"Asshole!"
Emperor Mingde was furious and slammed his palm on the table. The teacup on it jumped up and fell back onto the table. The "clang" sound scared the eunuch standing beside him so much that he trembled and wanted to bury his head in his chest.
The three princes lowered their heads, and no one dared to speak easily at this time, for fear of accidentally getting into trouble.
"Investigate for me! I want to find out who is so bold as to attack the Queen with a powerful crossbow. I will kill all his clans!"
"And you three are bastards. The fourth one at least remembered to come here to report the business, but you two are just stirring up trouble. Have you done what I told you to do? You're all biting each other more vigorously than the other. What use do I have for you?"
"If the Northern Yan envoys weren't in the capital right now, I would have stripped you of your official positions and sent you home to reflect on your mistakes! It's best you didn't get involved in this, or I'll chop off your heads!"
"Get out of here!"
Emperor Mingde was not satisfied with scolding the three of them, so he stepped forward and kicked Prince Xuan and Prince Yi respectively.
"I'm telling you, you've been keeping your skin tight for a while. If you make any jokes while Beiyan is here, don't blame me for being ruthless! Get out of here!!"
Emperor Mingde was furious, and the three of them didn't care about their image and fled from the Yangxin Palace in embarrassment.
As soon as they went out, the three of them looked at each other and sorted out their appearance.
"Fourth brother is really quick-witted! He's really good at guessing Father's thoughts. No wonder my fifth brother and I both got kicked, but you're the only one who's safe and sound."
"Fourth brother usually has a bad temper, but I didn't expect him to be so patient at the critical moment. Your cousin even rode on your head and shit, but you still managed to hold it in. I admire you!"
King Yi and King Xuan exchanged a few sarcastic remarks and left with a flick of their sleeves.
King Zhuang sneered and his face darkened.
The commotion was so loud that the news was soon known to several concubines in the harem. They quickly sent their eunuchs to stop their prince and find out what happened.
Inside the Yangxin Palace, Jiang Qianruo looked at the angry Emperor Mingde and said, "Alright! The person has already left, stop pretending."
Emperor Mingde glared and said, "I am really angry!"
"Then I'll call the man back and you can chop him off."
Emperor Mingde choked and fell silent.
Jiang Qianruo was just saying that. Killing a prince was not that easy.
She pointed at Mr. Huang and said, "You and my senior brother haven't seen each other for many years. Why don't you talk?"
Emperor Mingde's expression relaxed. He took a look at Old Huang and immediately became proud. "I haven't seen you in years, Brother. I didn't expect you to look so much older! I knew life in the mountains wouldn't be easy. I told you to come to the capital a long time ago. I'll give you a position in the Imperial Hospital. You can retire here. Xiao Ruo and I can also take care of you a little bit."
Old Huang was so angry at his old rival's words that he jumped up from his chair. "Bah! Don't you even look at yourself? Half of your hair is white, your eyes are dark and red, and your skin is dull. You can tell at a glance that you haven't been eating or sleeping well. You must have worked hard all these years. If you didn't know, you would think you were ten years older than me if we stood next to each other!"
"You are jealous!" Emperor Mingde touched his face.
Then he turned around and took Jiang Qianruo's hand: "Don't do this next time! Ever since you left, I have been unable to sleep or eat. I am always worried about how you are doing. Look at the dark circles under my eyes. They are all caused by worrying about you."
Old Huang's nose was almost crooked with anger. "You are such an old fool! You are so shameless! You always know how to flatter people! When you were with Junior Sister, how did you swear in front of me and on Master's grave? You said 'I only take one scoop from the vast expanse of water', and now after all these years, every one of the children you had with others is eager to kill Junior Sister to make room for their mother!"
"Master!" Tang Qingfeng stepped forward in shock, wanting to cover Mr. Huang's mouth.
Tang Qingfeng was not quite sure about the relationship between his master and the emperor, but he thought that after all, they were his uncle's family members, and given the importance the emperor attached to his uncle, they should be treated with courtesy.
But he didn't expect that his master and the emperor would stab each other in the back as soon as they met.
Old Master Huang looked at his disciple who was frantically pulling at his sleeves and snorted coldly, "What's wrong? I wasn't wrong! Wasn't it you who asked me to hand over my junior sister to you back then? And you yourself proposed to swear at Master's grave that my junior sister would be the only one for you in the future? You are a heartless and unfaithful person!"
When he learned that Zhongli Che was going to take someone into his harem, he came all the way here to ask for an explanation, but was persuaded to go back by his junior sister.
He was so annoyed that he secretly swore in his heart that he would never set foot in the capital again and would never care about this matter again!
But as time passed, he softened his heart when he saw his junior sister again.
Seeing Zhongli Che's new and old hatreds suddenly surge in his heart, Mr. Huang didn't want to endure it at all.
Emperor Mingde was speechless when talking about this. He opened his mouth and said, "I have failed Xiaoruo."
Jiang Qianruo smiled faintly: "It's just a matter of the past, why bother talking about it? After all, the emperor is the ruler of a country, and he should focus on state affairs. It's impossible for him to leave three thousand concubines in the harem empty and only watch over me. It was originally me who was too obsessed with it. After all these years, I have come to understand."
Emperor Mingde's face lit up with joy: "You forgive me..."
"I don't ask for much right now. As long as the people I care about are okay, that's enough. Yao'er is gone, and Yue'er is also... I just want to know how your investigation of what happened back then is going?!"
Jiang Qianruo's tone was somewhat resolute at the end of her words. She looked at Emperor Mingde and did not allow him to avoid her gaze in the slightest.
Xie Siheng lowered his eyes and looked at the ground, as if he had become a sculpture.
Tang Qingfeng seemed to be lowering his head respectfully, but in fact his ears were perked up, waiting for the emperor to speak.
Emperor Mingde was silent for a long time, then he sighed, "Brother, please stay. Everyone else, please leave!"
Xie Siheng bowed and turned away without any reluctance.
Tang Qingfeng was anxiously waiting to know what would happen next, but he had to obey the emperor's orders, so he could only follow the eunuchs and move out of the hall little by little.
Urgent!
Eunuch Liu went out and personally took people to guard outside the Yangxin Palace, not allowing anyone to approach.
"After I received your letter, I ordered my Dragon Shadow Guard to go to Shuangyang Mountain in Qingzhou to conduct a secret investigation."
"Back then, there was indeed a tragic massacre of an entire family on Shuangyang Mountain. The Dragon Shadow Guards found the long-buried bodies and, after further investigation, discovered that the family that was wiped out was originally a wealthy, clean family with a clean past. They ran a spice shop. Later, a batch of spices in their shop went awry, and someone came to pick a fight. The owner of the shop took the money and fled with his family overnight, intending to return to his hometown to start a new business."
"That very night they ran away, a baby girl was found floating down the moat outside the city in a basket."
"They had been married for two years without any pregnancy. Seeing the child like this, they couldn't bear to leave him alone. They didn't dare to return to Beijing to report to the authorities, so they took the child with them and set off."
"He ended up being pursued and killed when he reached Suiyun County, Qingzhou. Most of his hired guards were also killed. He desperately tried to escape, but ended up on a small path in Shuangyang Mountain, where he was murdered."
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