Chapter 62 If I had to choose one of them, I'd choose the fourth one...
"Lin Si is dead."
Shen Yan was also very surprised when she first heard the news. After learning that it was Consort Hui who was responsible, she remained silent for a long time.
"Father said he'll ask the sixth prince when he gets back, but I doubt he'll get any information."
Qi Jingxuan said dejectedly.
Shen Yan felt the same way, but there was no point in saying anything more now; she could only try to find another solution as soon as possible.
"You just said that Prince Xu and Brother Gao are keeping an eye on the He family."
She asked.
Qi Jingxuan nodded: "I have already sent someone to tell them about Lin Si's matter."
Although Gao Zheng had guessed that Lin Si might be dead, he still didn't have any definite news. Now that he knew, he sent someone to inform them, and also to let them know that he had returned to the Prince's Mansion and that they shouldn't wait for him.
Shen Yan pondered for a moment: "Then let's wait and see if they can find out anything from the He family. But I think it's unlikely. At most, they can find out some of the He family's movements, such as whether they have split up or not. They probably won't be able to find out anything else."
Qi Jingxuan was surprised to hear the question, "The He family is splitting up? How did you know, Aci?"
"Not necessarily, it's just a guess."
Shen Yan said.
"Although Lin Si is a crucial witness for us, he is actually insignificant to others. Even if Consort Hui kills him, she will not be severely punished."
"Regardless of whether Grand Tutor He knows the inside story or not, there is no need for him to react too much. If he ordered Consort Hui to do it and the matter was accomplished, he can just pretend to apologize to His Majesty for failing to raise his son properly. If he was unaware of the matter beforehand, and only Lin Si died, he can just reprimand Consort Hui a few times and then go back and sulk."
"But he was urgently summoned to the palace by His Majesty in the middle of the night. After returning, he immediately sent someone out of the city to summon all the elders of the He family. It is clear that even if he did not know why Consort Hui killed someone, he knew that it must have a great deal to do with it. Perhaps... he had already guessed who was behind it and realized that he had unknowingly fallen into a trap."
"That's why he was so eager to summon all the elders of the He family to the capital to discuss countermeasures in order to deal with the major events that might happen later."
When faced with the potential danger of implicating the entire clan, powerful families would generally decide to split up.
Qi Jingxuan understood, but was still puzzled: "If they really got involved in something they shouldn't have, what's the use of dividing the family after something goes wrong? Everyone knows they're cutting their losses to survive, and Father won't let them off easily because of that."
Shen Yan shook her head: "Dividing the family might not completely sever ties, but what if they join different factions after the division? For example, if one branch joins you, wouldn't His Majesty show leniency towards them out of consideration for you when dealing with them?"
Qi Jingxuan scoffed, "I won't let them join me. What use are these good-for-nothings who have neither vision nor ability?"
He was unusually sensitive to the word "trash" today, and paused for a moment after saying it, feeling like he had insulted himself. But then he thought about it again and quickly felt relieved. He was different from the He family; at least he had good judgment, having shamelessly begged and won over the intelligent Aci.
When this thought crossed his mind, he completely forgot that he had never proposed to Shen Yan in his previous lives. At first, he even thought she was trying to seduce him and avoided her at all costs.
Shen Yan smiled and said, "I was just giving an example. You can put yourself in the shoes of the Crown Prince, Prince Ning, or any other powerful person."
"The He family may seem useless to you, but as the saying goes, even a broken ship has three pounds of nails. In the eyes of others, they are still of some use."
Qi Jingxuan gave an "oh," glanced at Shen Yan's expression, and hesitated before asking, "Aci, have you... already confirmed that it was the Crown Prince or the Fourth Prince who harmed us?"
Although Shen Yan did not say it explicitly, in her several guesses, she first suspected the princes, and mentioned the Crown Prince and the Fourth Prince, Prince Ning, the most.
"Without any evidence, how can we be sure? It's just speculation."
"Shen Yan said."
But she did not deny that she suspected these two the most, especially after learning of Lin Si's death.
Just as Consort Shu said, there are very few people who can threaten Consort Hui. And even fewer who can threaten the concubines in the harem, plant people in the Marquis of Cheng'an's residence, incite students in the capital to cause trouble, and send people in the Imperial Guard to deliberately injure others.
Once Xu Jinyu and Gao Zheng return, if it is confirmed that the He family has indeed split up, then another condition can be added: "making the He family wary and having no better solution than splitting up the family."
And these are just the events of this lifetime. In previous lifetimes, that person sent people out of the capital to hunt down Qi Jingxuan, and they succeeded every time.
Given all this, it was hard for Shen Yan to imagine that the other party was merely a powerful minister in the court. Moreover, they had already considered several powerful ministers of the time, and none of them particularly fit the bill.
However, the princes have not been ruled out, and suspicion is growing, especially on the Crown Prince and Prince Ning.
The Crown Prince, needless to say, is the future heir apparent and has been ruling for many years, often assisting the Emperor in handling state affairs. He commands the support of half the court officials, both inside and outside the capital.
Prince Ning, the son of the Imperial Concubine, was the most prestigious prince besides the Crown Prince, and had maintained a good reputation in court for many years. If it weren't for the fact that there was already an Empress's eldest son, the position of Crown Prince would undoubtedly have fallen to him. Even now, many people secretly support him, believing that he is the only suitable candidate for heir apparent compared to the mediocre Crown Prince.
No matter how much these two compete, they can't win over Qi Jingxuan. He's a spoiled, dissolute seventh son, excluded from the list of heir apparent ages ago. So, if we're talking about whether either of them has any intention of harming Qi Jingxuan, they're equally likely to be equally treacherous.
But now that other, even less likely, people have been ruled out, these two are the only remaining possibilities.
Qi Jingxuan understood the implication in Shen Yan's words, and after thinking for a moment, he said, "If I had to choose between the two of them, then... I would choose the fourth one!"
Why
Qi Jingxuan crossed his arms: "Because the fourth brother is too good, I can't find any fault with him."
Shen Yan tilted her head, somewhat puzzled. Why should she be suspicious of the best people?
Qi Jingxuan pondered for a moment and explained, "Everyone, even a saint, should have some flaws, right? Like me... uh..."
He paused halfway through his sentence, realizing that the example he had given was not quite right.
He didn't just have a few flaws, he had a whole host of flaws, so he changed his tune: "For example, Jin Yu. Everyone in the capital praises him as a young talent, but I know he can be mischievous too. He's played pranks on many people with me and Gu San in private, and he even secretly cut off your beard."
"Take Li Yaozhi for example. You see, she's quite dignified and composed, and everyone in the capital praises her as the number one talented woman, saying she's virtuous and kind. But when she fought with me, she was ruthless and showed no mercy."
"Take Lin Chengfeng, the Left Censor-in-Chief, for example. He is said to be upright, but he is not without his biases. His son believed the rumors and thought that I had forcibly taken a woman from the people, so he scolded me in public. I was so angry that I punched his son. He then turned around and accused me without even asking what happened, and he didn't apologize to me afterwards."
"besides……"
As he spoke, he realized he had gone off-topic and quickly brought his words back on track: "In short, even the best people have their bad days, but the fourth brother doesn't."
"He seemed to be born a perfect person. He excelled in his studies from a young age, and his teachers always praised him. People like him would usually be a bit arrogant, but he wasn't. He also had a particularly good temper and was always smiling at everyone. When I was a child, everyone else in the palace bullied me, but he never did. Even his appearance was the most outstanding; he was even a little better looking than me."
"Just a little bit."
He sounded a little unconvinced at the end, and after glancing at Shen Yan's expression, he emphasized it again.
Shen Yan understood what he meant: "You mean... he has a good temperament and is very learned, and he has lived for twenty years without a single bad rumor about him, and has never done anything out of line, so he seems like... a fake person."
"Yes! It looks like a mannequin!"
Qi Jingxuan clapped his hands, feeling that her summary was very apt.
"And what about the Crown Prince?"
Shen Yan asked again.
“The Crown Prince…” Qi Jingxuan thought for a moment and said carefully, “The Crown Prince is not bad. Although he hit me when we were young, I hit him back, so we’re even. He doesn’t complain when he gets hit, and he’ll find an opportunity to hit back next time. That’s pretty good. He’s much better than the sixth prince, who just cries and runs to complain when he gets hit.”
"As for other things... I haven't heard anything bad about him. But I remember that when he was a child, he loved to read leisure books and even secretly wrote some storybooks. His teacher found out and said that he was not doing his job properly, so he was punished by copying books for three months."
"Oh right, he also wrote about me in his book. He wrote me as a porcupine that ran out of the mountains, covered in quills, pricking and ramming anyone it saw. Because of this, I was laughed at for a long time. Lao Liu and the others always liked to call me Azhi (a nickname), and I had to hit them many times before they stopped calling me that."
Actually, Qi Jinghong and the others changing their tune had nothing to do with Qi Jingxuan; it was mainly because of the emperor.
Although the Crown Prince's early work was a scathing critique of Qi Jingxuan, the reason he wrote it that way was because he'd heard that Consort Shu came from the countryside. In the young Crown Prince's eyes, since his mother came from the countryside, he, too, was naturally born with a wild spirit, making his arrogance unsurprising. So, after losing a fight with Qi Jingxuan, he wrote that piece in a fit of anger. In it, Qi Jingxuan was a wild boar from the mountains, unfamiliar with his surroundings, rampaging and injuring people, until he was finally slain by a valiant hero. This hero, of course, was the Crown Prince himself.
That article was incredibly naive, and it was burned on the spot after the teacher discovered it. But it was the gossipy sixth brother who found it, so it had already spread far and wide before it was burned.
When the gentleman told the emperor about this, he only said that the crown prince was neglecting his duties and did not mention that the prince had criticized Qi Jingxuan in his article. Therefore, the emperor did not know about it at first.
Later, he heard people call Qi Jingxuan "Azhi" more than once, but he just thought it was because the child was ignorant and deliberately said some unpleasant words to curse people. He scolded them a few times but did not take it to heart.
It wasn't until later that he learned the origin of "Azhi" and the word "countryside" in the prince's writing.
The emperor's face darkened immediately, and he ordered the crown prince to be summoned. He asked the prince why he used those two words and why he said Qi Jingxuan came from the countryside.
The crown prince was only seven or eight years old at the time. He originally thought that his father had summoned him because he had written his seventh brother as a pig, but he did not expect that the two words he asked about were actually the same.
He didn't know why the emperor was so angry, so he tremblingly told him that he had heard people say that Consort Shu came from the countryside. At the end, he didn't forget to admit his mistake, saying that he shouldn't have called his brother a pig.
The emperor's anger did not diminish in the slightest. He not only berated the man but also arrested all the palace servants around him, subjecting them to severe interrogation to determine who had whispered anything in his ear about Consort Shu's rural origins. Anyone even remotely associated with those two words was ultimately executed.
Seeing his familiar palace servants being taken away one by one, some of whom were being tortured in the courtyard, the Crown Prince was afraid and couldn't bear it. He wanted to plead for them, but the Empress stopped him.
The Empress not only didn't help him, but also personally participated in the interrogation, coldly watching the people being tortured. Later, after the Emperor left, the Crown Prince learned from her that the reason his father was so angry was because he and Consort Shu came from the same place. Saying Consort Shu came from the countryside was tantamount to saying the Emperor came from the countryside.
At that time, the Crown Prince had not yet been established as the heir apparent; he was just an ordinary prince. Some of the people around him were chosen by the Empress, while others were arranged by the Imperial Household Department. Although the Empress was wary of anyone plotting against him, she never expected that someone would gossip about him, deliberately saying unpleasant things to him, so that he would be influenced by what he heard.
This oversight led the crown prince to inadvertently offend the emperor, greatly angering the emperor who was gradually gaining power.
The young prince still didn't understand. The countryside wasn't a bad place. His teachers would occasionally talk about farming and sericulture, and sometimes mention how some great scholars had retired and returned to their hometowns to farm. These were all rural areas, so why should he be angry about them?
Although he portrays Qi Jingxuan as a porcupine from the countryside in his writing, the reason this porcupine is eliminated by the hero is because he rampages and hurts people everywhere; he's a bad pig. If he were a good pig... no, if he were a good person, then it wouldn't matter if he came from the countryside.
The crown prince at that time was unaware of the emperor's situation back then, unaware that when the emperor first arrived, he was treated like a breeding pig and pushed onto the throne.
A powerless and powerless heir to the throne was already disregarded by powerful families, and a boar emperor was naturally looked down upon even more. Countless people secretly mocked him for coming from the countryside, knowing nothing, and needing no knowledge, as long as he could produce offspring. Some even openly expressed their contempt, showing absolutely no respect for this new emperor.
As he gradually came into power, fewer people mentioned his background, but the undercurrent of contempt did not disappear, a fact that everyone was well aware of.
The emperor was well aware of this, so his anger did not dissipate; he simply suppressed it without venting it.
The Crown Prince's article brought this veiled mockery and contempt to the surface, igniting the Emperor's long-suppressed anger, which instantly enraged him.
The palace was in a state of panic, and no one dared to provoke the emperor when he was in a bad mood. The concubines all knew that the incident stemmed from Qi Jingxuan's nickname "A-Zhi" (meaning "little pig"), and they all strictly forbade their children from calling him that, fearing that the emperor would hear it and take his anger out on them.
Qi Jingxuan then realized that no one was calling him by that awful name anymore, and he thought he had beaten them into submission, which made him very proud.
"If that's the case... it seems the Crown Prince has a greater grudge against me."
He said with a somewhat conflicted expression.
"Because of that article, the Emperor disliked him very much and did not summon him for a long time. Later, even when he did see him, he was cold and indifferent, and not close at all."
Qi Jingxuan lowered his voice and whispered, "Let me tell you, when it came to choosing a crown prince, Father didn't actually want to make him the crown prince. Among all the princes, besides me, Father's favorite was the fourth prince. At that time, he originally wanted to make the fourth prince the crown prince."
“But apart from reading a few books of idle writing and writing an article criticizing me when he was young, the Crown Prince has not made any major mistakes. Although he is not as good as the Fourth Prince in terms of knowledge and talent, he is not bad either. Without a suitable reason, it is really not appropriate to bypass him and establish the Fourth Prince, who is neither the eldest son nor the legitimate heir, as the heir.”
"Later, I was poisoned. My mother was heartbroken and blamed my father for delaying in establishing a crown prince, which led to my poisoning. My father couldn't go against my mother's wishes and was afraid that something would happen to me, so he finally decided to establish a crown prince."
It's fortunate that the Empress has maintained her position all these years, and her maternal family has always held firm power in the court; otherwise, it would have been uncertain who would have won the crown prince position.
Shen Yan nodded knowingly: "So, how has the Crown Prince's relationship with you been over the years? Does he hold a grudge against you because of this?"
"relation……"
Qi Jingxuan scratched his head: "So be it. Although he got scolded because of me, he scolded me first, so it's not my fault. Besides, I even saved him once when he fell into the water."
Shen Yan looked surprised: "How so?"
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