In the Prince of Dongping’s full sixteen years of life, aside from Fan Liangdi’s death and the Crown Prince’s stroke, there had truly never been anything in his life that terrified him more than this present matter. Fury made both his hands and feet tremble. He pressed his lips together and stared coldly at the group of people behind Han Cheng, then looked at Han Cheng beneath his foot. His first reaction was—could this be Zhou Weizhao’s stratagem? Had Zhou Weizhao discovered something about his mother and was therefore setting a trap for him to make him stumble completely?
These people kept insisting he wasn’t the Crown Prince’s son. Honestly, his first reaction besides shock was that he nearly felt a trace of guilt—after all, Fan Liangdi and Han Zhengqing did have some unclear relationship. He had even suspected it himself before.
Now Han Cheng brought up Han Zhengqing’s name and dragged in his mother. If not for his quick thinking and Qian Ying’s swift reminder, he wouldn’t have thought of this angle. Now, calming down slightly to think it over, he felt certain someone was deliberately trying to harm him—if he truly followed what Han Cheng and his group said and left with them, wouldn’t he be admitting himself that he wasn’t the Crown Prince’s son? How vicious their intentions!
But after kicking Han Cheng again, upon further thought he felt something was wrong. Han Cheng was Han Zhengqing’s illegitimate younger brother. Unless Zhou Weizhao had the ability to turn someone from Han Zhengqing’s own camp, how could Han Cheng possibly listen to Zhou Weizhao and Cui Yingshu’s orders to dig a pit for him?
For a moment, his mind felt terribly chaotic, as if countless flies were swarming before his eyes, making him dizzy and seeing spots.
Huang Yiqing finally came to his complete senses at this moment. He stepped forward and looked at Han Cheng, who was being stepped on and could barely breathe, and asked him: “What exactly do you mean?!”
Like Qian Ying, he also knew that imperial bloodline was absolutely no joking matter. The Crown Prince was someone whose daily activities were recorded. Moreover, the Crown Prince’s control over Fan Liangdi far exceeded imagination. To play tricks right under the Crown Prince’s nose—how could that be easy? Fan Liangdi wasn’t omnipotent!
But Han Cheng spoke with such certainty, and Fan Liangdi had indeed been entangled with Han Zhengqing before. Even the Prince of Dongping had previously taken poisoned ginseng from Han Zhengqing and presented it to the Crown Prince, hadn’t he? Once they arrested Han Cheng and his group for interrogation as the Prince of Dongping wanted, though Han Cheng and his people would certainly die, the stain on the Prince of Dongping himself could not be washed clean.
He held back the Prince of Dongping and glanced at Qian Ying, signaling him to help persuade as well. With a sigh he said: “Your Highness! Words can kill. Moreover, once this matter becomes public, regardless of the outcome, how can you maintain your position?”
An imperial descendant whose bloodline had been questioned—where would there be any foothold left?
The glory and pride the Prince of Dongping had previously sought were instantly extinguished, not even a spark remaining. At this moment, where did he still care about what position or no position? Under such a shock, he felt that simply being able to walk openly in the world with the status of imperial grandson would be good enough.
Seeing Huang Yiqing restrain the enraged Prince of Dongping, Han Cheng also breathed a sigh of relief. He exhaled forcefully while looking at the Prince of Dongping, trying to speak in as calm a tone as possible: “Though it sounds incredible, this matter is absolutely true. If Your Highness doesn’t believe it… the Marquis also had me bring Liangdi’s personal letter for you to see… Once you read it, you’ll understand…”
He absolutely had no reason to speak groundlessly. If he said there was a personal letter, there truly should be one. The Prince of Dongping’s vision went black. He truly couldn’t stand steady, stumbling and falling against the table. Qian Ying and Huang Yiqing hurriedly reached out to support him, also shocked speechless.
In the end, it was Qian Ying who took charge, trying to calm his emotions as much as possible. He glanced at Han Cheng and adopted an earnest expression: “If you truly work for Marquis Jinxiang and want to approach our prince, you should know what circumstances our prince is in now. Things have reached this point—whatever evidence you have, bring it out so we can believe you, yes? Otherwise, if we rashly listened to your words and left with you, and you turn out to be the Grand Prince’s people, what would we do?”
Han Cheng breathed a sigh of relief. As long as they were willing to listen, that was good. From Qian Ying’s meaning, he had gained some belief. Han Cheng hastily nodded: “We have it, we have it! There truly is Liangdi’s personal letter—it’s right here in my robe. The prince may take it and read!”
Qian Ying personally reached out to retrieve it, stepped back several paces, and handed it to the Prince of Dongping.
The Prince of Dongping skimmed through it rapidly. The more he read, the worse his expression became. By the end, he nearly closed his eyes and fainted directly.
The room fell frighteningly silent. It took an extremely long time before the Prince of Dongping reacted again. Eyes red, he instructed Huang Yiqing: “Have Lord Chen bring a few people in to watch them.”
At the same time, he went around the screen into the inner chamber with Qian Ying.
The Prince of Dongping had always regarded Qian Ying as a confidant and didn’t hide things from him. Moreover, this matter concerned life and future prospects. He was now utterly lost and truly had no ideas. He extended his hand and passed the letter to Qian Ying.
Qian Ying hesitated for a moment. If he read this letter, he would never be able to extricate himself from this affair. But thinking it over, even without reading this letter, as the Prince of Dongping’s subordinate official, he couldn’t be separated from the Prince of Dongping anyway. He silently sighed inwardly and took the letter to scan through it.
He was considerably more composed than the Prince of Dongping. Perhaps it was because besides life and future prospects, the Prince of Dongping had also had his father switched—whichever point was difficult to bear. From his outsider’s perspective, this matter wasn’t quite so terrible.
“Which sentence in the entire letter explicitly states that you aren’t of the Crown Prince’s bloodline?” Qian Ying breathed a sigh of relief. He had always felt that Fan Liangdi was after all a woman, and women were prone to being ruled by emotions, acting without considering consequences. But looking at it now, Fan Liangdi truly had some skill when dealing with men. This letter was extremely ambiguous, certainly, but if you asked which sentence spelled things out clearly, you truly couldn’t find a single one.
The most explicit was just one line: ‘Now that Han Zhi is dead, are you afraid there will be no one to carry out funeral rites for you and me in the future?’ This line could naturally be understood to mean that Fan Liangdi was indicating that not only Han Zhi was Marquis Jinxiang’s son, but it could also be interpreted in countless other ways!
He breathed a great sigh of relief. His spirit finally returned to its proper place, and he felt his head could temporarily be preserved.
This was clearly just Han Zhengqing’s one-sided wishful thinking and presumption. To actually believe such words that had not a shred of credibility—Qian Ying couldn’t help but sneer with contempt. Then he felt his heart sink again—Han Zhengqing couldn’t possibly be truly stupid to that degree. Based on just a piece of paper, of course even if Fan Liangdi talked herself hoarse he wouldn’t believe it. He must truly have had an unspeakable relationship with Fan Liangdi. He looked toward the Prince of Dongping. The Prince of Dongping’s expression had also become extremely ugly, apparently having thought of this point as well.