Translator: Dj2203
Editor: Dj2203
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A heavy rain fell in the capital, and the sky was gloomy. Because of the recent incident, no one dared to offend the emperor. Several members of the Crown Prince’s faction even feigned illness and stayed home, trying their best to minimize their presence.
With all the physical evidence in hand, the Imperial Guards seized the gold and silver he had amassed during last year’s disaster relief efforts from the Crown Prince’s residence; there was no way to overturn the case. After leaving the Golden Palace, the Prime Minister developed a deep rift with the Empress and the rest of the Crown Prince’s faction— after all, it was he who entered the palace late at night to report the matter. How could this be explained?
Unable to explain, the prime minister, seething with anger, fell ill and lay in bed for three whole days without attending court.
He never believed that the Crown Prince could accomplish these things on his own.
Even if the Crown Prince was the one who amassed wealth, what about the subsequent substitutions, finding a scapegoat, and framing the Fifth Prince for failing to perform his duties?
Did the Emperor not even consider that the Crown Prince was so stupid and foolish, did he even have the brains for this?
There must be someone pulling the strings behind the scenes, but who was it— the fifth prince? The second prince? Or the ninth prince?
The Prime Minister had a gut feeling that the letter he exchanged with the Crown Prince that night probably never reached the Crown Prince; he was likely betrayed by someone. At this time, the Crown Prince was under house arrest, and no one could go to the Eastern Palace, so he had no way to question the Crown Prince.
However, there was still that relative— he then remembered to call the relative who had sent the message over, but to his surprise, the servant rushed in, pale-faced, and knelt before him, saying that the relative had fallen and drowned in the canal while on patrol the previous night.
The prime minister nearly choked. The trail had gone cold.
….
Raindrops, like a continuous stream, pelted down across the capital, washing away the blood of those who had died in the West Market. The shocking events that gripped the entire capital continued to reverberate among the officials, though no one dared to discuss them openly.
Late that night, a discreet sedan chair with a blue curtain was parked on the side path of the Ninth Prince’s residence.
The servants of the Ninth Prince’s residence originally obeyed Lu Huan’s orders not to see or inform anyone who came.
But when the person in the sedan chair with the green curtain revealed a hand and took out a waist token, the servants at the door hesitated for a moment, and then hurriedly went in to report.
Half an incense stick later, the servant returned and said to the person in the sedan chair with trepidation, “His Highness is asleep, Second Prince, please return.”
The smile on the person’s face froze for a moment, then their gaze turned slightly cold.
A moment later, the sedan chair with its green curtains returned home.
….
This matter, from beginning to end, was both simple and complex.
Lu Huan guessed it the day he went to see the Minister of War.
The Hu merchant had connections with him, the Crown Prince, and the Fifth Prince, but who was the one who had completely disappeared without a trace?
This incident stemmed from the series of innocent murders of several ordinary citizens in the capital late at night. On one occasion, a corpse lay on the ground overnight, which happened to disturb the Empress Dowager, who was traveling incognito to worship Buddha. The Empress Dowager was so frightened that she fell ill and never recovered. The Emperor was enraged and ordered the Fifth Prince and the Court of Judicial Review to thoroughly investigate the matter.
The Fifth Prince was no fool; he had already figured out that this matter was related to the Crown Prince. However, he chose to remain silent and, following the clues provided by the Crown Prince, let the Hu merchant go while arresting the scapegoats.
He wasn’t letting the Crown Prince off the hook, but rather waiting for the matter to escalate and for public resentment to grow, so that he could bring out the truth and report it to the Emperor, exposing the Crown Prince and some of his cronies for embezzling funds.
Otherwise, how could the death of just a few people possibly bring down the Crown Prince? The Emperor would probably just downplay the matter.
It would inevitably lead to widespread public resentment and even insults reaching the emperor’s doorstep, leaving the court unable to explain itself, before the emperor would finally unleash his fury.
The Fifth Prince never expected that before he could finish the matter, the prime minister would suddenly appear in the palace late at night, causing the scandal to be exposed prematurely.
The Fifth Prince looked grim. He hadn’t accomplished anything this way. But was left speechless, branded as a fool who was “muddled-headed, arrested the wrong person, and was incompetent.”
The emperor fined him by withholding his salary.
However, what pleased the Fifth Prince was that with the Crown Prince confined to his quarters, it was uncertain when he would be able to return to court. Even the Crown Prince’s seal had been stripped away; it seemed the Emperor was very angry.
The only thing he didn’t understand was why the prime minister, who had always stood on the side of the crown prince, would suddenly turn against him.
He didn’t understand, and neither did the Empress and the rest of the Crown Prince’s faction, which led to a near severing of ties with the Prime Minister and a growing rift between them.
….
However, the Prime Minister was right about one thing in the Golden Palace: the Crown Prince was mediocre and incapable of handling the aftermath so perfectly.
The Crown Prince was greedy for money, the Second Prince was low-key, the Third Prince was lustful, and the Fifth Prince was ambitious.
Last year, the Crown Prince amassed a large fortune during the famine, an act confirmed by the account books unearthed by the Imperial Guards. After spring arrived, the Crown Prince, unable to resist, contacted foreign merchants to launder money, which was also true.
However, everything that followed had nothing to do with the Crown Prince.
After discovering that the Crown Prince had amassed wealth, the Second Prince devised a scheme that had been brewing for a long time. Before the merchant entered the city, he secretly kidnapped the merchant’s wife and children, forcing the merchant to obey his orders. This affair traced back to before the merchant entered the city; the merchant had no whereabouts and could not be traced at all. On the surface, the merchant was chosen by the Crown Prince to launder money, but in reality, he was sent to the Crown Prince by the Second Prince.
After lying low all winter, the Crown Prince finally found a breakthrough in money laundering. In addition, this foreign merchant was extremely capable, so he conspired with him at the banquet a few months ago.
The crown prince did only this one thing.
The subsequent search for a scapegoat with an innocent background and the incident of the corpse bumping into the Empress Dowager were all orchestrated by the Second Prince in secret. His reason was the same as the Fifth Prince’s: to incite public resentment. Once the resentment was strong enough, he would expose the affair, thus hastening the Crown Prince’s demise.
Originally, in his plan, it was either the Fifth Prince or Lu Huan who would expose this matter.
If the Fifth Prince exposed this, he could bring down the Crown Prince, and the Fifth Prince would become sworn enemies with the Crown Prince’s faction.
If Lu Huan were to expose this, he could not only bring down the Crown Prince, but also give the Fifth Prince a bad reputation for incompetence, and also make Lu Huan a target of hatred for the Crown Prince’s faction.
Regardless of whether the snipe or the clam fought, he could still reap the benefits.
However, while he was using others as pawns, he didn’t expect that Lu Huan would beat him to it.
Lu Huan led the Prime Minister’s informant to the Drunken Flower Pavilion in the West Market, and transferred the knife into the Prime Minister’s hands.
Lu Huan only took this one step, which was essentially a self-preservation measure. He had met the emperor and knew his character well; when it came to spies, no prince’s residence had as many as the emperor’s in the palace. In the capital, nothing could be hidden from the emperor.
Therefore, it was actually the one in the palace who switched the Prime Minister’s letter halfway through.
The Crown Prince himself may not believe it, but it was actually the Emperor who was single-mindedly trying to bring down the Prime Minister and weaken the connection between the Prime Minister and the Crown Prince’s faction.
When the emperor saw that Lu Huan had brought the prime minister to his doorstep, he seized the opportunity and pinned the blame for the accusation on the prime minister. After that, no matter what happened to the crown prince, the rift between the crown prince’s faction and the prime minister would widen considerably, severely disrupting the alliance between the crown prince, the prime minister, the empress, and the crown prince’s faction.
….
However, the Second Prince probably thought that Lu Huan would be the one to deliver the final blow, so he came here tonight to see if there was any room for an alliance.
The second prince, the fifth prince, the prime minister, and the crown prince were all unable to see the full picture.
The Emperor and Lu Huan were probably the only two who knew the whole story.
The Emperor did not touch the Second Prince. Lu Huan could roughly guess his considerations. It was not because he was reluctant to let him go, but because the matter was already big enough. If another prince were to be involved, the royal family would suffer too much loss of face.
While Lu Huan was silently trying to decipher the Emperor’s intentions.
In the Daming Palace, gazing at the portrait of Consort Qing, the Emperor also felt that the Ninth Prince was unfathomable— what had Lu Huan done in this matter? He had done nothing; upon closer examination, it was even impossible to punish him. He had merely relayed a message to Grand Commandant Yun: “I’ve heard the wine at Druken Flower Pavilion is delicious; Grand Commandant Yun, why don’t you invite a few officials to try it? I, Your Highness, will pay for it.”
Could he be punished for such an invitation?
But with just this invitation, he skilfully deflected the trouble that his second and fifth brothers were trying to drag into him, and also handed over the knife.
The emperor even suspected that he had guessed his intentions, which was why he chose the prime minister.
Inside the Daming Palace, the Emperor’s expression was unreadable.
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