Minister of Dali Temple Wang Shian entered the palace overnight.
The night wind made the palace lanterns flicker on and off. The Emperor was being tormented by a headache and could hardly sleep. Upon hearing that the Minister of Dali Temple requested an audience in the middle of the night, he forced himself to sit up in the Study Room despite his illness.
A waist token belonging to the Eastern Palace was presented.
"What did you say?" The Emperor suddenly grabbed the jade token, his finger joints turning white from the force.
"Your Majesty, this assassin infiltrated the Heavenly Prison, intending to assassinate the Xue Family's Second Young Lady, Xue Manman. By the time Your Humble Servant arrived, the assassin had already been subdued on the spot by the Eldest Miss of the Dingguo Mansion. What was found on their person was precisely this Eastern Palace waist token. According to the assassin's confession, they were acting under the orders of the Crown Prince to kill to silence the witness."
Wang Shian knelt on the ground, sweat dripping from his temples onto the gold bricks.
"You scoundrel!" The Emperor smashed the jade token hard onto the ground, his chest heaving violently. He looked at the shattered jade pieces on the ground, while the Crown Prince's usual gentle and humble face appeared before his eyes.
For the sake of that position, he would slaughter his own kin and frame loyal subjects; now, he had even stooped to murder to silence a witness!
"Issue the decree!" The Emperor gritted his teeth as he squeezed out these words. "At tomorrow's Morning Court, summon the Three Judicial Offices for a trial. Bring that beast, along with Prince Yu and Duke Dingguo, all before me! I want to see exactly how many innocent people there are among all these civil and military officials!"
That night, no one in the Capital City slept.
Prince Yu's Estate. Fu Nanli sat listlessly in his chair, with the secret letters he had just received scattered across the table in front of him.
He clenched his fists, his fingernails digging into his flesh. "Fu Jing... what a cruel heart you have!"
He finally understood that from the very beginning, the Crown Prince had been using him. He had sent Xue Manman to his side, provoked his relationship with the Dingguo Mansion, and even indulged him in impeaching Duke Dingguo in the Imperial Court.
All the dirty work was done by him, Fu Nanli, and he was the one who played the villain. The Crown Prince stood behind him with clean hands, waiting for him to crush the hard bone that was the Dingguo Mansion, only to reap the rewards himself.
"So, this king was nothing but a joke." Fu Nanli twitched the corner of his mouth in self-mockery and kicked over the table in front of him.
Dawn arrived.
In the Golden Palace Hall, the atmosphere was as solemn as a massive slab of lead. All civil and military officials held their breath, not daring to breathe.
Crown Prince Fu Jing knelt below the Imperial Steps, his back straight, still maintaining that elegant and upright appearance.
"Father Emperor, please be discerning. This son is innocent. How can a single waist token and the confession of an assassin be enough to convict me? This must be someone framing me, intending to shake the National Foundation!"
"Bring in Xue Manman!" The Emperor snorted coldly.
A sound of chains dragging across the floor came from outside the Palace gate.
Xue Manman was dragged in by two imperial guards. Her hair was disheveled, and her prisoner uniform was covered in bloodstains. That once beautiful face was now covered in crisscrossing blood scabs.
She looked at the court officials filling the hall and suddenly burst out laughing.
"So many people... did the Jade Emperor send you all to pick up this fairy?"
The Crown Prince lowered his eyes, hiding the murderous intent in his gaze. This mad woman was indeed a disaster if left alive.
"Xue Manman!" The Emperor shouted angrily.
Xue Manman seemed to be startled awake; she suddenly raised her head and stared straight at the Crown Prince. "It was you! You were the one who told me to go to the Dingguo Mansion! You said Prince Yu was a brainless fool, and as long as I charmed him, I could use his hands to destroy the Xue Family!"
She gesticulated wildly, her voice shrill and harsh. "I did everything! The letter from Marquis Zhongyong was also given to me by you! What else do you want me to do? Why did you send people to kill me? You liar!"
Every one of her words was like a loud slap, striking the Crown Prince's face hard.
"Utter nonsense!" The Crown Prince suddenly looked up. "Father Emperor, this poisonous woman has gone mad; how can her words be trusted!"
"If the words of a mad woman cannot be trusted, what about the words of a dead person?"
Xue Tingxue stepped out from the ranks of the military generals, holding a bright yellow brocade box in her hands.
"Reporting to Your Majesty, this is the handwritten blood letter that Marquis Zhongyong secretly gave to Your Humble Servant before he was executed, in order to protect the only bloodline he had left wandering outside."
She opened the brocade box and took out a blood-stained piece of white silk.
"It records in detail how the Crown Prince instructed him to withhold military equipment, how he transported inferior weapons to the Northern Border, and how he ordered him to collude with the Hu people, intending to eliminate my elder brother at Luoyan Valley—all of these schemes are recorded!"
Xue Tingxue's voice was crisp and resonant. "Every transaction, every conspiracy, is written clearly on it, and it is stamped with the Crown Prince's personal seal!"
The Crown Prince's body swayed.
He never expected that Marquis Zhongyong, whose nine generations of relatives he had executed, would have kept such a trump card!
"Fu Jing! What else do you have to say!" The Emperor was trembling all over with rage.
The Crown Prince knew the General Trend was lost. He suddenly turned his head and pointed at Fu Nanli, who was standing to the side.
"Father Emperor! It was the Third Brother! He coveted my position as the Crown Prince and used this forged evidence to force me! I was also coerced by him!"
"Bullshit!" Fu Nanli no longer cared about any princely decorum and charged forward like an enraged bull. "You hypocrite! You dare not take responsibility for what you've done! You were the one who shoved that bitch onto me! You were the one who wanted to swallow the military power of the Dingguo Mansion!"
"You are slandering me! It was clearly you who were greedy beyond measure!"
"You are the one who is despicable and shameless!"
The two princes, who were usually high and mighty, were now bickering and tearing at each other like street ruffians in the Golden Palace Hall.
The civil and military officials looked at each other, none of them daring to step forward to break up the fight.
The Emperor watched this absurd scene, feeling only a wave of dizziness.
"Prince Ning'an has arrived—"
The Grand Eunuch's high-pitched announcement broke the chaos in the hall.
Fu Tingyuan sat in his wheelchair, being slowly pushed in by Qing Feng. He was wearing a prince's python robe, his expression cold.
"Third Brother, why have you come?" The Emperor supported himself on the Dragon Throne and sat up straight.
Fu Tingyuan had Qing Feng present a yellowed file.
"Imperial brother, this Younger Brother Minister has here a file regarding the old case of the military defeat at the Northern Border ten years ago."
His voice was not loud, but it made the entire Great Hall go silent in an instant.
"Back then, our army's marching route was leaked, which led to this Younger Brother Minister being ambushed, my legs being crippled, and thirty thousand soldiers spilling their blood on the battlefield." Fu Tingyuan looked at the Emperor, his words sharp as knives. "According to the records in the file, the one who leaked the secret back then was precisely a guest advisor most favored by the Crown Prince at the time."
"Boom—"
The Emperor felt as if he had been struck by lightning.
His most proud warrior brother, the humiliation of the Great Xuan Dynasty for ten years. The mastermind behind it was actually his own son!
"You... you beast!" The Emperor pointed at the Crown Prince, his finger trembling like a withered leaf shivering in the wind.
Xue Manman suddenly burst out laughing.
"Hahaha! How interesting! All are chess pieces! All are chess pieces in someone else's hands!" She pointed at the Crown Prince, pointed at Prince Yu, and even pointed at the Emperor. "Calculating back and forth, who won in the end? Everyone is nothing but mud on the ground!"
"Pfft—"
The Emperor could no longer hold on; a mouthful of black blood spurted out, and he fell straight backward.
"Your Majesty!"
"Protect the Emperor! Quickly summon the Imperial Physician!"
The Golden Palace Hall turned into a mess.
Xue Tingxue stood in the center of the chaos, watching this scene coldly. The sky of the Capital City had finally changed.
✦✦✦