What was most frightening was that he did all these things while keeping them from everyone, never revealing half a word of information. If not for Yang Yunyong’s failure this time, she would never have known that her son, viewed by the world as magnanimous and benevolent, actually had such a greedy side. She leaned wearily against the phoenix throne, sitting with one hand propping up her cheek, coldness at the corners of her brows and eyes. “Too dangerous? I think he doesn’t know where the danger lies at all. He will never learn his lesson.”
If the Crown Prince knew how to write the words “learn lesson,” he should have stopped after the Yangzhou corruption case. If he knew about lessons, Consort Fan wouldn’t have repeatedly done so many foolish things courting death. Empress Lu was extremely disappointed in him in her heart. For the first time, she actually felt he was truly unsuited to be Crown Prince—now he hadn’t even ascended yet, but his actions were already so greedy without leaving any room, and his favoritism toward his own son was severe. Forget holding the bowl level—he couldn’t even manage to be slightly fair.
Empress Lu thought of the Crown Prince’s coldness and neglect toward Zhou Weizhao, then thought of the words he used to incite Uncle Lu, and felt a bone-deep chill. She looked at her daughter with considerable disbelief. “You don’t know—he actually incited your cousin to give Chonghua to Weizhao as a concubine! Think about it—what kind of intentions does he harbor? Such a person—his distance and coldness toward me can still be explained by saying I wronged him in the past, but Weizhao is his own son, yet he can be so heartless toward him too! If he truly stepped onto that position, where would your brother and Weizhao, or even the entire Lu clan, have any path to survival?!”
Princess Rongcheng also had all her hair standing on end from what Empress Lu said. She looked at her mother with some alarm and only asked with insufficient confidence after thinking it over, “It wouldn’t go that far, would it?” Having said this, even she herself gave a bitter laugh. These days, Ye Jingkuan had spoken often about the Crown Prince’s callousness, feeling that whether toward Elder Chen or toward Zhou Weizhao, the Crown Prince seemed too unfeeling. Such a person ascending to the great position might not necessarily be a blessing for the Zhennan Prince’s residence either—although the Zhennan Prince’s residence had always stood on the Eastern Palace’s side, the Crown Prince had never treated the Zhennan Prince’s residence as confidants. Back when the Crown Prince was poisoned by Grand Empress Dowager Rongxian, it was Ye Jingkuan and the Zhennan Prince’s residence who put forth desperate effort to help, but afterward the Crown Prince showed no particular response, nor did he become any closer to the Zhennan Prince’s residence.
Such a person—Princess Rongcheng shivered, looked at her mother, pursed her lips with difficulty, and only said after a long while, “Mother, elder brother doing this is truly too unpopular. Zhang Tianhe, Elder Chen, and now Chen Dezhong—these were all people who once followed elder brother with utmost loyalty, but once they met with trouble, elder brother always unhesitatingly abandoned them. Acting this way, how can he make people feel at ease following him? He is the future heir apparent. If he’s already this temperamental now, how many court officials will side with him? This time the matter was pushed onto Chen Dezhong, but Mother, given elder brother’s ambition, who’s to say there won’t be a second Yang Yunyong affair erupting, or even more? When that time comes, how many more times can we help him? How many more times will people in court trust him? How many scapegoats does he have left to push out to shield him from disaster? This can’t continue.”
As for the Crown Prince’s wariness of Prince Gong and his distant coldness toward Zhou Weizhao, Princess Rongcheng didn’t want to mention these things anymore. They had advised countless times, but the Crown Prince was completely obstinate.
Prince Gong had also yielded to this elder brother immeasurably back then, even being dispatched early to his fief. As one of only two legitimate sons of Emperor Jianzhang and Empress Lu, he had no complaints. Yet the Crown Prince still had to steal his childhood sweetheart, forcibly driving him into a corner with no way out. Those matters seemed too long ago now. Princess Rongcheng thought of Prince Gong kneeling in the rain crying and begging Empress Lu, and felt tears welling in her eyes. “Mother, younger brother has already retreated as far as possible. Yet elder brother still wants to use the Yangzhou corruption case to beat him down again… You keep favoring elder brother because of past matters, but elder brother isn’t grateful. In the end, you’ve offended younger brother as well.”
Indeed. Empress Lu felt somewhat melancholy. She patted her daughter’s hand, feeling only sadness. She always felt she owed her eldest son, making her younger son yield again and again in everything, even giving the Crown Prince Lu Caiwei, whom her younger son had long had his eyes on. Yet the Crown Prince just wasn’t satisfied. This actually wasn’t what chilled Empress Lu’s heart most. What made her feel most bone-chillingly terrified was that the Crown Prince had single-mindedly competed with Prince Gong for Lu Caiwei, but after getting her, his face completely changed—
Princess Rongcheng felt somewhat distressed. After comforting Empress Lu with a few words, she came out and went directly to the Eastern Palace. When she went to the Eastern Palace, she mostly went to Mingcui Palace to see the Crown Prince’s Consort, but this time she took a detour and went to the main hall to see the Crown Prince.
At that time, the Crown Prince was in the study flying into a great rage. When he was angry, he differed from ordinary people. Ordinary people mostly vented their fury through loud shouting, but he never did. When he was angry, he was always quiet—so quiet as to be utterly unlike a normal person, causing people to feel fear. San Bao only felt all the sweat on his body gushing out in one go, sticky wetness everywhere making it unbearably uncomfortable. He hunched his head looking at his feet like a shrimp about to be cooked, his entire body tensed taut.
Fortunately, he hadn’t been anxious for long when Princess Rongcheng arrived. He instinctively glanced at the Crown Prince and imperceptibly breathed a sigh of relief in his heart—His Highness the Crown Prince treated his younger sister Princess Rongcheng passably well. If it had been His Highness the Crown Prince’s Grandson arriving, he truly would have been scared to death.
Princess Rongcheng came in from outside the hall, just in time to see the Crown Prince sitting cross-legged on the couch. She hesitated a moment before stepping forward to call out “Elder Brother” and sat down beside him. Looking at the Crown Prince’s gloomy eyes through the kang screen depicting Shushan scenery, she slowly sighed. “Elder Brother, how many more Chen Dezhongs do you have left to use?”
The Crown Prince somewhat woodenly shifted his gaze to her, glanced at her once then moved his eyes away again. He picked up the long-cold tea on the table and gulped it down, coughing for quite a while before stopping. With a smile that wasn’t quite a smile, he asked her, “What, did Mother send you to lecture me?”
In his view, that Empress Lu would speak for him and use a self-harm strategy to deal with Emperor Jianzhang to make Emperor Jianzhang softhearted was also for her own sake—otherwise, if he as the son committed such a great error, wouldn’t she as the mother also lose face?
Princess Rongcheng saw the darkness between his brows and his dry, bloodless lips. Her heart felt he was somewhat pitiful, and she couldn’t help sighing deeply. “Mother has hardly ever asked anything of Father Emperor all these years. For you, she’s already done everything she could. If Fu Youde hadn’t sent word in, she still wouldn’t know you were in trouble. Elder Brother, you clearly have so many people you can use, so why do you turn a blind eye to them all?”