Priceless: A widow with a baby asks the prince to marry again

Fifty thousand bandit-suppression troops surrounded the stronghold like an iron barrel, but within a few days, no bandits came out to surrender. But Prince Duan was not in a hurry, and the people were not in a hurry because the bandits could not come out. Those who were in a hurry were either far away or insignificant, so they just waited.

Since he got the eggs that day, Chu Shiyu fell in love with going out. Although he only got Liu Rusi's things that time, he also found that walking on the street was indeed more comfortable than staying in the inn.

I just want to go out more and wander around aimlessly. I went to the east side of the city yesterday, and I might go to the west side today.

Passing by a brothel, a piece of silk with a fragrant breeze fell in front of him. He looked up and saw a young woman leaning against the railing upstairs. When she saw him looking up, her eyes lit up and she smiled and said, "Sir, are you willing to help me pick up the silk handkerchief?"

Chu Shiyu had a cold face and said nothing, he just walked away on the silk.

All the girls upstairs in Fangchun Courtyard burst into laughter, making fun of the woman who threw the silk.

"You have good taste today. You picked a handsome guy. But unfortunately he didn't take the bait~"

"That's right, I even wasted a silk handkerchief, hehe~"

The woman was not angry, but asked the little girl beside her to pick up the silk. She did not see the man's face when he threw it, but she saw that the man was wearing cloth but had an extraordinary aura, and there were vaguely a few people following him from behind, so she wanted to give it a try.

If you don’t get the hook, then you don’t get the hook. In this land of fireworks, if you don’t take the initiative to look for every possibility, you will be doomed to rot in the mud…

Chu Shiyu was upset by the sudden interruption, so he wandered around the city and went to the bandit suppression army station. He was thinking about Liu Rusi, but when he looked up, he saw those prostitutes leaning against the railings and laughing. He felt that it was a defilement to her!

In the magnificent imperial study in the distant capital city, Emperor Chu Tianming leaned back in his chair and listened to his personal eunuch reporting news to him.

After hearing this, his wrinkled eyes narrowed slightly. "Shi Yu just let the soldiers surround the mountain stronghold, and he wanders around every day?"

Eunuch Xu said truthfully, "Yes, Prince Duan wanders around every day, occasionally goes to the bandit suppression station, otherwise he stays in the inn."

The emperor glanced at Eunuch Xu and said in an ambiguous tone, "Since leaving the palace, Shi Yu has been very aggressive and ambitious, but he used to act in a straightforward and measured way... Is he just hanging around?"

Eunuch Xu was also puzzled, but the news he received could not be false, so he just bowed and said, "On the first day, Prince Duan went to the civilian grain store, looked at the vegetable stalls on the street corner, and visited the butcher's shop. On the second day, he wandered aimlessly, turned left and right from the inn to the east gate of Jinyan City, stood there for a while, and returned to the inn. On the third day, he walked along West Street..."

"That's enough." The emperor stopped the daily journal, picked up the memorial on the table and looked through it, saying indifferently: "He can't make any big waves, so let him play for a while and see what tricks he can come up with..."

Also in the Prime Minister's Mansion in the capital.

"Grandpa, what do you think Chu Shiyu is doing? Will he kill those people in my palace or not?" Although Chu Shiqi had decided to abandon this group of people, he had spent a lot of effort to manage them, so he had been paying attention to them silently. Unexpectedly, his third brother was hesitant and kept hesitating, which made him upset!

The old prime minister frowned. Although he did not have as detailed information as the emperor, he knew roughly what Prince Duan had been doing during this period, which could be summed up in four words: idle.

But is this possible? Since Prince Duan made his name a few years ago, everyone who is interested knows how diligent he is. He gets up at the sound of the cock-crow every day and studies by candlelight at night, regardless of the weather.

Although it was the natural position of the old prime minister to be close to his grandson Chu Shiqi, he never looked down on Prince Duan or Prince Kang who was dormant due to illness.

"As long as you clean up those traces, no matter how resourceful Prince Ren Duan is, he can't do anything to you.

Chu Shiqi was originally sure that there were no loopholes left, but Chu Shiyu acted so strangely in Jinyan City that he became a little suspicious.

"The spies I left with Chu Shiyu have all been dug out. Grandpa, can you tell the village to surrender directly? The account books prepared before should be left for the bandit suppression army to find."

In Jinyan City, ten days had passed since the announcement of the bandit suppression. In the past two days, the number of people delivering food and supplies began to decrease.

Some people wondered, are the bandits so powerful? Tens of thousands of people fought for ten days without any movement? But no one complained, the bandit suppression army was still here anyway, and it was peaceful and harmonious recently, but the people also had to go about their lives.

Prince Duan, who had been idle for half a month, was now sitting in a private room of a teahouse.

Two guards stood behind him, installing wood, while Prince Duan held up the teacup and shook it silently. If someone stood in front of him, they would see that his eyes were blank...

There was a knock on the door of the private room.

"My name is Sun Zhizhao, is the young master here?"

Chu Shiyu came back to his senses, his eyes returned to their usual coldness, and he responded without emotion: "Come in."

Sun Zhizhao closed the door, bowed with joy in his eyes and said, "The bandits raised their sails not long ago and spread the news that they have surrendered!"

Chu Shiyu frowned upon hearing this. "Surrendered? Both strongholds are located on steep slopes. If we attack them by force, our army will suffer heavy losses. We checked before the encirclement and suppression, and found that their stored food is enough to last for at least a month. Will they surrender so easily?"

He hadn't figured out how to return home in glory earlier! If he really took the provincial and imperial examinations according to Qin Lie's identity, it would take at least two or three years to reasonably "achieve success and fame." But Liu Rusi didn't recognize him as Qin Lie, and he couldn't wait two or three years, so this way was not feasible.

The most reliable option at the moment is to "recover his memory" and then go back to repay the favor of saving his life, but no matter how he repays, he can't stay in Dongshan Village. First, Liu Rusi won't let him stay, and second, as Prince Duan, he can't stay in Jinyan City forever. Even if he asks his father for a fiefdom, it is difficult to get it here.

"Bang!" The teacup fell heavily on the table. Chu Shiyu said coldly, "Check! Have any soldiers or generals of the bandit suppression army approached the mountain stronghold secretly recently, or delivered items to the mountain stronghold!"

In the two mountain strongholds on the west side of Jinyan City, the bandits were stripped to their underwear as required, and were walking out with their hands raised. The bandit suppression troops were all well-trained veterans, standing neatly outside the range of bows and arrows, and tied up any bandits who came over.

The deputy general who led the anti-bandit army sat leisurely with his hands folded, secretly admiring the resourcefulness of Prince Duan. Without spending a single soldier, he made the bandits surrender after only ten days of stationing troops here.

When Chu Shiyu hurried over, he saw a large group of thousands of bandits tied up and kneeling on the ground like white pigs.

His face suddenly turned cold, and he asked the deputy general coldly: "Who told you to surrender?"

The deputy general was a little confused for a moment. Shouldn't he accept the surrender?

Chu Shiyu took a deep breath, knowing that he was taking his anger out on others, so he added, "I said before that the first two thousand who surrendered would not be killed. I will keep my word. Do you remember which two thousand surrendered first?"

"This..." How could the deputy general remember clearly? Wasn't it a strategy to shake the bandits' will to resist by not killing the first two thousand? Now that they all surrendered at once, which ones should be ranked first?

"Report! The search of the two mountain strongholds has begun, and hundreds of young women were found imprisoned in the strongholds. In addition, there are a lot of food, horses, gold and silver. The inventory has not been completed yet, but account books have been found in the two mountain strongholds. Please take a look, General!" The messenger handed over the account book with both hands.

Things have come to this point, and there is no point in causing trouble for the deputy general. Chu Shiyu reached out to take the account book but did not rush to look at it. Instead, he glanced at the bandits.

"Let those women come out and decide the life and death of these bandits. Those who have done them a favor will be given a copper coin, those who have a grudge against them will be stabbed with an arrow, and those who have no grudge will be ignored. The number of copper coins is positive, and the number of arrow holes is negative. The positive and negative cancel each other out. The first two thousand will not be killed, and the rest will be executed on the spot!"

"Yes!" The deputy general didn't understand what the general was thinking, but the general had won every battle, so his decision would not be wrong.

Finally, a total of 3,552 bandits were counted and were lined up in rows by the soldiers. The deputy general thought that a lot of copper coins would be needed, so he ordered people to rush to Jinyan City to bring back tens of thousands of copper coins.

However, the women who came out were either in a trance, crying, or gritting their teeth. After the entire process of deciding life and death was completed, only a few people got copper coins, and not even a hundred were distributed... The bandit who got the most copper coins only got three.

On the contrary, many people were stabbed with arrows. Almost all of the 3,000 bandits were stabbed. Some women did not even take arrows. They would pounce on a few bandits and bite them alive, wishing they could eat their flesh alive! The bandits were tied up and held at gunpoint. They could only cry and beg for mercy.

After the life and death were decided, it was already completely dark. All the soldiers were touched. Even Chu Shiyu, who proposed that women decide life and death, was deeply shocked.

Under the illumination of the bonfire, Chu Shiyu was in a daze. It turned out that women could also have such intense love and hate. In the past, he only saw Liu Rusi's love for Qin Lie, but now he saw the woman's hatred.

"Report! We have counted the copper coins and arrow wounds of the bandits. There are 61 regular ones, 203 ordinary ones, the one ranked 2000th was hit by two arrows, and another 372 people died."

Listening to the statistics, Chu Shiyu regretted setting the number at two thousand. It seemed a bit unfair to let those with negative numbers live on as to the strong hatred of those women.

"It's getting late. Let's start the execution tomorrow. For the first two thousand who lose, one finger will be cut off for every one negative, and two fingers will be cut off for every two negative. In addition, no medical treatment or food or clothing will be provided tonight!"

"Yes!" The messenger responded and was about to leave.

"Wait." Chu Shiyu's eyes flickered, and he asked in a deep voice, "Who was hit by the most arrows? How many arrows did he get?"

"This... at least sixty arrows. Some of the arrow holes overlap and cannot be distinguished. The people died on the spot." The messenger paused after answering, and added: "The one who was hit the most by arrows was a frequent robber. Many women's relatives were killed by him. In addition, he would... kill almost every woman in the mountain village where he lived."

Chu Shiyu murmured with a complicated expression: "It's a pleasant death."

On the second day, at the anti-bandit army's base, from the moment daybreak, butcher knives were wielded coldly, severed fingers were scattered all over the ground, human heads were rolling, and the bloody smell filled the entire forest!

But when the people around Jinyan City heard the news, many of them took to the streets to celebrate with drums and gongs. Many people also wanted to go to the bandit suppression base to see the gratifying scene, but they were stopped by the bandit suppression army.

The number of people delivering food and supplies to the inn increased dramatically again, even more than all the previous times combined!

However, people's sorrows and joys are not the same. While the whole world is celebrating outside, a group of people in the county government of Jinyan City are in a state of constant fear.

"Dad! Have you found the person who cut off my hand?" A young man was lying on the bed with a pale face, his right shoulder was wrapped in a thick bandage, but his entire right hand was missing from under the shoulder!

"Stop talking about this! Hurry up and put on your clothes, follow your mother and run!" Jin Yan's county magistrate hurriedly pulled his son up, looking as if he was in great danger.

In fact, he still couldn't figure out why Prince Duan was attacked and killed by a few bandits? How dare those bandits attack and kill Prince Duan?

He had been panicking a few days ago, but he had been hoping for the best, thinking that he was just dividing some money and occasionally instructing the bandits to rob a few times. Without evidence, he could not be arrested. At most, he would be dismissed from office for not reporting the bandits' robbery.

However, just now the bailiff at the city gate saw Prince Duan coming back on a tall horse, with a servant leading the horse. In his hand, he was clearly holding an account book and reading it!

After suppressing the bandits, they took the account book. What kind of account book could it be? ! Magistrate Jinyan never expected that the bandits would actually keep accounts!

He didn't dare to gamble whether there was any account of his on it. He didn't let his family run away before because he was worried that it would appear guilty and die faster. But if he ran away now, there might be a glimmer of hope. If the colluding bandits attacked and killed the prince who had been crowned king, the whole family would be executed as a light punishment! The extermination of several clans is what he should worry about!

It was only when the door was kicked open that County Magistrate Jinyan realized it was too late to run away.