In an instant, Gu Yun lost all his temper.

He reached out to catch Chang Geng, patted his back, and rubbed his chin against his shoulder. He felt that the arm was no longer just a skeleton.

Gu Yun also wanted to say "I miss you, too" very straightforwardly, but he had never said it in his life. The words rose and fell in his chest, and finally he got stage fright and fled back into his stomach.

He just smiled faintly and said, "How old are you? You're still acting like a spoiled child."

Chang Geng closed his eyes, knowing in his heart that he could not go beyond the rules. Although he could not control his emotions, his limbs and body could.

He then let go of Gu Yun and stood aside calmly, enduring the invisible wildfire in his chest. He knew that he wanted too much, too much for no reason, and the various resentments that arose from it were all hateful, so he did not dare to show any trace of it.

Chang Geng took a deep breath and asked, "Why did my foster father come to Jiangnan?"

Gu Yun glanced at him and said unhappily, "You still have the nerve to ask, isn't it all because of you?"

Chang Geng didn't dare to look at him any longer and lowered his head slightly.

Gu Yun thought he had said too much. The reprimand was on the tip of his tongue, but he hastily took it back. He put his thumb into his palm and pinched the joints two or three times. The fatigue from traveling thousands of miles came over him. He endured the sudden fatigue and thought for a few times. He said to Chang Geng as calmly as possible: "Sit down and tell me why you are with that bald... cough."

Gu Yun realized that calling Chang Geng "bald donkey" in front of him was not appropriate, and he couldn't bring himself to call him "master", so he was stuck.

Chang Geng: "Master Liaoran wanted to travel south, and it was my own decision to follow him. If my adoptive father went to trouble him because of this, I would feel very bad."

Gu Yun: “…”

Chang Geng was so good at talking. He knew how to excuse the bald donkey and how to excuse him without getting angry. He made it clear that there was a difference between the inside and the outside in one sentence, which almost made Gu Yun feel "bad". He was secretly surprised for the second time. It was only a year ago. Where did the kid who used to talk like a stick learn this trick?

"When my adoptive father was my age, he had already gone south to suppress rebellions and bandits, but I was still not good at either literature or martial arts, so I wanted to leave the mansion and see the outside world." Chang Geng secretly glanced at Gu Yun and found that there were bloodshot in his eyes. He immediately stopped talking. He felt full of guilt from his chest to his throat, and whispered, "...I just used my own means and made my adoptive father run around. I was wrong. Please punish me."

Gu Yun was silent for a while, and suddenly said: "The first time I went on an expedition with the army, it was actually General Du and the old marquis and his old followers who forced the late emperor to come."

Chang Geng suddenly looked up.

Gu Yun was not a very modest person, and he would often talk nonsense when he was drunk. He had boasted about things like "I could knock down twenty iron golems in half an incense stick of time even with my eyes blindfolded and my ears plugged." But when you think about it carefully, his glorious history of becoming famous at a young age, leading the Western Expedition, and reorganizing the Black Iron Camp, any one of which would be enough to brag about for half a lifetime, but Gu Yun had never mentioned it.

Gu Yun took out another cup and poured a glass of slightly sour wine for Chang Geng: "This is the wine of the Loulan people. You are old enough, you can try a few sips."

Chang Geng took a sip, but could not taste anything, so he put it aside. He had not seen Gu Yun for a long time, and seeing him was already disturbing his blood, so he really did not need the blessing of wine.

Gu Yun: "I didn't know anything at that time. I was just causing trouble by following them. I was young and frivolous and refused to admit it humbly. During the suppression of the bandits, I made a big mess out of my rash and reckless actions. In a small battle, I lost more than 30 heavy armors made of real gold and silver, and General Du was seriously injured... Have you heard of General Du Changde?"

Chang Geng had heard Ran say that the monk knew all about the civil and military officials of the past and present dynasties, and was probably more familiar with them than the true scriptures of Buddha.

More than a decade ago, the old Marquis of Anding and his wife died of illness one after another. Gu Yun was still young, and it was General Du who managed the frontier and the court and held the overall situation alone. Unfortunately, his old injury relapsed and he died on the way to the northwest. This is why Gu Yun, who was only seventeen years old at the time, took command of the Western Expedition.

Gu Yun: "If it weren't for that incident, he could have been strong and healthy, and wouldn't have been injured again by a cold. When he returned from the southern expedition to suppress bandits that year, he wrote a letter to the court, but he didn't mention my faults at all. He praised my achievements throughout the letter and forced me to stay in the army."

Gu Yun paused when he spoke here.

He suddenly felt a little unbelievable. All he had been thinking about along the way was how to teach Chang Geng a lesson after catching him, from verbal battles to physical battles, but who would have thought that it would somehow turn into him sitting down and confessing his embarrassing past deeds.

He originally thought that he would be very secretive about those things, but now that they were uncovered, he could suddenly face them calmly.

This was beyond his understanding of himself.

Maybe Shen Yi was right. The young son and the old father were indeed heavy burdens that could force people to bow their heads and see themselves clearly.

"The reason why I'm in this position is not because I'm better than anyone else, but because my last name is Gu," Gu Yun said while looking at Chang Geng, "Sometimes, your background determines what you must do and what you must not do."

This was the first time that Gu Yun explained to Chang Geng face to face why he couldn't take him to the northwest, although it was very obscure.

Chang Geng stared at him motionlessly.

Gu Yun pondered for a moment, and then said: "But if you have really thought about what path you want to take, you don't have to worry too much. As long as I am alive, I will always have the strength to clear away those unnecessary obstacles for you."

Chang Geng thought that he had trained his mouth to speak to anyone by following Monk Liao Ran. However, he realized at this moment that this "someone" still wanted to exclude Gu Yun. When facing Gu Yun, he became extremely tongue-tied.

He had always thought that he was a burden thrown to Gu Yun by the late emperor, a greedy man who coveted a world that did not belong to him, but it turned out that he was not.

Chang Geng thought that it would be impossible for anyone to treat him the same way as Gu Yun.

At this moment, a figure suddenly flashed outside the door: "Marshal."

Gu Yun came back to his senses and waved his hand to Chang Geng, saying, "Go and rest early. You won't have a good place to stay if you follow that monk. Well, do you want to stay here and sleep with me?"

Chang Geng: “…”

There was a "boom" in his head and his face turned red immediately.

Gu Yun smiled and said, "You have learned to be embarrassed. When you cried because of nightmares before, wasn't it me who coaxed you to sleep?"

Chang Geng really didn't know how to face this kind of slander that came right to his face - the key point was that Gu Yun said it so frankly, as if it was really true!

The young man who seemed to be eloquent just now finally fell silent, and ran out of Gu Yun's room with a shaky step.

After Chang Geng left, Gu Yun waved to the door: "Come in."

A soldier wearing black eagle armor immediately responded and came in.

Xuan Ying said: "I have been ordered to hunt down that monk..."

Although it was indeed outrageous that Liang Ran secretly abducted the little prince out of the capital, the person had been found now, and Gu Yun didn't want to offend the Huguo Temple too badly, not to mention that Chang Geng had just pleaded for him.

Gu Yun: "Forget it, tell Zhongze to withdraw the wanted order and say it was a misunderstanding. I will treat Master Liaoran to a vegetarian meal some other day."

"Chongze" is the name of Lord Yao of Yao Town - although he said so, as long as Li Ran had a grudge, he would not dare to come to the banquet. Gu Yun was sure that he would not be able to even spit in front of his face.

The black eagle whispered, "I am incompetent and have not found the monk's whereabouts. This evening, I saw him board a ferry. When I was searching with the officers and soldiers, I found this."

As he spoke, he took out a small cloth bag from his arms. When he opened it, he found that it was a strip of cloth with a little golden powder on it.

Gu Yun took it and took a look at it, then frowned.

He was very familiar with this thing, which was called "Broken Heart". It was a kind of mineral that was produced together with purple gold. After being ground into foam, it was added to the purple gold in a certain proportion. It could prevent the purple gold from accidentally burning during long-distance transportation. When using it, it could be filtered out using a special process, which was very convenient.

But usually, when the imperial court transported purple gold, they either used giant kites in the sky or simply took the official road and had soldiers from various garrisons escort them. How could there be such a thing on a ferry that even a monk could easily get on?

Gu Yun: "You didn't say anything, did you?"

Xuan Ying: "Don't worry, Marshal."

Gu Yun stood up and paced a few steps on the spot: "Well, don't withdraw the wanted order. Tell the public that I must catch that monk. Brothers, keep a close eye on those ferries for me. Where did they come from and where are they going..."

When Gu Yun said this, his voice suddenly stopped. He was shocked to find that his vision began to blur slowly, and a shadow of some kind appeared on the body of the black eagle not far away.

"It's bad," Gu Yun thought calmly, "I left in a hurry and forgot to bring medicine."

No wonder he vaguely felt like he had forgotten something. Shen Yi, this good-for-nothing, didn't even remind him.

Xuan Ying: "Marshal?"

Gu Yun continued his conversation as if nothing had happened: "If possible, it would be best to know who the owner of the ship is, and pay special attention to who usually interacts with them."

Xuan Ying had no doubts: "Yes."

"Wait, there's one more thing," Gu Yun stopped him, "If you find the monk, bring him to see me."

Xuan Ying immediately took the order and left.

After sending the black eagle away, Gu Yun turned on the gas lamp on the table and sat down motionlessly.

Purple gold is not produced in Jiangnan. If there is really something wrong with those ferries, there are only two possible sources - either officials in Jiangnan secretly resold it, or it came from overseas.

If it is the former, it is easy to say. Jiangnan is a wealthy area, and the emperor is far away. He is just taking advantage of the implementation of the farming puppet policy to secretly take advantage of the situation for personal gain. The matter will be handled by the Censorate and it is not his turn to intervene.

But if it is the latter, it would be complicated.

The seven major military branches of Daliang are all strong, especially the "Armor" and "Eagle" branches, which are the result of the painstaking efforts of three generations of Lingshu Academy. In terms of equipment alone, they are in no way inferior to the Westerners who are good at tricks.

Only "Jiao" is not acceptable.

Although Daliang's "Jiao" was used for naval warfare, it was generally only used for coastal defense and rarely went out to sea. It was not comparable to the huge sailing ships that Westerners used to ride the wind and waves.

It has always been like this - when the maritime trade routes connected the east, west, south and north, almost all the ports and docks along the coast were docked with foreign ships. At that time, Emperor Wu was in power, and Daliang was rich and powerful. It didn't care about daily trade with Western barbarians at all. It was the foreigners who rushed to make money.

At that time, the so-called "trade" meant that people delivered goods to the door, and then the foreigners would condescend to open the dock, reluctantly accept the foreigners' small things and give them some pocket money.

As for the previous emperor and the current emperor, although they saw the profits of maritime trade and were very enthusiastic, the northwest front has always been unstable, and the coastal defense of the "giant dragon entering the sea" has always been shelved, either because there is no money or no purple gold quota.

If there really were people on those ferries secretly reselling purple gold, it would very likely threaten the coastal defense of the East China Sea.

And the monk Liaoran led them to the ferry. Was it an accidental act or was it a long-planned plan?

After a while, Gu Yun's vision became increasingly blurry. He reached into his bosom and found the glass mirror, which he put on his nose. This way, at least one eye could see a little more clearly.

Gu Yun smiled bitterly and thought, "What should I do?"

Chang Geng ran back to his room without even touching the ground. His heartbeat hadn't even calmed down yet. When he pushed the door open, he saw a pale monk. He raised his anger again and quickly closed the door, lowering his voice and saying, "Master Liaoran, why are you here?"

Le Ran smiled and clasped his hands together - Amitabha, this humble monk is omnipresent.

This monk must have practiced to appear and disappear without a trace, and he was extremely elusive. He could even enter and exit the Censor's residence at any time. He was truly a deity.

The monk gestured to Chang Geng and said, "I'm afraid Marquis Anding will let me go this time. Your Highness, don't worry."

Chang Geng was not worried about him. He was very thoughtful and immediately came to his senses. He asked, "Did you deliberately use me to lure him here? What exactly is there in Yingtian Prefecture?"

He looked at him with admiration, slowly stretched out his hands, and signed: "The East China Sea dragon monster is about to transform into a dragon, and the monk has specially brought about a great calamity."

What does this imply? Is the King of Wei planning a rebellion?

Or is there something else?

At that moment, several thoughts flashed through Chang Geng's mind. He only knew that this monk was involved in worldly affairs before, but he didn't expect that he was so deeply involved in the world. His eyes couldn't help but show some scrutiny and vigilance.

However, before he could ask more questions, Liang Ran gestured to him to follow, and jumped out of the window with ease. Chang Geng hesitated for a moment, took off his sword, and followed him out.