lcionline In Chapter 66, he could only glare at Lu Yuxi with a fierce look, swallowing his anger.
In Chapter 66, he could only glare at Lu Yuxi with a fierce look, swallowing his anger.
Lin Shiming shouted, his voice stern but his tone weak, before finally recalling Lu Yuxi from a few months ago. After a careful comparison, he smacked his lips.
“You’ve changed. You’re no longer the dignified Crown Prince who would blush and fumble with fear whenever I teased you.”
He has learned, without any instruction, how to punish and control Lin Shiming, and has gained the ability to occasionally retaliate.
This is clearly not what Lin Shiming wanted to see. But that is the reality, and Lin Shiming has no choice but to change it at will.
He could only vent his anger briefly, then swallow his pride and glare fiercely at Lu Yuxi.
Lu Yuxi smiled but remained silent.
The gentle breeze of March roamed freely across this vast land, and the two walked side by side along the river for a long time.
"To be honest, I've done a lot of messy things over the years because of my good lightness skills, and my brother has to clean up the messes for me."
This includes, but is not limited to, taking a stroll in a neighboring small country and causing some trouble; venturing into the remote, snowy plains of northern China, only to get lost and almost not be able to find his way back; and venturing into the tropical rainforests deep in the southern regions, where Lin Shiming once caught a box of poisonous insects as a birthday gift for his brother, only to have them poison three chickens and two geese within just two days...
Lu Yuxi listened attentively, so she laughed heartily.
"Didn't your brother beat you up again?"
Lin Shiming proudly raised his head, "He really wanted to give me another beating of bamboo shoots with pork, but I managed to avoid it! So he could only scold me for half an hour, and I just listened casually to save face and let it pass!"
"It's a pity about those insects. They couldn't adapt to the climate in the capital and died within two days."
Lu Yuxi shook her head helplessly. It was fortunate that he was dead, otherwise the Duke of Zhenguo's mansion would have lost a life sooner or later.
"But I don't only do bad things."
Lin Shiming shook the blade of grass in his hand.
"It was about three years ago when I brought back two large baskets of lychees from the south."
As we all know, lychees are difficult to preserve, especially in ancient times when travel was slow and emperors distributed lychees by the piece.
But the Lin family had a strange character named Lin Shiming.
That year, Lin Shiming happened to overhear someone reciting a poem about lychees by the roadside, satirizing those nobles. He didn't understand what it meant, nor did he care whether the person was a talented but unappreciated individual or someone whose ambitions were thwarted. He only felt that he wanted to eat lychees.
So General Lin, who was on a whim, immediately traveled thousands of miles to a southern town that was closest to the capital and famous for its lychees, and found a lychee farmer to make arrangements for him.
He paid someone to pick two large, freshest lychees by evening, then picked the hundred-pound bamboo baskets and set off, using his light-footed skills to the fullest to get home. Along the way, he didn't forget to use some of his internal energy to lower the temperature around him to prolong the lychees' shelf life.
Taking advantage of the low night temperature, he traveled through the night and managed to sneak home with two baskets of fresh lychees before the city gates even opened. He then woke everyone up and hurriedly carried them into the ice cellar in his home to preserve them.
There were over a thousand of them, which stunned Lin Shihe, who had been woken up by his younger brother in the early hours of the morning. Even the emperor only received about a hundred each year, and those weren't nearly as big and plump.
The arduous journey and the strenuous effort to cool things down completely depleted Lin Shiming's internal energy, leaving him nearly spitting blood from exhaustion. After delivering the lychees to the ice cellar, he was so exhausted he could barely stand and ended up clinging to Lin Shihe, who carried him back to the courtyard.
When Lin Shihe pressed him down to rest on the bed, he still struggled to get up and give his brother some instructions.
"Keep this lychee a secret, don't send it away randomly, we'll eat it ourselves. If we can't finish it, we can make lychee wine, but whatever you do, don't let word get out, and don't send it to the palace!"
Lin Shihe reluctantly agreed before pressing the person back into bed.
It was a little over a year after Crown Prince Hua Min's incident, and there was still a sense of unease throughout the court and the country. Although Lin Shiming didn't concern himself with such matters, he was more or less aware that things weren't peaceful in the capital lately. He wanted to share these lychees with his family, not to cause them any trouble.
Lin Shihe, the fox, naturally understood his younger brother's unspoken meaning.
On the surface, these are just two ordinary baskets of lychees, but in reality, they are not. Even for the emperor, it would take a great deal of manpower and resources to prepare just a few lychees a year; it was truly a luxury.
If others were to find out at this point that the Duke of Zhenguo's mansion had acquired two large baskets of lychees, it would be considered "a crime to possess a treasure." After all, even the emperor didn't have them, so what right did the Duke have?
Some might think, "Why not just send some to the emperor?"
The question is, how much should we send?
Sending too little is only for the emperor. But sending two large baskets to only a few people is inappropriate. Sending too much means the emperor will inevitably have to distribute it among the harem, imperial heirs, and relatives.
Sheng Mien, fight against Mien.
Emperor Longyun wasn't that kind of person, but others might be.
They are all members of the royal family, nobles of the highest order. If they receive something this year, they will feel entitled to demand even more from you next year, until it becomes your annual duty. After all, there is no one else in the world who can and is willing to replicate Lin Shiming's ingenious methods; they will only be targeting Lin Shiming.
Lin Shiming was naturally unwilling to be treated like a servant, and Lin Shihe would not allow anyone to bully his younger brother like that. Moreover, they did not want to cause trouble over this matter during that special period.
So the two of them tacitly kept the matter a secret.
However, we dared not share these lychees with anyone else. There were only three masters in the family at the time, and Lin Shiming had already eaten them all day in the south and was even suffering from internal heat. So, it turned out that only Lin Shihe and Ji Tiao would eat them.
So, half a month later, Lin Shiming's internal strength had fully recovered, and he still had more than a thousand lychees left from the one thousand or so he had eaten.
Lin Shihe had no choice but to eat the two pointed tips of the lychees, which were almost ready to be stored, and use the rest to make wine. He brewed a total of twenty jars.
Lin Shiming became angry again at the mere mention of these wines.
"My father promised my brother that he wouldn't touch these two baskets of lychees, but in the end, he still managed to extort five jars of wine from me!"
Lu Yuxi chuckled. He knew about this too, and he was even present.
Although Lin Shihe also intended to keep it a secret as his younger brother wished, there are no secrets that stay hidden forever. He did not want to plant a landmine in the relationship between the royal family and the Duke of Zhenguo's mansion over such a trivial matter.
So, just in case, Lin Shihe discussed it with his younger brother and then went to the palace to report to Emperor Longyun. Although Emperor Longyun was also jealous and covetous of the fruit, he wouldn't betray his brother in such a matter, and he readily agreed to keep the Lin family's secret.
The condition is that Lu Yuxi, as is customary, selects a team from the Tingyun Army to serve as the Crown Prince's personal guards in the Eastern Palace, and can choose several of the most outstanding individuals.
He was terrified by the incident at Mount Fotuo.
Lin Yunyue and Lin Shihe understood Emperor Longyun's pain and fear, and had long intended to do so, so they readily agreed to give Lu Yuxi twenty more people.
Despite their small number, these men are all elites of the Tingyun Army, veritable ancient versions of special forces among special forces, possessing remarkable internal strength and top-notch combat capabilities. They will be the core of the Crown Prince's ten thousand personal guards, and the Tingyun Army will also provide support. If Crown Prince Hua Min had had twenty more of these men back then, he might not have survived.
The matter was thus resolved peacefully for the time being.
Until that winter solstice, Lu Yuxi had just been named crown prince and was taken by Emperor Longyun to the Duke of Zhenguo's mansion to select people, and also to watch the Lin family's unique winter solstice sacrifice.
As a result, the stingy but sharp-eyed and keen-nosed Emperor Longyun immediately noticed that the wine Lin Shihe used was actually lychee wine.
This was quite a big deal. He pestered her relentlessly, almost bursting into tears to tell Lin Shihe about the heartbreak of losing his beloved son, and then forcibly took five jars of wine from Lin Shihe's hands.
Emperor Longyun returned home with a full load on this trip.
"So, do I still have those five jars of wine?" Lin Shiming asked, pursing his lips.
“Father drank it all long ago.” Lu Yuxi couldn’t help but pinch Lin Shiming’s drooping lips. “Don’t be angry. If you still want to drink, when the season comes this year, I will send someone to the south to brew a few jars for you and bring them back.”
Lin Shiming's eyes darted around, "I won't give it to Father."
"Okay. It's just for you."