The four words “crying thief to catch a thief” coming from Emperor Jianzhang’s mouth—the actual victim—essentially sealed Prince Gong’s crimes. That meant all the previous rumors in the capital about the Grand Princess Consort and Grand Prince were all manipulated by someone behind the scenes?
Daoist Ciyun and Kong Shun both arrived very quickly. Kong Shun had originally been in the palace, guarded by the Imperial Guards. Daoist Ciyun was also immediately brought from the Court of Judicial Review. Before the two could exchange even a glance upon meeting, they were pushed forward, stumbling into the great hall.
Xuanzheng Hall was brilliantly lit, seemingly like an evil dragon with its bloody maw wide open, ready to swallow people whole, bones and all, at any moment. The two involuntarily shuddered, and by the time they came back to their senses, they were already in the middle of the hall.
The civil and military officials automatically cleared a path. The two of them were thrown onto the carpet like garbage being discarded, and not standing firmly, immediately collapsed to their knees.
When Old Kong had earlier heard Zhang Tianshi claimed to have a method to save Emperor Jianzhang, he hadn’t believed it. No one knew the origin of this poison better than him. Once struck by this poison, basically even immortals would find it difficult to save someone.
But at this moment, mustering his courage to look at the vigorous and spirited Emperor Jianzhang before him, he suddenly understood where this unease came from—Emperor Jianzhang hadn’t been poisoned at all!
Daoist Ciyun’s eyes, so fat they could almost only be seen as slits, were also filled with unconcealed shock. His eyes widened as large as they could go, looking at Emperor Jianzhang not far away, simply feeling as if he were in a nightmare.
Emperor Jianzhang, however, didn’t wait for them to react. Grabbing the documents Meng Jiming had just presented, he slapped them down before the two with a “pat,” let out a low snort of laughter, and sneered coldly at the two who hadn’t yet recovered: “I hear you said it was the Grand Prince who poisoned me?”
Liang Tong looked left and right, sometimes looking at Old Kong and Daoist Ciyun trembling on the ground, sometimes looking at the Grand Prince and Zhang Tianshi standing to the side, motionless as statues. He only felt his mind was terribly muddled. By this point his brain was completely inadequate, leaving only headache and confusion.
Before Old Kong could answer, Emperor Jianzhang let out a scornful laugh, leaning forward to look at the two of them: “But I recall that when the Celestial Master presented elixir pills to me, it was you, Daoist Ciyun, who personally delivered them…”
Daoist Ciyun’s stiff eyeballs rolled, looking at the documents on the ground, suddenly feeling he had fallen into an enormous trap.
From the moment Emperor Jianzhang was successfully poisoned and collapsed as they wished, they had felt victory was assured, felt they had already made the Grand Prince and Grand Princess Consort enter their trap. But now it seemed they were the ones who had truly entered someone else’s trap…
“During these days I lay in bed unconscious, I hear quite a few things happened in the court.” Emperor Jianzhang smiled playfully, looking at the people before him: “I hear that the household of Minister of Revenue Zheng Sansi had suspicious persons coming and going, seemingly relatives of Academician Chen?”
His question seemed completely off-topic, yet Daoist Ciyun and Old Kong were nearly paralyzed by it.
“Academician Chen’s relatives are quite interesting—not only could they freely enter and exit Zheng Sansi’s household, they could even share my burdens with Academician Chen, sending people to intercept and assassinate the Grand Princess Consort…” He looked at the group of people below, either bewildered or shocked, and laughed coldly: “Not only that, they could even come and go freely in my imperial palace!”
Speaking to this point, Emperor Jianzhang’s tone finally turned sharply severe, his gaze like an eagle’s tightly fixed on Old Kong and Daoist Ciyun: “Academician Chen is truly concerned for the country and people—not only did he poison me to death, he didn’t forget to help me select a better successor.”
Only at this moment did Prince Dongping understand where Song Chuyi’s unruffled confidence had come from before—they had clearly conspired with Emperor Jianzhang to put on an act, waiting for people to walk into the trap themselves! Since they were prepared early on, naturally they hoped things would blow up as big as possible.
“Quite good indeed.” Emperor Jianzhang’s voice lowered again, completely unaware that the current atmosphere was suffocating, lowering his gaze to look at his own distinct knuckles: “If you hadn’t pulled this move, I wouldn’t have known that in my court, there were still so many ministers who were only loyal to Prince Gong!”
Grand Secretary Chang stood to the side, motionless as a pine tree. Since Emperor Jianzhang chose to awaken at this time, he must have felt all the fish had entered the net. He was merely cooperating with Emperor Jianzhang to pull in the net and catch the fish. At this point, naturally he only waited to reap the harvest.
From the moment he saw Emperor Jianzhang, Old Kong couldn’t utter half a word—if Emperor Jianzhang had truly died, naturally everything would be up to them to say. After all, dead men tell no tales. As long as they could make the human and material evidence sound reasonable, then if they said Zhou Weizhao did it, it was Zhou Weizhao who did it.
But the premise of all this had to be built on the condition that Emperor Jianzhang was dead, yet Emperor Jianzhang wasn’t dead!
If he wasn’t dead, then no matter what evidence anyone had, it was useless. No matter what anyone said, it was useless. No matter how much evidence there was, it couldn’t withstand a single sentence from Emperor Jianzhang.
Emperor Jianzhang also had no intention of letting them speak again. His gaze fell on the dense mass of kneeling civil and military officials, seeming both to sigh and to mock himself: “Fortunately I have a great destiny. At that time, Imperial Physician Yan happened to be prescribing medicine for me and wanted to examine these elixir pills, fearing there might be some medicinal ingredient in the prescription that would conflict with the pills. Only upon this examination did he discover something wrong.”
So he truly hadn’t been poisoned! Those ministers who had clamored the loudest before, demanding the Grand Prince pay with his life, demanding the selection of a regent—all their hearts now beat like war drums. They felt their whole bodies going weak. If he hadn’t been poisoned, then all their jumping up and down these days trying to select a successor regent for Emperor Jianzhang—in Emperor Jianzhang’s eyes, wouldn’t that be a grave crime?
“Upon discovering something wrong, I originally planned to immediately order the Imperial Guard to investigate. But thinking it over, we had already investigated before. Weren’t Vice Minister Wang and the Heir of Marquis Guangping and others already thoroughly investigated by the Imperial Guard? Even investigating like that, the palace still produced Xie Siyi in the end…” Emperor Jianzhang laughed scornfully: “After all, one is my son, the other is a descendant of meritorious officials who followed the founding emperor. In the capital they could be considered deeply rooted, able to bribe even people by my side, able to poison even my medicine. Who knows whether alarming people this time and making a great fuss investigating would still be like Vice Minister Wang’s case—finding people yet having another batch emerge? I might as well watch with cold eyes and see just how far this traitorous son and treacherous ministers plan to go. Might as well be thorough about it, otherwise who knows when I might lose my life without even knowing.”
Speaking to this point, he paused, his gaze coldly continuing: “Fortunately I didn’t immediately startle the snake in the grass, so I could see these various states of being, could know what exactly these people wanted to do.”
By this point, even the most foolish person understood that Emperor Jianzhang truly hadn’t been poisoned, merely pretended to be poisoned to lure out those behind the scenes. They couldn’t help but all be dumbstruck.