At the entrance of Qianyuan Hall, half a head cautiously poked through the doorway.
Lu Yuan furtively scanned the hall, only for his gaze to meet Lu Cangqiong’s thoroughly darkened face.
Their eyes met.
Without saying a word, Lu Cangqiong grabbed a memorial from the royal desk and hurled it at him.
The memorial whistled through the doorway. Lu Yuan quickly ducked his head, and it skimmed past his hair before landing on the steps with a smack.
“Get in here!”
Lu Yuan shrank his neck and chuckled awkwardly before shuffling into the hall.
However, instead of walking toward the royal desk, he took a detour and slipped directly behind Lu Cangqiong. He placed both hands on the emperor’s shoulders and began massaging them.
He used considerable strength, kneading so firmly that Lu Cangqiong’s head involuntarily tilted backward.
“Father Emperor, who made you this angry?” Lu Yuan asked with genuine concern on his face. “Just tell your son who upset you, and I’ll avenge you. I can burn down his house, throw a sack over his head and beat him, or dump manure outside his front door. Take your pick.”
Lu Cangqiong said nothing, but the muscles beneath Lu Yuan’s hands grew even tenser.
Lu Yuan’s eyes darted around before he turned toward Zhou Fu, who stood nearby.
“Eunuch Zhou, what’s wrong with Father Emperor? Who angered him? Give me a hint so I’ll know how to deal with it.”
Zhou Fu was in his forties, with a pale, beardless face and an indigo eunuch’s robe.
Hearing Lu Yuan’s question, he shook his head with a helpless smile.
Throughout the entire royal court, only the Ninth Prince would dare enter the hall without greeting the emperor and then casually start massaging His Majesty’s shoulders.
Any other prince would have been dragged outside and forced to kneel before the Meridian Gate by now.
Zhou Fu gave Lu Yuan a meaningful look, clearly asking, ‘You caused all this yourself. How could you possibly not know?’
Lu Yuan pretended not to understand. Instead, he increased the pressure of his massage and continued rambling, “Father Emperor, your shoulders and neck are terribly stiff. Have you been reviewing memorials for too long? Let your son massage them a little longer…”
“Massage my ass!”
Lu Cangqiong abruptly slapped the armrest and shot to his feet.
With him suddenly standing, Lu Yuan’s hands fell into empty air.
Lu Cangqiong turned around and glared down at Lu Yuan. His chest heaved violently several times before he finally forced the words through clenched teeth.
“Lu Yuan! Do you even know what you’ve done?”
“Your son… doesn’t know.”
Lu Yuan took half a step backward, looking completely innocent.
“You violated your future sister-in-law!”
Lu Cangqiong’s roar exploded through Qianyuan Hall, making even the gauze curtains in the corners tremble.
“Your Second Brother’s fiancée went out of her way to arrange a marriage meeting for you, yet you violated your future sister-in-law! Do you have any respect for the law? Any sense of morality? What punishment do you think you deserve?”
Lu Yuan jumped backward in fright.
“Father Emperor, your son has been wronged more grievously than Dou E, who caused snow to fall in midsummer!”
He waved both hands frantically in front of his chest. “How could you say something like that? Is your son really that kind of person? Think about it. For the past ten years, all I’ve done is play with birds and go fishing. When have I ever even taken a serious look at some family’s young lady?”
“Then why were Su Yuling’s clothes in disarray? And how do you explain the mess inside your room?”
The playful expression disappeared from Lu Yuan’s face.
He became solemn, stepped half a pace closer, and lowered his voice.
“Father Emperor, Lu Cheng set the whole thing up.”
Lu Cangqiong frowned.
Lu Yuan continued, “He asked Su Yuling to bring a woman for me to meet. That woman was the daughter of the Vice Minister of the Court of Judicial Review. Father Emperor knows better than I do whose faction the Vice Minister belongs to, right?”
Lu Cangqiong’s gaze shifted slightly, but he did not concede anything.
“Continue.”
“The tea was drugged.”
Lu Yuan spread his hands. “Miss Su and I drank tea from the same pot. Nothing happened to me, but Miss Su was affected. That means the drug was meant for Miss Su, not me.”
“What are you trying to say?”
“Lu Cheng wanted to destroy Su Yuling’s chastity.”
Lu Yuan looked directly into Lu Cangqiong’s eyes and spoke each word clearly. “Su Yuling was born into a military family and raised with the temperament of a warrior. She doesn’t have the gentle, submissive nature expected of a sheltered noble lady. Lu Cheng has wanted to break off their engagement for a long time, but he doesn’t want to offend the Earl of Yongning, who commands military forces.”
“So he used me to ruin Su Yuling. That way, he could break off the engagement while throwing all the blame onto your son. Two birds with one stone.”
Lu Cangqiong remained silent for several seconds.
“Absurd.”
His voice turned cold. “The marriage between Lu Cheng and Su Yuling was personally decreed by me. Whether he wants to break off the engagement or not, he has no right to resort to such schemes. Besides…”
Lu Cangqiong stared sharply at Lu Yuan.
“Who would sacrifice his own fiancée’s chastity just to frame someone else? Do you seriously expect me to believe such nonsense?”
Lu Yuan sighed, wearing an expression that plainly said, ‘I knew you wouldn’t believe me.’
“Father Emperor, during the Jingyan era of the previous dynasty, Crown Prince Wu Ling poisoned his own three-year-old son and framed his Third Brother for it, all for the sake of winning the struggle for the throne.”
“The royal family is the most ruthless of all. If someone can kill his own son, what does a fiancée matter?”
Lu Cangqiong’s expression stiffened.
“Stop using events from the previous dynasty to fool me.”
After a brief silence, Lu Cangqiong suddenly became calm and serious.
“You brat, do you understand that once your reputation is ruined, my position will forever be beyond your reach?”
“If your son truly wanted that position, why would I allow something as trivial as reputation to restrain me?”
“I’d only end up being led around by the nose by those ministers sooner or later.”
Those two sentences nearly made Lu Cangqiong’s nose crooked with rage.
“Nonsense! If your reputation is ruined, won’t you lose the people’s support? How could the Empire possibly endure?”
“You win an Empire through the support of the people, but you preserve it through absolute military strength.” Lu Yuan was getting worked up as well. “Besides, do most commoners really care whether the emperor has a good reputation? Many of them don’t even know the emperor’s name.”
“What they care about is whether the emperor can keep them fed and clothed. They care about whether their grievances can be redressed, whether they can receive treatment when they fall ill, and whether their hard work will actually earn them something.”
“As for the emperor’s reputation, what the hell is that worth?”
“If an emperor can accomplish all those things, then even if he launches massive construction projects, the people will willingly bring bricks and tiles to help. Even if he imposes heavy taxes, they’ll simply believe the emperor must be facing difficulties and willingly contribute their money and grain.”
‘Reputation? What the hell is that worth?’
‘Li Er imprisoned his father, killed his brother, and took his younger brother’s wife, yet none of that stopped him from becoming an emperor revered throughout history!’
Hearing this, Zhou Fu’s heart skipped a beat.
‘Little Ancestor, please shut your mouth already!’
‘You’re going to cause a disaster!’
Lu Yuan’s words left Lu Cangqiong stunned.
His lips moved as though he wanted to refute him, yet in the end, he discovered that he had nothing to say.
Seeing this, Zhou Fu hurriedly steered the conversation back to the matter at hand.
“Your Majesty, if His Highness the Second Prince truly suffered an injustice, he must also be eager to present his grievance. Why not summon him here and let the two princes confront each other face-to-face? That would also give His Highness the Second Prince an opportunity to clear his name.”
His words were skillfully chosen.
On the surface, he appeared to be siding with Lu Cheng, but in reality, he was giving Lu Cangqiong a graceful way out of the argument.
Lu Cangqiong considered it with a dark expression before nodding.
“Go to the Royal Medical Institute and bring my Second Son here.”
A young eunuch accepted the order and hurried out.
The hall fell silent.
Lu Cangqiong sat back down on the dragon throne and began flipping through memorials, clearly pretending that Lu Yuan no longer existed.
Lu Yuan didn’t leave either. He simply stood in the middle of the hall, his eyes wandering around.
After a while, Lu Yuan spoke again.
“Father Emperor, your son has one more matter to discuss.”
Lu Cangqiong didn’t even raise his head.
“Speak.”
“Your son came here to request a royal decree.”
Lu Cangqiong finally raised his eyes and looked at him.
“You still dare ask me for a royal decree? What do you want, a gold medallion granting immunity from death?”
Lu Yuan drew a deep breath.
“Your son requests a royal decree allowing me to marry Su Yuling, the legitimate daughter of the Earl of Yongning Residence.”
“What did you say?”
Lu Cangqiong’s eyes widened with fury. The memorial in his hand crumpled slightly beneath his tightening fingers.
Seeing this, Zhou Fu hurriedly stepped forward.
He was ready to stop a fight at any moment.
“Your son wants to marry Su Yuling,” Lu Yuan repeated, his tone surprisingly calm.
“Absurd!”
Lu Cangqiong slammed his palm against the desk.
“Su Yuling is your Second Brother’s fiancée! You slept with your future sister-in-law, and now you want to marry her? If word gets out, what will the entire realm think of our royal family?”
“Father Emperor, hear me out first…”
“I won’t!”
Lu Cangqiong raised a hand to interrupt him and was just about to continue berating him when chaotic footsteps and intermittent groans came from outside the hall.
The next moment, several young eunuchs entered carrying a stretcher.
Someone was lying on it.
The person had been wrapped from head to toe in thick white bandages.
He looked exactly like a mummy, with only his eyes, nostrils, and mouth exposed.
Lu Cangqiong stared at the “thing” on the stretcher and froze.
“This is…”
Lu Yuan also tilted his head and took a look. Then he dramatically stepped backward, his face filled with shock.
“Whoa! What the hell is that?”
“Why did you bring a mummy in here?”