Chapter 8
Chu Wenjing, the elder brother of Consort Zhen and the maternal uncle of the Fourth Prince, is the only successful member of the Chu family in this generation.
Xue Jin'an knew him. In the original novel, he was the Minister of Justice. He was originally a loyal minister who only served the emperor and did not take sides. Later, when the emperor was old and the struggle for the throne became fierce, he suddenly joined the eldest son's party and took action against the fifth prince several times. The fifth prince, who was at the height of his power, was suppressed and went crazy for a while.
Not long after, the eldest prince's secret was exposed to the emperor, who immediately stripped him of his title and imprisoned him. All his associates were demoted and dismissed from their posts, including Chu Wenjing, who later died of illness.
Xue Jin'an never expected that his simple interest in a character from the original work would lead to his own involvement!
He confirmed that this plot point was not in the original book, and then checked the trending search terms one by one to get a general idea of what was going on.
As mentioned before, Consort Chu Zhen and Consort Zhou Zhen, the original owner's birth mother, were close friends and entered the palace one after the other. It turns out that the Chu family patriarch and the Zhou family patriarch had the same mentor, were classmates at the Imperial Academy, and later served together at the Hanlin Academy.
Even though their family backgrounds and social statuses were not comparable—the Chu family was an official family that had been rooted in the capital for three generations and had a minor noble title passed down through generations, while the Zhou family was just a family of farmers and scholars, with three generations of poor scholars finally producing a Jinshi (a successful candidate in the highest imperial examinations)—they were completely different people. However, they were very close and even verbally agreed to become in-laws. But later, Master Zhou offended the emperor and was demoted to Dianzhou, and the matter was dropped.
Although the relationship between the older generation had faded after the passing of Master Zhou, they were still childhood sweethearts. It is said that when Consort Zhen had her accident, the Chu family initially went to great lengths to help her, but later they suddenly fell silent. Everyone speculated that it was because the old master of the Chu family had intervened to suppress his son.
Not long after, Chu Wenjing fell seriously ill. The imperial physicians said he couldn't be cured. Chu's family sent him to his favorite garden to wait for death. It is said that even a coffin was prepared. Unexpectedly, Chu Wenjing recovered. After that, it was as if his Ren and Du meridians had been opened up, and he began to work diligently again.
Originally, Chu Wenjing was a sinecure as the Prefect of the Capital, a high-ranking official with little real power. However, he managed to become the second-in-command of the Prefect of the Capital, and even cracked a major human trafficking case, saving the daughter of Princess Baoyi. This caught the emperor's eye, and he was successfully transferred to the Ministry of Justice. At the beginning of this year, the Minister of Justice committed a crime, was imprisoned and dismissed from office, implicating half of the people in the Ministry of Justice. Chu Wenjing stood out and took this windfall, becoming the new head of the Ministry of Justice.
Everyone says that Chu Wenjing's sudden surge of ambition was due to some kind of shock. He was determined to join the Ministry of Justice in order to overturn the case of Consort Zhen. Now that he has finally found his opportunity, he was unexpectedly assassinated that very night. Not only did the prisoner die, but he was also knocked unconscious in the Ministry of Justice's dungeon. If he hadn't been discovered in time, he would probably be on his way to the underworld as well.
"Lord Chu is truly devoted to Consort Zhen!" Every trending topic seems to confirm this, even going so far as to fabricate a misleading hashtag like #SeventhPrince'sBackground#.
It is clear that this is a propaganda war against Chu Wenjing, aimed at smearing the relationship between Chu Wenjing and Consort Zhen and making Chu Wenjing's motives for investigating Consort Zhen's case seem impure.
However, putting aside their relationship for the moment, the content did not define the case of overturning the verdict, and it also obscured the various details and evidence of the case. In many cases, not denying it means affirming it. At least Xue Jin'an has determined that there is something fishy about the case of Consort Zhen, and he is 70% confident that he can reconstruct the general events based on the original owner's memories, the content of the original work, and various details.
When we discovered that some trending search terms were originally published yesterday, our confidence level jumped from 70% to 90%.
The situation has become clearer. Someone must have discovered that Chu Wenjing was investigating the case and had even arrested a witness, so they decided to strike first.
However, since the other party clearly had spared no effort, they didn't directly kill Chu Wenjing but instead let him file a complaint with the emperor. How could they be so sure that the emperor would suppress the matter? Moreover, they made the matter too obvious. Weren't they afraid that the emperor would be angry and reprimand them?
The emperor's face was so ugly when he looked at the memorials, and his eyes were so cold. He only gave Chu Wenjing a verbal warning to be lenient, which clearly showed that he was protecting him. He didn't seem to know anything about the inside story of the Consort Zhen case. So why didn't he take action?
Who is the mastermind behind this? Xue Jin'an admitted that he had become curious.
He was also curious about why Chu Wenjing wanted to overturn the verdict against Consort Zhen.
Xue Jin'an was certain that Consort Zhen and Chu Wenjing were not close, at least not childhood sweethearts, and the verbal marriage between the Chu and Zhou families had nothing to do with them.
His conclusion was solely based on the incompatibility of their ages. Master Chu married early, having married and had children while still a candidate for the imperial examinations. In contrast, the Zhou family was poor, and Master Zhou remained unmarried until he came of age. It wasn't until he went to the capital and became a disciple of a master that he was betrothed to his teacher's daughter. However, he married after passing the imperial examinations and holding an official position. Their daughter, Zhou Yuting, was born two years after their marriage.
Boys and girls should not sit together after the age of seven. There is already a taboo about gender differences, let alone an age gap that is too large to play together. Trying to force them to be together is not a marriage alliance but an enmity alliance.
This verbal marriage agreement is most likely to fall on Zhou Yuting's younger brother, who is four years younger than her, namely Zhou Yushu, the only son of the Zhou family.
When the Consort Zhen case occurred, the original owner was already 5 years old, so she had naturally met her uncle. However, children are prone to memory loss, and with the bad things that had happened in the past two years, the original owner could hardly remember her past memories. But the human brain is a very magical thing; not remembering does not mean that the memories do not exist, but rather that they are buried deep inside.
If Xue Jin'an wanted, he could retrieve every day he had lived since he became conscious.
In short, Xue Jin'an unearthed all of Zhou Yushu's memories. Zhou Yushu was indeed a handsome man, but he was born prematurely and had some congenital deficiencies. Even after learning a few martial arts moves from a master, he still looked sickly and was afraid of the dark. He could only fall asleep at night if he lit a candle by his bedside.
Zhou Yushu was exceptionally intelligent and had a photographic memory, but he had no interest in the imperial examinations. Instead, he became interested in the insects of Dianzhou and aspired to become a biologist. After being granted his official title and freedom, he secretly ran away back to Dianzhou.
As a place of exile on par with Lingnan and Ningguta, Dianzhou was extremely remote and desolate. There was no news of Zhou Yushu in the original work. Xue Jin'an suspected that the original owner's uncle had died in some remote corner, or that he was completely unaware of the news from the capital.
After all, the speed of message transmission in ancient times was simply unreliable.
Anyway, the two Zhou family members were not very familiar with Chu Wenjing. In their memory, the two of them spoke of the Chu family members with a very calm expression. Moreover, since there was a problem with the Consort Zhen case, the "victim" Consort Chu Zhen was very delicate. Perhaps she was not the mastermind, but her identity as the "murderer" was basically confirmed.
Under these circumstances, why did Chu Wenjing want to overturn the case? Also, was the other party's sudden involvement in the succession struggle and his attack on the Fifth Prince in the original novel related to this case?
It's impossible that Chu Wenjing actually had a crush on the original owner's mother, right? To drag the whole family down for one person—that's not just a matter of having his meridians opened, but his brain! It just doesn't make sense, but novels often depict people blindly losing their minds for love.
Xue Jin'an, speaking as a mobile phone, finds it difficult to understand you humans.
Unable to figure it out, Xue Jin'an simply stopped thinking about it and decided to give up on that 10% chance of winning, since he was certain to win based on the probability.
Xue Jin'an shifted his gaze to the Fifth Prince.
The fifth prince, Xue Junjue, the ninth prince, Xue Zhuojian, and the fourth princess, Xue Ruyun, are all children of Consort Rong.
Consort Rong was the cousin of Empress Xiaojingyi, the emperor's beloved. She was a cousin of the Ningguo family. Because her appearance and temperament were somewhat similar to the late empress, she was favored. After Consort Zhen was deposed, she became the new favorite concubine. However, she was not well received by the Ningguo family. Back then, the Empress Dowager had a falling out with the Ningguo family because of her entering the palace.
This matter also involves the late emperor. To put it simply, the empresses of the three emperors of the Great Qi Dynasty all came from the Ningguo Mansion, but the latter two did not have good endings.
The late emperor did not love the three thousand beauties in his harem, but fell in love with a widow who could hold two gold bricks. He kept her outside the palace, but he also wanted to bring her into the palace as a concubine. He even wanted to adopt her child with her ex-husband and make him a prince. The empress, who was eight months pregnant, was so angry that she suffered a stroke that night and died of postpartum hemorrhage. She was only nineteen years old.
The current emperor and Empress Xiaojingyi were a perfect match. The emperor personally went to Ningguo Mansion to propose marriage, and the enthronement ceremony and the empress's investiture ceremony were held simultaneously, giving them great prestige. The following year, the empress gave birth to her eldest son, Xue Jue, who died in infancy. Two years later, the empress gave birth to her second son, Xue Zhang, who also died at the age of two. The empress was so heartbroken that she fell ill and died that winter at the age of nineteen.
After that, the emperor sealed off Weiyang Palace and canceled a selection of concubines. No new women entered the palace for a long time. Whenever the topic of re-establishing an empress was mentioned in court, the emperor would fly into a rage.
It wasn't until Consort De gave birth to and successfully raised the eldest prince, Xue Luowen, that a general election was finally held, and princes and princesses began to emerge one by one each year.
The emperor is currently in his prime, and the princes are all still young, the eldest being only fifteen years old, just reaching the age to enter the court and attend to state affairs. Naturally, the court officials and concubines do not dare to covet the position of crown prince at this time, so they all think about vying for the position of empress. It would be more legitimate for the empress's legitimate son to inherit the throne.
They thought that since Empress Xiaojingyi had been gone for so many years, the emperor would eventually have to establish a new empress, and the Weiyang Palace would eventually be reopened.
Xue Jin'an, who was familiar with the original plot, knew that the emperor never established an empress until his death, and that Weiyang Palace remained closed until it was burned down by Xiao Luzi.
Thinking about it this way, perhaps Consort Zhen's death was because of the Empress's position, and Consort Rong was the one who benefited the most after her death, so she is indeed the most suspicious.
Xue Jin'an remembered this person. He glanced at the live stream in the Imperial Study and decided that before trying to remove the Fourth Prince's battery, he could first go and meet the Fifth Prince.
No, just in case, let each prince come once.
Xue Jin'an was plotting his schemes here, unaware that Qian Yuan Palace and Ci Ning Palace were also talking about him.
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