"A rebellious son? Your Majesty is finally willing to acknowledge the eldest princess's status as a prince?" Lan Shuang looked at him with a smile. "Your Majesty has spoken with such sincerity. Everyone here has heard it. Your Majesty will not be able to regret it later."
The old emperor's face froze and he began to gasp for breath.
"Let him live. Some things haven't been made clear yet. Let him know what's going on."
Jiang Mu pinched Lan Shuang's palm and pulled her back to his side.
Lan Shuang nodded: "Okay."
The old emperor saw the two of them flirting with each other, and remembered that it was he who let Lan Shuang follow the eldest princess, and he suddenly wanted to slap himself in the face.
Jiang Mu took a step forward, blocking the old emperor's sinister and resentful gaze. He lowered his eyes and looked at him calmly. Just as he was about to speak, the fifth prince rushed in from the doorway. "I want to see my father. Who are you to stop me? Jiang Mu hasn't even ascended the throne yet."
Hearing this, Xu Yunzhou frowned and was about to argue with him, but Jiang Mu chuckled and waved his hand: "Let him in."
After the Fifth Prince came in, he ignored Xu Yunzhou and looked at Lan Shuang and Jiang Mu who were standing beside the couch.
Lan Shuang glanced at him and didn't take it seriously. The Fifth Prince pursed his lips.
"Since you're here, why not listen together?"
Jiang Mu didn't even look at him. He pulled a chair over for Lan Shuang to sit on, and then he sat directly next to the old emperor's couch.
The Fifth Prince hated his attitude. In his eyes, he was just a dispensable speck of dust.
But now he was trying to show off by talking, which put him at a disadvantage, so he shut up and stood aside, intending to see what Jiang Mu was going to do next.
"You...what else do you want to say? You've lied to me for so many years..."
The old emperor was unable to do so and his throat tightened when he spoke.
Jiang Mu lowered his eyes and looked at him, unable to help but feel a bit of pity.
"Your Majesty, do you know why a man like me would dress as a woman?"
This question stumped the old emperor. He really didn't know.
He stared at Jiang Mu blankly, and Jiang Mu whispered, "Do you still remember who my mother is?"
Lan Shuang was also stunned for a moment and asked 888: "Who is his mother?"
888 tapped away a few times on the keyboard before frowning and saying seriously, "Because it's not closely related to the main storyline, the information isn't included in detail. It only mentions that she was close to the late queen, and she was in poor health after giving birth, and passed away not long after."
Lan Shuang thought for a moment, "Then this matter was probably his mother's idea."
The old emperor thought for a long time but couldn't remember what the woman looked like, and was speechless.
Jiang Mu wasn't angry either. He said nonchalantly, "You can't remember, right? That's normal. An unfavored palace maid who died more than ten years ago. Who would still remember who she was?"
"Then I'll introduce it to you again. If you run into me down there, don't make the mistake."
Jiang Mu chuckled and said, "Her name is Lian Yun. She was the head maid beside the late queen. Because of her outstanding appearance, you got drunk and acted recklessly, grabbed her and took away her innocence. She was in the queen's palace. The queen was magnanimous on the surface, but secretly she was very angry and made things difficult for her. As a result, my mother didn't dare to tell you that she was pregnant. She hid secretly and didn't dare to ask the imperial physician to see her. She waited until her belly was too big to hide before telling you."
The emperor froze and suddenly remembered this incident. When he went to the queen's palace for dinner, a palace maid rushed out and said that she was pregnant with his child. He had long forgotten that romantic night and had not thought about giving her a position at all until he saw that she was pregnant.
At that time, he still felt a little guilty, so he gave her the title of noble lady and wanted her to move out, but the queen said that Lian Yun was hers and she would take good care of Lian Yun.
He kept Lian Yun without thinking much about it.
The old emperor thought about this and looked at Jiang Mu with a complicated expression: "It was the Queen who asked you to..."
Seeing that he remembered, Jiang Mu smiled faintly, "Yes and no, my mother was already pregnant at that time, as you know. The Queen hated me so much that she dared not do anything. But having the life to give birth does not mean having the life to raise me. The Queen was waiting for me to be born, and then she would find a way to kill me. After all, if I was born safely, it would be your first child."
The old emperor was speechless.
"Later, my mother went through untold hardships to give birth to me. Something happened to the Empress that day, so she wasn't in the palace. She bribed a nanny early on and brought in a baby girl from outside to swap with me. She sent someone to tell you right away. As soon as you arrived, my mother said she had a dream, saying I was unlucky and that I had to live in a Buddhist temple. Do you remember?"
Jiang Mu didn't wait for the old emperor to answer, and muttered to himself, "I think she remembers. I lived in the Buddhist temple until I was five years old. At that time, my mother was seriously ill, so I was taken back. At that time, the queen had been executed for witchcraft, and the prince had also died. Because my mother came from the queen's palace, you despised her. She lived a life worse than death in the harem, and she forced herself to see me one last time before passing away."
"Guess what she said before she died?"
Jiang Mu looked at the old emperor with a smile.
The old emperor's hair stood on end, and his lips couldn't help but tremble slightly, "It's my fault..."
"It's too late."
Jiang Mu stood up, brushed his sleeves, and stood with his hands behind his back. "She told me not to reveal any flaws, to live well, and wait for a chance to fake my death and escape in the future, and never to return to this place again."
The old emperor stared at him in amazement. As expected, Jiang Mu suddenly changed the subject, his brows thick with anger. "But I don't want to. Her revenge, my revenge, how can I let it go? I have disguised myself as a woman for so many years, just for this day. Tell me, will I let you go?"
"You...what do you want to do?" The old emperor finally felt scared. He kept backing away, shrinking to the foot of the couch, and turned around to run to the ground. Jiang Mu grabbed his hair and threw him back.
"Can you run away? Stop doing useless and foolish things. Now, issue an order to pass the throne to me. I will let you live to a natural death. If you refuse, then die now. No one can do anything to me anyway."
Jiang Mu's words were extremely arrogant, but his tone was very calm, as if he was just talking about what to eat tonight. However, the more he spoke like this, the more frightened the old emperor felt.
He felt that his son had become perverted.
"You..." He caught a glimpse of the Fifth Prince from the corner of his eye, and suddenly his eyes lit up, as if he had grasped a life-saving straw, "Fifth Prince, save me!"
Just as the Fifth Prince was about to move, a knife suddenly extended from his side. "Don't move." Lan Shuang said indifferently, "Swords have no eyes. Fifth Prince, please take care of yourself."
The Fifth Prince's Adam's apple rolled, "A Shuang, are you and I really going to come to this?"
"Don't call me that. I'm not that familiar with you. If you want the throne, first consider whether you have enough strength. You've seen what happened to the Second Prince if you insist on having your own way."
The fifth prince was silent. He really could not do anything now.
Originally, he wanted to take advantage of the second prince's rebellion to rescue the emperor. The emperor was dying and would definitely pass the throne to him before his death. Unexpectedly, the eldest princess was not a princess but a prince. She had made preparations in advance and caught everyone off guard.
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