Chapter 276 A Bloody Path to Power
Zhao Wencheng, who had remained silent throughout the main hall, could no longer maintain his composure and indifference when he heard that Cen Shi had left one survivor.
He was almost trembling, his lips opening and closing, wanting to ask who that person was.
I want to ask how much the survivor knows about what he did that evening when he broke down the door.
I wanted to ask him if he had seen his own face.
I wanted to ask him if he had heard the false imperial edict he had conveyed.
“Your Highness Prince Jing…” He hesitated, a desperate longing for life flashing in his eyes.
As if knowing what he was thinking, Li Jin glanced in the direction of Yun Fei.
He stood up from beside Li Qian and presented the silk scroll he had been holding for a long time to Li Qian with both hands.
Zhao Wencheng's face turned pale.
On the silk scroll woven from golden silkworm silk, the pattern of auspicious clouds and jade cranes was exceptionally clear.
“Prime Minister Zhao, do you look familiar?” Li Jin bent down, looking at his face, which was gradually contorting with fear. “Back then, you knocked on the door of the Cen family, falsely conveyed an imperial edict, and ordered the entire Cen family to be imprisoned for trial…”
Li Jin's eyes narrowed slightly, and her voice suddenly turned icy: "How dare you!"
Unexpectedly, Zhao Wencheng's face contorted with rage. He pointed at the imperial edict in Li Jin's hand: "Impossible! This is impossible!" His eyes were filled with terror. "The one in your hand...you're slandering me! You're framing me!"
The next second, Li Jin chuckled, straightened up, and flicked the scroll from top to bottom. With a whoosh, the imperial edict, covered in small characters, poured down from Li Jin's hand like a waterfall right in front of Zhao Wencheng.
"Open your eyes wide and see clearly what is written on it!"
This scene is as if time has turned back, returning to the past.
On that day, as the sun set and the sky was shrouded in fiery clouds, Zhao Wencheng looked down from above and threw the fake imperial edict in front of Master Cen.
With the air of a victor, he looked at his terrified eyes with disdain.
The exact same actions, the exact same language.
In the main hall, Zhao Wencheng, kneeling there, stretched out his hands, trembling as he pinched the edge of the imperial edict, and examined it closely, looking at it over and over again.
"No...it's impossible..." He stared wide-eyed at the incredibly familiar handwriting and words, trembling all over, muttering in terror, "It was definitely burned!"
He looked up, his gaze fixed on Li Jin: "Why!" he roared, "I clearly burned it!"
Zhao Wencheng was terrified, astonished, and bewildered. Perhaps already knowing he couldn't escape his fate, his face flushed red, and he gripped the imperial edict tightly in Li Jin's hand, glaring at him and shouting, "Why! How did you get it! How could you possibly have it!"
He no longer cared where he was or what situation he was in. He suddenly stood up and reached out to snatch the imperial edict from Li Jin's hand.
They thought that once they got their hands on it, they could destroy it again and erase the past without anyone noticing.
Just as he was making a fool of himself and desperately trying to tear it apart, Li Jin calmly said, "Back then, you had Yang Defa write so many secret letters for you, and he also drafted the charges and wording for you of falsely conveying the imperial edict."
He chuckled and crossed his arms: "You only know that Yang Defa is good at imitating Li Mu's handwriting, but you don't know that he is also a genius with a photographic memory."
Zhao Wencheng was stunned.
He looked up at Li Jin, then stared blankly at the "imperial edict" in his hand, and suddenly realized that he had fallen into a trap.
Li Jin watched him stagger two steps, his eyes filled with resentment and anger. He raised his hand and waved, and the guards waiting beside him carried him and Xu Weiyou, who was already lying on the ground, their lives hanging in the balance, away.
Only Lian Shui remained, his beliefs crumbling, his ears ringing, unable to believe what he was seeing.
Li Jin personally helped him up and untied the ropes binding him.
He just stood there, motionless, like a stone statue, sitting on the ground.
My cheek was still bleeding, but it was nothing compared to the pain in my heart.
Outside the palace, the heavy snow that had been falling for several hours had piled up into a thick layer on the white jade square.
Li Jin looked towards the palace gate, and all he could see was a vast expanse of gray and white.
Kongming lanterns rose with the wind, twinkling like stars, drifting leisurely upwards amidst the heavy snow.
He stood with his hands behind his back, turned around and looked at Crown Prince Li Jing, whose seats were empty all around him. He lowered his eyes and pondered for a moment, then asked in a low voice, "Next, shall I speak for you, or will you speak yourself?"
Having exhausted all his resources and lost everything, Crown Prince Li Jing narrowed his eyes slightly, remaining silent as he stared intently at Li Jin's face.
"It seems Your Highness is not willing to defend yourself." Li Jin smiled slightly. "Back then, you schemed and plotted for the position of Crown Prince. You used the most ruthless means to pave a bloody path for yourself to sit on this throne."
Back then, the Cen family was just the beginning.
It was Zhao Wen who, for his own selfish reasons, dragged innocent souls into the mess in order to eliminate his rival for the position of prime minister.
The real beginning was when the Cen family's home was raided and all members were taken away.
As night fell, the vegetable vendor, noticing that his servant hadn't returned for a long time, went to investigate.
It wouldn't have mattered if I hadn't looked, but once I did, I realized that the Cen family had suffered a devastating disaster.
He carefully evaded Zhao Wencheng's troops, but due to his status, he was unable to enter the imperial city.
The shopkeeper was shrewd and meticulous. Through his dealings with these powerful families, he had become intimately familiar with the intricate network of relationships within the royal family.
Unable to enter the imperial city, he turned around and headed straight for the General's Mansion.
When the messenger from the General's Mansion informed the Crown Princess Cen of the news, it was already midnight.
Knowing the stakes involved, Cen decided to flee overnight for the sake of her six-month-old unborn child.
Crown Prince Li Mu, after much deliberation, went alone to the temporary palace a hundred miles away.
He knew he couldn't escape. If he didn't escape, he might still have a chance to survive; if he did escape, he would surely die.
"But Li Mu did not expect that he would not be able to reach the palace. Even his father did not know for a long time that Li Mu had rushed there on horseback that day."
Li Jin crossed his arms, took a deep breath, and took out another letter from his pocket.
"Just as Li Mu was traveling day and night, Lin Zhongyi, a minor official of the prefecture where the palace was located, stopped at the palace gate with this letter and two carts of armor covered with thick tarpaulins, the contents of which were not visible from the outside."
He lowered his head, pulled out the paper from the envelope, unfolded it, and held it in his hand: "On this letter, written in Li Mu's handwriting, it says 'Urgent need for supplies, do not obstruct.'"
Li Jin glanced at Li Jing, who was still sitting to the side with a calm expression, and waved the letter in front of him: "Would Your Highness like to take a look?"
The person in front of me remained silent, their expression completely unchanging.
After a moment, Li Jin chuckled lightly: "This letter was written by Yang Defa in imitation of Li Mu's handwriting, just in case."
"Then the General of the Imperial Guards realized that something was amiss, so he did not allow Lin Zhongyi to deliver the armor to the palace as he wished. Instead, he imprisoned Lin Zhongyi and the two carts of armor in the palace's dungeon."
At this point, Li Jin pursed his lips, hesitated for a long time, and then lowered his eyes and said, "And the chief coroner Yan Zhao, for your success this time, personally released Lin Zhongyi in the middle of the night, and personally opened the palace gate, allowing him to take those two carts of armor and head east along the path."
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