Jinghong Tower

The name He Xiaojiu may easily make people mistakenly believe that she is the ninth child in the family. In fact, He Xiaojiu is a rare only child in ancient times. Her mother only gave birth to her. It is said that in a family like hers, it is easy for the family to be wiped out.

However, He Xiaojiu did not have such worries because her mother was the emperor.

It is said that not long after her mother ascended the throne, her father ran to the capital to offer himself to her, and then she was born.

The reason why she was called Xiaojiu was because she had a brother who was more than fifty years older than her. Her brother's name was Xiaoba, so of course she called him Xiaojiu.

Of course, He Xiaojiu also has a formal name, her name is He Jiayu, but almost no one calls her by that name. Her mother, her father and her uncle all call her He Xiaojiu, while others respectfully call her the Crown Princess.

Yes, since He Xiaojiu could remember, she had been the Crown Princess.

He Xiaojiu was born and raised in the capital. As soon as she learned to write her own name, she followed her mother to court. However, her childhood was not boring. On the contrary, it was colorful.

He Xiaojiu has several good friends. They have been childhood sweethearts, get into trouble together, and get punished together. They are known as the Five Bullies of the Capital.

In terms of age, He Xiaojiu is the second to last among the five people. The only one younger than her is Lu Wen. However, among the Five Hegemons of the Capital, He Xiaojiu is ranked first.

It's not because she is the crown princess, but because among the five, she is the most likely to get into trouble and the best at fighting. The other four all respect her. The ninth sister's fame is not boasted, but earned with one punch.

After the morning court session, He Xiaojiu flew out of the palace like a runaway pony.

She went to Laomofang Hutong, which used to belong to her mother but later became hers.

At the door, He Xiaojiu met Zong Qin who had just dismounted: "Cousin, what gust of wind brought you here?"

Zong Qin is not among the Five Hegemons. Although he is only two years older than He Xiaojiu, he has never played with that group of little brats since childhood. How to say it, Zong Qin is the other people's child in the eyes of all parents. He is both civil and martial, excellent in character and study, and never gets into trouble. But whenever He Xiaojiu gets into trouble, Zong Qin will come uninvited, like this time.

Zong Qin snorted coldly, his eyes were sharp: "A child named Zhang Yaozu fell into a cesspool and drowned two days ago. Does this have anything to do with you?"

He Xiaojiu stood straight and said, "Since you asked me this, how could this matter have nothing to do with me?"
"He beat his own sister to death, he deserves to die. Besides, he jumped into the pit by himself, I didn't throw him in."

Zong Qin glanced at her and walked into the yard.

He Xiaojiu raised her eyebrows and followed behind with a swagger. As soon as Zong Qin turned around, she immediately held her head high and chest out and marched in step.

At this time, a little fat boy rushed over like flying, shouting as he ran: "Ninth sister is coming, ninth sister is coming."

When he raised his head, he met Zong Qin's calm eyes, and the fat boy swallowed back the rest of his words. Ninth sister said that besides Eighth Master, she only recognized one brother, and that was Boss Qin.

Boss Qin was so awesome. When he went out to sea at the age of eight, he remained calm when he encountered Japanese pirates. Instead, he disguised himself as an ordinary child and worked as a handyman on the Japanese ship, and then he knocked down all the people on the ship.

"Boss Qinqin, have you eaten?"

Zong Qin looked at the little fat boy: "Dong Jinbao?"

The little fat boy was delighted: "Mom, I have made it. Boss Qin knows that my name is Dong Jinbao!"

宗勤
He Xiaojiu rushed over, covered Dong Jinbao's mouth, and said to Zong Qin: "He went out without a brain today, brother, don't pay attention to him."

As He Xiaojiu was talking, he pushed Dong Jinbao into the side room. Zong Qin's cold voice came from behind him: "People in Zhangjia Village said that they saw a little fat man with a strange face asking people if there was a manure pit nearby. That little fat man must be Dong Jinbao."

He Xiaojiu looked up at the sky: "Brother, look, is that a dragon?"

Zong Qin didn't move at all. He Xiaojiu used this trick to escape from him when he was four years old. Now he was almost nine years old and still wanted to deceive him. He would not be fooled.

At this moment, a clear voice came: "Stupid, really stupid, if it were me, I would never leave these handles."

Zong Qin looked over and saw a little boy walking out of the house. He looked younger than He Xiaojiu and Dong Jinbao, only about six or seven years old. His skin was as white as fine porcelain and his facial features were delicate. If it weren't for the arrogance on his face, people would mistake him for a girl.

Zong Qin knew who he was, Lu Wen! His troublesome little cousin.

Following Lu Wen came two children, a boy and a girl. The one with a gentle and handsome appearance and bookish look was Feng Moqiu, and the little girl with a hero's knot on her hair was Feng Moqiu's twin sister Feng Jingchun.

The brother and sister in the Feng family, one looks like their father and the other looks like their mother. Their father is Feng Xieying and their mother is the great general He Xiulong. Everyone thought that the child they would have would be both talented in civil and military affairs. But the fact is that one of them is indeed talented in both civil and military affairs, but the other one only likes literature and painting, let alone martial arts. He would not even walk a few more steps. The other one is just the opposite. As soon as she could walk, she followed her mother, waving her little arms and laughing. When she was a little older, she had a headache if she was asked to study, and wielding swords and sticks was her favorite.

Hearing Lu Wen calling him stupid, Dong Jinbao immediately became unhappy. He broke free from his ninth sister's clutches, waved his hands, and bared his teeth and claws at Lu Wen: "Little Wen, don't just talk without doing anything. If you have the ability, let's compete to see who is the dumbest one."

Lu Wen snorted coldly: "Let's compete, I'm not afraid of you."

As he spoke, he drew out a dagger with a swish. This was not an ordinary dagger, but a sword made according to his height.

Seeing him draw his sword, Dong Jinbao made a face and said, "Xiao Wenzi, do you want Brother Bao to sharpen your sword for you?"

Lu asked: "Even an unsharpened sword can defeat you."

Dong Jinbao: "Tsk."

Seeing the two arguing, Zong Qin said, "There is a big tree about five feet away from the pit. There is a circle of grooves on the tree. Someone used the tree to set up a mechanism. After Zhang Yaozu touched the mechanism, he was thrown into the pit with great force. He was injured on his leg, so he couldn't climb out of the pit. It was the mechanism that injured his leg. It killed two birds with one stone. It's amazing."

Dong Jinbao shook his head, looking complacent, and said to Lu Wen: "Little Wen, did you hear that? Do you know what it means to kill someone without being seen? I am like this. Who of us is the fool?"

Lu Wen turned his face away angrily. Dong Jinbao was so annoying. Why didn't he grow up yet? His great-grandmother said that his sword would be sharpened only when he was sixteen years old. Then Dong Jinbao would not dare to laugh at him anymore. You know, Dong Jinbao had laughed at him several times because his sword was not sharpened.

He Xiaojiu listened to the conversations, her little head spinning rapidly. Since the little fat man did it without anyone noticing, why did Boss Qin come after them? As if he had guessed what she was thinking, Zong Qin said, "You think you did it perfectly, but you probably don't know that the government office where Zhangjia Village is located has a new judge who is good at criminal cases. Although Zhang's parents thought that Zhang Yaozu died in an accident, the extremely smart and courageous judge saw something fishy at a glance. After careful reasoning, he finally determined that there were two murderers. One tricked Zhang Yaozu out of his hiding place, and the other set up a trap to make Zhang Yaozu die in the pit. And these two murderers are here now."

Feng Jingchun, who had been silent, became unhappy: "Boss Qin, who is this Tongpan? He is totally wrong. There are not two people, but four. My brother and I went there too. Why didn't you tell me?"

Everyone
Lu Wen: I won’t cry. I don’t envy them. I will definitely not cry. Wow——

Feng Moqiu felt that his sister was so stupid. If he had known this earlier, he should have shared a little bit of his wisdom with her before she was born.

"Do I need to ask? Boss Qin made a very clear point. The judge is of course himself."

Everyone
He Xiaojiu's eyes lit up, her brother became an official!
"Brother, you are only eleven years old. How come you are an official?" As the crown princess, even though He Xiaojiu had to attend court ten days a month, she didn't know everything, let alone a minor official like Tongpan.

Of course, she didn't mean to complain that her brother's official position was low.

Zong Qin: "The last Tongpan was a retired soldier who only knew how to arrest people but not solve cases. The county magistrate was also not good at criminal law, which led to a large backlog of cases. So I took over."

So that's how it is. At this moment, the little brats were full of admiration. Being an official at the age of eleven, is this still a human being? Definitely not a human being, but a god, an absolute god, a great god!

They completely forgot that this person was here to catch the murderer, and that murderer happened to be them.

Fortunately, there is still one person who is relatively sober, and that is Ninth Sister.

He Xiaojiu slapped his forehead and argued: "Although Zhang Yaozu is only ten years old, he is cruel by nature. He beat his three-year-old sister to death for a trivial matter. Afterwards, in order to hide the crime, he asked his grandparents to throw away his sister's body and announced that his sister was lost. The county magistrate took it very seriously and mobilized the people of the county to search for her. Zhang Yaozu cried a lot, as if he wanted to find his sister. Such a scum is a born criminal. But after the case was solved, because he was still a child, he could only be sentenced to one month of hard labor. But even for this month of hard labor, he pretended to be sick and has not been executed so far. Mr. Tongpan, don’t you think it is unjust if he doesn’t die?"

Zong Qin was prepared. He took out a book from his pocket and handed it to He Xiaojiu: "Take a look."

He Xiaojiu took a glance and saw the Great Criminal Law.

This was written by her mother and Feng Moqiu's father together.

"No, we are younger than Zhang Yaozu. We are also children. Lord Tongpan, you can't arrest us."

Zong Qin nodded: "Okay, I won't catch you."

After saying that, he actually turned and left.

Looking at his disappearing back, several people looked at each other, wondering why they were a little panicked.
Three days later, it was the day when He Xiaojiu went to court to attend government affairs. As soon as she finished her court session, she wanted to run away, but was grabbed by her mother. Then, Yuan Xiaodong took out a verdict, and four of the five tyrants in the capital were found guilty of conspiracy to murder. Considering their young age, they were sentenced to hard labor for three months.

On this day, the Crown Princess He Xiaojiu, the sons and daughters of the Prime Minister and the General, and the fat son of the Minister of Works left the capital in disgrace. Lu Wen also went with them. He went voluntarily and no one forced him.

Zong Qin was a qualified Tongpan, and he personally escorted them out of the capital. However, He Xiaojiu had already inquired about it and found out that Zong Qin was only an acting Tongpan. Not only did he not have a salary, he even had to pay two taels of silver to the county government every month.

But regardless of whether they have a salary or not, Zong Qin is now an official, and the four of them are prisoners.

Minor prisoners did not have to be put in shackles, but there were no prison carts to sit in. Zong Qin rode on a horse, and they could only walk on foot to the place where they were doing hard labor.

It was a small mountain village thirty miles away from the capital.

Although He Xiaojiu and Feng Jingchun were nine and less than nine years old respectively, they had been practicing martial arts since childhood and had a solid foundation in martial arts. Although it was very tiring, they were able to persist. Even the youngest, Lu Wen, followed closely without saying a word.

It was hard for Dong Jinbao and Feng Moqiu. Dong Jinbao's mother was the Minister of Works Dong Jinzhen, who was known as the number one genius in Dacheng. Dong Jinbao learned martial arts from He Xiaojiu, who said that he was not cut out for martial arts, so one of them didn't teach hard, and the other didn't learn hard either.

As for Feng Moqiu, there is no need to mention it. He doesn't like learning martial arts, doesn't like sports, and doesn't like walking.

As you can imagine, Feng Moqiu and Dong Jinbao, the two brothers in distress, fell behind. As He Xiaojiu walked, he turned back and could no longer see any trace of the two men.

Feng Jingchun: "It's okay, my brother knows the village we are going to, he and the baby will definitely find it, don't worry."

He Xiaojiu thought so too and decided not to go back to look for them. Besides, if she went back to look for them, her eldest cousin who was the acting magistrate would think she was going to become a fugitive.

He Xiaojiu and Feng Jingchun continued to move forward, and Lu Wenmu followed behind them with her pretty little face, and the three of them walked forward panting.

Feng Moqiu and Dong Jinbao were resting on the side of the road at this time. This was their 25th rest.

Dong Jinbao stretched his neck to look: "Well, we can't see them anymore. They left us behind."

Feng Moqiu took out a map and said, "Don't worry, I have this. We can find the village according to the map. It's just a matter of time."

Dong Jinbao took out a kettle from his backpack, unscrewed the lid and took a sip. Feng Moqiu's eyes lit up: "Your kettle is so unique, I've never seen it before."

Dong Jinbao looked very proud: "How is it? Not bad, right? I made this myself, but I only made two. One for Sister Nine and one for me. If you like it, I will make another one when I return to the capital and I can sell one to you."

Feng Moqiu asked hurriedly: "How much do you want to sell it to me?"

Dong Jinbao: "The same kettle as the Crown Princess's, it should be sold for at least 100 taels each."

Feng Moqiu: "Why don't you go and rob it?"

Dong Jinbao quickly put away the kettle, fearing that Feng Moqiu would come to snatch it. Seeing his money-grubbing look, Feng Moqiu wanted to bite him, but forget it, he was still changing his teeth, so he didn't bite him this time.

At this time, a thin uncle and a fat aunt came from a distance. The fat aunt looked around and didn't see anyone else, so she winked at the thin uncle. The two walked up to them and said with a smile: "Two boys, you came out by yourself, where are the adults at home?" (End of this chapter)