Chapter 97 You can't threaten me with that! ...
"How are you still alive?" The crown prince exclaimed in astonishment, then suddenly realized what he had said and looked at the two men standing together, angrily saying, "You two actually colluded to deceive me!"
"So what if I deceived you? So what if I cheated you?" Li Pan said. "If he hadn't died first, how would your Liao family have revealed their true colors? How could I have forced you to show yourself?"
The crown prince gritted his teeth: "When did you all collude together?"
"Collusion?" Li Pan scoffed. "You think too highly of yourself. To deal with you, there's no need for collusion."
Half an hour ago, he forced his way into the Ganyang Palace alone, leaving everyone else outside.
Emperor Jinghui looked at him, pursed his lips, and gripped the armrests of the dragon throne tightly, as if only in this way could he support himself and not fall down.
Li Pan, exuding a murderous aura, walked step by step up the steps of the imperial palace.
Eunuch Zheng stood trembling in front of Emperor Jinghui.
Li Pan glanced at him, stopped in front of the dragon throne, and said coldly, "Step aside, I have a few more questions I'd like to ask the so-called His Majesty."
Emperor Jinghui took a breath, pushed away Eunuch Zheng, and barely maintained his composure: "What do you want to ask?"
Li Pan: "Let me ask you, the death of the Crown Prince was not my doing, so why are you framing me?"
"This matter... I already explained it to you in my previous letter." Emperor Jinghui composed himself and said, "I only need a reason to eliminate the Liao family. If you are willing to return to the capital to seek justice, I will clear your name and at the same time characterize this matter as 'the Liao family, unwilling to accept the Crown Prince's death in an accident, took the opportunity to frame a high-ranking official.' Then I can take action against the Liao family and compensate you at the same time. You can say I am hypocritical, that I am using you, but every word in the letter is true. I had originally thought it through. If you are willing to yield this time, I will completely let you go."
After a pause, Emperor Jinghui suddenly hesitated: "Didn't you receive my letter? I clearly..."
“I received the letter,” Li Pan interrupted him. “But while you said you would let us go, you appointed that man surnamed Sun as the General Who Conquers the West, and he’s here to take over my military affairs. This is clearly a way to send me away and never let me return. Do you think I’m a fool for such a ridiculous act?”
"General Who Conquers the West?" Emperor Jinghui was taken aback. "What General Who Conquers the West? I have never appointed a General Who Conquers the West!"
Li Pan stared intently: "The imperial edict clearly states that once I leave the Northwest, he will take over the command of all the armies in the Northwest!"
"How is this possible!" Emperor Jinghui exclaimed in shock. "I have never issued such an edict before!"
Eunuch Zheng, who was standing nearby, also exclaimed in surprise, "His Majesty has never appointed General Sun as the Grand General Who Conquers the West!"
"Even if I wanted to kill you, I should have lured you back to the capital in a gentle manner before making arrangements for your funeral. How could I be so blatant as to appoint you as the Grand General Who Conquers the West to succeed you? Isn't that forcing you to rebel?" Emperor Jinghui asked in surprise, "Where did this imperial edict come from? Did you see it with your own eyes?"
“I saw the imperial edict with my own eyes, and both the man surnamed Sun and the eunuch who delivered it said the same thing,” Li Pan said in a deep voice. “Are you sure you didn’t issue such an edict?”
"No means no! I am not the kind of person who would dare to do something but not admit it!" Emperor Jinghui roared. "Where is the imperial edict? It must have been forged!"
“It was burned long ago,” Li Pan said. “The people have all been killed, so there’s no way to prove anything now.”
Emperor Jinghui trembled: "Who wants to harm me? Who is so audacious as to forge an imperial edict?" After saying that, he suddenly remembered something, slammed his fist on the dragon throne, and hissed, "The Liao family, it must be someone from the Liao family!"
Imperial edicts are not so easy to forge. The silk pattern must match, the handwriting must match, and the seal must match. To forge one so accurately that even someone like Li Pan, who frequently receives imperial edicts, cannot detect any problems, the person behind the scenes must be extremely familiar with the process of forging imperial edicts.
I have no other thoughts besides the Liao family.
"They are deliberately sowing discord, forcing you to rebel, and trying to shake my empire!" Emperor Jinghui grabbed Li Pan's arm and said urgently, "Tell me, you decided to rebel after reading this imperial edict, didn't you!"
“Oh, that’s not entirely true.” Li Pan coldly brushed his hand away. “I had this plan back during the autumn hunt. You and Liang Ji have used me and framed me time and time again because of your personal feud, ignoring my wife’s dignity and feelings. If I continue to back down, I would be unworthy of being a human being.”
Emperor Jinghui was stunned and said, "You... you really knew everything."
Li Pan: "I have no interest in discussing your past grievances right now. Let me ask you again, is my wife's disappearance related to you?"
"Missing? She's really disappeared? This isn't even your excuse for attacking the city?" Emperor Jinghui was shocked. "This is absolutely not my doing!"
Li Pan closed his eyes and took a deep breath.
After a brief moment of shock, Emperor Jinghui quickly recovered and said, "Could it be the Liao family's doing again? And you're still with that scoundrel Liao Qian! The Liao family is a wolf in sheep's clothing. Their feigned surrender is just a ploy to seize your troops! Do you believe that if you kill me and step out of this palace, you'll be the next one to be killed?"
“I believe you,” Li Pan said, emphasizing each word. “So have you ever thought about who would succeed you if you died and I died?”
Emperor Jinghui frowned: "Liao Qian?"
Li Pan: "It's Liang Ji."
Emperor Jinghui's eyes widened: "Liang Ji? He's long dead!"
"How can you be so sure he's dead? Didn't he die in the fire at Xingyuan? Did you see his body with your own eyes and witness his burial?" Li Pan retorted.
Emperor Jinghui gasped, "Why do you ask that? What do you know?"
Li Pan raised his hand, his fingers reaching inside the collar of his armor to pull out a strip of cloth about half a finger's width.
The strip of cloth was unfolded, with a dark red character written on each side.
The character “太” and the character “丁”.
The cloth strip was of limited size, and the characters were written very crampedly. The strokes of the two characters were sometimes thick and sometimes thin, and they were intermittent, which was obviously not written with normal ink.
"Do you know what this is?" Li Pan asked coldly.
Emperor Jinghui's voice trembled: "...What?"
“This is a letter written to me in blood by my wife!” Li Pan gritted his teeth, his eyes reddening. “She was kidnapped by bandits and brought to the capital, but she tried every means to send me a message! There’s limited space in the library, and bloodstains smudge easily, so she could only write two simple characters! ‘Ding’ is one of my deputy generals, so tell me, what does this ‘Tai’ mean?”
"How could this be?" Emperor Jinghui exclaimed incredulously, "He clearly..."
"I'm asking you, did you see him die with your own eyes?"
Emperor Jinghui was speechless for a moment.
The crown prince died in the imperial garden, so of course he couldn't go there to keep an eye on him personally.
He sent men to force-feed the crown prince poison, and to prevent a post-mortem examination, he set fire to the palace to destroy the evidence. So what was finally buried was just a charred corpse.
Li Pan sneered: "So, he really didn't die."
Emperor Jinghui's breathing quickened: "If he's not dead, what has he been doing all this time?"
"Naturally, he's waiting for us to settle the score so he can reap the benefits."
"So what do you mean now?" Emperor Jinghui stared at him. "Are you going to kill me now?"
“Killing you would be effortless.” Li Pan glanced at him. “But are you willing to die now?”
Emperor Jinghui remained silent.
"I've been played like a fool by you two, father and son, for so long, and I still haven't been completely cleared of the crime of murdering the Crown Prince." Li Pan chuckled. "However, I can spare your life for now and let you two be reunited. I haven't witnessed the grand spectacle of father and son killing each other yet, so I'll take this opportunity to let the world see the truth, so that the history books won't tarnish my reputation in the future."
Emperor Jinghui: "What...what do you want me to do?"
Li Pan raised the tip of his gun and tapped it on his chest: "At least make the act convincing."
...
"How did you know I was still alive?" In front of the Ganyang Hall, the Crown Prince came to his senses and asked angrily.
Li Pan sneered, "Because you're a piece of trash, you should ask yourself how anyone even knows about you."
The Crown Prince suddenly turned his head and looked at Lou Xueying: "Could it be you?!"
Li Pan: "You can't do things cleanly yourself, yet you think it's someone else's fault? Liang Ji, you really like to find fault with others to excuse your own incompetence."
"Everyone, listen carefully!" Emperor Jinghui's face was ashen, veins bulging on his forehead, as he roared, "Liang Ji is a hypocrite, utterly devoid of benevolence and filial piety. He has repeatedly plotted to murder his father, and when his schemes failed, he faked his death to deceive the world! He even forged an imperial edict, falsely using my name to unjustly appoint generals in the Northwest, causing the state to crumble! Such a disloyal, unfilial, unbenevolent, and unjust person is unfit to be the crown prince! From this day forward, Liang Ji is hereby deposed as crown prince! His head shall be displayed publicly to appease the world! The Liao family and their associates shall be punished as accomplices!"
The crown prince sneered, "Old man, do you see anyone even paying attention to you?"
"Even if no one is here, I am still the emperor! My words are imperial edicts!" Emperor Jinghui roared. "Liang Ji stole the place, Liao Qian outwardly complied but inwardly defied, and you, Empress, you are still that heartless and wicked woman! There is not a single good person in your Liao family!"
The Empress raised her chin, stared at the Emperor, and said through gritted teeth, "I'm heartless? Do you think you're heartless? From the very beginning, you've been inexplicably targeting Ji'er, determined to kill him. What did he do wrong?!"
Emperor Jinghui: "Ha, what did he do wrong? You are a good mother who cares about him, but is he really your good son? He knows perfectly well why I am targeting him, even Li Pan knows, but you don't! Do you really know whether he trusts you or is using you?"
The Empress looked at the Crown Prince with surprise and suspicion: "What do you mean? Is there something between you and him that even Li Ze knows about, but I don't?"
"Mother, do not let him disturb your peace of mind. He is just desperate and trying to sow discord." The Crown Prince sneered, "A stray dog dares to bark so loudly? He is just a dying man, kept here by that traitor Li to make a fool of himself. Does he really think he is still the emperor and can still act arrogantly here?"
"That's none of your business to spout nonsense here!" Emperor Jinghui roared. "Liao Qian has been captured, and your men are surrounded. How long do you think you can hold out?"
"Old man, you're really getting worse with age," the Crown Prince sneered. "You're all alone now, yet you still have the nerve to use the rebels' power to mock me."
"You guards of the capital!" Emperor Jinghui swept his gaze across the crowd below. The wound on his chest, which he had inflicted to cover his tracks, began to bleed slowly again. "I appointed Liao Qian as commander-in-chief before, and it was fine that you listened to him. But now Liao Qian is a prisoner, and the deposed crown prince is a sitting duck. Do you still intend to remain so stubbornly obstinate?"
The Beijing soldiers looked at each other in bewilderment.
"Old man, you keep saying I'm shaking up the empire, but looking at the current situation, who is truly shaking up the empire? I am the Crown Prince, the most qualified person to inherit the Great Yue empire! To deal with me, you've actually colluded with traitors, willing to hand over the Great Yue empire to others. Where is the face of our ancestors!" After saying this, the Crown Prince turned to Li Pan and said, "Li Pan, did you release him just to buy me time?"
“No,” Li Pan said coldly, “I’m just using this to announce to the world that you are not only unworthy to be emperor, but also unworthy to be crown prince. You were born the crown prince, do you think you’re so great? You were just born into a good family. Your father can appoint you, and he can also depose you. If you have the guts, then openly rebel like me. Instead, you’re using the excuse that the emperor has died and the crown prince has succeeded him. It’s truly laughable. It seems that you only outwardly dislike your father, but in reality, you still need him.”
"Li Pan!" the Crown Prince roared in fury. "Stop trying to win arguments here! Don't forget who's in my hands!"
"Isn't that because you don't dare to fight me with real swords? You started by trying to win with words!" Li Pan pointed his spear at the Crown Prince and walked down the steps one by one. "You hide and conceal your true intentions, while following behind others, hoping to reap the benefits without lifting a finger. So this is the so-called way of dealing with the world, Crown Prince!"
As he approached, the Crown Prince immediately snatched the dagger from Eunuch Cao and held it to Lou Xueying's neck.
"Li Pan, if you dare take another step forward, I will kill her!" he said grimly.
Li Pan stopped in his tracks.
Lou Xueying turned her eyes and glared at the Crown Prince, letting out angry hiss.
"Quiet down, Susu." The crown prince looked at her, the tip of his dagger lightly tracing the throat of her throat. "This is the husband you personally chose. Guess which he wants: beauty or the throne?"
Li Pan gripped the spear tightly, the veins on the back of his hand bulging.
"Listen, Li Pan," the Crown Prince declared loudly, "If you don't want her to die, commit suicide right now in front of everyone! After you die, I will ensure her a peaceful and safe life for the rest of her days!"
"You're talking nonsense! She'd rather die than stay by your side!" Li Pan couldn't take it anymore. "And I would never commit suicide! Don't try to threaten me with that!"
Upon hearing this, the Crown Prince narrowed his eyes, lowered his head, looked at Lou Xueying beside him, and said in a low voice, "Do you see that, Susu? This is the husband you chose. Not only is he unwilling to die for you, he also curses you to die. What kind of taste do you have?"
Lou Xueying looked at him. In the cold rain, her eyelashes were covered with water droplets, which kept blinking and falling, just like her tears.
Her hair was wet, her clothes were wet, and she was trembling slightly. This frail appearance only pleased the Crown Prince more, and he continued, "Susu, as the saying goes, 'to know one's way back from a wrong path'..."
Before he could finish speaking, she suddenly burst forth with strength, opened her mouth wide, and bit his wrist hard!
The prince's expression changed drastically. He winced in pain as the dagger grazed her neck, leaving a red line.
In that instant when his hand trembled, Li Pan's spear, like a cold star, thrust straight at him!
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