The Empress Dowager's death was a national mourning event, and a ten-day memorial ceremony was held in the palace. Apart from the Emperor, all officials and members of the royal family had to kneel in the mourning hall for three days as a sign of respect.

Song Ting, on the other hand, was spared all this trouble because he was assigned to guard duty.

On the first morning, even the emperor had to kneel. Chu Minghuan hadn't suffered like this for many years. When he got up, he couldn't even stand up straight. If it weren't for the eunuchs supporting him from behind, he probably would have fallen in front of everyone.

His eyes were red and his face was pale, perfectly portraying the heartbroken loss of his mother. But Song Ting knew perfectly well that the young emperor was just acting.

There was some sadness, after all, she was my biological mother, and I had been protected by her when I was young. We truly loved each other.

But the imperial family is the most ruthless; the little bit of kinship between the young emperor and the empress dowager had long been crushed over the years.

Especially since the Empress Dowager handed the Emperor over to Zhang Bingzhi in order to save her own life, the young Emperor had long been utterly disappointed in him.

All these years of maternal love and filial piety were just for show, to deceive Zhang Bingzhi.

But perhaps the Empress Dowager herself never realized this. She was still trapped in the past, thinking only of herself as that weak and helpless palace concubine, and thus assumed that the young emperor was the same.

But the young emperor had long since grown up and longed to take power. Now that Zhang Bingzhi was dead, and the Empress Dowager was dead, the young emperor would be free after this final act.

The mourning hall was set up in the Changyan Hall, next to the Heqing Pond. After the emperor came out of the mourning hall, he was helped by Eunuch Bao to rest at the Heqing Pond. He no longer needed to worry about the ceremonies for the next two days.

"His Majesty."

"Minister Song has arrived, please have a seat."

Song Ting sat down as instructed, and the emperor handed him a report. Song Ting glanced at it; rebellions had broken out in three places within the Dayan territory. Although they had been suppressed by local officials and soldiers, public resentment was rising, and the situation was no longer optimistic.

With the Turks eyeing the country covetously from the outside and rebellions breaking out from time to time from within, Dayan was beset by internal and external troubles during this period. No wonder the young emperor looked so haggard.

"Even if Yang Zhaowen pleads guilty, the series of events that occurred before and after the prayer ceremony still had a huge impact. Most people are ignorant and can be easily manipulated with a little instigation."

"If this matter is not handled properly, it will be like a spark splashed into a hot oil pan, and it will get out of control," Chu Minghuan said.

Song Ting nodded. The young emperor was far smarter than anyone thought; he had been hiding his true abilities all these years.

Song Ting had already seen through this, and the young emperor wasn't afraid for him to know. The two of them, one pretending to be deaf and dumb, and the other pretending to be crazy, were both very good at acting.

"They're just using the events of the prayer ceremony as an excuse, under the guise of following the Mandate of Heaven, to argue that I am unworthy of the throne and not fit to be the master of this land." The young emperor chuckled self-deprecatingly. "What do you think, Minister Song?"

Song Tingdao said, "Your Majesty is a good emperor."

The young emperor laughed even harder: "Minister Song, now that things have come to this, you should stop with your flattery."

"..."

“I used to be very afraid of you. You killed people without blinking an eye, and you could easily strangle a person with one hand.”

"I was afraid that one day you would strangle me like this, but later I stopped being afraid. Do you know when that started, my dear minister?"

Song Ting glanced sideways, somewhat puzzled as to why the young emperor was suddenly bringing up these matters. "Your Majesty, I do not know."

"It was when you killed Fu Shun."

Song Ting's face had remained expressionless until the young emperor uttered those words, at which point his expression suddenly changed.

He did indeed kill Fu Shun. It was in the spring of the year he learned that Huai Xu had fallen off a cliff and his fate was unknown.

But at the time, there were only him and Fu Shun around. How did the young emperor know?

"At that time, I was hiding behind the artificial hill behind you."

The eunuchs who served Chu Minghuan all knew that the young emperor had a precious brocade pouch containing two chess pieces, one black and one white.

The young emperor carried this brocade pouch close to his body every day, never letting anyone else touch it.

The reason Chu Minghuan appeared in the Imperial Garden late at night that day was because he discovered that the brocade pouch he was carrying was missing.

He realized that the item was still on him before dinner, and Chu Minghuan figured it could only have fallen into the Imperial Garden, where he was feeling down and had been feeding the fish for a while.

His every move would be reported to Zhang Bingzhi, so he didn't want to alarm anyone and secretly went to the Imperial Garden.

Instead of finding the brocade pouch, they did see Song Ting and Fu Shun.

The two had already started arguing when they arrived, so neither of them noticed Chu Minghuan hiding in the flower bushes behind the artificial hill.

“It was very dark then, and I couldn’t see the expressions on your faces, nor did I dare to look, but I still saw your eyes.”

“Minister Song, just like this, grab Fu Shun by the neck—” The young emperor raised his hand and made a choking gesture, “press him against the artificial hill, and run two fingers over Fu Shun’s body. With each movement, the old eunuch will groan.”

Fu Shun had already been silenced by acupressure, so he couldn't make a sound. Song Ting looked at him with eyes full of madness, like a madman at the end of his rope.

"When Fu Shun's body was discovered the next day, every bone in his body was shattered, and he was limp like a lump of mud. The palace guards said that he had fallen from a height and was injured like that."

Fu Shun was a confidant of Zhang Bingzhi, and his death was so suspicious that Zhang Bingzhi was naturally unwilling to let it go. He refused to believe that Fu Shun had accidentally fallen to his death and requested the young emperor to hand the matter over to the Dali Temple for investigation.

They were convinced that Song Ting was the real culprit.

Everyone knows the truth about this.

But the young emperor tried to smooth things over and stopped the matter there.

At the time, Song Ting thought that the young emperor was afraid that his two ministers would break off relations and make him lose face, but he did not expect that the emperor was deliberately trying to help him.

He was so distraught over the Huaixu incident that he didn't even notice that there was a third person near the artificial hill.

"To be honest, you looked really horrified at the time, and I almost couldn't help but cry out."

"Having witnessed such a terrible thing, I should be even more afraid of you, but strangely enough, from that day on, I began to observe you and test you instead."

Like a young animal just embarking on its hunting journey, he was not yet fully confident in his abilities or the environment around him, and could only slowly extend his claws, testing Song Ting's bottom line.

Then, to my surprise, I discovered that although Song Ting appeared arrogant and domineering and didn't seem to respect me as the emperor, he had actually been faithfully protecting me as the emperor all along.

“You mentioned that person’s name back then; you were seeking revenge for him,” Chu Minghuan said. “I’ve always wanted to do the same, so I’m not afraid of you.”

"However, I still don't understand. Logically speaking, you should hate me like that person, so why are you protecting me instead?"