Chapter 93 The fake prince ascends the throne as emperor!
The news that Wang Zhaoyi and Li Zhaoyi were good friends raised a question mark in Zhou Xi's mind, because he had never heard of it when he was suffering, whether in his previous life or this life. It was not until he became the seemingly glorious prince that he heard the news that Wang Zhaoyi and his nominal mother Li Zhaoyi were good friends.
So either the relationship between the two was not very good and Wang Zhaoyi exaggeratedly said that they were good friends, or Wang Zhaoyi and Li Zhaoyi had a fake sisterly relationship. After Li Zhaoyi fell into trouble and was sent to the cold palace, she unilaterally broke off her friendship with Li Zhaoyi. After Li Zhaoyi's son became the glorious prince, she remembered to rekindle this friendship - to create opportunities for her son to curry favor with the prince.
Zhou Xi did not comment on Wang Zhaoyi's behavior of seeking profit and avoiding harm. In this palace, such behavior was understandable.
He also didn't care whether Wang Zhaoyi really had any feelings for Li Zhaoyi. After all, Li Zhaoyi was not his biological mother. The reason why he was willing to get close to the Seventh Prince was simply because the Seventh Prince was young and posed no threat to him. He was a very suitable tool to portray himself as a friendly brother.
As for the other princes, there is no need to mention the four princes who were his rivals fighting each other to the death. It was a sign of good moral cultivation that they did not fight when they met.
The nominal fifth prince is himself, and the real fifth prince is still in the Duke of England's mansion as his legitimate son.
Although the Sixth Prince is also young, his biological mother comes from a prominent family and has considerable power behind her. As the Crown Prince, Zhou Xi deliberately gets close to the Sixth Prince, which can easily be seen as him trying to win over the power of the Sixth Prince's mother's family.
The three little princes, the eighth prince, the ninth prince, and the tenth prince, were still breastfeeding and could not walk properly. Zhou Xi had no interest in playing with the babies.
Therefore, the seventh prince, whose mother's family is not prominent and who is young and posing no threat, but who has already begun to be enlightened and sensible, is the best person for Zhou Xi to build up his reputation as a friendly and respectful brother.
It just so happened that Wang Zhaoyi and Li Zhaoyi had a past friendship, and Zhou Xi was still nominally Li Zhaoyi's son, so he had the opportunity to get close to the Seventh Prince without arousing suspicion.
In fact, various forces were indeed happy to see Zhou Xi and the Seventh Prince become friends.
Wang Zhaoyi was not favored in the harem. The reason she became friends with Li Zhaoyi was simply because she felt that both she and Li Zhaoyi were poor unfavored little people, and it was just right for them to stick together for warmth.
Although Li Zhaoyi was not favored on the surface, she was actually the emperor's true love, so she felt superior to Wang Zhaoyi, the truly unfavored concubine. Wang Zhaoyi was not a fool, so how could she not feel it? Although Wang Zhaoyi didn't know where Li Zhaoyi's sense of superiority came from, it did not prevent her from being dissatisfied with Li Zhaoyi, so the friendship between the two became a plastic friendship.
Later, Li Zhaoyi was targeted by the favorite concubines and banished to the cold palace by the emperor. Wang Zhaoyi didn't know that she was the emperor's true love, so she naturally stayed away from her, dared not approach her, and never mentioned her again.
After Li Zhaoyi's death, the emperor moved the fifth prince out of the palace in order to protect the prince she gave birth to. He couldn't even find their biological son after missing Li Zhaoyi to commemorate his beloved woman.
So the emperor thought of Wang Zhaoyi, who had a good relationship with Li Zhaoyi. Especially when the emperor took Zhou Xi out of the cold palace, in order to show his great love for Zhou Xi, he frequently went to Wang Zhaoyi's palace to miss the fifth prince's biological mother.
This remembrance was both sincere and a show. Wang Zhaoyi vaguely understood the emperor's intention. The emperor seemed to still be obsessed with Li Zhaoyi, who was banished to the cold palace by him. Was he seeking comfort from her by missing Li Zhaoyi?
Wang Zhaoyi couldn't understand the emperor's train of thought, and she didn't know whether the emperor really loved Li Zhaoyi. If it was true love, why did he banish her to the cold palace and wait for her death before missing her? The prince born by Li Zhaoyi also lived in the cold palace for ten years before the emperor remembered him. If it wasn't true love, why did he remember Li Zhaoyi so clearly and still dote on her son so much...
Wang Zhaoyi was not a smart person, but she knew her own limitations, so she followed the emperor's wishes and accompanied him in missing Li Zhaoyi.
Fortunately, Wang Zhaoyi had indeed had close contacts with Li Zhaoyi and knew a lot about Li Zhaoyi. She also had many gifts from Li Zhaoyi in her palace, which she took out and showed to the emperor. The two of them missed Li Zhaoyi together, and as they missed each other, they ended up falling in love.
Wang Zhaoyi took the opportunity to gain favor and gave birth to the seventh prince, which meant she would have offspring to rely on in the future.
Wang Zhaoyi knew that her son was young and her mother's family had no power. She seemed favored on the surface, but in fact she knew that she had no weight in the emperor's heart, so she asked her son to work hard to curry favor with the prince, who was now the most powerful person.
In front of the emperor, Wang Zhaoyi often tried to win the emperor's favor by praising the prince. However, what Wang Zhaoyi couldn't understand was why the emperor looked gloomy and unhappy when she praised "the prince is wise and brave", but was particularly happy when she praised "the child born by sister Li is extremely smart".
Could it be that the emperor loves both Li Zhaoyi and his son (the prince) so he prefers to hear her praise Li Zhaoyi's son rather than directly praising the prince?
No matter how wildly imaginative Wang Zhaoyi was, she never dared to think that the prince was not the emperor's biological son. She was not smart enough but she was tactful enough. From then on, when she praised the prince in front of the emperor, she always replaced "prince" with "Sister Li's son", which always made the emperor very happy.
Her son was also able to cling to the crown prince very smoothly, and now her son, the seventh prince, has become the crown prince's most beloved and valued brother.
Everyone outside the palace knows that His Royal Highness the Crown Prince is a very friendly and brotherly man, especially to the Seventh Prince, who is not his half-brother. He dotes on this younger brother almost like his own son.
The emperor also repeatedly praised the prince for his kindness to his younger brother, which put the prince at the forefront of public opinion.
The eldest prince and others were not too jealous of the crown prince because it was better for the crown prince to win over the seventh prince, whose maternal family was not powerful, than to win over the sixth prince, whose maternal family was powerful. Therefore, they were happy to see the crown prince and the seventh prince become friends.
Zhou Xi picked up the seventh prince who came to play with him and tested him on his homework. He did not stop until the lively and cute little boy was at a loss.
However, the Seventh Prince really liked Zhou Xi, not because his mother, Concubine Wang Zhaoyi, asked him to play with the Crown Prince, nor because he wanted to curry favor with him. He was still young and did not understand these things. He only knew that Zhou Xi was the only brother among all the royal brothers who was truly kind to him and treated him well.
So the Seventh Prince was listless for a while, but soon perked up again, and started chirping around Zhou Xi like a little sparrow.
Zhou Xi didn't feel annoyed and played with him patiently.
No matter whether he was in the cold palace before or became the crown prince after he got out of the cold palace, no one had ever dared to get so close to him, and no one had ever made such a noise in his ears. He actually quite liked this feeling.
It was not until almost dinner time that Zhou Xi sent someone to send the seventh prince back to Wang Zhaoyi.
No matter how much Zhou Xi liked the Seventh Prince, he never let him stay overnight or have meals in his Zichen Palace, because there were so many conspiracies and intrigues in the palace. If he dared to keep him here, it would not be long before the Seventh Prince would be drugged and have a stomachache or be poisoned to death. The purpose of the mastermind behind this was simply to frame him, the Crown Prince.
Therefore, for the sake of the Seventh Prince's life and to avoid giving others the opportunity to frame him, Zhou Xi never kept him.
Perhaps the eldest prince and others also saw through the fact that the seventh prince was a tool for Zhou Xi to enhance his reputation, so they no longer paid much attention to the seventh prince and focused on dealing with Zhou Xi himself.
For Zhou Xi, the eldest prince and others were old rivals. Even though the situation was completely different from what he remembered from his previous life, Zhou Xi did not regard the four of them as equally matched enemies. The one he was really wary of was the emperor.
Although the emperor will not take action against him now, he has already planted many thorns in his forces. He has to keep a close eye on the emperor. At the very least, he cannot be unaware and unprepared when the emperor wants to expose his background.
When it came to the child-exchange incident, those who handled it were all the emperor's most trusted confidants. The emperor was a suspicious man, so those trusted confidants were silenced after the incident. The people he sent to protect Zhou Jing now are also those trusted confidants who are unaware of Zhou Jing's true identity.
In other words, the only people who truly knew Zhou Xi's life experience, apart from Zhou Xi and Si Yuan father and son, was the emperor, the culprit.
Zhou Xi only needs to ensure that the emperor does not reveal his life experience to others, and then kill the emperor and take the throne before the emperor plans to expose his life experience, and he can make this secret remain a secret forever.
Zhou Xi was already sixteen years old this year. Suddenly, someone in the court submitted a petition asking the emperor to choose a princess for the crown prince.
The emperor, Zhou Xi and Si Yuan were all stunned for a moment before they remembered that Zhou Xi was indeed old enough to get married.
The fourth prince, who was only one year older than Zhou Xi, had married two years ago.
Of course, what the emperor was thinking about was not that the fake prince should get married, but that his real son should get married. His real son was several days older than the fake prince and was the same age.
What happened to the British public? The legitimate son is already so old and you are still thinking about finding a wife for him?
The emperor cast a dissatisfied look at Si Yuan.
Si Yuan: “…” Does the Dog Emperor want to reflect on himself?
The emperor never expected that he had also forgotten that the prince was old enough to get married.
Zhou Xi, the person involved, was even more surprised because in his previous life he was in his twenties and had not yet married.
The emperor in his previous life probably didn't want him to gain more supporters, especially from his wife's family, who were completely bound to him after the marriage.
Therefore, the emperor had been delaying Zhou Xi's marriage in his previous life on the grounds that "the Crown Prince and the Crown Princess are the future queen mother and must be carefully selected."
However, in order to prevent people from gossiping, the emperor gave many beauties to Zhou Xi in his previous life. So there were women in the prince's backyard, and there were children born, but there was no legitimate princess consort.
Later, the prince's background was exposed. He was a fake prince. Even he was killed by the emperor who poisoned him with wine. What's more, his children all had no chance to survive.
After Zhou Xi was reborn, he had only one thought in mind: to kill the king and ascend to the throne. He worked tirelessly for this cause and never thought about romance, so he never thought about getting married.
Zhou Xi: “…” There’s no rush for this. It won’t be too late to choose a queen after he ascends the throne.
Emperor: “…” There is no rush for this matter. Once the fake prince’s background is exposed, there will be no need to choose a princess.
Si Yuan: “…” There’s no rush for this. Once we get rid of the dog emperor, we can choose whoever we want.
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