Chapter 90 Rebellion
As the firelight shone from the direction of the Second Prince's residence, Xie Yushu asked with a smile what time it was.
"It was exactly midnight." Xiao Dao was amazed by Xie Yushu's judgment. Just as she had predicted during the day, the Second Prince suddenly started vomiting and having diarrhea that night, and the imperial physician was summoned. Immediately afterward, the Second Prince's residence caught fire.
However, it is still unknown who that [Zhao] refers to.
Firelight and thick smoke filled the night sky. Xie Yushu turned to Xiaodao and instructed, "Your Majesty, please set off now. Zhang Ling will escort you out of the city to meet Pei Heng." She reached out and straightened Xiaodao's clothes. "The Second Prince is, after all, your own brother. If he is to die, he should die by your hand."
Xiao Dao understood what she meant, so he didn't say anything more and strode away.
He mounted his horse outside the palace gate and galloped wildly out of the city. The night wind blew on his face, and the smell of burning fire in the wind gave him a long-lost sense of exhilaration. It had been a long time since he had ridden like this at night.
After becoming emperor, he rarely even left the palace.
In the darkness of night, he was like a swift arrow, galloping out of the city gate in a cloud of dust.
At the same time, Meng Jinyue, the deputy commander of the Imperial Guards, led a troop of Imperial Guards out of the palace on horseback and headed straight for the princess's residence.
When the gatekeeper rushed into the mansion to report that the princess's residence was surrounded by the Imperial Guards, Princess Yongle was watching the fire from the upper floor of the pavilion.
The soldiers rushing through the streets to put out the fire prevented her from hearing the sound of the Imperial Guards' hooves.
He immediately turned to look at the gatekeeper: "Imperial Guard?"
Before the gatekeeper could answer, she saw his guards being forced into the courtyard by the Imperial Guards. The deputy commander of the Imperial Guards, holding a token, shouted, "The Empress has arrived! How dare you stop her? Get out of the way!"
Empress?
Princess Yongle's eyelids suddenly twitched. In the darkness, the imperial guards parted to make way for her and escorted her into the princess's residence.
The man, wearing a black cloak, was tall and slender. He stood in the middle of the courtyard, looked up at her, and under the hood of the cloak was an imposing face and a pair of eagle-like eyes. It was Xie Yushu.
Xie Yushu looked at her and seemed to smile, beckoning her with an arrogant gesture, as if he were beckoning a dog over.
Does the Empress really think the world belongs to her? The world belongs to the Xiao family!
Princess Yongle turned to the side and whispered instructions to her attendants behind her, urging them to prepare their troops to await her command and to seize the Empress at any time.
Only then did he step down from the attic.
When she arrived at the courtyard, Xie Yushu was already sitting in a grand chair under the eaves, with a handsome deputy commander of the Imperial Guard standing to his right.
It's a woman.
Princess Yongle recognized at a glance that the female deputy commander was Meng Jinyue, the daughter of the Meng family. "Even though the ministers objected, the Empress still appointed a woman as the deputy commander of the Imperial Guards."
She looked at Meng Jinyue and smiled: "The Empress is determined to support your family, even if they have no children, she is going to defy the world and let a woman participate in politics!"
“Your Highness is mistaken,” Xie Yushu said with a smile. “It’s not that I’m supporting the women in my maternal family because I have no children. It’s because they are women and their talents and courage are superior to men that I’m supporting and giving them important positions.”
"Don't you think it's absurd to say that yourself?" Princess Yongle sneered. "Throughout history, has any woman ever been involved in politics for long? Meng Jinyue's skills are so rudimentary, do you think she can fight on the battlefield like a man?"
“She doesn’t need to fight on the battlefield; she only needs to use the men who fight on the battlefield.” Xie Yushu looked at Princess Yongle with his chin on his hand and couldn’t help but exclaim, “I never thought that the princess, as a woman, would still be so old-fashioned. No wonder the princess would rather go to great lengths to rescue your useless second brother than declare herself emperor and instigate a rebellion.”
Yongle's heart skipped a beat. How could she know that her second brother's escape was her doing? Was she bluffing her?
"What nonsense are you spouting?" Yongle frowned and retorted, "Could it be that someone rescued Second Brother when his residence caught fire?"
“Princess, you don’t need to play dumb with me.” Xie Yushu asked her, “Where is the Prince Consort? Why isn’t he at his residence so late at night? Could it be that he’s escorting the Second Prince out of the city?”
Yongle was about to make a pretext.
Xie Yushu raised his chin and ordered the Imperial Guards to search.
"Who dares!" Yongle shouted, and all the guards in her mansion rushed out to confront the Imperial Guards with their swords drawn.
Xie Yushu looked at Yongle's murderous face and smiled excitedly: "Is the princess going to openly defy the imperial decree?"
"I, a princess, only obey the decrees of the Emperor," Yongle said coldly. "What are you? Merely a tool for the royal family to continue its lineage!"
Xie Yushu leaned back in his chair and laughed: "If the princess thinks you are a daughter of the imperial family, of royal blood, and of unparalleled nobility, then you should let your children take the surname Xiao, to continue your bloodline and carry on your lineage."
After she finished speaking, she raised her hand and threw something at the princess's feet.
Yongle looked down and saw that they were her son Jinghong's tiger-head shoes. Her expression changed instantly, and she looked up at Xie Yushu: "Are you going to threaten me with my son? Do you think you can still leave the princess's residence today?"
"It seems no evidence is needed; the princess is determined to rebel." Xie Yushu raised his hand and ordered, "Jin Yue, kill everyone except the princess."
"Yes!" Meng Jinyue drew his sword and rushed out of the corridor.
As weapons clashed, a fierce battle broke out in the main courtyard. In the inner courtyard, a wet nurse carrying two six- or seven-year-old girls was about to escape through the back door when a knife was held to her neck.
Cangshu's figure emerged from the darkness, knocking the wet nurse unconscious with a single blow and grabbing the little girl who was trying to escape.
The girl, clutching her younger sister's hand, looked up in alarm. Seeing Cangshu, she fearfully pulled her sister into her arms. "Who...who are you? My mother is a princess! If you dare to bully us, she will never forgive you..."
"I'm just taking you to see your mother." Cangshu grabbed the two girls on either side and walked towards the front yard.
When Yongle heard her two daughters crying, countless people had already died in the main courtyard. She was being escorted to escape from the princess's mansion when she saw her two daughters being captured by a man and brought to the main courtyard, where they were forced to kneel at Xie Yushu's feet.
"Mother!" the little girl cried out to her.
Shouldn't the wet nurses have been sent out of the manor first?
Yongle felt a chill run through her body, and her scalp trembled. Tonight, most of the Princess's troops had been taken by Li Shan to rescue her second brother. She never dreamed that the Empress would find out so quickly and bring the Imperial Guards to her residence so swiftly.
Everything happened too fast; she didn't have time to properly settle her two daughters.
"Princess, go first and meet the Marquis outside the city!" the guard protecting her said quickly.
She was being protected and quickly retreated, but she saw Xie Yushu bend down, pick up her youngest daughter and place her on his lap, pinch her chin, and force her to face the fighting and look at her as she tried to escape.
How could Yongle possibly take a step when he met his daughter's terrified eyes?
Her daughter was not even 6 years old, yet Xie Yushu was forcing her to watch the murder...
"Release my daughter!" Yongle waved away the guard's hand, stepped back into the courtyard, and stared at Xie Yushu, saying, "So what if you arrest me? I am the emperor's only sister, Princess Yongle, personally bestowed by the late emperor. Today, it's just that you forced your way into my residence, and my people resisted."
The little girl was so frightened that she trembled and cried in Xie Yushu's arms.
"Is that so?" Xie Yushu gently wiped away the girl's tears, not even looking at Yongle, but waiting for something.
Soon, a cluster of signal fireworks burst open with a "bang" in the western night sky.
Xie Yushu gazed at the fleeting fireworks, then smiled at Yongle and said, "Wait a little longer, Princess. Your second brother and your husband's heads will be delivered soon. I hope you can still be stubborn then."
"What nonsense are you talking about?" Yongle's face was deathly pale as he stared at Xie Yushu, still stubbornly insisting, "What do you mean by my second brother and my husband? I don't understand what you're talking about."
“Illness, midnight, fire, Zhao.” Xie Yushu said to her slowly and deliberately, “But I’m not quite sure if this Zhao refers to your husband’s informant, Deputy Commander Zhao Yi of the Imperial Guard? Or to Lord Zhao Youwei in the court?”
In the cold night, Yongle felt her fingers trembling. The letter she had sent to her second brother... had it already fallen into Xie Yushu's hands? But how could Xie Yushu know the meaning of those numbers?
How could this be? Digital messaging was a little game known only to her and her two older brothers; even her husband didn't know how to crack it...
"Why isn't the princess speaking?" Xie Yushu's smile was still on his face, but his eyes as he looked at Yongle were as cold as blades.
Yongle decided not to say another word. She wasn't sure how much Xie Yushu knew. She thought maybe Xie Yushu was just trying to scare her, pretending to have captured her second brother in order to get more information out of her.
His second brother was arranged to impersonate a fire brigade soldier and head out of the city the moment the fire broke out. Even though Xie Yushu guessed the contents of the letter and immediately dispatched the Imperial Guards to the city, he couldn't catch up with his second brother.
Yongle looked at his terrified daughter and softened his tone, saying to Xie Yushu, "Release my daughter first. They are still so young and don't understand anything."
Xie Yushu did indeed let go of her two daughters.
The little girl cried as she stepped over the corpse and rushed into her mother's arms.
Yongle hugged her two daughters, her eyes reddening. She held them tightly in her arms and whispered to them, "Don't be afraid, don't be afraid. It's alright, Mother will protect you. You are the princess's daughters, they won't dare to do anything to you, don't be afraid."
Pei Heng?
Xie Yushu was confused. What kind of "charm" value did Pei Heng gain at this time? And it increased by two points at once? This must be the largest increase he's ever had.
Why?
#
The fires in the city gradually died down, but thick smoke still billowed under the night sky.
Outside the princess's residence, Pei Heng's troops quickly arrived. The elite soldiers rushed into the residence to clear a path, and Xiao Dao strode in from the center.
"Your Majesty." Meng Jinyue and the Imperial Guards all bowed to him.
He saw Xie Yushu sitting in the armchair, and the breath in his chest slowly eased. After confirming that she was alright, he raised his hand.
Pei Heng's deputy general, Zhao Mingzhao, ordered his men to bring over two corpses and place them in the courtyard.
Yongle turned to look at the two corpses, and froze on the spot as if struck by lightning. She couldn't believe her eyes, looking again and again, until her daughter in her arms whispered to the corpses, "Father... Mother, is that Father?"
Yongle's ears were ringing. He instinctively covered his two daughters' eyes, and glared at Xie Yushu in despair and rage: "How dare you! How dare you kill the second prince and his consort of the Great Xun Dynasty!"
Xie Yushu looked at the two corpses on the ground. One had been pierced through the head by an arrow, and the other had had its neck cut off by a knife.
“It was I who shot him.” Xiao Dao walked toward Xie Yushu and said in an icy tone, “The Second Prince Xiao Yan, together with his son-in-law Li Shan, fled the city with the intention of assassinating the emperor and rebelling. Their crime deserves to be punished.”
He grasped Xie Yushu's hand, then turned to look at Yongle: "Are you an accomplice as well?"
Xie Yushu gripped the knife with satisfaction, unable to hide her smug smile; the knife was her most handy tool.
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Author's Note: Update~
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