"I understand." Li Xia sighed quietly. Either he was praising her for being truly clever, or asking if she understood, but he couldn't say anything else...

  "What else does Xia like to eat besides sugar? Osmanthus cake?" Qin Wang remembered the time Li Wenshan went to Old Hang's house to buy osmanthus cake in autumn.

  Li Xia nodded.

  The osmanthus cake from Old Hang's house, she had it for the first time in a teahouse at Shili Pu outside Hangzhou city, He Zhuang called them in and gave her a piece of osmanthus cake to eat, with a big "Hang" character on the paper wrapping.

  In the decades that followed, the Hangzhou-style osmanthus cake with a big Chinese character "da" as its logo, had always been at the top of her list of the most delicious pastries, never wavering.

  "Osmanthus cake is also sweet and can't be eaten too much, at most two pieces a day." Qin Wang set the amount for her, "And your sixth brother, he is also limited to two pieces, can't eat more than that, did you hear?"

  Li Xia looked at West Lake speechlessly and didn't want to nod at all.

  "What else does Xia like to eat? Honey ham? That's not good, don't eat too much of it. Fish is okay, but there are too many bones, you're too small, it's best if the kitchen scrapes out the fish meat and makes fish balls for you to eat... What else do you like to eat? Tell your brother what you like to eat, the cook at our house isn't bad..."

  Li Xia slowly swung her legs and listened to Qin Wangdong talk about food, then play, then scenery, and finally flowers and grass.

  Lu Yi looked at Qin Wang, who was talking to Li Xiaoxiao, and his expression was slightly melancholy. Ah, Xia is just a child, and the king is also just a big child. This big child has to bear too many heavy responsibilities...

  Jin Zhenyu tilted his head sideways towards King Qin, lowered his head, and slowly walked to Lu Yi's side. He didn't look at King Qin or talk to Lu Yi, but instead stared blankly at the withered willows on the other side of West Lake in the distance.

  ………………

  After leaving Qingfeng Building, the sky was still not too late. Lu Yi ordered Chengying to bring a few guards and drive a carriage to send Li Wenshan and Li Xia back.

  Li Xia got on the car with a yawn, and Li Wenshan also got on. As soon as Li Xia got on the car, he fell asleep. Li Wenshan held Li Xia in his arms, and the car continued to drive quickly, bumping along the way back to Hengshan County.

  They stopped the carriage at a distance of one shot from the gate of Hengshan County, and Li Wenshan woke up Li Xia. They got off the horse and rode back to the county government office. Cheng Ying and several guards watched as the two men entered the city gate on horseback before turning back.

  After entering the city gate, Li Xia signaled Li Wenshan, "Fifth brother, slow down."

  "Alright." Li Wenshan relaxed his grip on the reins and let the horse walk slowly forward.

  "Big Brother, has Qin Wang been going to school less often than before these days?" Li Xia asked, looking up at Li Wen Shan.

  "It seems like..." Li Wenshan furrowed his brow, he didn't seem to have paid much attention, and he wasn't like Qin Wang who studied diligently. "It's okay, I guess, haven't missed many classes, just sometimes left early when something came up?"

  "Brother Wu, do you know about the party struggle?" Li Xia had been thinking about it all along, this matter, still had to be discussed with Brother Wu, he couldn't know too much, but his heart also couldn't be without a plan.

  "I know, but it's none of our business, at least for now. Father is just a small county magistrate..." Li Wenshan said with a smile.

  "Brother Wu, we are now in a struggle for power within the party." Li Xia sighed.

  Li Wenshan was stunned, after a moment, his eyes widened bit by bit, and he blinked several times, "A Xia, you..."

  "The situation in the court, Mr. Qin told you about it, what he said is roughly correct. The two factions that are currently fighting fiercely in the court are indeed the Crown Prince Party and the Noble Consort Party." Li Xia's voice was very low.

  "Axia, the crown prince has already been established as the crown prince, and Mr. Qin also said..." Li Wenshan was a straightforward person, he couldn't think of what else the imperial concubine's party could do now that the crown prince had already been established.

  "Brother Wu, you should read more history books from now on. For the imperial examination, at least before becoming a jinshi, these scholars, except for a few extremely intelligent ones, rarely read or studied history. This is not good." Li Xia was deeply moved by Brother Wu's words.

  Li Wenshan listened to Li Xia's words in a daze, and after a while, he suddenly took a cold breath. Ah, Xia said these few sentences... as if... as if she was standing high above all the scholars under the sky, looking down on them with an air of superiority.

  "History is a mirror, prosperity and decline are clear, no matter which dynasty or generation, it's all the same cycle. Under heaven, there's nothing new." These were the words of the Empress Dowager. Li Xia hung her head, silent for a moment, before continuing: "Fifth brother, the Emperor is only thirty-three years old this year. The emperors of our dynasty generally live long lives, at least longer than those of the previous dynasty, and the one before that. Even if he lives to be fifty, there are still nearly twenty years left."

  "Ah Xia!" Li Wenshan's throat was somewhat tight, and he subconsciously looked around, how could Ah Xia say such things, this was simply treason!

  "Brother Wu, let's just talk between the two of us, no need to beat around the bush." Li Xia looked up at Brother Wu, whose face had turned slightly pale. She really was beating around the bush - it wasn't that she was afraid of trouble, but rather that she was afraid Brother Wu wouldn't understand, or would pretend not to hear, or would mishear.

  "The crown prince has already established himself as the crown prince, but if he continues to be so brave and forward, what will happen? At this rate, in just three to five years, both the court and the outside world will be under his control. What about the emperor? Will he become a retired emperor? Or...". Li Xia didn't dare say the words "become the previous emperor", she was afraid of scaring Wu Ge, "When the father is strong and the son is grown up, in a poor family it's a prosperous situation, but in an imperial household like this, it's the root of disaster."

  "Axia, are you saying that the Crown Prince later... killed the Emperor? Or was it the Emperor who killed... the Crown Prince?" Li Wenshan reacted quickly, but his direction was off by a lot.

  "Brother Five! I don't know, you see, it's already changed now, isn't it? How it was before and how it is now, no one can say for sure. Nowadays, our family has fallen into the midst of party struggles and can't get out. As for the future, who knows what will happen? I'm telling Brother Five these things so that he'll have a sense of caution in his heart, at least not to be easily taken advantage of, or even become someone else's pawn."

  Li Xia patted Wu Ge's chest, sighing several times. This Wu Ge of hers, from head to toe, was always slow to react. Something that could wipe out an entire family and clan, and yet he still had the excitement of watching a spectacle...

  "I understand, you speak and I'll listen." Li Wenshan suppressed the excitement, surprise, curiosity, and thrill in his heart, as well as a thread of fear that he himself had not yet realized.

  "Anything is possible before becoming an emperor." Li Xia glanced at Li Wenshan, "Min Shangshu's bravery is his strong point, but he's too brave, and being overly rigid can lead to breaking. The twin sons of Su Guifei are only two years younger than the Crown Prince."

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