Chapter 30 Target
Liu Xi went to great lengths to find a suitable new identity for Wang Zhimeng.
After rounds of screening and elimination, Liu Xi finally focused her attention on Wang Jieyu's maternal family.
Wang's crimes were heinous, but His Majesty did not implicate her maternal family. Liu Xi specially asked Huo Lin to investigate in secret and found that when the late emperor first ascended the throne, the Wang family had made great contributions to the emperor's rise to power. Unfortunately, they were framed by treacherous officials and gradually declined. Several generations of family heads changed, and they ended up in this state.
Before her death, Lady Wang spoke to Liu Xi at length, but never mentioned that her father had been secretly promoted by the Imperial Concubine. Perhaps the Wang family had never sided with the He family in the previous dynasty.
Liu Xi could even guess that the He family should be quite disdainful of working with the Wang family.
With that thought in mind, Liu Xi circled the two characters "Wang Family" heavily on the paper with satisfaction.
That night, Liu Xi once again used Huo Lin's carriage to leave the palace and head to the Prince's residence, but this time, she did not let Huo Lin accompany her.
Liu Xi brought only her personal maid, Zhi Xiang, and personally knocked on the gate of the Prince's mansion.
In the dead of night, Wang Huan was still busy writing at his desk, and a maid came in to add oil to the lamp on his desk again and again.
"My lord, my lord!"
The guards on duty rushed into his room, panting and anxiously reporting.
"My lord, it is Her Highness the Princess who has come in person!"
Just as Wang Huan was about to say he didn't want to see her, his hand trembled, and the ink-stained brush fell directly onto the table.
Who are you talking about?
"Princess, Fourth Princess."
Wang Huan was somewhat alarmed. His daughter had been executed for failing to assassinate the princess, and now the princess had come to visit him late at night. Could it be that she had come to interrogate him?
He rubbed his hands together and said, "Quickly welcome the princess in and serve her tea. Bring out all the good tea I have stored away."
"The Fourth Princess also asked me to pass on a message to you, saying that she came to visit secretly today, hiding her identity, and hopes that you will not alert the others in the manor."
"Oh, oh, oh! The princess is so thoughtful. Then quickly bring the princess to my study, quick, quick, quick."
The study was simply furnished, so Wang Huan had to use the excuse that he had to work late and asked the maid to add an oil lamp.
Liu Xi sat on the bamboo chair, looked around, and couldn't help but sigh.
"Lord Wang is truly incorruptible."
“Your Majesty, I have failed to properly educate my daughter, and she is so arrogant and ignorant. If it weren’t for the princess’s magnanimity, I would not have had the chance to continue living in this world.”
Liu Xi was just wondering how to bring up her deceased daughter with Wang Huan when Wang Huan spoke up for her first.
"Lord Wang, there's no need to say that. Whether your daughter truly deserves her punishment is something you should know better than I do."
Wang Huan was taken aback. "What does the princess mean by this?"
"I know that it was not Consort Wang who poisoned the Empress Dowager and attempted to assassinate me. She was just willing to be someone else's scapegoat to protect her family."
Liu Xi had considered two possibilities: someone like Wang Huan was either pretending to be weak to protect himself in the chaos by hiding his true strength, or he was genuinely stupid.
In retrospect, it is clearly the latter.
Wang Huan sat there in astonishment, his mouth agape.
"Lord Wang, I owe you my condolences."
Wang Huan quickly bowed several times to Liu Xi.
"Your Highness is too kind to this humble subject."
Since Wang Huan is so honest and simple, Liu Xi doesn't need to keep beating around the bush with him, otherwise she'll have to worry about whether Wang Huan can understand her hints.
“Right now, the real culprit who wants to harm me is still at large in the harem. If she can find Consort Wang as a scapegoat, she can find a second, a third, or even more.”
"Lord Wang, I have come here today to ask you one thing."
Liu Xi put down her teacup, her gaze resolute.
"Would you be willing to help me find the real culprit behind this?"
Wang Huan fell to his knees with a thud, his head hitting the ground repeatedly.
"Your Highness's command is one I would gladly serve, but... but I am of meager ability and have no opportunity to speak in court. Moreover, what Your Highness is referring to concerns the inner palace, and I am but a man..."
Liu Xi quickly interrupted Wang Huan's endless chatter.
"I have my own plans for these things. If there is nothing you can do to help me, why would I have made this special trip today?"
After stammering for a long time, Wang Huan finally managed to say, "Please enlighten me, Your Highness."
"I will first ask the master to help train a young lady."
"On the day of the imperial selection three months from now, this young lady will be able to enter the palace as a member of the royal family. My lord, is that possible?"
Wang Huan suddenly fell silent. He subconsciously turned his head to look at a calligraphy scroll hanging on the wall. It was a copy made by his daughter and the first birthday gift she gave him.
After Lady Wang died, the gates of the Wang Mansion remained closed, and no guests were received for several whole months.
Just as Liu Xi had predicted, Wang Huan, though seemingly a coward, was actually a complete doting father to his daughter.
As if he had made up his mind, he turned around and banged his head on the ground again.
"Yes, Your Highness, please rest assured."
Liu Xi stood up and helped Wang Huan up from the ground. "Lord Wang, I promise you that I will give you an explanation for your daughter's death."
Things were going very smoothly. In a place like Hongxiangyuan, it was common for some lesser-known girls to die quietly from illness.
After Song's mother buried "Wang Zhimeng" herself, a sedan chair quietly left through a side gate.
From now on, the Prince's Mansion will have one more illegitimate daughter raised freely in the countryside, named Wang Meng.
Inside the Yihuai Pavilion, Liu Yu rushed over as soon as he finished his studies.
"Sister, Father has granted me permission to attend court and participate in state affairs starting today!"
"Really?" Liu Xi sat up in surprise from the recliner. "Why so suddenly?"
"After the morning court session today, Father Emperor suddenly came to the Imperial Study, where Scholar Zhang was testing us on the homework he had assigned the day before yesterday."
"Father asked a few questions. Third Brother answered them in a proper manner, but Second Brother stammered and couldn't give a coherent answer. Father was very angry and gave Second Brother a severe scolding, punishing him by not allowing him to go to the horse farm for half a month, and only allowing him to come to the study to recite his lessons every day."
"When it was my turn, I repeated the Tao that my elder sister had explained to me. My father was immediately pleased and even allowed me to attend court and listen to government affairs."
As she listened, Liu Xi's smile gradually stiffened.
The emperor is using Liu Yu as a scapegoat.
Given the Third Prince's wisdom, he must have known in advance that the Second Prince, Liu Cheng, had not completed his homework, and deliberately behaved properly in front of His Majesty in order to reduce Liu Cheng's dissatisfaction with him after being punished.
After thinking for a moment, Liu Xi spoke to Liu Yu as tactfully as possible.
“Ayu, it’s good to be appreciated by His Majesty, but I think that being too sharp will inevitably attract resentment. In some unnecessary situations, it’s better for us to keep our sharpness hidden.”
Liu Yu understood what Liu Xi wanted to express, and he lowered his head, his tone dejected.
"As expected, I can't stand on my own without my older sister."
Liu Xi quickly pressed Liu Yu onto the recliner and stood behind him, gently rocking him.
“Ayu, don’t say that. Look at the records of emperors throughout history. Which one of them was born to rule the world? They all had to grow and hone their skills before they could ascend the throne.”
Liu Yu quickly touched Liu Xi's hand that was on her shoulder, "Sister, you value me so much."
"That's natural. The struggle between the sons of the imperial family is bloody. If A Yu doesn't want to shed blood, he has to stand at the top of the power structure."
Liu Xi couldn't help but sigh when she thought about Liu Yu's current situation.
Originally, he thought it would be a good thing to regain the emperor's favor, but he did not expect that His Majesty would move Liu Yu out of the cold palace and send him to the Imperial Study to study, which was actually intended to provoke the second prince.
Emperors are ruthless; they would even use their own sons in this way.
My biological son...
Liu Xi's thoughts suddenly became tangled, and for no apparent reason, she began to struggle with the concept of "biological child."
She squatted down beside Liu Yu and stared at Liu Yu's eyebrows and eyes for a long time.
The Empress Dowager once muttered this sentence in a strange way.
If she knew her own flesh and blood were still alive, she would surely come back to see them.
Upon closer examination, doesn't this statement prove that Liu Yu's birth mother was no longer in the palace and was a powerful and influential figure?
Liu Yuneng was favored by the Empress Dowager, so his mother must have had a very close relationship with her.
What could be the reason that prevented such a woman of extraordinary status from residing in the palace, and even caused her children to be neglected by His Majesty?
Suddenly, a bold guess took hold of Liu Xi's mind.
Could she be the Empress Dowager's daughter, Princess Ning'an?
Her eyes widened in disbelief, and she almost fell to the ground.
Liu Yu quickly reached out and supported Liu Xi's back, "Sister, what's wrong?"
Of course, Liu Xi couldn't tell Liu Yu her wild guesses. If the real reason the emperor disliked Liu Yu was that he wasn't his own child, how could he allow Liu Yu to compete for power with the other princes?
Liu Xi grew increasingly frightened. The emperor did not want the scandal of the imperial family to be made public, nor could he rightfully eliminate Liu Yu, the nominal seventh prince. So he simply pushed him in front of the second prince, attempting to use the power struggle among the princes to kill Liu Yu.
Liu Xi didn't help Liu Yu at all; she actually harmed him!
She stood up somewhat hastily, turned her back to Liu Yu, and stopped looking at him. She was worried that Liu Yu would overthink things, always thinking that she had done something wrong to make Liu Xi angry.
"Ayu, your sister needs to find a way to give you a solid backer, so that you won't be able to fight back when the princes turn against each other in the future."
"Listen to your sister, when you go back today, pretend to be sick and hide for a few days. Don't hang around in front of your second brother."
Liu Yu quickly agreed, "I don't want to trouble you, but you always think of me and end up exhausted."
After adjusting her expression, Liu Xi turned her face and affectionately flicked Liu Yu's nose.
"Because I'm A-Yu's older sister."
After Liu Yu left, Liu Xi immediately called Xia Xia to her side.
"Go quickly and tell your general to ask if he can investigate in detail whether Princess Ning'an had discussed marriage with any noble family before her marriage."
"By the way, I also want to ask which officials in the current court support the emperor in making the second prince the crown prince."
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