The Empress and Prince Ping, Mo Cheng, were nowhere to be seen.
Jun Wan thought for a moment. If the Empress and Mo Cheng were discussing important matters at a time like this, the safest place would undoubtedly be the Empress’s own palace.
Without hesitation, she teleported once again, appearing silently atop one of the roof beams in the Empress’s chambers.
As expected, besides the Empress and Mo Cheng, there were two other people present—her father, the Right Chancellor Zhou Sen, and her elder brother, Vice Minister of Revenue Zhou Tongjie.
The spot where Jun Wan appeared happened to be a perfect blind corner. Unless someone deliberately looked up, they would never notice her.
“Damn that Wang Cai!” Mo Cheng snarled through gritted teeth. “He actually escaped with the Imperial Jade Seal. Once I catch him, I’ll skin him alive!”
“Enough,” Zhou Sen said calmly. “I’ve already ordered craftsmen to work day and night. It won’t take long before a replacement is finished.”
“As for Wang Cai, he’s wounded. He can’t have gotten very far. Sooner or later, we’ll find him.”
“Your grandfather is right,” the Empress added. “Right now, the enthronement ceremony is what matters most.”
Mo Cheng still looked uneasy.
“Will the new jade seal really be identical to the original?”
“Don’t worry,” Zhou Sen replied confidently. “The family making this one is the same family that carved the founding emperor’s Imperial Seal.”
Only then did Mo Cheng finally relax.
Suddenly, as though something had occurred to him, his expression darkened.
“Grandfather, why are we only surrounding Mo Yan’s residence? Why don’t we simply kill that little bastard of his? Leaving him alive will only create trouble in the future.”
He looked at Zhou Sen with obvious dissatisfaction.
When his father had been alive, he had always been suppressed by him. Now that the Emperor was dead, he still had to obey his grandfather’s wishes.
Just give me a few years, Mo Cheng thought to himself. I’ll seize all the power for myself.
The Empress also looked at her father in confusion.
She hated Noble Consort Yi with all her heart.
While the Emperor had lived, that wretched woman had overshadowed her in every way. Now that she finally held power, why couldn’t she simply kill her?
Zhou Sen took a sip of tea before calmly setting down the cup.
“Our men have reported that Mo Yan escaped.”
“Although he was seriously wounded, no one knows whether he’ll survive. To be safe, I intend to use Noble Consort Yi and his son as bait to lure him out.”
The moment Zhou Sen finished speaking, Mo Cheng slammed his palm onto the table.
Bang!
“More than a hundred men went after him, and not only did they fail to kill him, they actually let him escape! Useless! They’re all complete trash!”
Zhou Sen’s face grew solemn.
“Mo Yan is no ordinary man. Not only is his martial arts skill extraordinary, but he also has many elite shadow guards protecting him.”
“The only reason he was injured this time was because another mysterious group attacked him at the same time as our men. Furthermore, one of his own subordinates had been bribed and stabbed him personally.”
“He was poisoned because of that. Otherwise, our entire force would likely have been wiped out.”
Mo Cheng frowned.
“Then what? If Mo Yan never shows himself, are we just supposed to let his son grow up under our noses and come back for revenge?”
“No.”
A cunning smile spread across Zhou Sen’s face.
“Keeping them safely locked away won’t necessarily force him to act. If too much time passes and his injuries heal, killing him will become much harder.”
“We must make him feel a sense of urgency.”
The Empress looked at her father.
“Father, what are you suggesting?”
“We could accuse Mo Yan of colluding with foreign enemies… and sentence Noble Consort Yi, the Princess Consort of Prince Zhan, and the others to exile.”
His face was filled with malice.
Mo Cheng immediately understood.
For ordinary people, exile was already a journey with little chance of survival.
For a woman who had just given birth and a newborn infant, it was practically a death sentence.
And if Mo Yan had survived, he would undoubtedly try to rescue them.
At that time, they could wipe them all out in one stroke.
“Good. We’ll do it that way.”
Mo Cheng made the decision immediately, even adding several more names to the list of those to be exiled.
Although the Empress was somewhat disappointed that she couldn’t personally kill Noble Consort Yi, the thought of making her suffer through exile was enough to satisfy her hatred.
Hidden above them, Jun Wan was so furious that she mentally cursed Zhou Sen’s ancestors for eighteen generations.
That old fox was plotting against Mo Yan, yet he had dragged her son into it as well.
Old bastard!
Then she turned her anger toward Mo Yan.
If you’re going to die, then just die! Why drag my son into this?
But after calming down, she suddenly remembered her dimensional space.
What am I afraid of?
Exile?
Fine.
Once they reached their destination, she could openly take little Jingchen, Nanny Lin, and the others and simply live a carefree, lazy life.
Thinking this way, Jun Wan’s mood instantly improved.
She teleported directly into the Imperial Treasury.
Since they were plotting against her and her son, she certainly wasn’t going to let them have an easy time.
She swept through the left and right treasury vaults, storing every last bit of gold, silver, jewels, bolts of silk, and precious treasures into her space.
Even the tribute gifts sent by foreign kingdoms weren’t spared.
Not even a scrap of cloth was left behind.
Since the Emperor was already dead anyway, she decided she might as well empty his private treasury too.
Afterward, she teleported onto a beam inside the Imperial Medical Academy.
The journey into exile would certainly require medicine.
When the storeroom happened to be empty, she jumped down from the beam and packed every medicinal herb she could find into her space.
After finishing there, she suddenly remembered that Noble Consort Yi would also be exiled.
Her wealth certainly couldn’t be left behind for others.
So she emptied both Noble Consort Yi’s treasury and the Empress’s treasury as well.
Noble Consort Yi had already given her many gifts that very day, and as the ruler of the harem, the Empress possessed an enormous collection of treasures.
As Jun Wan collected everything, she was secretly overjoyed.
With this much wealth, she could comfortably spend several lifetimes doing absolutely nothing.
While teleporting around, she also helped herself to quite a few things from the Imperial Kitchen.
If there hadn’t still been cooks and servants inside, she would have emptied the place until not even a single grain of rice remained.
Then she thought of Zhou Sen.
And Mo Cheng.
Without hesitation, she teleported to Zhou Sen’s residence.
Taking out the metal detector she had brought from the modern world, she quickly located the hidden treasury.
Gold, silver, jewels, antiques, paintings, calligraphy—
everything vanished into her space.
Next to the treasury were two more warehouses, one storing grain and the other medicinal supplies.
She cleaned them out completely.
After finishing the storerooms, she moved through every unoccupied part of the Zhou residence, taking everything worth taking.
Zhou Sen’s study.
The kitchen.
Food.
Daily necessities.
Decorations.
Anything she could fit into her space.
Looking at the now completely empty study, Jun Wan snorted.
“Hmph. That’s what you get for scheming against me.”
Then she teleported to Mo Cheng’s residence.
She showed him no mercy either.
Just like at the Zhou residence, she took every valuable thing she could find.
Even the bedding disappeared.
Hmph, let’s see how angry this makes you.
She couldn’t help thinking that if Mo Yan died, and these people died too, then no one would be left to covet her and her son.
Perhaps then they could simply stay in Prince Zhan’s residence forever instead of wandering through life in constant danger.
By the time Jun Wan had finished her grand looting operation, night had already fallen and the palace lanterns were lit.
She returned to a spot outside Prince Zhan’s residence and looked coldly at the soldiers surrounding it.
With a contemptuous snort, she teleported directly back into her own courtyard.
The moment she arrived, she heard little Jingchen crying inside the room.
She hurried in.
Nanny Lin was pacing back and forth with the crying baby in her arms.
The moment she saw Jun Wan return, she let out a sigh of relief.
“Princess, you’ve finally come back! The little imperial grandson has been crying from hunger. He refuses to drink the wet nurse’s milk.”
“Please, hurry and feed him.”