I, Kiriko, the Cheater

The little emperor felt curious, so he also walked over and stood beside the surrounding townspeople.

The two people squatting on the ground each drew a pattern on the ground that the little emperor could not understand. After the pattern was drawn, they put their hands on the ground respectively.

The blue lightning is like a small snake, spreading around the surrounding area. In the flash of the blue lightning, the muddy road on the ground is replaced with a brand new road surface.

The townspeople who watched were amazed.

"Wow, that's amazing."

"This kind of road feels very solid, and I don't have to worry about rain and mud."

"how did you do that?"

"You don't understand this. It's called alchemy. These alchemists were invited from the west by Her Royal Highness to build bridges and roads for us."

"His Royal Highness is so kind to us, I will always like Her Royal Highness."

Originally, the little emperor was very happy to see this miraculous scene, but after hearing what the townspeople said, his expression was a little ugly.

He turned his head and saw that Tongzi did not follow, but was at the other end of the road, in front of a roadside stall.

He lowered his head and trotted over, just in time to see Tongzi say to the stall owner: "Two fried chicken nuggets, a large one."

The little emperor stood beside Tongzi, with a confused expression on his face, but he finally raised his head and looked at the stall owner who was frying chicken nuggets: "Uncle, I want to ask you something."

"What do you want to ask, brother?" The stall owner asked with a smile when he saw that the little emperor was with Tongzi, and that the little emperor looked very cute.

"What kind of person does uncle think Her Royal Highness is?"

"His Royal Highness? Uh... how should I say it?" The oil pan sizzled, and the stall owner showed a thoughtful expression, "I don't have much education, so I don't know how to say it, but it's the same as everyone said, Your Royal Highness is doing well."

"What's the best way?"

The stall owner suddenly pointed to two members of the security team passing by on the road: "Little brother, have you seen the people from the security team over there?"

The little emperor looked at the marks on the uniforms of the two guards and nodded.

"If it was before, those guys would have come to collect the protection fee. If they don't pay, they will confiscate my stall. If I dare to complain a little, they will beat me up."

The stall owner used an understatement to describe things that were not light at all.

"But it's different now. Not only will those guys not charge protection fees, but they will also protect us from harassment. If we have difficulties, we can find them... It's funny to say, my wife gave birth last month, and I ran home in a hurry , I didn’t even have time to close the stall, and finally got my wife’s business done, I thought that the stall would definitely be stolen by other bastards, but guess what?”

The little emperor was also curious immediately: "How is it?"

"There was a guard standing in front of my stall and kept watching for me. I saw that he had worked very hard. I wanted to thank him and treat him to free fried chicken, but he left without eating."

"...Uncle, you were wronged before, why didn't you go to the imperial capital, the guard team of the imperial capital is in charge of all towns and villages near the imperial capital, if you go to the imperial capital, there will definitely be justice for you."

"Forget it, little brother, do you think that the imperial capital is clean?" The stall owner waved his hands with disdain on his face, "The captain of the guard in the imperial capital before seemed to be called Oka the hell. Collusion, the rich businessman did something dirty, let the ghost Oka find a scapegoat for him to take the blame."

The little emperor couldn't believe it: "This... the imperial capital is so dark?"

"Little brother, you and your sister used to live in the north, right?"

This time, in order to prevent the little emperor from uttering wrong words and being identified, Tongzi, who was not planning to speak, replied: "Yes, uncle, we are from the north. This is our first time in the imperial capital. Live in Montenegro City."

"Black Mountain City? That's the place where Her Royal Highness raised troops first, isn't that great?"

The uncle looked yearning and envious.

"No wonder you don't know the darkness of the imperial capital... Oh, I'm talking about the darkness of the former imperial capital."

"Uncle, were the previous emperors very dark?" The little emperor asked unconvinced, "With the assistance of Minister Ernest, the previous emperor was also diligent and diligent, and wanted to make this country better, but he was wrong. ?"

"Little brother, it seems that you don't understand anything. Your sister protects you very well." The uncle realized his impoliteness, and quickly apologized to Tongzi, "Miss, I'm sorry, I didn't mean it."

Tongzi said: "It's okay, actually we also want to know something about the past, if you don't mind, please tell us."

"Well then," the uncle fell into the memory, "When the former emperor was still there, Mr. Joly managed the country very well. Later, for some unknown reason, Mr. Joly stepped down from the position of minister. , let that bastard Ernest go up, since that bastard came to power, our life is getting more and more difficult every day."

"First of all, there are taxes. There are countless taxes that have never been heard of before. These taxes directly overwhelm us ordinary people. I used to set up a stall here for a day and sold all the food on the stall. It’s not enough to pay taxes.”

"Then there are robbers and thieves. There are really more robbers than rats. There are robbers everywhere outside. Sometimes when there are many robbers, they will attack the town. Fortunately, this kind of thing has not happened in our town, but other towns have been breached. Not to mention how miserable it is, the whole town was killed no matter whether it was people or cattle and sheep, and even the town was burned down."

When the little emperor heard this, his eyes widened in surprise.

"Then the imperial army doesn't care?"

"Imperial Army? Humph!"

The uncle wanted to spit on the ground disdainfully, but then he swallowed his saliva in embarrassment when he saw the slogan "Emphasis on civility, hygiene, reforming bad habits, and establishing a new style" that had just been painted on the wall across the road go down.

"The tax collector will never forget where our town is, but the imperial army will never remember where our town is. When something goes wrong, we can only rely on ourselves except to beg God."

The uncle sighed.

"Of course, not all the officials in the court are like Ornest. There are also many civil servants of the Conscience faction among them, but a relative of mine who lives in the imperial capital told me that there are civil servants of the Conscience faction almost every once in a while. , was executed for admonishing, and in the worst case, sometimes even a conscientious civil servant was executed a day, and later, Ornest became more and more powerful, and no one could stop him."

The stall owner's words dealt a great blow to the little emperor. He tore away the hypocrisy that Minister Hornest had tried his best to cover up, and showed the little emperor the bloody truth inside.

He staggered a few steps, his face was pale: "How could this happen... It's just a treacherous minister who I executed clearly. The minister told me so, how could this be?"

Suspicion immediately appeared on the uncle's face: "Zhen?"

Tongzi quickly smoothed things over and said: "Ahahahahaha, please don't laugh at me, my brother is reciting lines. He has liked the theater troupe performing in our town since he was a child, and he likes to imitate the actors in the troupe and recite lines when he has nothing to do. My wish when I grow up is to join a theater troupe."

"That's right, it's good to join a troupe," the uncle didn't think much about it. "It's not like before. Before, everyone couldn't even fill their stomachs. How could they have money to go to the troupe's performances? But it's different now. It's finally peaceful, and it will definitely get better and better in the future."