After crossing over, he has no taboos among the zombies.

At night, the huge capital city was shrouded in darkness.

Only the night watchmen's torches flickered in the flow, like flickering will-o'-the-wisp.

The Bai Rishun army moved back and forth, and a tense and murderous atmosphere filled the whole city. Not only people but even dogs stopped barking.

Even the night watchman disappeared without a trace.

After the Dashun Dynasty occupied the capital, it disbanded all the government offices of the previous dynasty and they have not been restored to this day.

However, at this moment, on the streets of West City, there were two slightly thin figures holding hands with each other, constantly running on both sides of the street, carefully avoiding the lights of the night patrol.

Occasionally, a flash of fire would pass by, illuminating two pale and slightly frightened faces.

One is a boy and the other is a girl.

The boy has a very heroic look and looks about fifteen or sixteen years old. The girl is a little younger, with delicate features and a gentle temperament.

If any of Dali’s former ministers were here, they would surely exclaim: “Prince.”

This young man and girl are none other than Crown Prince Zhu Ci and Crown Princess Ming Wan.

After the capital surrendered, the officials and generals who decided to surrender finally retained a last bit of shame and did not arrest Chongzheng and the royal relatives and send them to the Shun army.

Instead, he opened the city gates to let the Shun army into the city and did not restrict the imperial palace.

Before Chongzheng hanged himself, he ordered the queen to commit suicide and hacked the princess to death. He then called Zhu Ci and asked him to change into civilian clothes and escape during the chaos.

Perhaps Chongzheng was completely desperate about the current situation of the dynasty. Before leaving, he did not ask Zhu Ci to go south to succeed to the throne. Instead, he asked him to leave the capital, hide his identity, and forget everything in the palace.

At that moment, Zhu Ci felt as if the sky was falling. After bidding farewell to Chongzheng in tears, Zhu Ci took Mingwan with him, secretly changed into civilian clothes, ran out of the palace during the chaos, and hid in the home of a minor official who was a tutor in the East Palace.

The so-called Eastern Palace Tutor is an official in the Eastern Palace who accompanies the prince in his studies and is one of the prince's close ministers.

This man was very loyal and took in Zhu Ci and Ming Wan, risking the extermination of his entire family if they were discovered harboring the prince of the previous dynasty.

In this way, although Zhu Ci and Ming Wan were worried every day, they finally had a place to live.

But soon, General Liu Zongmin of the Shun army began to torture and collect money throughout the city, arresting people almost according to the list of the Ministry of Personnel. At first, it was princes, nobles, and cabinet ministers, and then it spread to officials of the fourth and fifth ranks.

Finally, even a minor official of the ninth rank like the Eastern Palace Attendant was not spared.

The amount of extortion was as high as three thousand taels.

Chongzheng was a poor emperor, Zhu Ci was a poor prince, and the position of tutor in the Eastern Palace was a low-paying position with a pitifully low salary. The rewards were just symbolic gifts during the New Year. Their families were so poor that they could never come up with the huge sum of three thousand taels.

As a result, this tutor in the Eastern Palace was tortured to death in Zhaoyu.

He was loyal and refused to reveal Zhu Ci's existence in exchange for a chance to live until his death.

A few days later, a group of Shun troops broke into the home of the Eastern Palace Tutor and killed all seven members of his family, young and old, and stole all their money and food.

Zhu Ci and Ming Wan were out of food and after two days of hunger, they had to go out and find a new hiding place.

The two men were lucky enough to avoid the patrolling Shun troops and came to the gate of a rather imposing mansion with two large gold-plated characters written on it: Zhou Mansion.

After a while.

When Zhou Kui, who was lying on the bed humming, saw Zhu Ci and Ming Wan, he was immediately ecstatic.

Zhou Kui, Earl of Jiading, father of Empress Zhou, father-in-law of Chongzheng, and grandfather of Zhu Ci.

That’s right, the owner of the Zhou Mansion is the miser, Zhou Kui, who cried poor and was only willing to donate 50 taels when Chongzheng called for donations. Empress Zhou had no choice but to secretly give him 10,000 taels and asked him to donate, but he cried and made a profit of 5,000 taels.

In the huge capital city, the first person Zhu Ci thought of when he left the tutor's house was his grandfather.

However, Zhou Kui's ecstasy was not due to the joy of seeing his "grandson", but because he saw an opportunity to take back the family property that was taken away.

When Liu Zongmin was tortured and punished, Zhou Kui, the "father-in-law" of the previous dynasty, was naturally indispensable.

After being tortured, Zhou Kui could not bear the pain and revealed the location of the silver hidden in his home.

At first, Chongzheng called for donations to fight against the Shun army, but Zhou Kui was only willing to donate fifty taels of silver. As a result, when Liu Zongmin tortured him, he "donated" all the three million taels of silver in his family.

Three million against fifty, one side is the enemy who is destroying the country, and the other side is his own "daughter and son-in-law".

What is retribution? This is retribution.

However, from a broader perspective, Zhou Kui's behavior was merely a microcosm of the princes, nobles, civil and military officials in the capital; he was merely a royal relative.

After donating all his family wealth, Zhou Kui felt a pain in his heart that was even more severe than the pain in his body.

Money, that's his life.

As a result, at this time, Zhu Ci appeared.

what is this?

Grandson?

No, no!

This is the merit of being alive and the hope of Xiang Shunjun taking back his family fortune.

Zhou Kui felt his blood boiling, and he jumped up from the bed in a flash. He pointed at Zhu Ci and Ming Wan and shouted to the servants, "Quick, quick, arrest them!"

The servants on both sides did not understand the identities of Zhu Ci and Ming Wan, and they rushed forward and pinned down the two people who had no power to resist.

"Wai Rent, you...why are you doing this?!" Zhu Ci's face changed drastically and he screamed.

"Don't call me grandpa." Zhou Kui's eyes gleamed as he pointed at Zhu Ci and said, "You are a remnant of the previous dynasty. If I don't arrest you and hand you over to the authorities, my life will be in danger."

"Grandfather, don't do that. I'm leaving now. Don't catch me..." Zhu Ci was so frightened that his face turned pale. With so little experience, he could never have imagined that Zhou Kui would catch him as soon as they met.

"Please, don't catch me~"

"I promise I won't tell anyone I was here and won't bring trouble to you, Grandpa, please~"

Zhu Ci begged desperately, but what he didn't know was that Zhou Kui was not afraid of being implicated at all, but wanted to capture him to take credit.

Capturing the crown prince of the previous dynasty would be a great achievement in any dynasty.

However, Zhou Kui would not allow him to say more. He ordered the servants to cover his and Ming Wan's mouths, then put them into the carriage and hurried out to the Prime Minister's Mansion.

The way he jumped up and down didn't look like he had been tortured in prison at all; his face was flushed.

Inside the carriage, Zhu Ci's face was pale, his heart was filled with fear, and he was a little dazed. He could not accept the fact that his grandfather would actually arrest him and send him to the authorities.

Ming Wan turned pale and trembled all over.

The two looked at each other, tears streaming down their faces.

The galloping carriage was jolting up and down at high speed, and the cold wind blowing in from the door curtain made the two of them feel deeply cold, as if they were falling into an ice cave.

Falling into the hands of the Shun army means death.

It would be fine if he could get away with it quickly, but he might be tortured to death.

However, at this moment, the cold wind blowing in through the door curtain suddenly stopped, and even the shaking of the carriage became less severe.

Zhu Ci looked up and his eyes widened immediately.

I saw a person appear at the door curtain without knowing when.

This person, dressed in coarse linen, sat behind the curtain, his back straight. He looked at himself with a dark gaze, shook his head in disappointment, and said, "My fate has finally run out."

After he finished speaking, he made a "hush" sound, then reached out and pulled out the cloth from Zhu Ci's mouth and asked, "Are you the former crown prince?"

Zhu Ci didn't dare to say anything and nodded quickly.

"Do you want to live?" the man asked again.

Zhu Ci nodded again and again.

"That's good, but the price is that from now on you will forget everything about yourself and live another person's life."