Xiao Ziyan was brought back from the southern desert by General Gu Yi, half-dead.
Consort Lin was still under house arrest. Although she longed to visit her son again to check on his injuries, no one dared to let her pass without permission this time.
His Majesty is serious this time. He has issued a clear order forbidding anyone from disobeying the imperial decree. Anyone who dares to disobey the imperial order will be beheaded and their head displayed to the public.
Now no one dares to act recklessly again!
However, the Second Prince's mother, Consort Lin, could not come, but his beloved Uncle Qi came to the palace to visit him.
Prince Ziran, the adopted son of the Prince of Qi, also came along. Princess Xinhui, the adopted daughter of the Prince of Qi, was the Second Prince's childhood playmate.
However, for some reason, she did not come this time.
Xiao Ziyan was still unconscious, so the father and son did not want to disturb his rest. They left him a century-old ginseng to help him recover before leaving Yuqing Palace.
When King Qi left the palace, he happened to run into Prime Minister Mu, who was returning home after the court session.
The two didn't seem to know each other very well, but since they had run into each other, they should at least exchange greetings.
Mu Chengye walked over calmly, cupped his hands slightly and said, "Your humble servant greets Prince Qi and Prince Ziran. Have you two come to the palace to visit the Second Prince?"
Xiao Ziran wondered if it was just his imagination, but he felt that the Prime Minister Mu, who held a high position in the government, looked at him with an unusually kind gaze.
Xiao Ziran was puzzled and could only nod to him, saying, "Greetings, Prime Minister Mu. Indeed, my father and I have come to inquire about the Second Prince's injuries, but since His Highness is still unconscious, we should not disturb him while he rests."
The King of Qi wore his usual gentle smile.
He wore a string of white jade prayer beads on his wrist, each bead engraved with obscure and difficult-to-understand Sanskrit Diamond Sutra in gilded gold.
He asked gently, "Prime Minister Mu, are you heading back to your residence?"
Mu Chengye said, "Yes... I don't know where the groom in the manor has gone to slack off. I wonder if Your Highness could give me a ride?"
“Of course, Prime Minister, please get in the carriage.” King Qi readily agreed, and then said to Xiao Ziran, “Ziran, you ride ahead on horseback. I will take Prime Minister Mu back to his residence first. You don’t need to wait for me.”
"Yes, Father." Xiao Ziran mounted his horse without asking any further questions, spurred the horse on, and rode away.
Mu Chengye watched his departing figure on horseback, his murky eyes unreadable.
The King of Qi did not urge him, but smiled gently and got into the carriage first.
Mu Chengye then boarded the carriage.
The heavy curtains fell down, completely obscuring the view inside the car.
Inside the carriage.
The string of white jade prayer beads, engraved with intricate Sanskrit characters, tightly bound the Qi King's wrists, which were even whiter than a woman's.
The voice, usually so gentle, now carried a hint of urgency: "Quick, I can't break free. You can do whatever you want to me now."
Meanwhile, Mu Chengye, the Grand Chancellor of Liang, who was second only to the emperor, knelt at the feet of the Prince of Qi like a dog, fawningly using his mouth to open the Prince of Qi's clothes that had been pulled down to his shoulders and neck.
His face showed deep infatuation: "My king..."
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The carriage moved slowly forward, and the driver tactfully headed towards the deserted outskirts of the capital.
The coachman parked the carriage steadily in a secluded spot and respectfully whispered, "This servant is going to relieve myself."
It then vanished from the spot in an instant.
The surrounding area was completely silent, and the carriage jerked abnormally for a moment—
After everything returns to calm...
A satisfied male voice rang out from inside the carriage, "Be more restrained when you see Ziran in the future. You don't want him to know that you, his biological father, are worse than a pig or a dog. You sent him to my side to be used as a weapon, didn't you?"
Another man's voice, clearly ingratiating, said, "It's his good fortune to serve you. I couldn't ask for more!"
When Prince Qi ascends the throne in the future, Xiao Ziran will be a legitimate prince, what an honor that would be!
A gentle male voice let out a cryptic chuckle from his nose, "Pathetic."
"You, as the father, don't seem to care at all."
She cruelly abandoned her own son, who was still so young, and sent him to the King of Qi to suffer greatly.
The man said solicitously, "Isn't it because you, as his father, dote on him for me?"
A gentle male voice grunted, kicking the man who was pressing up on him away, "Get off!"
"Let's get down to business."
The man put away his joking thoughts and said seriously, "The silver raised for this Hundred Flowers Banquet has solved the immediate problem of damaged weapons, but the loss of nearly a hundred of the two thousand warhorses is not a small number. Also, I need to think about how to deal with the batch of grain intercepted from Xiao Ziyan."
King Qi twirled the prayer beads in his hand and said quietly, "I have to keep some of the money from the Hundred Flowers Banquet. My emperor brother will soon be in a lot of trouble, so I naturally have to do my part."
"Otherwise, the right to host the Hundred Flowers Banquet next year will have to be handed over to someone else."
After a pause, King Qi asked again, "Has everything been handled properly at the Burning Gold Cave?"
"That's natural; I've already arranged the share that should be reserved. A maidservant from the Burning Gold Cave has escaped, and we haven't been able to find her yet."
It seems a group of people came to investigate this matter recently, so I took note, but it didn't cause us any trouble.
She's just a maid; she has no access to core secrets. Let her escape if she wants.
As for Liao Ming, that lustful idiot, he couldn't even stop playing with a woman, and ended up torturing her to death.
If it weren't for the fact that he had loyally followed him for many years, Mu Chengye would have sent assassins to kill him long ago.
They're more trouble than they're worth!
But all of that is secondary. The gentle male voice suddenly turned icy cold: "You know what I care about most."
"Yes. The whereabouts of that secret medicine are still unknown."
Back then, a young palace maid who served Consort Li took advantage of the chaos to escape the palace using a fake death potion.
By the time their men realized what was happening, it was too late; her body had vanished from the mass grave.
The whereabouts of the young palace maid remain a mystery, and the only possible clue to the whereabouts of the secret medicine has also been lost.
Besides, so many years have passed, and we don't even know if that little palace maid is alive or dead.
The whereabouts of the secret medicine became even more mysterious.
King Qi's once refined face was now as dark as ink; years ago, he had given Consort Li a drug that disrupted her internal energy.
This drug will make her confused and her memories fragmented.
If this continues, the effects of the drug will enter her brain, and she will be in a daze all day long, like a puppet without the ability to think.
At that time, they can easily get answers to whatever questions they want to ask.
—Including that secret medicine that the previous dynasty's royal family regarded as a national treasure and a cure-all!
What they did not expect was that Consort Li was pregnant and her body was already weak. Coupled with the effects of the poison, she did not survive until the day they questioned her and lost her composure during childbirth.
Driven mad by the pain of childbirth, she committed the crime of assassinating the emperor, which could have resulted in her execution.
King Qi went to great lengths to set up such a grand scheme to find the whereabouts of the secret medicine, only to have it all thwarted!
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The author, due to space constraints, might add some modern elements later on. However, to avoid spoilers, I won't say more now.
It's just a possibility... it depends on the specific circumstances.
O(∩_∩)O
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