"I dare not!" Feng Minzheng knelt down upon hearing that.
"Since you don't dare, then go back. Don't go to the Fourth Prince's place these days."
"Your Majesty." Feng Minzheng was still unwilling to give up. "I was just at the Fourth Prince's residence. I was also shocked when I heard the Emperor's decree.
If the Queen was involved in Concubine Tong's poisoning, then why was the Fourth Prince confined to his home?"
The emperor frowned and thought to himself, of course it was because he intended to get close to Gu Changan. Behind Gu Changan was the power of a country. If used well, Bei Ming Ye could compete with the prince.
Although it was just a guess, the emperor was sure of it.
"Your Majesty, the Fourth Prince has always been diligent and conscientious. He has never neglected the tasks you have assigned him. It is inappropriate to implicate the Fourth Prince because of the Queen's affairs.
I hope Your Majesty will reconsider."
"I just issued an edict. It would be inappropriate to change him again. Just let him suffer for a few days." The emperor said, as if suddenly remembering something. "Tell Ye'er to learn more from Lao Jiu. People should be able to endure loneliness and know how to be alone."
"Yes." Feng Minzheng agreed and walked out of the imperial study.
The emperor's words were full of hidden meanings. He was giving a reminder and a warning. Bei Mingxuan never made friends with powerful officials, and he didn't hold any official power at all.
Most of the time, he drank alone at home.
If he went out, he would either go to Gu Qingfeng's place at the General's Mansion, or play chess at the Gambling Pavilion.
Letting the Fourth Prince learn from Bei Mingxuan, doesn't that mean letting the Fourth Prince be more obedient?
The fourth prince is the legitimate son of the queen, yet he is asked to learn from the unmotivated Bei Mingxuan.
Especially since the Fourth Prince was not considered among the future heirs to the throne, this was a humiliation for the Fourth Prince and the Queen.
However, Feng Minzheng could never have imagined that Bei Mingxuan, whom he despised, was actually plotting against him and them all the time.
At the General's Mansion, Bei Mingxuan sent Chang'an back. "Mr. Qingfeng, Chang'an is back safely. I still have to go to the palace."
When Bei Mingxuan left, Gu Qingfeng looked his daughter up and down for a long time. "I was just worried, but now that I see you're doing well, I'm relieved. Let's go to your grandfather first; he's worried too."
"Changan has something to say to Dad."
"Alright." Gu Qingfeng gestured for Chang'an to sit down. "As your father, there are many things you don't understand."
"Then... Dad asks and I answer, okay?" Chang'an smiled playfully, revealing a pair of cute little fangs.
Gu Qingfeng smiled, "Chang'an, although Dad doesn't know why you suddenly got involved in the Ninth Prince's affairs, but now that you're involved, you must be cautious at all times."
"My daughter understands." Chang'an smiled, "When did Dad start planning for the Ninth Prince?"
"Tell me, when did you first know about the affair between me and the Ninth Prince?" Gu Qingfeng let out a faint smile of defeat. "It's been so many years. The Ninth Prince and I are not the type to keep a high profile. Furthermore, we deliberately concealed this matter. We never expected it to be seen through by the person we least expected it to be."
"It wasn't my daughter who saw through everything when we first arrived at the Ninth Prince's residence." Chang An thought about what happened that night at the Ninth Prince's residence, "but the Ninth Prince intentionally let my daughter know.
Just as Dad said, you and the Ninth Prince are both cautious and low-key people. If you were deliberately hiding something, how would your daughter have discovered it?"
"If you ask me when I started planning this, it seems like it started unconsciously." Gu Qingfeng looked into the distance, his eyes revealing a distant and profound look. "There is no specific time. I believe you are also aware of the friendship between Concubine Tong, the mother of the Ninth Prince, and your mother."
"Yes, Aunt Wanxin and the Empress Dowager have both mentioned it. They are close friends."
"When the Ninth Prince was six years old, his mother was caught by the Emperor having an affair with a man. As a result, she was confined to the palace. The Emperor suspected that he was not his biological son, so he had him abandoned in the wilderness."
Chang'an didn't understand. "If you suspected it, why didn't you use blood tests? Why did you stay in the wilderness instead of being stabbed to death?"
"It's because of the blood test that the blood can't mix.
That's why the Emperor made that decision." Gu Qingfeng sighed, "The Emperor and Concubine Tong are childhood sweethearts, and he loves Concubine Tong very much.
He loved the Ninth Prince so much and hated him so much that he couldn't bear to kill him, so he came up with this idea.
Let his life or death be determined by fate, entirely up to the Ninth Prince's own luck. If not, he might become the emperor in the future."
"A childhood sweetheart relationship? The Queen is the Emperor's original wife. Why..." As he spoke, Chang'an suddenly understood, "Could it be a political marriage? The current Emperor married the Queen just for the throne."
"Yes." Gu Qingfeng confirmed, "Since ancient times, most imperial marriages were political. How many couples could truly stay together in love? Concubine Tong entered the palace only after the throne was firmly established. At that time, the emperor's harem already had three thousand beauties."
"Concubine Tong was framed, right?" Chang'an told his father everything that happened in the Emperor's study and Anxi Palace. "I heard from Aunt Wanxin that it was Dad who brought the Ninth Prince back."
"When this happened, my father was not in the capital." Gu Qingfeng recalled, "When I met the Ninth Prince, it was a snowy day like today. That day, I was ordered to return to the capital.
On the way, we met a fire fox. As a father, I thought of hunting the fire fox and making a fox collar for your mother, which would look very beautiful.
After chasing the fox all the way into the mountains, I found a child sitting in the snow. Not far in front of the child, there was a wolf.
My father shot the wolf to death, and when he walked closer, he found that it was the Ninth Prince.
When his father brought him back to the capital, he learned what had happened to Concubine Tong. However, word from the palace was that Concubine Tong was a sorcerer who used sorcery to deceive people, and that the emperor had confined her to the palace.
"Why did they leave the Ninth Prince behind?" Chang'an asked. "Besides, wasn't there the Queen Mother in the palace? Why didn't she protect the Ninth Prince then?"
"The Emperor's blood test and sending away the Ninth Prince were all done secretly. No one knew about it. When the Queen Mother found out about this,
The person has been sent away, but no one dares to search for him in a high-profile manner, for fear that those with ulterior motives may harm the Ninth Prince.
It was not until I brought the injured and unconscious Bei Ming Ye to the Queen Mother that she found the Emperor and retested his blood, and discovered that the blood had merged.
The emperor then kept the Ninth Prince. Even so, because of Concubine Tong's incident, his feelings towards the Ninth Prince eventually cooled.
Later, he was given a mansion and a few servants and allowed to live alone.
He was not allowed to be summoned or enter the palace. From then on, the Ninth Prince lived a life of neglect.
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