Chapter 116
The Fifth Prince originally intended to remain silent to confuse the situation, but he was exposed before even going through a single round. Since he had been exposed, the Fifth Prince did not make any futile struggles and readily admitted to the matter.
However, despite his admission, the Fifth Prince still spoke with considerable finesse.
He still hasn't corrected his bad habit of finding it difficult to express himself when something happens, but after several clashes with Xue Jin'an, he has gained a profound, full, and necessary understanding of the saying "the more you say, the more mistakes you make."
Therefore, although he still has this problem, he has restrained himself to some extent.
The Fifth Prince looked at Xue Jin'an with a half-smile and said in a seemingly ambiguous tone, "Actually, whether there is a problem or not is not important, is it? If you want to convict and punish someone, you have to produce solid evidence, not just empty words and talk. Seventh Brother."
Although the Fifth Prince did not use his usual sarcastic tone, his words still carried a hint of provocation, while also indicating his complete confidence that Xue Jin'an could not find any problems here.
However, as mentioned before, the Fifth Prince is a master of acting. Whether what he says is true or false, nine times out of ten it's a trap to deceive people. Anyone who believes him is a fool.
He's probably like this even with his own people. You can't say the Fifth Prince isn't smart. On the contrary, when he was being manipulated by Xiao Shu, he not only managed to free himself but also indirectly contributed to Xiao Shu's death. And now he's still being promoted. You can tell he's quite intelligent.
However, there are countless intelligent people in the world, and the princes were all carefully educated by great Confucian scholars. Putting aside their character, thoughts, and values, if we only consider intelligence, the third prince is probably the only one who is truly brainless. Compared to these people, the fifth prince's most commendable quality is that he is very good at judging people and understands human nature, which can be seen from his repeated attempts to sow discord among the princes.
However, it is unclear whether the Fifth Prince is like this by nature or developed this way while working under Xiao Shu. As Xue Jin'an said, he is an absolute traitor. He has no sense of belonging to others and his sense of security comes only from himself. He only trusts himself, and everyone else is just a pawn to be used by him.
Among all the princes, the Fifth Prince was the one Xue Jin'an had the most contact with, so his character model was the first to be completed. Xue Jin'an had long seen through his true nature, so he only paid attention to the information revealed in the Fifth Prince's words, and did not care about the meaning the Fifth Prince himself wanted to express.
After hearing his words, Xue Jin'an only glanced at him before walking straight into the main hall.
The Fifth Prince, who was still waiting for him to speak, was speechless.
The Fifth Prince, unable to swallow his anger, threw Batu into the courtyard and immediately followed, trying to pry something out of Xue Jin'an. He said, "Seventh Brother, do you know who once lived in this palace? It was Consort Hui, who remarried the late Emperor with two sons and was favored by him for many years, causing discord between the late Emperor and the Empress Dowager."
Xue Jin'an was certainly aware of this matter, and he also knew that the palace was specially built by the emperor because the Empress Dowager forbade Consort Hui from entering the harem.
The fact that the Fifth Prince would suddenly bring these things up clearly meant that he couldn't possibly be talking about such "common sense." Xue Jin'an didn't respond to his words and patiently waited for him to reveal the information himself.
Sure enough, after waiting for a while and seeing that Xue Jin'an still didn't respond, the Fifth Prince couldn't hold back any longer. He muttered with a displeased look, "You've got me all figured out that I really want to talk to you."
The Fifth Prince found the other princes boring, but he always tried to provoke Xue Jin'an, even though he knew that Xue Jin'an was a man who would resort to violence at the slightest provocation and would be extremely ruthless, showing no mercy because of the thin ties of brotherhood. If it was necessary to kill him, the Fifth Prince knew without even thinking that Xue Jin'an would show no mercy.
In fact, it wasn't just the Fifth Prince who knew; the court officials and powerful figures of the Great Qi Dynasty were also aware of it. Precisely because they knew, they only dared to write memorials impeaching Xue Jin'an, but dared not actually confront him and hurl insults at him. In the court, men with backbones as strong as the Right Censor-in-Chief were relatively rare. Most people became officials simply for high positions and wealth, to rise above others; even if it was to serve the country, they wouldn't recklessly risk their lives for no reason.
Xue Jin'an became a figure in Daqi who was generally considered not to be easily provoked because of his "equality." No matter your official rank or status, if you fell into the hands of the Seventh Prince, you would die an equal death, with no funeral or posthumous reputation.
Everyone knows that the Seventh Prince is not someone to be trifled with, and the Fifth Prince, who has learned many lessons from him, knows this even better, but he just wants to provoke him and see how he reacts.
Now that Xue Jin'an had returned the silence to the Fifth Prince himself, he immediately felt uncomfortable. Even though he had to tell the news, his tone was filled with indescribable frustration and resentment.
He curled his lip and said, "It is said that when Prince Wucheng and Prince Wen'an rebelled, they fled to Changqiu Palace for help. The late emperor was indeed persuaded by Consort Hui and decided to spare their lives. However, they were directly poisoned to death on the spot by the Empress Dowager who arrived. Consort Hui was so frightened by the death of her two sons that she fainted. The seven-month-old prince was miscarried. After that, there have been rumors of ghosts, but I don't know if it's true or not."
Prince Chengwu and Prince Wen'an were naturally the two sons of Consort Hui from her previous marriage. The late emperor had favored Consort Hui to the point of being somewhat irrational. He not only gave her the same rank and treatment as the empress, but also made her two sons from other men princes. Even if they were just princes of the same rank, it would be enough to anger the Empress Dowager. Not to mention that Empress Zhong's life was involved. It was quite understandable that the Empress Dowager did not allow Consort Hui to enter the harem.
However, the Empress Dowager was dissatisfied with Consort Hui, and the late Emperor was equally dissatisfied with Empress Zhong. The mother and son were at odds, and a cold war that would last until the end of the late Emperor's life began.
The palace built by the late emperor for his favorite concubine was naturally quite large, and the construction took a long time, a full year and a half to be completed. In fact, during this long period of calm, the Empress Dowager's attitude had softened, and she had already prepared to retire to Cining Palace for the sake of the stability of the court, completely relinquishing power to the late emperor.
Then the late emperor made a terrible mistake and renamed the palace Changqiu Palace.
There's not much to say about the meaning of the name; after all, palace names carry auspicious connotations. However, Changqiu Palace was the residence of the Eastern Han Dynasty empress, and interestingly, the Weiyang Palace of the Daqi Dynasty also inherited the name from the residence of the Western Han Dynasty empress. If you say there's no intention to provoke or challenge them, the Third Prince wouldn't believe it.
The Empress Dowager's temperament can be seen from how she handled Chu Wenwan's matter. She is usually quite easy to talk to, but once someone crosses the line, she will truly go so far as to "crush their bones and scatter their ashes." The late Emperor was her biological son and also the Emperor, so she couldn't retaliate too much, but she showed absolutely no mercy to Consort Hui.
There were many rumors in the palace. Some said that Consort Hui had been favored by the emperor for many years, and although she had recovered her health, she had never had a child. They said that the Empress Dowager had given her a drug to prevent pregnancy. Others said that Consort Hui's death was not necessarily due to depression, but that she was killed by the Empress Dowager herself. There were countless rumors and gossips. In any case, the Empress Dowager's hatred for Consort Hui was undeniable, as evidenced by the fact that even the plaque of Changqiu Palace could not be preserved.
The Fifth Prince brought this up specifically, seemingly implying that the secret hidden here was related to Consort Hui.
But as mentioned before, when Xue Jin'an listened to the Fifth Prince, he never listened to what the Fifth Prince was trying to say, but only listened to the information revealed in his words.
"You are trying to sow discord between me and the Empress Dowager," Xue Jin'an said with absolute certainty.
Consort Hui's background involves the late Emperor, and the late Emperor's fate, apart from not being directly deposed from the throne, was that he lost everything he should and shouldn't have lost. He was practically under house arrest in the Qian Yuan Palace, unable to leave. Even what he ate and how much water he drank were reported to the Empress Dowager. One can imagine what kind of life he had.
He once fell seriously ill and felt he was about to die. He conveyed his only wish to the old eunuch who had served him for many years: to be buried with Consort Hui. The old eunuch immediately told the Empress Dowager about it. As a result, when the late emperor opened his eyes, he saw his own mother standing by his bedside, ruthlessly and clearly rejecting his last wish.
Those who know the exact words are already dead, but the version that has been passed down roughly says: "Don't even dream about it. I'm already being lenient by not stripping her of her title. If you mention her again, I'll open her coffin, mutilate her corpse, and leave it to rot in the wilderness, so that she won't find peace even in death."
Whether these statements are true remains to be verified, but it is a fact that the late emperor, who was originally too ill to get out of bed, was able to get out of bed in a fit of anger.
—The late emperor's reaction was clearly recorded in the imperial daily records. The Empress Dowager had no intention of letting those words be passed down to future generations, but she also had no intention of concealing the terrible mother-son relationship between her and the late emperor.
Many people believe that if the Empress Dowager was so ruthless to her own son, she must have been even more merciless to others.
It's a very harsh and cruel thing to say, but regarding the Empress Dowager's relinquishment of power and retreat to Cining Palace, I wonder how many veteran officials secretly rejoiced that Empress Xiaojingyi's death was a stroke of good luck.
The Fifth Prince—or rather, the people behind the Fifth Prince—wanted to sow discord between Xue Jin'an and the Empress Dowager, turning him back into the pitiful Seventh Prince, isolated and helpless, subject to humiliation and slaughter. However, they did not know that Xue Jin'an's way of thinking was typical of "revenge for wrongs and vengeance for grievances."
If he were placed in the same situation as the Empress Dowager back then, it's hard to say whether the late Emperor would have even reached the point of dying of illness. Perhaps he and Consort Hui would already be a pair of dead lovers in the underworld. It's just that Xue Jin'an is still young and his power is not yet sufficient, and the struggle for the throne has not fully developed yet. He can't stray too far from the main plot, otherwise the throne would have been changed hands long ago.
"The Empress Dowager is a good person, with a kind heart," Xue Jin'an said sincerely.
The Fifth Prince looked at him with a disbelief expression: "...Are you serious?"
Xue Jin'an ignored him again and began to look around the abandoned palace.
Although the Fifth Prince designated this abandoned palace as a secret base, he actually hid most of his belongings in the artificial hills. Rather than entering the long-abandoned and uncleaned palace, he preferred to lie on the artificial hills outside or close his eyes and bask in the sun on the trees.
Therefore, the Fifth Prince visited this abandoned palace many times and gathered all the necessary information. However, the palace remained exactly as it was when it was abandoned, and he had not touched it at all.
Therefore, when they first entered the main hall, the Fifth Prince made a rather comical mistake.
The tightly closed palace doors were pushed open, and a thick cloud of dust rushed in. Xue Jin'an, who had anticipated this, covered his mouth and nose, but the Fifth Prince was the one who was choked by the dust.
"Cough cough cough Seventh brother, are you coughing on purpose?!" The fifth prince coughed so loudly that it shook the heavens and the earth, while glaring at Xue Jin'an with his bloodshot eyes.
“You talk too much nonsense,” Xue Jin’an said matter-of-factly.
The fifth prince was so angry that he lost his mind. He took a deep breath, but coughed even more violently and almost coughed himself to death at the palace gate.
After the dust settled a bit, the two went in one after the other. Xue Jin'an used a high-definition camera to scan the entire palace, converting all the details into code signals, which were then broken down and analyzed into strings of data.
It must be said that Consort Hui truly lived up to her reputation as a favored concubine who could bewitch the late emperor. This abandoned palace was not only called the Empress's Palace, but its facilities in all aspects were also modeled after the Empress's. For example, the jade paving stones on the ground were not only unrelated to those in the Qian Yuan Palace, but were exactly the same.
It should be noted that only the emperor and empress could use such jade. For other concubines to use such floor tiles in their palaces would be considered an overreach of regulations. If even a single floor tile was subject to such restrictions, one can only imagine what was allowed for others.
Several years have passed. Not to mention Consort Hui, even the late Emperor has been buried for who knows how long. There are not many things left in the palace. Only some large items such as tables, chairs and benches that cannot be moved are left. Even these are made of the best materials.
The original owner had experienced the palace raid, and even witnessed firsthand how Zhaoyang Palace was "looted." Xue Jin'an compared the scenes in his memory with the current ruined palace, and the difference was really obvious.
The sheer quality of these tables, chairs, and benches is enough to outshine many of the treasures in Zhaoyang Palace. Even without seeing what the palace looked like in its heyday, it's enough to show just how favored Consort Hui was.
After reading it, Xue Jin'an felt that Zhou Yuting's title of favored concubine was really undeserved.
Well, it's not impossible that it's the emperor's fault. — Xue Jin'an has never hesitated to assume the worst about the emperor. In his mind, the emperor is cowardly and useless, and now adding stinginess wouldn't be out of the question.
However, Xue Jin'an searched the palace inch by inch but couldn't find any clues.
Xue Jin'an was not surprised; he had expected it. The fact that this abandoned palace could be displayed so openly for so many years without anyone noticing anything unusual meant that the person behind it must have something to rely on.
Xue Jin'an not only took in every corner of the palace, but also kept an eye on the Fifth Prince's micro-expressions. He analyzed and compared them with the psychological content in the database, but still couldn't find any flaws.
The current Fifth Prince does resemble some of the first-tier contenders for the throne described in the original text, capable of challenging the First Prince.
Xue Jin'an withdrew his gaze, thought for a moment, and opened the game folder, intending to try and find something using the mini-games about Chu Wenwan's Summer Palace that he had searched for earlier.
Upon opening the game, he felt his magic power being drained from his body, leaving him with a sense of emptiness, and his battery level dropped by three percent in an instant.
Speaking of this, Xue Jin'an, who failed to get a battery with 100% health, has to praise the unique self-healing ability of humans.
Since he came into this world, he has been eating and sleeping well every day. Not only have his physical data gradually increased, but his body's self-healing ability has also been enhanced. His health level, which was originally only half, has increased in the past few months and is about to reach the threshold of 60%.
Although a health rating of 60% is still not very good, Xue Jin'an is quite satisfied with the previous dilapidated state as a comparison. He feels like he has returned to the days when he was first forged into a magic weapon and was taken by Long Aotian every few days to change parts and upgrade.
That's why Xue Jin'an didn't pay much attention to the battery when he saw the Fourth Prince this time.
As his magic enveloped the surroundings, Xue Jin'an's vision shifted to a godlike perspective, and everything within his sight transformed into a familiar fairytale style. He saw himself transformed into a faceless white figure.
As for the Fifth Prince, because Xue Jin'an ignored his existence, he was directly hidden in the game screen.
Surprisingly, the game route in the abandoned palace was very simple. He simply walked around the main hall, and nothing happened along the way. There was no need to change his perspective or take any unusual route until he re-entered the inner hall of the main hall. Only then did his vision change, and a white ghostly half-human figure floated by the bed.
Xue Jin'an controlled the white figure to walk over, and a dialogue box popped up on the ghost that also had no facial features.
Ghostly Consort: Empress Zhong's person? What do you want here? My two sons are dead, and I have died as you wished. It's all over now. Leave this place and never come back.
When Xue Jin'an saw the words "Ghost Consort" displayed in the chat box, he immediately realized that this was the legendary Consort Hui. To be honest, Xue Jin'an was a spirit that had become sentient, and even without a physical body, he had already entered the path of cultivation. He was naturally sensitive to these supernatural matters.
However, Xue Jin'an had never sensed any ghostly aura since he stepped into this place. He was quite surprised to see ghosts. He then immediately realized that this was a change brought about by the game. In one level of the game, the protagonist encountered the Ghost Princess.
After entering this world, the game underwent adaptive modifications and loaded the world's settings. However, no matter how much it was modified, it would not deviate from the original game template. Thus, under the construction of his magic, such a ghost appeared.
Xue Jin'an wanted to ask a few more questions, but after the Ghost Consort finished speaking, a message popped up in front of him saying "Successfully cleared the level," and he returned to the game's main page.
Xue Jin'an closed the game, took a moment to adjust to the change in perspective, and pondered the short sentence from the Ghost Consort.
In the Fifth Prince's view, Xue Jin'an just suddenly and inexplicably walked around the palace and then came back. He asked him several times, but was ignored. In the end, he had to shut up and just follow behind him to see what he was up to.
However, Xue Jin'an stopped in the palace and stood by the dilapidated and rotten bed for a long time.
For as long as he stood there, the Fifth Prince meticulously examined the bed, almost to the point of crawling under it to take a look. Finally, he couldn't hold back any longer and reached out to push Xue Jin'an, "Hey, what have you discovered? Why are you acting like you're possessed? It can't be that Consort Hui herself has appeared to talk to you, can it?"
“Hmm.” Xue Jin’an glanced at him.
Fifth Prince: "..."
A chill ran down the Fifth Prince's spine. His hand, which hadn't trembled even when he was holding Batu, shuddered slightly. He clenched his fist to force himself to calm down and sneered, "You think you can scare me like this? I'm not easily frightened. If there were really ghosts in this world, Xiao Shu would have come to take my life long ago."
Xue Jin'an remained noncommittal, only looking at him for a while before suddenly saying, "You stepped on her."
"!!" The Fifth Prince sprang up instantly, using his lightness skill to transform into a gust of wind and launch himself out of the palace.
Xue Jin'an's lips curved upwards by two pixels. He felt a fresh and joyful emotion intertwined. Xue Jin'an recorded the data and named it: The Fifth Prince's Takeoff Artifact.
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