Traveling through an ancient military camp: Bao'er's survival song

When Zheng Xi and his men went to secretly investigate various bandit gangs in the surrounding area, Peng Zizheng summoned the five helpers bestowed upon him by the emperor for the first time.

These five people had previously been housed in two private residences outside the mansion by Peng Zizheng. It wasn't that he didn't want to use these five people, but their identities were a real headache for him.

The three men were a fortune teller, a ventriloquist, and a petty thief. The two women were even more outrageous; one was a skilled cook specializing in various regional cuisines, and the other was an even more outrageous young woman who appeared delicate and frail.

If Peng Zizheng hadn't known that his young emperor was a serious and upright ruler, he would have mistaken these five people as useless trash that the emperor couldn't get rid of, so he was just keeping them with him.

While Peng Zizheng left these five men to their own devices, he sent people to observe their movements: the fortune teller routinely set up his stall, but his predictions were said to be inaccurate, and his stall had been overturned five times in recent days; the ventriloquist went to various restaurants and entertainment venues to apply for jobs, but because his ventriloquism skills were terrible and his acrobatic skills were even worse, no one was willing to hire him, so he had no choice but to perform on the streets every now and then to earn a few coins; as for the petty thief, Peng Zizheng didn't even want to talk to him, as he spent eight out of ten days in jail, and the remaining two days he was still picking people's pockets on the streets.

The remaining two women were a middle-aged cook in her thirties who wasn't busy looking for a job and spent her days gossiping about other people's business with a plate of melon seeds. The young lady, on the other hand, never left her home and never sold anything. Occasionally, when I followed her out, it was only to buy things like rouge and face powder.

Thinking about all this, Peng Zizheng felt a throbbing pain in his temples. He had once asked the emperor what use these people were to him, only to be told that they were all highly talented, and how much he could utilize them depended on Peng Zizheng's own efforts to win them over. At that moment, Peng Zizheng really wanted to act like a brat with his young emperor, rolling on the ground and yelling, "If you don't explain yourself clearly, I don't want them!" But he held back; he was all grown up now!

“These days, I’ve seen you all busy doing things to make money. Are you short of money?” Peng Zizheng asked with a token of concern.

"Hey, look at what you're saying! Who doesn't want more money these days? My senior brother dumped me here so I could make a living. I thought you were a great general, and the reward I'd get for performing for you would be enough to live on for a month. Who would have thought you'd just leave me in that house and ignore me! If my senior brother hadn't threatened me, I would have run away long ago!" The first to speak was the young man in his early twenties whose ventriloquism and acrobatic skills were terrible.

Peng Zizheng pressed his throbbing temples and asked, "Who is your senior brother?"

The young ventriloquist, his long, fluttering eyelashes fluttering, replied with an innocent look, "The senior brother is indeed the senior brother!"

Peng Zizheng let him go and looked at the oldest charlatan inside: "Where is this old gentleman?"

The charlatan stroked his white beard and said with an air of self-assurance, "Judging from your face, General, you may be facing a romantic entanglement soon. I have a talisman here for only fifty taels of silver. If you wear it, it will turn your romantic entanglements into legitimate ones and ensure a strong bond between you."

Peng Zizheng took a deep breath and swallowed, thinking that these were all people given to him by the young emperor, and he couldn't very well fight them off. So he ignored the charlatan and then skipped over the "master thief" who was eager to speak up and looked at the wealthy-looking cook with a headscarf.

To everyone's surprise, the charlatan became agitated when Peng Zizheng ignored him: "General, if you think this price is too high, you can bargain! Thirty taels, do you want thirty taels?"

Peng Zizheng, unable to bear it any longer, glared at the old man and said, "Shut up!"