Chapter 274 Confess the crime!
The guards also stopped.
Lin Shiqi widened her eyes. She had guessed that the little mute girl's background should be unusual, but she didn't expect that she would be the prince's son!
The old Duke was also extremely shocked. He looked at the little mute girl, then at the prince in the hall. The two indeed looked very similar.
"You, are you really Chang Heng?"
This matter was so outrageous that he had to ask again.
The little mute girl looked at the old duke, her eyes softened.
"Mr. Cui, what's your last name?"
The old Duke's expression changed immediately.
Chang Heng said this when he was a child. He accompanied his father to the Duke's Mansion to pay a visit. At that time, he was still ignorant and naughty and liked to run around. While his father was greeting someone, he sneaked to the backyard and happened to meet the old Duke, so he asked this question.
The old Duke rushed to the front yard alone at that time. He laughed and cried, but didn't take it seriously. Later he found out the other party's identity. He didn't tell anyone about this matter. After all, it was a trivial matter, and the child might be the future emperor, so it was better to have less trouble than more.
To him, this simple sentence had already proved the identity of the little mute girl.
Several friends around the little mute girl also came forward to help prove it.
"You really are Chang Heng! Alas, my eyes are almost blinded. I was deceived by a thief without knowing it!"
After the old Duke sighed, he shouted sternly to the hall:
"What a great companion, how dare you pretend to be the crown prince! Why don't you come down and confess your crime!"
The fake prince in the hall, Yanxin, was panicked when he saw that the imperial guards were unable to capture the person. After all, he was just a teenager, and he lost his mind at the critical moment, so he could not help but turn his eyes to Prince Gong.
Prince Gong shouted:
"What a shameless fellow! How dare you pretend to be the crown prince! Why don't you surrender!"
Yan Xin was stunned.
"You, you, this is not your idea! You, you want to cross the river and destroy the bridge!"
After hearing this, all the ministers looked at Prince Gong with amusement in their eyes.
Prince Gong remained calm and rebuked:
"Nonsense! I thought you were Chang Heng, so I naturally supported you! But you are an imposter, so what else can I say? The only way is to plead guilty and face the punishment!"
The old Duke obviously didn't want to listen to the two of them arguing, and signaled the guards to take down the fake prince.
The fake prince had not yet sat on the throne. He was sitting in front of the throne. Even so, it was the first time for the guards to arrest someone in such a position.
But they were the imperial guards, not the prince's guards. Now that the situation was clear, they hesitated for only a brief moment before grabbing Yan Xin from the hall.
The little mute girl rushed forward and rubbed Yanxin's face vigorously, rubbing off a layer of fat.
When everyone looked at her again, they found that Yan Xin's appearance was different from before. Although she looked more like the little mute girl, there were still differences if one looked closely.
The mute girl sneered:
"You actually came up with the idea of impersonating me. Tell me! Who asked you to do this? Was it Prince Gong?"
Prince Gong moved slowly, trying to get closer to the outside of the palace, but was blocked by Lin Shiqi and Zhou Lang.
Yan Xin could no longer control her expression, her face was full of fear, and she looked at Prince Gong with hope, but what he saw was a face full of coldness.
Lin Shiqi sneered:
"Prince Gong, he wants you to give him some advice, don't scare him! He is still young, if he gets scared and says something bad, that would be bad, don't you think?"
Prince Gong's face turned pale and he snorted heavily.
"What does what he did have to do with me? He just saw me showing kindness to him before, so he had some extravagant hopes! I am a member of the royal family, how could I support a person of an outsider to sit on the throne?"
Xiao Ya Niang pulled out a knife from the guard's waist and put it on Yan Xin's neck.
"Hurry up and tell me! Otherwise I will kill you right now!"
Yanxin was shocked and scared, so she told him the whole story.
The story begins with the extermination of the prince’s family.
At that time, he followed Yu Changheng on the run, but they were robbed and killed on the way. Their team was killed and Changheng was nowhere to be found, and he was hiding from place to place. During this period, he was also taken care of by Zhou Qinan.
Later, he encountered another group of people. He thought he was going to die, but he was not. The people who came were Prince Gong's men, and they took him back to the palace.
Prince Gong asked him where Yu Changheng was, and he said he was missing. Prince Gong guessed that after not seeing him for such a long time, how long could a precious young master, with no one around him, last? Most likely, he had been killed by a wild beast.
So he made a plan with him, in which he would pretend to be Chang Heng, and Prince Gong would do his best to help him ascend the throne of Crown Prince, and he didn't need to pay anything, he just had to help Prince Gong get some benefits at the critical moment.
Yanxin had never thought of doing this, but the prospect described by Prince Gong was too tempting. He, a book boy, could become a prince, and even have a great chance of becoming the emperor!
Who wouldn’t be tempted by this?
As for the appearance issue, Prince Gong said it was a small matter and only required a little makeup.
How to deal with relatives is the biggest problem.
His parents were gone, and the person who knew Chang Heng best was probably the old emperor. Yan Xin was his companion, and knew a lot about Chang Heng, but with the old emperor, if he said something careless, everything would be over.
Fortunately, the old emperor was in poor health and could collapse at any time, which provided an opportunity for action.
At this time, the old emperor already knew that the former prince was wrongly accused, but he had not yet officially issued an edict to announce it, so the two discussed and made up a story, saying that the former prince was framed and his legitimate son Chang Heng was out chasing the murderer. This story saved the old emperor's face, and at that time the old emperor was extremely keen on the art of immortality and would not deliberately find him back.
So, when the old emperor really fell and lost his ability to recognize people, Yan Xin, who was disguised as Yu Changheng, returned.
There is no need to say more about what happens next.
While Yanxin was telling her story, Prince Gong tried to interrupt her several times but failed.
After Yanxin finished speaking, he finally had a chance and said indignantly:
"He's talking nonsense! When he first met me, he pretended to be Chang Heng, saying that it was inconvenient for him to appear in the palace and hoped that I would protect him for a while. At that time, His Majesty had not yet issued an edict to rehabilitate the former crown prince, and I knew that this was a matter of time, so I agreed and let him live in the palace for a while. I didn't expect that he would repay kindness with enmity, and in a desperate situation, he actually wanted me to excuse him in a critical moment. It's really outrageous! You must not believe him. This ungrateful person should be killed with a knife as soon as possible!"
Yanxin was shocked and angry, and cursed Prince Gong for confusing right and wrong, being treacherous and shameless.
Finally, he begged the mute girl to forgive him.
Xiao Ya Niang asked him, since you said that it was Prince Gong who instructed you to do it, do you have any evidence?
Yan Xin thought about it and shook her head bitterly.
This is not surprising at all. Prince Gong is extremely cunning and sly. How could he allow a little servant boy to catch him?
The mute girl lost interest and had him taken away.
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