Chapter 99 The fake prince ascends the throne as emperor!
The second prince just smiled awkwardly when Crown Prince Zhou Xi praised his good eyesight with a hint of sarcasm, and said, "I can't really see your expression from such a distance, but you looked quite dissatisfied before you moved, so I said that. You have always been disrespectful to the Crown Prince, and I am just standing up for him..."
Zhou Xi stared at the Second Prince, then silently looked away and said lazily, "Second brother, you are joking."
When it comes to disrespect towards him as the crown prince, all of these cheap brothers of his are just putting on a show, but secretly wish to pull him down from the crown prince's throne immediately.
However, Zhou Xi relied on Si Yuan's help, the emperor's apparent favoritism and love, and the memories of his previous life, and did not regard these cheap brothers as his rivals. After all, his real rival was the man sitting on the throne.
Zhou Xi cast his gaze towards the emperor who was sitting in the most prestigious position at the top. He narrowed his eyes slightly, and exerted a little force on the fingers holding the small wine glass, so that his fingertips turned slightly white.
Soon Zhou Xi withdrew his gaze and drank the wine in the glass in his hand. Then, when he was about to pick up the wine jug to pour himself wine, the second prince sitting next to him actually reached out to help him pour wine.
Zhou Xi looked at the suddenly attentive Second Prince in surprise, and glanced at the wine jug. Well, it was the wine jug on his own desk, so it should not have been poisoned.
However, he still did not drink the wine poured by the Second Prince. Instead, he looked at the Second Prince and asked, "Second brother suddenly poured wine for me. I am really... flattered." He dragged out his meaningful voice slightly and looked over with an unpredictable look.
The second prince suddenly felt the pressure rising. He wanted to say something playful but couldn't even force out a fake smile. He said awkwardly, "I just want to ask the crown prince for a favor..."
The second prince told Zhou Xi his thoughts one by one.
Zhou Xi then realized why the Second Prince was suddenly showing his affection, it was because he wanted Zhou Xi to help him take the blame - the First Prince and the Chen family already knew that they would be punished by the Emperor, it was all because of the Second Prince's complaint, so the Second Prince had a very hard time recently.
The Duke Cheng'en title of the Chen family has not yet been returned, and the Chen family members are huddled in the Chen Mansion like quails, not daring to make any unnecessary moves that would attract the emperor's attention.
The eldest prince was also not released due to house arrest, and his followers were often demoted and punished by the emperor in the court. Their power was greatly weakened, and they had no energy to cause trouble for the second prince's forces.
Logically speaking, the eldest prince and the Chen family have no time to deal with the second prince.
But there was a biased Empress Dowager Chen.
After the dust settled, Empress Dowager Chen finally had time to deal with the Second Prince who had dared to betray her family, her niece, and the First Prince.
Empress Dowager Chen could not reach the previous dynasty for the time being, but she was invincible in the harem. The word "filial piety" alone was enough to crush all the concubines and princes.
The way Empress Dowager Chen dealt with Concubine Shu and her son was very simple. She pretended to be sick and asked Concubine Shu to take care of her. She tormented Concubine Shu in various ways and scolded her for being unfilial to her mother-in-law. The child she raised would definitely be an unfilial son.
The Second Prince could not sit still when his grandmother scolded his own mother for being unfilial and also scolded himself for being unfilial. In order to wash away his reputation of being unfilial, he had to go to the palace in person to serve the Queen Mother.
Originally, there was no need for the Second Prince, a grandson who had already left the palace and set up his own household, to enter the palace to attend to his grandmother, unless the emperor specifically ordered it. Empress Dowager Chen could only force Shufei, a concubine in the harem, to attend to her.
But the second prince took the initiative to ask to enter the palace to take care of his grandmother, so of course that was possible.
The Second Prince didn't want to bear the bad reputation of being unfilial, so he had to go. And by going to serve the sick, he fell into the hands of Empress Dowager Chen. No one could say anything about how Empress Dowager Chen wanted to torment Concubine Shu and the Second Prince. After all, she was just a patient with a bad temper and also an elder. As juniors, what was wrong with Concubine Shu and the Second Prince being used as punching bags in order to make their elders happier during their illness? This is the filial piety they should show.
The eldest prince hasn't been released yet, but the second prince has already been tortured to the point of being miserable.
The Second Prince and Concubine Shu and her son tried to plead with the Emperor, but in the Emperor's heart, Concubine Shu and her son together were not as important as his biological mother, Empress Dowager Chen, so naturally he was indifferent and scolded them for not being filial to the Empress Dowager.
Now the Second Prince has come to Crown Prince Zhou Xi in desperation to seek help from anyone.
After all, the crown prince is different from ordinary princes. He is the heir to the throne. In terms of status and position, he is second only to the emperor. Even the empress dowager has to give the crown prince some face.
Moreover, Empress Dowager Chen was quite good at putting on a show in the past. Seeing that the Emperor doted on the prince immensely, she also acted as if she valued and doted on the prince very much.
So Crown Prince Zhou Xi really has a say in front of Queen Mother Chen, but it is not certain whether Queen Mother Chen really listens to him.
Zhou Xi knew in his heart that the emperor's favor for him was only superficial, because the emperor knew that he was not a prince, but the empress dowager should not know this secret.
Although Empress Dowager Chen's favor for him was only superficial, in her eyes he was also her grandson, and she still had some grandfather-grandson affection for him, just not much.
Zhou Xi glanced at the Second Prince. The affection that Empress Dowager Chen had for him was probably not much different from that she had for the Second Prince.
Zhou Xi politely rejected the second prince: "Second brother, have you forgotten that it was me who submitted the evidence of the Chen family's crimes?" Queen Mother Chen's disgust for him might not be less than that for the second prince who reported the eldest prince and the Chen family.
The second prince thought of the scene in the morning court a few days ago where officials belonging to the crown prince's faction kept impeaching the Chen family and demanding that the emperor execute the Chen family impartially. Two drops of cold sweat flowed on his forehead.
He then realized that perhaps Queen Mother Chen hated the Crown Prince, who insisted on killing the Chen family, more than he, the whistleblower. The more the Crown Prince pleaded, the more miserable he and his mother would be.
The second prince silently put down the wine jug in his hand that he was about to use to pour wine for the crown prince. He sat up straight and stopped chatting with the crown prince.
Zhou Xi: “…” Isn’t this attitude of using and throwing away the item too obvious? And second brother, have you forgotten that is my wine jug? It’s not good to put my wine jug on your desk, right?
Zhou Xi was too lazy to argue with the Second Prince, and just silently took his own wine jug back from the Second Prince's desk. However, he stared at the wine jug on the desk that had been held and taken away by the Second Prince, and always felt that this innocent wine jug had been defiled by the Second Prince. He really didn't want to drink the wine poured out of this wine jug.
Zhou Xi hesitated for a while, then raised his eyes and glanced at Si Yuan who was sitting upright in his seat... in a daze.
Feeling that Si Yuan didn't seem to notice the situation on his side, Zhou Xi stretched out his hand and waved to the eunuch standing behind him, asking the eunuch to get him a new pot of wine.
Si Yuan was not in a daze. He just spread out his spiritual awareness to check the people and things happening at and near the palace banquet.
In short, according to the plot of the novel, this kind of palace banquet is the place where things are most likely to go wrong.
In fact, the crowded and chaotic palace banquets were indeed very suitable for fishing in troubled waters, because there were so many people attending the palace banquet. If someone did something, in order not to affect the palace banquet or cause a greater impact, the emperor would generally suppress the matter and wait until the palace banquet was over.
But the time during which the emperor suppressed the matter was enough for the mastermind to clean up the mess or frame someone else.
The emperor is not a king who has strong control over the harem. It can even be said that the emperor does not care about the infighting in the harem at all. He does not care what the truth is in the palace fighting. He only cares about whether the harem can remain stable and whether it can meet his expectations.
Just like how so many princes and princesses had died in infancy in the harem, and many unborn dragon fetuses, the emperor had never conducted a serious investigation, let alone a small incident at a palace banquet.
For the emperor, as long as the throne under his buttocks was not threatened, it was a trivial matter.
Si Yuan's spiritual awareness spread to a mile outside the palace banquet and then stopped expanding outward, but even so, he saw a lot of good shows.
For example, the wife of a certain official is actually an old acquaintance of his colleague, and they seem to be in love with each other.
For example, the emperor's virtuous concubine was not actually virtuous. A maidservant beside her just threatened a young eunuch to put acne-causing medicine in the fruit drink of the emperor's new favorite concubine.
For example, the chief eunuch beside Concubine Chen was exchanging intelligence information and supplies with the eunuchs brought into the palace by the eldest prince.
for example……
Anyway, there were too many people trying to take advantage of the situation at the palace banquet, and Si Yuan actually saw a lot of good shows.
Fortunately, no one did anything big at the palace banquet to alarm the emperor, and despite the undercurrents, everything seemed calm on the surface.
When it came time to distribute the mooncakes, the emperor started to make trouble.
The mooncake was a giant one with a diameter of two meters. It was cut by the emperor himself and given out as a reward to everyone attending the palace banquet.
Generally, the emperor would just cut it symbolically with a knife, and then special palace servants would divide the big mooncake into pieces of similar size and distribute them equally to all the people attending the palace banquet.
Regardless of one's status, the mooncakes distributed were all the same size. Even the piece eaten by the emperor was the same size, symbolizing that the emperor was enjoying himself with everyone else.
But this year, the emperor actually cut the mooncakes himself, and immediately cut off a large piece that was obviously too big, and then said, "This first piece of mooncake will be given to the prince."
The emperor looked at the prince with a smile.
Zhou Xi quickly stood up and thanked the emperor: "Thank you very much for the reward, father!"
The eyes of others also fell on Crown Prince Zhou Xi, especially the princes, whose eyes turned red as they stared at the mooncake given by the emperor.
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