Chapter 214 When Everyone is Reborn: The Legend of Zhen Huan - The Prince's Mansion Chapter 9
[The Third Act of the Grand Drama - The Youngest Child's Terrified Confession, Everyone Foresees the Future]
"The old man is wary of us grown sons who have left the palace to establish our own households. Only his youngest son, only the little prince who depends on him for survival, can make him lower his guard..."
Thus, carrying the hopes of his eldest nephew and countless brothers, the seventeenth prince Yinli, who was invisible in the previous story, whose mother was favored, was only fourteen years old, and still lived in the palace, and was considered Kangxi's favorite youngest son, rushed to the Qianqing Palace to request an audience the day after the meteor fell.
As for Emperor Kangxi, after listening to the interpretations of the Imperial Observatory and the three masters, his low mood lasted all night, to the point that no one dared to speak loudly during court, and all matters were postponed for reporting.
Back in the Qianqing Palace, Kangxi had no interest in reviewing memorials. He dismissed everyone and sat alone in the hall.
The news that Yinreng had no heir did not spread. He sent people to carefully check the women in Yuqing Palace again, but none of them were pregnant. So where was this third son?
Could it be that because Yinreng was murdered, the imperial star could not be reincarnated and ended up in another family outside the royal family, which led to Zen Master Jiyuan's comment of "the cuckoo occupying the magpie's nest"?
Just then, the door to the hall was carefully pushed open, and Liang Jiugong bowed and reported, "Your Majesty, the Seventeenth Prince requests an audience."
"Seventeen?" Kangxi flicked the beaded string on his wrist. "Wasn't he ill? Why is he here at this time?"
Regardless of the reasons for elevating Consort Shu and her son to prominence, and having done so for so many years, it had become a habit. Ultimately, Kangxi still possessed a degree of patience and paternal compassion towards the Seventeenth Prince, especially compared to his other sons who had grown up secretly and clandestinely.
"Let him in."
"Yes, sir."
Liang Jiugong withdrew and invited Yinli inside. Because of his premonition, Yinli did not follow him in, but instead stood guard at the palace gate.
Yinli walked to Kangxi's imperial desk and knelt down: "Greetings to Father Emperor, may Father Emperor enjoy ten thousand years of good fortune and peace."
"Get up, are you better now?"
Kangxi looked at his youngest son, who had just stood up, and saw that he had raised his head, his face pale and his eyes filled with panic: "What's wrong?"
"Father..."
Yinli looked extremely uneasy and choked out a cry.
"How old are you? Why are you acting like a child? What happened?"
Kangxi's tone carried a hint of impatience, and Yinli, who had just stood up, suddenly knelt down again: "Please forgive me, Father Emperor..."
Kangxi remained silent, his gaze sharpening as he stared intently at Yinli below him, his expression inscrutable.
"Father, I was seriously ill a few days ago, and in a state between dreaming and waking, I was... I was..."
"What could it be?" Kangxi pressed, mistakenly thinking that Yinli might have done something bad while he was ill.
"I dreamt about the future."
"Do you know what you're saying?" Kangxi paused in turning the beaded string. Just last night, there was the metaphysical event of "the imperial star falling away," and today his youngest son came to say that he dreamed about the future.
Who leaked the information, or did the Seventeenth Prince have ulterior motives? A faint suspicion and vigilance filled Kangxi's eyes.
Yinli looked up, revealing reddened eyes and a determined look: "I didn't believe it at first, thinking I was just delirious from my illness. But the scene in my dream yesterday where a shooting star fell in the west, and today when Father Emperor sent the imperial physician to Yuqing Palace for a consultation, was exactly the same as in reality, so I had no choice but to believe it."
Emperor Kangxi, exuding his full power, stared directly into Yinli's eyes. He noticed that Yinli's gaze was unwavering, showing no sign of timidity or fear. His heart sank, but his expression remained unchanged: "Tell me about your dream."
"Yes." Yinli seemed to have finally been able to speak out after being tormented by a hidden secret for a long time, and he visibly relaxed a lot.
But when actually talking about dreams, they become tense, as if they have encountered something terrifying.
"To be precise, my son had two dreams. In the first dream, Father Emperor was raising the third son of my second elder brother, the Crown Prince..."
As Yinli spoke, he cautiously glanced at Kangxi's expression. He thought his little gesture was being kept secret, but Kangxi saw it all. However, he didn't say anything and just listened quietly to his story. But when he heard the words "third son," Kangxi's hand holding the beaded string tightened slightly.
"Later, the Emperor promoted him to Crown Prince, and in the end, it was the Emperor who supported the Crown Prince to ascend the throne. After the Crown Prince ascended the throne, he made good use of all his uncles and elders, expanded the territory, and brought the Qing Dynasty to unprecedented prosperity... But from beginning to end, the son never knew the Crown Prince's name or appearance in his dreams, he only remembered that he had a pair of phoenix eyes that were exactly the same as the Emperor's."
"And then?" Kangxi pressed, recalling Master Jiyuan's words from the previous night. If the imperial star hadn't fallen into other hands, would the subsequent events have unfolded exactly as in Seventeen's dream?
"Then...then my son had a second dream,"
At this point, Yinli's expression turned noticeably grim: "This is the second dream. The opening scene was a shooting star falling in the west, but there was no sign of the Crown Prince. Father Emperor has... deposed the Crown Prince for the second time. In order to secure the heir, many of his brothers are vying for power, causing turmoil in the court and unrest among the people... In the end, it was... Prince Yong who ascended the throne..."
Kangxi felt a pang of unease; he had indeed considered deposing the Crown Prince a second time, especially after learning that Yinreng had no heir. However, he only thought about this in his mind; Yinli shouldn't know.
At this point, Kangxi became more convinced of Yinli's prophetic dream. However, thinking that just like in the dream, the Crown Prince hadn't been found, and what the future held, even if the Seventeenth Prince hadn't dreamt, he could have foreseen it.
But why did the fourth prince finally ascend the throne? Kangxi was puzzled. Given the fourth prince's current reputation and abilities, what would have happened for him to pass the throne to him? Judging from the seventeenth prince's words of estrangement and resentment towards the fourth prince, could it be that the fourth prince had usurped the throne?
"The new emperor... there are rumors that he seized the throne illegitimately, so after ascending the throne he slaughtered all his brothers, leaving only his son and a few younger brothers to show benevolence, but he also sent people to watch over us, telling us to live a dissolute life and not to get involved in any politics..."
At this point, Yinli became even more indignant: "That would have been bad enough, but he clearly lacked the ability to be an emperor. He was constantly swayed by women, and he didn't care that his talented eldest and fourth sons were being plotted against by the women of the harem. The court and the harem were gradually controlled by the Uya and Ulanara clans. In the end, he died young from poisoning, and the bondservant families supported a puppet emperor to ascend the throne, leading to social unrest, constant turmoil among the people, the collapse of the country, and the imminent collapse of the Qing Dynasty..."
After Yinli finished speaking, Kangxi's heart skipped a beat. Before he could even feel angry, he inexplicably recalled the massacre of bondservant by his sons not long ago, the Fourteenth Prince's righteous act of turning against his own family, the ostracism and targeting of the Fourth Prince, and their secret search for something unknown...
Could it be that they, like Seventeen, had a precognitive dream?
[Yinreng's Commentary: The old man finds it hard to believe in so-called precognitive dreams, but he certainly believes in his sons' ambitions. Therefore, considering our previous actions and the Seventeenth Prince's frankness, he can only believe that we want to find the Crown Prince as soon as possible, "to control the emperor and command the princes." If the ambition is real, then the premonition is real, and the "emperor" will also be real.]
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