Zhou Xun was escorted into the palace and was forced to kneel down on the floor tiles. The floor tiles were hard and cold. Faced with the upcoming fate, he frowned coldly.

The place where he was kneeling was the study of the current emperor. Unlike Zhou Cai, who was known to everyone in the world, was regarded as the most trusted person by the emperor, and was allowed to enter and leave the imperial study at will, this was the first time for him to come to this place.

However, Zhou Cai, as a new champion and the emperor's favorite, was welcomed in with a smile by the emperor; as a mad assassin who assassinated the emperor, he was pinned to the ground and escorted in by the guards.

There is a new champion every three years. He is the only one in this dynasty who dares to assassinate the emperor at a family banquet.

All in all, he is relatively rare.

He had been seeking perfection all his life, and he had sought out the word "inferior" in order to protect himself from Brother Smiling Tiger, but in the end he was harmed by him and fell into the abyss. But in the end, he finally defeated him before his death.

return.

Thinking of this, Zhou Xun actually wanted to laugh. He twitched the corner of his mouth because of his inappropriate sense of humor. The corner of his mouth caused bruises on his face, which hurt a little.

Zhou Cai is Zhou Xun's half-brother. He became famous at a young age and is a real heartthrob. Everyone only sees him as gentle and elegant, and praises him for having the legacy of a gentleman. But no one knows that when he was nine years old, he

Just because his half-brother was one higher than him when they were competing against each other at the poetry festival, he smiled in a quiet place where no one was around and pushed his six-year-old brother into the cold lake water in late autumn.

Zhou Cai brushed off his clothes and sat back among the crowd. Although his younger brother was lucky enough to swim back to the shore on his own, he had a high fever and stayed in bed for more than a month, almost losing his life several times.

That concubine is Zhou Xun himself kneeling here.

Perhaps it was because of God's mercy that Zhou Xun miraculously recovered from his illness. What was burned into his heart along with the pain of falling into the water was the fact that his mother hugged him and cried repeatedly when he was seriously ill.

That sentence:

'Mother doesn't want you to be very successful. Mother only wants you to grow up well. We are born to be lower than them... If you want to blame, just blame mother for giving you a bad life...'

At the age of six, he wiped away his mother's tears. From then on, he quickly became silent as a child prodigy, carefully maintaining his talent that was "inferior" to his brother's. The Smiling Tiger Zhou Cai was a talented man from Jiangzhou who was envied by everyone.

The shadow that lives behind the other person.

No matter how angry he was, he could bear it. He would not fight with Zhou Cai or compete with Zhou Cai. His only wish was that after he passed the imperial examination as an adult, he would open another branch and take his mother out. From then on,

The sky is high and the clouds are vast, I am free in this life.

But God couldn't even let him realize this small wish.

The fifth prince is madly in love with Zhou Cai and regards Zhou Cai as white moonlight. However, Zhou Cai is indifferent to him. The fifth prince is reluctant to break Zhou Cai's wings and make him known as the "male favorite". But Zhou Cai is willing to coax his concubine to go to Beijing.

, and offered his concubine, who looked similar to him, to the prince to please him.

——That concubine is Zhou Xun.

The Fifth Prince was very polite to him at first and wished him good results in the examination. Zhou Xun knew nothing about Zhou Cai's calculations and thanked him for taking him in. He has always been a person who knows how to repay kindness and is determined to do so.

I must repay him in the future.

It was not until the day before the examination that news of Zhou Cai's engagement to the daughter of the Minister of Rites reached the palace.

That night, the Fifth Prince was very drunk. He opened the door and mistook Zhou Xun, who was warming up his books, for Zhou Cai, and wanted to do something wrong. After a fierce struggle, Zhou Xun fell into the lake, miserably.

On the second day, I could only support my disabled body to take the exam.

He fainted in the examination room due to illness and failed. However, Zhou Cai passed the first grade in the examination and was rated as the number one scholar by the emperor. He was so proud of his horseshoe disease that he saw all the flowers in Chang'an in one day.

One of them won the top prize, and the other failed. Then, somehow, the affair between Zhou Xun and the fifth prince was exposed. Father Zhou pointed at Zhou Xun’s nose and scolded him, wanting to expel this unfilial son from the house. Mother.

In order to plead for mercy on his behalf, I knelt in the hall until my head was covered with bruises.

It was at this time that Zhou Cai, the new top scholar, stood up and said that since the deal was done, it would be better to give his younger brother to the prince, which would be regarded as fulfilling his wish.

After that, Zhou Xun was sent to the palace... The fifth prince felt guilty, and the Zhou family was promoted to Beijing. Zhou Cai entered the Hanlin Academy, and the lady of the Ministry of Rites married into the Zhou family. The whole Zhou family was happy, except Zhou Xun.

…

He became the "object" in "Seeing things and thinking about people". The fifth prince looked at his face, read Zhou Cai's name, and asked him to imitate Zhou Cai's dress, and asked him to act like a person sitting in the palace.

There is a doll that looks like Zhou Cai. He tried to escape several times, but was captured by the Fifth Prince.

He threw himself into the lake several times and hanged himself several times. God gave him a desperate fate, but he always managed to survive by chance. After hanging himself for the fifth time, he sat on the bed and stroked the bruises on his neck.

Looking at the fresh snow outside the window, I suddenly made up my mind.

He wants revenge.

He pretended to be submissive and asked the Fifth Prince to take him to a New Year's Eve palace banquet in the name of missing his brother. In the eyes of the Fifth Prince, Zhou Cai was so good, how could anyone not like him? Even Zhou Xun, who was his substitute,

It is normal to miss your gentle and amiable brother.

Zhou Xun met Zhou Cai at the palace banquet. He stood next to the emperor and smiled. The emperor also smiled at him and treated him very kindly. Zhou Cai is now a famous person beside the emperor, but he has nothing except

When his substitute had nowhere to go, this scene made him feel the absurdity of life more and more, and it also made him calmer and calmer.

The fifth prince raised his glass and looked at them with a sad expression. He took this opportunity to make a request for a serious status.

The fifth prince would naturally think that Zhou Xun was unworthy. But Zhou Xun didn't care. He only said: "Otherwise, my kind brother will be sad for me. You don't want to make him sad, right?"

Zhou Xun's road to revenge took a step forward. He had a smile on his face, but he was saying in his heart:

'Look, as long as you act in the name of Zhou Cai, everything can be so easy, isn't it?'

Later, the fifth prince took him to the palace banquet again, probably because he felt that he had finally stopped making trouble, and even his usual attitude towards him became better.

In return for this "goodwill", Zhou Xun assassinated the emperor in front of everyone at the palace banquet.

Assassinating the emperor was a major crime against the nine tribes, and no one understood this better than Zhou Xun, who was soaked in pain.

——How can an earthworm shake a big tree?

——With thunder and lightning, of course!

For the crime of regicide, he will take the Fifth Prince's Mansion, take the Zhou family, and take everyone who destroyed his destiny and dignity...

Go to hell with him!

Zhou Xun failed, but his goal of assassinating the emperor was achieved. When he was dragged out of the palace, he had blood in his mouth and an expressionless face.

This is a ridiculous and ridiculous life. If his life comes from a storybook, he must be the miserable cannon fodder with a hateful face. What is gratifying is that he does not regret his behavior as if he was destined to die.

The Jiang guards quickly investigated the true reason why he assassinated the emperor - although the reason was so ridiculous that it was confusing. Who would assassinate the emperor just to have himself killed by the Nine Tribes? There is nothing in the story books these days.

I dare not write this.

It stands to reason that this matter should be concluded at this point. Those who deserve to be killed should be punished. However, before the Jiang guards handed over the case files, the words of the emperor who had just woken up from a coma came over: let the assassin be killed.

Bring it and he will interrogate it personally.

Along the way, Zhou Xun closed his ears and listened, but some words inevitably drifted into his ears. Before he was escorted into the imperial study, he heard a young palace maid secretly saying that after the assassinated emperor woke up,

There was a slight change between the words. However, the emperor had an eccentric temperament and often did some amazing things, so it was nothing.

The emperor has always been moody, sometimes even a little violent. In his hands, Zhou Xun's fate can be imagined. However, Zhou Xun was already about to die, and he finally achieved his goal of dragging down Zhou Cai.

There is no curiosity in this.

When Zhou Xun was escorted in, he heard the guards who escorted him here whisper:

"This man's fate is tragic..."

"Even if the emperor prefers Zhou Cai again, this time he should..."

"There may be variables in Zhou Cai's matter, but the emperor is afraid that this sinner will be skinned alive!"

The whispers were blocked outside the door. Zhou Xun recovered his thoughts from his memories. He was kneeling on the ground and heard the sound of footsteps.

He didn't raise his head, lowered his eyelashes, and saw a pair of feet stopping in front of him.

This is the emperor.

...How will the emperor torture him? Zhou Xun thought indifferently. He stared at the patterns on the floor and waited quietly for him to speak.

The emperor's voice sounded above his head.

"Hey, this is the assassin? He doesn't look very strong."

Zhou Xun:?

There was no anger in the emperor's voice as expected, but more like... curiosity?

"Don't let people lower their heads. Let them raise their heads to look at me." The emperor said.

Zhou Xun raised his head.

Sitting on the wooden chair was the emperor who was attacked by Zhou Xun. He fell into a coma for a while after the palace banquet and woke up a few days ago. A handsome man wearing a dragon robe looked at him.

Seeing him raise his head, the emperor seemed startled and muttered something in a low voice.

Zhou Xun's hearing was far better than that of ordinary people since he was a child, so he heard this sentence.

"Damn, he's more handsome than a movie star."

Star? Movie? What is that?

Zhou Xun was a little confused.

...This emperor is not like what the rumors say.

After a while, the emperor cleared his throat and slapped the table with his palm: "You are a bit brave. Do you know what the crime of assassinating the emperor is? The major crime of killing the nine tribes can be committed at will? The fifth prince will bring you here

Palace banquet, why did you just..."

The words "Fifth Prince" stung Zhou Xun's nerves again.
To be continued...