Chapter 252: Bo Qiaohui 64
"I heard something from Che'er, so I came to see how Duan'er was doing."
Bo Qiaohui casually explained, then glanced back at the arrogant Liu Rong and said to Liu Qi in a bad mood, "As for your precious daughter, how can she ever stay quietly in her own palace? She's already a grown-up girl, but she's always so unruly."
Liu Qi quickly said, "Rong'er, this is how you should behave like a princess of the Han Dynasty. Why bother learning all those cumbersome formalities?"
"Your Majesty, just spoil her. You'll have a headache in the future." Bo Qiaohui didn't bother to pay attention and just waved to Liu Duan. When he came over, she asked Jia Ji, "How do you teach your children?"
"If Che'er hadn't told me, I wouldn't have known this child had the audacity to ride a horse and injure someone in the palace. I've always seen this child as an honest person, never acting outrageously in front of me. You've been raising this child for several years, and you've managed to incite this kind of child into this state?"
Jia Ji was surprised that the Empress would dare to turn the tables in front of the Emperor, and she blurted out without thinking: "The Empress is really good at confusing right and wrong. It was clearly the Crown Prince who hurt Duan'er, but now it's my fault."
"Duan'er, tell me the truth, what happened today?" Bo Qiaohui ignored Jia Ji's words and just turned to look at Liu Duan.
The boy stood there, timidly looking up at the Queen. His face paled as he thought of something. "Indeed, it was indeed I who first injured two guards while riding my horse. Then His Royal Highness the Crown Prince slapped me and then... killed my horse."
Not to mention Liu Qi, even Li Ji and Liu Pengzu did not expect that he would tell the truth so easily. They could only sigh in regret in their hearts.
But Liu Duan didn't finish his words. He raised his finger and pointed at Liu Pengzu, his face full of hatred. "It was him. He was the one who sent people to instigate me to cause trouble for His Royal Highness the Crown Prince. He also said that he had no intention of becoming the Crown Prince and was willing to help me with all his strength."
idiot!
Is it possible to say such things in public?
Liu Pengzu immediately turned to his father, only to be met with a dark gaze. He quickly squeezed out tears, as if he had suffered a great injustice. "Father, Your Majesty, and Your Majesty, I have always been the most timid of my brothers. How could I dare to instigate my fifth brother to do such a thing?"
Then he turned to Liu Duan, "I don't know why you're accusing me today, but since you say I instigated this, Fifth Brother, do you have any evidence?" Seeing Liu Duan speechless, Liu Pengzu felt a little proud. "You don't have evidence, but I do. Before returning to Guangxian Palace today, I met General Zhou, and he can testify on my behalf."
"I, you... that person clearly took your token and said he was..."
"Shut up, everyone."
Liu Qi didn't want to hear any more nonsense. He pointed at Jia Ji and said, "I will send Liu Duan to his fiefdom tomorrow morning. As for you, you are not allowed to step out of Lianyi Palace from now on. You must copy the palace rules thirty times every day to prevent you from having any inappropriate thoughts."
After saying that, he took Qiaohui and left.
Liu Pengzu felt that he had escaped a disaster and was still feeling proud. But when he and his mother returned to the Guangxian Palace, he was stunned by a slap from Li Ji.
"Mother!"
"Don't call me mother. You only have one mother, the Queen." Li Ji turned her head away, her face full of panic. "Do you think you handled things very cleverly today?"
"What does this mean?"
Liu Pengzu was confused and didn't understand why Li Ji said that.
"Your father has already become suspicious of you. So what if this matter has nothing to do with you? Do you really think that the emperor needs evidence to convict someone?" Li Ji looked at her son disappointedly. She admitted that she had her own selfish motives in going back to Weiyang Palace from King Wu with great difficulty.
Her son's intelligence had indeed given her some inappropriate thoughts. But the emperor's warning today had gradually sobered her up. Looking at her still unwilling son, she said with a touch of guilt, "I've ruined you..."
"Mother, please don't do this."
Liu Pengzu had no idea why his mother, who had always been calm and intelligent, would retreat because of a small failure and show such a worried look.
"Wrong, all wrong. From the beginning to the end, the so-called opportunity I grasped was fake, it was poison. Only by staying in peace and quiet can I survive, otherwise she will never show mercy."
Liu Pengzu did not understand what Li Ji said. Under his mother's coercion, he could only swear that he would never covet the throne again in his life.
It was not until two months later that he learned that King Liu Duan of Jiaoxi had died of sudden death due to nightmares every day, and he began to have some vague guesses in his mind.
Upon hearing this news, Li Ji remained silent for a moment. When she spoke again, it was with a hint of bitterness: "Peng Zu, go ask your father for permission to become a vassal."
Liu Pengzu went to Xuanshi Hall with his last bit of resentment, but he didn't expect that the queen was there too.
"Why is Peng Zu here today? Did you hear about King Liang?"
Liu Pengzu was stunned, feeling very puzzled. Why did the Queen suddenly mention the Prince of Liang? Moreover, even if they were to talk about these princes, shouldn't they mention Liu Duan, the Prince of Jiaoxi, who died in his fiefdom two months after taking office?
Seeing that he was silent, Liu Qi turned to Qiao Hui and said, "How could he possibly know all this, just a child?"
"I really don't know what happened to Uncle Wu. I came here today to discuss the matter of his enfeoffment."
"Become a vassal? Didn't your father say he'd send you there next year?" Bo Qiaohui glanced at Liu Qi and frowned. "Why did the child bring it up all of a sudden? Things haven't been peaceful in various places lately."
"I didn't say that. It was probably his own idea."
"Peng Zu, is it you who wanted to go to the vassal state?"
The queen asked Liu Pengzu in a gentle voice, but Prince Guangchuan, who was sitting below her, was still immersed in the situation and couldn't calm down for a long time.
He hadn't expected that the Emperor and Empress, who were considered to be on bad terms in public, would actually get along like this in private. He had indeed heard people mention that the Empress was once the only favorite, but since his father had begun to favor others in recent years, he assumed that the so-called favor was just that.
Even if the Empress really had overpowered the harem back then, hadn't the palace been abuzz with rumors of a falling out between the Emperor and Empress for years? Neither Father nor the Empress had ever explained or stopped it, so they all believed it.
Thinking of his previous thoughts, Liu Pengzu felt that everyone in the palace was probably laughing at him. No wonder his mother had never considered replacing the empress. It turned out that she was not afraid of the Bo family's power, but because she understood that the emperor had never taken them seriously.
Whether they are concubines or illegitimate children, in the eyes of his father, only the queen and her children are one family with Liu Qi!
"Peng Zu? Peng Zu!"
"Yes, mother..."
"What's wrong with you? You look distracted."
Liu Pengzu naturally didn't know what to say, so he turned around and said, "I was just wondering what your mother was talking about when she mentioned Uncle Wu."
"Oh, it's not a big deal. Prince Liang rebelled."
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