Once Lin Miaozhen made a decision, she would immediately start thinking about how to implement it, and she made an agreement with "Zhao Surui". She wished she could pack up the ceremony that night and leave the palace early the next morning.

Xu Gongling was so frightened that he quickly stopped her temporarily with the news of newly elected female officials entering the palace.

"After I have selected a wife, the news of the selection of female officials in the spring of next year has spread everywhere. It is a good time for me to set off at that time. I will dress lightly and take only three or four people with me to dress up as men. There will be ten more days until the New Year. How many days... Your Majesty, how far can we go in four or five days on horseback?"

Shen Shiqing paused and then said:

"If you take a carriage, you can reach the border of Shandong in three to five days."

"That's too slow." Lin Miaozhen had already picked up her riding crop, "I can't say that my riding skills are great, but I'm not bad at all. If I can walk two hundred miles a day..."

Shen Shiqing had to raise her head again:

"I rode a horse for two hundred miles a day, and my whole body was bruised. I was paralyzed in the inn and couldn't move. Sister, you are not so much an inspector as you are fighting for your life with the horse."

Lin Miaozhen still thought that she could reach the border of Jiangnan in one breath. After being thrown cold water on her, she sat back on the couch with some disappointment, grabbed a handful of pine nuts, and didn't forget to give some to "Zhao Surui".

"Take your time, it's not just once, you can always go where you want to go." Shen Shiqing advised her in turn.

Lin Miaozhen suddenly slapped the table: "Then I can also go to Mount Tai to see it!"

At least she remembered that there was Xu Gongling next to her. She smiled and changed her words: "I can go to Mount Tai to inspect. Mount Tai is a place of outstanding people and wonderful places. There must be many talented women who can join the palace as female officials."

She tried so hard to describe it, but it only made the mature and prudent Xu Gongling sigh secretly in his heart.

"Your Majesty, the Queen has changed a lot these days. Sometimes I am happy, and sometimes I am frightened."

It was already dark after leaving the Qionghua Palace where Lin Miaozhen lived. Shen Shiqing walked slowly, and the person holding the lamp for her was Xu Gongling.

Looking at Xu Gongling's face illuminated by the light, Shen Shiqing raised her hand and told the others to take a few steps back.

"Xu Gong ordered, give me the lamp."

"yes."

The young emperor wore a sable cloak, held out a palace lantern in one hand, and walked forward slowly.

"Your Majesty, the Queen is not a female official after all, let alone a palace maid. If you indulge the Queen like this, I am really worried that one day the Queen will no longer be the Queen."

Looking at the lamp in his hand, Shen Shiqing had a faint smile on his face:

"Xu Gongling, do you think I will be forced to depose the queen one day?"

"No." After walking a few steps, Xu Xuan said slowly: "Your Majesty, I saved a sparrow in the plum forest when I was young."

"The sparrow was injured by someone and could only cry mournfully in the forest. I held it in a handkerchief and took it home. I fed it with yellow rice every day, gave it water to drink, and changed its medicine. After a few days, the bird gradually recovered. It would occasionally fly to the forest and come back again. But I was afraid that it would never come back, so I found a birdcage and locked it in it. The little bird had just been locked in. I thought it would understand my painstaking efforts, so I put a cage over it and just waited for it to calm down. Unexpectedly, only half a day passed, and when I came back from having dinner with my grandmother, the bird was already dead. Already."

….

Xu Xuan stopped.

"Your Majesty, if a bird is in a cage, it will be like this, let alone a human being. The Queen is wild and unruly by nature. I know that she suppressed her nature and lived in this deep palace, but she knows that she is the Queen, and she is willing to be one. The good queen takes care of the inner palace for your majesty. Now, your majesty condones or even encourages the queen to leave the palace, which is like reminding the birds of the mountains and forests. If one day, the queen is imprisoned back to the palace, let her live as before. On this day, Your Majesty, the Queen will become the bird I killed by mistake back then."

"Xu Gong Ling."

Xu Xuan knelt down straight on the cold stone steps: "Your Majesty, I made a mistake. Please forgive me."

"Get up. You think about the Queen. What can you blame me for?"

The young man holding the lamp bent down and helped Xu Xuan up.

"I know

"What is Xu Gong Ling worried about?" Shen Shiqing lowered her eyes and looked at the road illuminated by the lamp.

"I am young and have an unstable temperament. It is not unusual for me to change my orders day and night. Whether I let the female officials go to court, patrol the surrounding areas, or let the palace maids enter the inner study, all these things will happen as long as one day I am taken over. The ministers can move, but just a few words can be erased. At that time, countless women inside and outside the palace will become birds in cages, cry mournfully, and die under the black cage cloth. Next. Xu Gongling, what you really want to remind me is not how the queen should deal with herself, but those women, am I right?"

Xu Xuan lowered her head, the green plum branch on her official hat swaying gently in the wind: "Your Majesty has learned from this."

"I'm afraid too."

At first, Xu Xuan thought she heard the wind.

The three words floated in my ears, but they seemed to be so heavy that they made me breathless.

It's as if just using these three words gives people a glimpse of a mountain that grows in another person's heart.

"I am also afraid that one day I will wake up, and my hands are not my hands, and my heart is no longer my heart. I am afraid that one day, the senior female official will not be able to enter the Qianqing Palace when she comes to it, and the queen wants to leave the palace. But I was blocked inside the palace gates. I was afraid that the great scholar Zhao would be driven back to the princess palace, and Xu Gongling would order you to be dismissed and sent back to your hometown. I was afraid that the red skirts of the female officers would be torn to pieces and burned. I was afraid that the female officers would have to work hard. The account books that were calculated were burned to the ground. Xu Gongling, what you are afraid of is exactly what I am afraid of at this moment."

Xu Xuan stood there, watching the man in the big cloak holding a flickering lamp and walking forward alone, taking one step and another.

"His Majesty……"

"The net is up, the sky and the earth are gray, and there are no more birds singing in the mountains, forests and sky. Xu Gong ordered, if one day the nightmare comes true in the world, will you open the birdcage first to let them get a breather, or will you keep the birds locked up? From birth to death, you are not allowed to spread your wings?"

Shen Shiqing turned back and looked at Xu Gongling standing on the steps.

She asked herself these words over and over again. When she decided to take Lin Miaozhen out of the palace, when she decided to let the maids enter the inner study, when she stood in the princess's mansion and watched Zhao Mingyin walking towards her, She was thinking about it all.

Just like in the past years, she saw her own abyss in others over and over again.

It is to compromise, to take the path that the world thinks she should take, to become a family woman who is respected and loved by her husband, and a beautiful mother-in-law, forgetting all the things in her past, and forgetting the layers of unwillingness and pain in her heart.

….

Or should she continue to endure, continue to wait, and continue to be trampled on by others until the day when she can truly break her own shackles?

When she was Shen Shiqing, she was constantly asking herself. When she was "Zhao Surui", she was still asking.

Every time that time came, she would say to herself: "Look, Shen Shiqing, the woman in front of you is also Shen Shiqing."

It is Shen Shiqing who is locked up, Shen Shiqing who wants to be kind, and Shen Shiqing who wants to follow the rules.

They are all you. Even if you become a man, even if you are the supreme king in this world, you can still see them everywhere. They look at the abyss, they stand between the shackles and the cage, they seem to be destined. I cannot spread my wings and fly in this life.

So, everything has an answer.

She herself is the answer.

"His Majesty……"

"Xu Gongling." Shen Shiqing raised her hand and let the light illuminate Xu Xuan's path, "Since it is a bird, it must fly after all."

When Xu Gongling came to her side, Shen Shiqing turned around and continued walking forward with the lantern in hand.

"Let all the birds fly. In this way, even if the net covers the sky one day, there may be a bird that slips through the net. It can fly, and let everyone in this human cage know that birds must fly. "

Xu Xuan followed "Your Majesty" and remained silent for a long time.

It wasn't until His Majesty came to the imperial chariot who had been waiting in the distance that she knelt on the ground and bowed before watching His Majesty return to the palace.

She stood up and straightened her official robe meticulously. She looked at Duanji Hall, which was still brightly lit not far away, and simply walked there.

The Duanji Hall was as busy as ever, and the crackling sound of the beads seemed to cast shadows under the light. Otherwise, no one would understand why the beads would be so continuous.

"Xu Gong Ling." Several little palace maids walked quickly with documents in their arms, not forgetting to salute her.

Xu Xuan nodded to them.

Several little maids walked to the shelf and put the account books they had sorted out. One of the little maids suddenly said:

"Xu Gongling was singing just now, did you hear it?"

"What?"

Another little palace maid smiled and said, "I heard it, Xu Gongling was singing: 'The morning smoke is miserable, the sky is far away, the sky is like a net. The flying feathers are whirling, the forest is silent, and all the birds are silent."

"Xu Gongling can actually sing lyrics?"

The little palace maids chattered like a group of baby birds growing up freely in the forest.

Xu Xuan stood with her hands behind her back by the open window for ventilation. She heard the noise and looked at the quiet Taiye Pond in the distance.

"The cold dew shatters the golden cage dream, and the old bird hesitates in the old times. For thirty years, I recall the plum forest heavy with snow, but there is no sound."

The bird she had brought home thirty years ago was thrown away by her father to the family's guarding dog because it violated her nurturing rules.

The bird that was almost dead in the cage had a name, Xu Xuan.

The imperial driver walked slowly towards Qianqing Palace.

In silence, Shen Shiqing turned on the lamp in the sedan chair and looked at Zhezi.

"Sink three wastes, sink three wastes."

When she heard a familiar voice, she remembered that today was another day that her heart echoed once every three days.

"Your Majesty, I heard that you were a wise and powerful man in prison, and you were king and hegemon."

"Shen Sanfei, I want to worship the Yao family for you. Do you think I should wear white or blue?"

Unexpectedly, Zhao Surui would talk about this matter. Shen Shiqing was stunned for a moment:

"Your Majesty, if I remember correctly, you are still in jail."

"I am in a cell, but I can escape from prison. After I have finished worshiping, the four rats can arrest me... It's quite interesting to say this. Shen Sanfei, that's what we will do tomorrow. I am escaping from prison. Please tell me whether I was wearing white or blue when I was escaping from prison."

Shen Shiqing: "..."

Sister Qing: Why do you, an emperor, want to escape from prison?

Zhao Siri: Choose clothes.

The lyrics Xu Xuan sings are "Man Jiang Hong". Don't worry about me, I am really unprofessional in writing these things.

I wasn’t satisfied with what I wrote on the night of 2.16. In addition, I didn’t sleep well the day before and my brain wasn’t working well enough. So I changed the update to the afternoon of 2.17.
Chapter completed!