Chapter 239 Sleeping in the Same Bed, Dreaming Different Dreams
The King of Nanyang did not want their branch of the family to have unrelated people enshrined in their ancestral hall, especially since those people received more generous tributes and incense offerings than he did.
Furthermore, he did not want the court to demote his heir and grant him a lower rank after his death simply because his successor was not of their bloodline.
He may not care what title his successor receives, but he cares about the level of sacrificial offerings he can enjoy.
His mother and he shared the same idea. After investigating the relationship between Xie Wanniang and Xie Jingshu, they decisively found Xie Jingshu, who had already begun to suspect their identities because of their outburst.
It's unclear how the mother and son talked to Xie Jingshu, but Xie Jingshu agreed to let Xie Wanniang be recognized by her ancestors without even asking.
Xie Wanniang was naturally extremely resistant to this. Her adoptive parents also opposed it, but since they were only adoptive parents, they couldn't be too forceful in front of Xie Jingshu regarding Xie Wanniang's matter.
Then, Xie Wanniang had a conflict with Xie Jingshu, ran out of the house crying, and was forced to jump into the river to save herself by the people sent by the Princess of Nanyang.
When the incident first occurred, the Prince of Nanyang still held a sliver of hope of finding Xie Wanniang, and he did indeed put in a lot of effort to search for her whereabouts.
But as time went on, the hope of finding Xie Wanniang became increasingly slim, and the Prince of Nanyang no longer held any hope for her.
Therefore, he not only withdrew the people he had originally sent out, but also failed to investigate who wanted to kill Xie Wanniang.
Even without investigating, he could guess the ins and outs of the matter with a high degree of accuracy, but the act of "not investigating" itself represented his stance and attitude.
After all, he's too lazy to even investigate, so you can't expect him to uphold justice for Xie Wanniang.
At the time, the Prince of Nanyang did not think there was anything wrong with his choice. After all, Xie Wanniang was already dead, and he could not let her cause chaos and unrest in the palace.
When you're family, sometimes it's good to play dumb.
His mother's thinking was completely in line with his; the two of them only gave the Princess of Nanyang a slight warning in private, and that was the end of it.
After that, the family continued to live their lives as before. In fact, the Prince of Nanyang even took two more young and beautiful concubines, wanting to see if they could give him a son.
Yes, after seeking medical advice and praying to gods and Buddhas to no avail, the Prince of Nanyang and his mother began to look for problems in the "old and faded" women of the royal household.
After two years of fruitless efforts, the Prince of Nanyang was wondering if he should give up when Xie Wanniang suddenly reappeared.
Between adopting a member of the clan and recognizing his biological daughter, the Prince of Nanyang still favored the latter. But the question is, is Xie Wanniang still the weak woman he can easily control?
Before, when she was still a young lady in her boudoir, she had no say in anything. Even if she didn't want to acknowledge her ancestors, the only way she could rebel was to argue with her mother more often.
The Prince of Nanyang wouldn't even consider such a level of rebellion a threat.
Now things are different. Now she not only has her own people and wealth, but she has also found a border general as her husband. It can be said that she has completely broken free from Xie Jingshu's control.
In this situation, it won't be so easy for Xie Jingshu to make decisions for her anymore.
What troubled the Prince of Nanyang the most was not Xie Jingshu's loss of control over Xie Wanniang, but Xie Wanniang's willingness to start from scratch on her own rather than return to the Xie family and seek their protection after escaping danger.
The Prince of Nanyang knew that a person who could be ruthless to himself was much more difficult to deal with than a person who could be ruthless to others.
Based on the character and ability she displayed, his path to reuniting with his family was destined to be difficult.
Even so, the Prince of Nanyang showed no intention of giving up.
Just like his queen, who had long been sleeping in the same bed but dreaming different dreams with him, she never intended to give up killing him to silence him and eliminate any future troubles.
Both men harbored ulterior motives. One planned to target Jiang Yuan by submitting a memorial accusing him of abducting a respectable woman, while the other secretly sent men to ensure Xie Wanniang's utter death before the Prince of Nanyang could bring her back to his residence.
Considering the failed assassination attempt last time, and the special nature of Xie Wanniang's current location, the Princess of Nanyang dispatched ten times the number of people as before.
Twenty skilled guards she had borrowed from her family disguised themselves as bodyguards and, along with a manager and a dozen or so employees from her dowry shop, set off for Yi County as quickly as possible under the guise of purchasing goods.
The trusted men sent by the two men arrived at their respective destinations almost simultaneously.
The Prince of Nanyang's trusted subordinates quickly used the Prince of Nanyang's official token to deliver the memorial to the emperor's desk as soon as possible.
The emperor was the cousin of the Prince of Nanyang. He disliked his cousin very much because the prince had first used the marriage agreement to coax his former fiancée into marrying him outside the marriage, and then claimed that he had to divorce his wife and marry another woman because of his mother's orders.
Although he established the Great Wei Dynasty to replace the previous dynasty, he and his father were not among the first groups to rebel, directly leading to the downfall of the previous dynasty.
In order to maintain a righteous cause, they even launched their campaign under the pretext of suppressing rebels.
The emperor, both in the past and present, has always admired and respected the Xie family—father and son—who sacrificed their lives for their country, fulfilling their duty to the emperor and the people, and earning the respect of countless scholars and intellectuals.
After all, who in a position of power wouldn't like a scholar who is both capable and virtuous?
Compared to the upright Xie family, his treacherous cousin and his mother were truly despicable. If it weren't for his bravery in fighting the enemy and the fact that he lost his fertility at a young age on the battlefield and hadn't been able to have a child after all these years, the emperor wouldn't have even wanted to bestow upon him the title of Prince.
Now that he has suddenly submitted a memorial claiming that Xie Wanniang is his biological daughter, and that Jiang Yuan, a talent favored by the emperor, is a treacherous person who seduced his daughter, the emperor's mood immediately soured.
The emperor tossed the memorial to the crown prince, put his hands behind his back, and strolled off to the harem to complain to the empress.
Xie Wanniang's background had already been revealed to the Emperor through the Lady of the Marquis and the Empress, so the Emperor was not surprised at all that Xie Wanniang was originally supposed to be a child of the Yuan family.
Moreover, he didn't mind that Xie Wanniang was unwilling to acknowledge her ancestors. If it were him, he wouldn't abandon those who were truly good to him for the sake of so-called wealth and glory, and turn around to walk into the glamorous cage of the Nanyang Prince's Mansion, which was full of dangers.
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