Seeing that Wang Daxia and Wei Caiwei had no intention of sparing him, Prince Jing, like Yan Shifan, placed his last hope in Lu Ying. “The person my Imperial Father trusts most is your father. I am one of only two sons Father Emperor has. You cannot ignore me!”

Lu Ying said coldly, “My father was loyal only to the Emperor… Moreover, my father died from medicine bestowed by the Emperor. I know that although he died without regret, it was his choice, and I respect his choice. But I will not repeat his path – I have my own principles. And you do not deserve loyalty at all.”

Wei Caiwei prepared the medicine, and Wang Daxia forced it down Prince Jing’s throat. Prince Jing clutched his throat, seemingly trying to dig the medicine out. “What did you make me take?”

Wei Caiwei said, “Seeking benevolence and obtaining it. Haven’t you always wanted to be Emperor? You were even willing to harm an infant for it. This medicine will satisfy all your dreams. Sleep obediently – in your dreams you’ll have everything: the throne, beauties, thousands of li of rivers and mountains. Everything you want will be yours.”

Prince Jing felt an invisible force tearing at his soul. His brain seemed to be devoured by a monster. His already limited wisdom and emotions were sucked away by a black hole, and then everything fell silent.

Wang Daxia checked Prince Jing’s breathing. “Dr. Wei, he’s still alive.” How could his wife’s medical skills have regressed? This didn’t make sense.

Wei Caiwei said, “He’s just a living corpse. He will sleep forever until death, probably living about another month. I need him alive. The Emperor is someone who cares about face. Even if we frame the White Lotus Sect, if a Daming prince died from assassination, all the guards and Taoist priests in Taihe Palace would probably be executed. As long as Prince Jing has breath in him, these people will be punished but not killed.”

“As for you—” Wei Caiwei’s gaze turned to Yan Shifan. She had put away the Deadly Poison Master’s bundle. “I don’t want to waste these ‘good things’ on you. I don’t want you to die too easily. My sister died in agony on the birthing bed.”

“So…” Wei Caiwei picked up a dagger and stabbed Yan Shifan’s body one knife at a time, stabbing over thirty times in succession. Being skilled in human anatomy, each knife avoided vital spots and was non-fatal. As she stabbed, she said:

“This knife is from my sister, this knife is from my father, this knife is from Wu Mask, this knife is from Ding Wu – you nearly drowned him alive, this knife is from my father-in-law, this knife is from my brother-in-law – this child still wets the bed from nightmares, this knife is from the advisors on the ship…”

Wei Caiwei stabbed until her wrist went limp and her hand holding the knife handle trembled, then she handed the short dagger to Wang Daxia. “You finish it. A full year of pursuing the murderer – let it end here.”

Yan Shifan felt like he was being poked into a sieve, his entire body in pain! Blood kept gushing out. He felt so cold, his life rapidly extinguishing as blood flowed away.

Yan Shifan glared with his one eye, unwilling to accept death. “I don’t want to die! I haven’t become Grand Secretary yet, reaching the pinnacle of ministerial rank! I haven’t avenged my daughter by killing that hypocrite Duke of Yan Sheng! My father is still alive – I haven’t cared for him in his old age. How can I make a white-haired man bury another white-haired man? Please save me! I still have lots of gold and silver scattered in various places. I’ll give you the treasure maps – everything I have is yours—”

Yan Shifan’s voice stopped abruptly. Wang Daxia thrust a knife through his heart. “Even unto death you never repented. Even unto death you believed money could solve everything. Take that money to the underworld to spend – see if the King of Hell will be bribed by you and let you return to the mortal world to live a few more years.”

Yan Shifan expired.

Now there was still the last dancing Eunuch Wei. This Eunuch Wei was to help them escape.

Wang Daxia carried Eunuch Wei to the window sill and had Wei Caiwei and Lu Ying evacuate first. The two women ran to the stairway entrance. Wei Caiwei removed the clothes and armor from an unconscious guard and changed out of her Taoist robes. Lu Ying dragged the real guard to a hidden place to hide him, then the two fake guards lay down together, pretending to have been knocked unconscious as well.

Seeing that Lu Ying and Wei Caiwei were ready, Wang Daxia let go. Eunuch Wei was dancing on the window sill when he lost his footing and fell. From five stories high onto hard stone steps below, his head was immediately flattened.

This muffled thud alerted the guards stationed downstairs. Seeing it was Eunuch Wei, they knew something had happened at the top of Lingyun Pavilion and rushed up to rescue the prince.

The guards were only focused on rushing into the room to save Prince Jing and paid no attention to confirming the identity of the four guards collapsed at the entrance.

As people rushed in, Wei Caiwei and the other two immediately got up and rushed downstairs, shouting as they ran, “Prince Jing has fainted! Minister Yan has been killed! Doctor! Where’s the doctor! Quickly go call a doctor to save Prince Jing!”

The three shouted “stop thief” while being the thieves themselves, pretending to fetch doctors. The guards were all anxious to rush in and rescue the prince, fearing something would happen to him, so no one suspected the three comrades.

The three thus rushed out of Taihe Palace. According to plan, once they succeeded, they would shoot three green fireworks into the sky to signal everyone to return and hide in the secret posts at Zixia Hall – no need to continue searching for Yan Shifan’s whereabouts.

Returning to Great Sage Nanyan Palace, Lu Ying gathered her subordinates to unify their story. Everything that happened at Wudang Mountain tonight was the work of the White Lotus Sect. The abbot of Nanyan Palace was Lu Ying’s father Lu Bing’s trusted subordinate. Nominally an Embroidered Uniform Guard secret agent, he was actually arranged at this quiet place far from political power to retire in peace. Lu Bing had always known how to conduct himself – helping others was helping himself. The abbot had long grown weary of conflict and naturally turned a blind eye, not exposing Lu Ying.

Wang Daxia pointed to the Deadly Poison Master tied to a chair in the side room, unconscious from eating his own medicine. “What about him? The dancing mushrooms were his. As long as Commander Zhu interrogates him, we’ll be exposed.”

Lu Ying said, “He won’t have a chance to see Commander Zhu. He took poison and committed suicide while we were pursuing him. We found the smallpox scabs used in the attack on his body.”

Wang Daxia said, “This way, there’s only evidence but no living witness.”

Lu Ying’s young face showed a trace of weariness that didn’t match her age. “This isn’t important. Even if we brought a living witness before the Emperor to confirm royal fratricide, for the sake of royal dignity, the smallpox incident wouldn’t be made public. The Emperor would instead help Prince Jing cover it up.”

“We traveled thousands of li just to confirm the Emperor’s suspicions. He actually knows everything. He just pretends not to know to firmly grasp his power and balance the court and the forces of his two sons.”

They say serving the ruler is like serving a tiger, but rulers are actually worse than tigers. Even fierce tigers don’t eat their cubs, but rulers will sacrifice children and grandchildren for the throne without a second thought.

Lu Ying and the others put the “suicide by poison” master into a coffin filled with ice blocks and returned to the capital, even spending New Year on the road.

On the return journey, Wang Daxia threw the short dagger that had stabbed Yan Shifan to death into the rushing river waters, to comfort his father’s spirit in heaven and all the innocent souls who died unjustly on that ship.

When Yan Song saw Yan Shifan’s mangled corpse, the octogenarian lost all fighting spirit, leaving only an empty shell. This time, the Yan family had truly fallen.

On the ninth day of the first month, Prince Jing, who had been unconscious all along, died. To cover up the royal scandal, Emperor Jiajing indeed did not pursue Prince Jing’s attempted murder of the little imperial grandson of Prince Yu’s mansion. He ordered the Imperial Clan Court to properly arrange Prince Jing’s funeral according to princely rites and bury him in Hubei.

During the funeral, one of Prince Jing’s concubines gave birth to a daughter, but the girl was born weak and died within a few days. The Imperial Clan Court officials didn’t inform Emperor Jiajing.

Prince Jing’s lineage was thus severed. Since Prince Yu currently had only one son and couldn’t adopt a son to continue his brother’s line, and Emperor Jiajing was actually angry about Prince Jing’s evil deeds, he refused the Imperial Clan Court’s suggestion to select sons from other branch princes to serve as Prince Jing’s heir. He directly abolished Prince Jing’s fiefdom on grounds of being sonless.

Additionally, Emperor Jiajing selected a posthumous title for Prince Jing – Gong.

The “Gong” from “brotherly love and fraternal respect.” He became Prince Jinggong.

Hearing his brother’s posthumous title, Prince Yu truly wanted to cry but had no tears. “Father Emperor, killing people and destroying their hearts – this move of yours is even crueler than destroying hearts! ‘Brotherly love and fraternal respect’ – how ironic. My brother tried to harm my son and deserved death, yet you still call him ‘respectful,’ stabbing a knife into my heart! What did I do wrong!”

Prince Yu hadn’t done anything wrong. Having Emperor Jiajing as such a suspicious and selfish father, he was unfortunate, living day and night in fear, anger, resentment, and sorrow.

Yet he was also extremely fortunate. Just by lying there, he won the position of heir apparent without doing anything. Without using any conspiracies or schemes, he became the only living prince.

Succession struggle? Nonexistent! Without competing or fighting, he became the unique crown prince. Although Emperor Jiajing always refused to formally invest Prince Yu as Crown Prince, all under heaven already regarded Prince Yu as the heir apparent.

Since Prince Jing was already dead and without heirs, the Yan family, as a force to check Prince Yu, had lost its meaning. When the cunning rabbit dies, the hunting dogs are cooked. The aging and sickly Emperor Jiajing, to ensure smooth transfer of power without any errors, ordered the settling of accounts with the Yan family.

Using reasons like the Yan family raising death warriors, occupying neighbors’ land, privately hoarding gold and silver, and expanding private residences on land with “imperial aura,” they even dredged up old accounts of Yan Shifan’s previous “associations” with Japanese pirates. The Eastern Depot was again sent to Jiangxi to confiscate the Yan family’s ancestral home.

Only out of consideration for their years of ruler-minister relationship did Emperor Jiajing not execute Yan Song.

Yan Song was driven from his luxurious home, alone, taking shelter in the ancestral grave’s memorial house – according to law, unless specifically ordered to dig up graves and whip corpses, family burial properties were not subject to confiscation.

Although he had the memorial house and sacrificial fields, Yan Song could still get by, but having dominated political affairs all his life, he couldn’t accept reality. Like a walking corpse, he lost all hope.

The following year, in the forty-fifth year of Jiajing reign, in the fourth month, the eighty-seven-year-old Yan Song died. His burial properties were all seized by hometown relatives. When he died, he didn’t even have a coffin – his corpse was wrapped in torn matting, casually buried in a hastily chosen spot without even a tombstone erected.

In the Forbidden City, when Emperor Jiajing heard from Eunuch Huang Jin the news that Yan Song had died, he was boating on Taiye Pool with his beloved Consort Shang Zhaoyi, admiring the beautiful scene of lotus buds just beginning to emerge.

This year he was often ill and could no longer accompany his beloved consort outside the palace for entertainment, so they stayed in the palace. Shang Zhaoyi grabbed a handful of fish food, watching koi come to compete for it, having great fun.

Huang Jin said in a low voice, “…Yan Shaoting, staying at the Lu mansion, heard news of his grandfather’s unattended burial and told Li Yiren and the household head Lu Yi he wanted to go to Jiangxi. Both Li Yiren and Lu Yi agreed and prepared boats and servants to escort him.”

Emperor Jiajing thought again of his milk brother Lu Bing and sighed. “Earl of Loyalty was an honest man, and his family is the same. Let the Yan family matter end here. Don’t pursue other Yan family members anymore.”

Some grieved while others rejoiced. Prince Jing died without sons and his fiefdom was abolished, his lineage severed. At Prince Yu’s mansion, last year side consort Li Jiubao successfully gave birth to a daughter. Having both son and daughter, her position became increasingly secure. By the fourth month of this year, when Li Jiubao’s monthly cycle was delayed, she asked Wei Caiwei to take her pulse.

Wei Caiwei again detected a slippery pulse – Li Jiubao was pregnant with her third child.

Author’s Note: Another three years passed in one chapter. With the three-year mourning period ended, Wang Xiaoxia can re-emerge into the world, and Wang Daxia can finally marry Wei Caiwei. This marriage has truly gone through many twists and turns – three years after another three years.