"Fourth brother? Is that you?"
Upon seeing the person's face, Helian Jue's handsome face darkened with gloom.
Even if there are still people in the palace who have their eyes on him, it won't be the fourth prince.
This idiot is the gun in Lao Wu's hand.
Wherever Lao Wu points, he hits.
The fifth son, though neither the eldest nor the legitimate heir, was ambitious.
He always pretended to be upright and detached from worldly affairs, thinking he was a perfect imposter. Little did he know that the old foxes in the court had already seen through him!
When the Fourth Prince arrived, Helian Jue knew with his toes that he was up to no good.
"Yes! Isn't it me? What, brother, are you waiting for Father, Mother, or your birth mother, Consort Xiao, to see you off?"
"Or do you expect those brothers and sisters you beat, scolded, and looked down upon to be reluctant to part with you?"
The fourth prince's gloating was written all over his face.
He came here to humiliate Helian Jue and to watch the spectacle unfold.
"Even I, your fourth brother, did not come for you!"
On his wedding day, the fourth prince was tricked by Helian Jue and Xie Yuan, and he felt really aggrieved.
After waiting for several days, it was still the Fifth Prince who "accidentally" reminded the Fourth Prince.
He came specifically to ridicule Helian Jue: "Haha, brother, don't blame me for not being a brotherly brother. It's just that I have official duties to attend to."
Helian Jue sneered, "Official business? What official business could you possibly have?"
Even if a prince is a fool who is being used without realizing it, the emperor will not assign him a decent job.
I'm afraid he'll mess things up.
"General Dugu Xiong of the Northwest is returning to the capital in triumph and will arrive soon."
The fourth prince, however, was smug and triumphant.
Hmph, he really is useless, but the fifth brother is clever and helped him get a good job.
"General Dugu has made outstanding contributions and has returned victorious once again. Father Emperor values him highly. He originally wanted to personally welcome him, but was persuaded not to by the civil and military officials."
The fourth prince raised his chin, making his greasy, chubby face even more noticeable. "Since Father Emperor cannot personally greet the General, he specially ordered me to greet him in his place—"
The fourth prince drawled out the last syllable, deliberately sizing up Helian Jue before saying, "So, this time I'm leaving the palace not for personal matters, but for official business!"
Helian Jue's eyes were deep and his face was ashen, revealing no emotion.
"Is Dugu Xiong returning to the capital today?" Helian Jue asked coldly.
"No! It'll probably take three days to reach the capital. His army should still be at a post station a couple hundred miles away," the Fourth Prince said smugly.
Xie Yuan couldn't help but feel annoyed.
What a cunning fourth prince, deliberately mocking Helian Jue here.
When a prince was to be enfeoffed, not a single person in the capital or the palace came to see him off.
As for General Dugu Xiong, he was still hundreds of miles away when a prince eagerly ran to the city gate to greet him!
A former crown prince and a subject, yet they were treated differently.
Xie Yuan, an outsider, felt indignant, let alone Helian Jue, who had once been high and mighty and considered himself the only one who mattered.
"snort!"
Helian Jue did not lose his temper. He merely glanced coldly at the Fourth Prince, sneered, and rode away.
Helian Jue didn't want to pay attention to the Fourth Prince, but the Fourth Prince refused to give up easily.
He clung to Helian Jue like glue.
"Oh dear, brother, how come your Crown Prince's Six Guards are reduced to so few people? Oh dear, look at me, I forgot again. Those captains either joined the Second Prince or became disciples of the Fifth Prince. There's nothing we can do about it; birds choose good trees to perch on."
"Oh, by the way! I heard that your princess, that Xie who was married in place of you, went to the Ministry of War to demand that someone be sent back. I wonder if the Ministry of War has filled the manpower gap for you yet!"
The Fourth Prince kept talking, every word deliberately aimed at stabbing Helian Jue.
Xie Yuan, holding Xie Zhen, sat in the dilapidated carriage. Seeing the Fourth Prince's behavior, he couldn't help but frown.
She had a strange, bad feeling about her.
Sure enough, when they arrived at the city gate, a minor official from the Ministry of War saw Helian Jue and his entourage coming out and hurriedly went to greet them.
"Oh! Speak of the devil and he appears. Has the Ministry of War brought you soldiers?"
The fourth prince was just there to watch the excitement, and he certainly wasn't going to miss this opportunity.
He moved closer to Helian Jue, looked at the minor official, then at the hundreds of "beggars" at the foot of the city wall, and couldn't help but burst into laughter.
"Oh my god! This is hilarious! It's absolutely hilarious!"
"These are the guards that the Ministry of War assigned to your royal palace, brother?"
"Tsk, look, look! The old are old, the weak are weak, and they're all as thin as bamboo poles, dressed like beggars."
"Brother, this kind of person was actually obtained by your good princess after begging and pleading? Oh dear, she even begged? Haha, I wouldn't take her even if she were paid to do so!"
The fourth prince was laughing so hard on horseback that he almost fell over, to the point of being exaggerated.
Helian Jue's face was so cold it was almost freezing.
Xie Yuan felt somewhat ashamed and indignant.
It was indeed she who went to the Ministry of War to request soldiers; she didn't expect any elite troops or too many people.
We just need to gather the minimum number of guards for the Prince's Palace—eight hundred!
The Crown Prince's Palace still has 300 guards remaining, so the Ministry of War only needs to allocate another 500 men.
However, Xie Yuan still didn't expect the Ministry of War to go to such extremes.
Five hundred people were given, but they were all old, weak, sick, or disabled people who couldn't even hold their weapons properly.
Such people, let alone going to war, would probably be among the people the Sixteen Guards would have eliminated anyway.
As a result, they all "recycled" and stuffed them into the Yue King's Palace.
This is absolutely a deliberate slap in the face!
What's even more infuriating is that the Fourth Prince caught them red-handed in this embarrassing situation.
For a moment, Xie Yuan felt a pang of self-reproach: Had I done something wrong with good intentions?
Leaning out of the car window, Xie Yuan saw two vastly different lines of traffic on either side—
On one side were Mu Shao and his Thousand Bull Guards, riding tall horses and gleaming armor—truly an elite and mighty army.
On the other side were five hundred soldiers dispatched by the Ministry of War. They were thin and weak, dressed in tattered clothes. Forget about fine horses and weapons; the spears in their hands were no different from charred fire sticks.
Being physically weak and dressed in tattered clothes are secondary issues.
The real terror lies in the kind of decadence and numbness that seeps into one's very bones.
It seemed that the five hundred old, weak, sick and disabled had already decided that their trip to serve as guards at the Yue King's mansion was a death sentence!
Some of them didn't even bring any food, and seemed completely resigned to their fate and waiting to die.
These personal guards, let alone the elite Thousand Bull Guards, were far superior. Even the Fourth Prince and his squad of guards looked more imposing than them.
The people coming and going at the city gate couldn't help but point and whisper among themselves when they saw this obvious contrast.
Xie Yuan grew increasingly angry, and even felt a slight pang of regret.
Helian Jue's face turned completely cold, his alluring peach blossom eyes filled with murderous intent and violence...
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
