Chapter 490 Eliminating the Harm
Xie Ling'er was leisurely trying on the new clothes made for her by the Imperial Clothing Bureau in the palace.
Xie Shang walked up to Xie Ling'er with icy eyes and a chilling aura emanating from him. Before she could speak, he slapped her across the face, his eyes blazing with fury.
Xie Ling'er was also stunned for a moment. Before she could react, Lin Feng and Ye Ying, along with their guards, surrounded the Ninth Princess's palace. Soon, the palace maids who served her were also detained. Jian Shi tried to escape, but she was no match for the guards.
Ye Ying brought her directly before the Emperor, and Xie Shang said coldly, "Whose person are you? When did you enter the palace? Tell the truth..."
Lin Feng handed her the wasps he had put in a cloth bag, saying, "If she doesn't tell the truth, let her experience the power of these things, these harmful creatures."
Madam Jian was so frightened that her pupils seemed to burst. She calmed herself down and asked, "This servant doesn't know what Your Majesty means."
"Use torture." Xie Shang was too lazy to waste words with her. "I won't waste words with you either. Since you want to die, I will make you wish you were dead. Bring all her people here."
Soon, the soldiers brought all of Jian's people to her without leaving a trace. There were palace maids and eunuchs, all of whom were the confidants that Su Qingqing had cultivated in the palace. In fact, even Jian herself might not know them completely. At most, she could only contact them through coded signals.
Xie Ling'er recognized several of them. Upon seeing this, she turned pale with fright. Could it be that Fifth Brother already knew that Mother Consort had escaped from the palace?
Her lips trembled: "Fifth Brother?"
"I don't have a sister like you. I gave you a chance, Ling'er, but you have disappointed me too much."
Xie Ling'er wanted to say that she didn't...
Seeing that she could no longer hide the truth, Lady Jian said, "Princess, you don't know, but the wasps were placed in the Morning Light Palace by me. They were brought back from beyond the Great Wall. The venom of these wasps is deadly on contact with blood, and it would be impossible for you to get them in the palace."
Xie Shang kicked her, wishing he could tear her to pieces; she wanted to poison his wife and children.
He also wondered how many other members of the Su family were in the palace besides these people. "You've been keeping Su Qingqing locked up in the Cold Palace all this time. When did you bring them back, and who else is there?"
Xie Shang was also guessing, because if she had brought this thing into the palace a long time ago, why didn't she harm people earlier, but only took it out now? Unless the poisonous bees were only recently sent into the palace, and even if envoys entered the palace, they would be strictly searched.
"Who gave you these things? Where is Su Qingqing hidden? What kind of collusion do you have with the Hu people?"
Lady Jian never expected that the emperor knew everything, even the people the Su family had hidden in the palace. "I didn't stay in the palace all the time. I left the palace for a while. Since I can come and go freely in a place like the palace, I can also bring in some small insects. It's just a pity that I didn't kill Jiang Fenghua to avenge the eldest son."
"Are you one of Su Xuan's men? Besides these, how many people do you actually have?" Xie Shang asked.
Madam Jian said, "I can tell the Emperor everything, but the Emperor must let the Ninth Princess go. She knows nothing. Madam is also self-aware. She has no intention of opposing the Emperor. The only person she wants to deal with is Jiang Fenghua."
Xie Shang's eyes were cold. "A person who wants to kill my wife and children has no right to negotiate with me. No matter what, Ling'er is a princess of the Great Zhou Dynasty and my sister. I will not harm her. Since I have already agreed to let her go to marry the young prince of the Hu tribe, I will not go back on my word and let her reunite with Su Qingqing and her daughter. The premise is that I must know how many members of the Su family are still hiding in Shengjing."
“Now that the eldest son has been killed by Empress Jiang, and the Su family has been completely eradicated by you, the Su family can no longer threaten the Emperor. What the Emperor should really worry about is Empress Jiang. It is Empress Jiang’s power that the Emperor should be concerned about,” Madam Jian said deliberately.
Xie Shang knew she was trying to sow discord between him and Jiang Fenghua. No matter how many secrets Jiang Fenghua was unwilling to tell him, she could not threaten the Xie family's power. But what did Su Xuan know?
Lady Jian knew that Xie Shang had become suspicious. Her master had said that what an emperor fears most is someone threatening his throne, and he is even more worried about the ill intentions of his bedmate.
Madam Jian continued, “Now that we’ve been exposed by the Emperor, there’s nothing we can’t say. Wind, Rain, Thunder, and Lightning aren’t four people, but four codenamed assassin squads. I belong to the one that starts with Rain. My name is Jian. None of us know how many of us there are. The last squad that survived did so because they stayed by Madam’s side to protect her. The others were all hunted down. This situation can only mean one thing: there’s a traitor among us. Someone was betrayed, which led to the killing of these four codenamed assassin squads. Of course, killing them would have come at a great cost. Who in the world has the ability to ambush them so precisely?”
"We later found out that the person behind all this was a wealthy businessman surnamed Ruan. The Su family had no enemies with the surname Ruan, yet they used such a large force to hunt down members of the Su family with such precision."
The eldest son could have escaped Shengjing, but someone forced him into a corner. He said it wasn't someone from the court who wanted to kill him… So who was this person?
After saying all this, Jane removed the human skin mask from her face, revealing her true appearance.
Xie Shang stared at her face. He had seen her before when he was fighting off the enemy at the border. She was Su Xuan's maid.
He smiled coldly after hearing this, "The Su family has committed numerous evils and everyone has the right to kill them. Regardless of their surname, they are doing a good deed for the people. If I knew who they were, I would even reward them."
"But if you dare to plot against the Empress and the imperial heir, I will not spare you." Xie Shang's eyes were already filled with murderous intent. If he spared Xie Ling'er's life, Su Qingqing and the Su family's group of assassins would not escape. He would wipe them all out in one fell swoop.
Xie Shang said to the guards in a deep voice, "Kill them all."
Ye Ying and Lin Feng have now formed an army of secret guards, which can be considered as a regular imperial guard force to protect the emperor closely.
Even facing death, Lady Jian was still terrified. "Didn't His Majesty want to find the Lady? I can..."
"I don't need you anymore. You and your people have already been exposed. I spared your lives until now not so that you could harm my princes and princesses." He would feel guilty if anything happened to Yan'er and You'er. He shouldn't have kept Su Xuan's people around to test Jiang Fenghua.
After executing Jian Shi and her subordinates, Xie Ling'er was terrified. They fell one by one in front of her. She had never known that her gentle and refined fifth brother could kill people without even blinking an eye.
She felt he had become terrifying.
Xie Shang walked up to Xie Ling'er, his eyes icy cold. "From now on, you will stay here and not go anywhere until the day you are married. I will personally escort you to your wedding."
Xie Ling'er was stunned, and tears streamed down her face. The ground was covered with corpses and their blood. She felt nauseous and wanted to vomit. He was still willing to let her marry. Did he want to use her to lure out his mother and then kill her?
Xie Ling'er grew increasingly frightened. "Brother, please don't kill Mother. She's my only family now. We'll never seek revenge against Jiang Fenghua again. I'll try to persuade Mother. Since she's already dead, let her never return to Shengjing or the Great Zhou Kingdom. She's already married to the King of the Hu tribe."
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