from her and that she was just a little orphan.

She is never greedy, she just wants to have a good marriage and take care of her husband and children.

The matchmaker came to propose marriage. The first one he liked was her, but the last one he got engaged was her cousin who was one year younger than her.

She knew what was going on, but she didn't complain.

But not long after, my aunt came to persuade her to marry a fifty-year-old to fill in the house.

She gritted her teeth and refused to obey. Seeing that her aunt's face became increasingly ugly, news came out of the palace that she wanted to summon a female official.

Most people are not opposed to sending their daughters to the palace and being female officials for a few years. After leaving the palace, they often have a best marriage.

But this time it was different. The female officials recruited this time were to follow Princess Jinhuan to marry. All the existing female officials in the palace refused to go and asked someone to plead for their relationship. Therefore, they posted a notice to select women from officials aged 14 to 18 and who had studied as female officials.

She asked the clan elder to write a book of recommendation without telling her aunt, and quietly signed up. It was not until the eunuch came to her home that her uncle and aunt realized that a female official had appeared in the family.

But this female official was not staying in the palace, but was going to Tarpit, and her parents' home could not borrow money.

On the day she left, no one at home saw her, and she was not sad because she saw Ouyang Zan in the marriage delegation.

The Tanhualang who could only like silently in her heart, but she didn't even dare to take a look at him.

The road from the capital to Thart was very long, and she gradually turned from the novelty that began to become despair.

That princess is not as elegant as she sees on the surface, she is a lunatic!

Once, she saw the princess running out of the house with barefoot and hair disheveled in her hair in the middle of the night. She hurried over to see what happened, but the next moment, the princess grabbed her neck tightly and gritted her teeth.

"Chai Shu, bitch, I'm going to kill you, kill you!"

Later, Madam Ji, who was beside the princess, ran over to save her.

Afterwards, Madam Ji used both soft and hard work, telling her not to tell what happened that day.

Of course she wouldn't say it, and she wouldn't dare to say it either.

This time, the marriage was accompanied by officials from the Ministry of Rites and Taichang Temple, and also the princess Huaian, the legitimate brother of Princess Jinhuan.

How could Prince Huaian admit that his sister was a lunatic?

He would not admit it, nor would the entire marriage delegation have, and even the noble Empress Dowager would not admit it, she sent a madman to Tarta to marry him.

This is not only a scandal of the Great Wei royal family, but also a contempt for the Tartars by the Great Wei.
Chapter completed!