“Oh? I didn’t expect the Prince of Zhennan to come to your humble abode for medical treatment. What was the result?”
Xu Ping’an shook his head helplessly.
“What else could it be? So many famous doctors have already treated him. It really makes no difference whether he comes to me or not.”
“Alas! What a pity. This Prince of Zhennan was hailed as a genius rarely seen in hundreds of years. Heaven truly envies the capable. Just when the Great Qi Royal Family finally had such a talented individual, he met with this misfortune.”
He shook his head, stroked his beard, and looked at Xu Ping’an.
“Never mind, let’s not talk about it. But from now on, you and I might need to be more cautious.”
“Oh? Old Fang, where does that come from?”
Xu Ping’an picked up his wine cup and took a light sip.
“Where else could it come from? This Prince of Zhennan is already fifty-three years old and only has this one son. If anything happens to the Crown Prince, Nanzhou will inevitably fall into someone else’s hands.”
Old Fang’s brows furrowed slightly.
“The current Emperor has over thirty children, more than half of whom are males. I think if anything truly happens to the Prince of Zhennan, it won’t be long before the Prince of Zhennan adopts a son from the current Emperor. By then, wouldn’t Nanzhou also become someone else’s property?”
“Old Fang, you worry too much. Whether it’s the Prince of Zhennan or not, can Nanzhou really change completely?”
“That’s hard to say.”
“Look at me, when a person gets old, they think too much. Let’s not talk about these bothersome things. Drink, drink~”
Xu Ping’an also quickly responded with a drink.
Immediately after, Old Fang opened up his floodgates of conversation again.
Perhaps due to his level of education, Old Man Fang Qingzu truly had few friends he could converse with in this village.
Xu Ping’an, to some extent, was one of them.
“Speaking of which, Mr. Xu probably doesn’t know yet that the north has already started to become chaotic, right?”
“Ah? The north is chaotic? When did this happen?”
“Just a few days ago, after the Sect Master of Liuyun Sect disappeared, in the northern region, in Liangzhou, which is guarded by the Emperor’s third brother, there seem to have been some uprisings. However, they are just some common folk who couldn’t survive. Although they haven’t caused major chaos, their momentum is not small, and it has already reached the imperial court.”
The current system of Great Qi is basically equivalent to a feudal system, the only difference being that all political officials are uniformly assigned by the imperial court.
In other words, these princes only have military power, not political power.
“Since it didn’t escalate, how did it get to the imperial court?”
Xu Ping’an was a little curious.
In this era, peasant uprisings, or some common people being forced to rebel by officials, were considered normal.
Every year, there were at least three to five uprisings, if not a dozen, across Great Qi.
Some were due to officials, others due to the royal family.
In any case, there were too many reasons, and Great Qi was too vast, so it was normal for problems to arise.
But normal small-scale uprisings shouldn’t alarm the imperial court, right?
“It is said that it was because these common people were not completely wiped out this time. Instead, a portion of them escaped and hid in the mountains of Liangzhou. Before leaving, they also killed a county magistrate, which infuriated the current Emperor.”
“I see.”
Xu Ping’an nodded, finally getting a general idea of what was happening.
Old Fang’s face was full of smiles, with a hint of mystery in his tone:
“The feudal kings in various regions control military power. The current Emperor’s third brother, the Third Prince Li Can, commands 300,000 troops in Liangzhou. Yet, he allowed a few thousand peasant rebels to kill a county magistrate and escape into the mountains. What do you say… wouldn’t the Emperor be furious?”
That’s right, how could a dignified commander of an entire province’s forces, with 300,000 troops, fail to capture even a few thousand peasant rebels? Who would believe that?
To put it bluntly, whether this uprising was truly a peasant uprising or orchestrated by the Third Prince, who knows?
Anyway, it’s said that during the succession struggle, this Third Prince was the one who fought most fiercely with the current Emperor.
“It seems… the sky of Great Qi is truly about to be in turmoil.”
Xu Ping’an sighed, and Old Fang also joined in with long sighs.
They then proceeded to boast and chat extensively.
An hour later.
Xu Ping’an truly had no more tricks up his sleeve.
He used the excuse of being unable to hold his liquor, finally ending the drinking session.
When Pei Qingxuan came out from the back courtyard and saw a tipsy Xu Ping’an, her eyes instantly turned red.
“Husband~ Husband, what’s wrong with you? Husband, are you alright? Who, who hurt you?”
The aura around her also began to swell.
She was angry!
Old Fang Qingzu, who was standing nearby, blushed with embarrassment and didn’t dare to step forward to speak.
It was Old Fang’s wife, the old woman Song, who came out with a smile.
“Hehe~ Qingxuan, don’t worry, your husband is fine, he just drank a bit too much. This is how it is when you drink too much. There’s a carriage waiting outside, take your husband home.”
“Really!?”
Pei Qingxuan, her eyes welling with tears, wiped them away and slung Xu Ping’an’s arm over her shoulder.
Fang’s servants also came to help.
Several people, carrying and supporting the drunken Xu Ping’an, put him into the carriage.
“Husband~ Husband, are you alright? Do you want some water?”
Pei Qingxuan didn’t know what to do at this moment.
When she saw Xu Ping’an in this state, her heart immediately panicked.
And while panicking, she heard a sound from somewhere, faintly resembling a “kill.”
The sound was very much like hers, but she was also very sure it didn’t come from her.
“What exactly… is wrong with me?”
At this moment, Pei Qingxuan seemed to understand that she was indeed quite ill.
“You’re fine. With your husband here, you’ll be fine.”
“Husband!?”
Pei Qingxuan broke into a smile through her tears.
Xu Ping’an sat up straight, tidying his disheveled clothes.
“Husband, you’re fine!?”
“Of course, let alone this much wine, even if I drank all the wine in the world… ugh~”
Before Xu Ping’an could finish his sentence, his little wife, like a swallow returning to its nest, plunged into his arms.
Feeling the slightly trembling delicate body in his embrace, Xu Ping’an’s heart sank.
“There, there, aren’t I fine? Don’t cry, don’t cry~”
“Husband~”
A muffled sound came from Xu Ping’an’s embrace.
Pei Qingxuan’s helpless and sorrowful sobs reached his ears.
“I was so worried about you.”
Oh, Xu Ping’an, Xu Ping’an, if you’re going to feign drunkenness, why pretend to be unconscious? Look how much you scared her.
He blamed himself, comforting the little girl for a long time until she had cried enough and was finally soothed.
They finally arrived home.