Worry that couldn’t be concealed rose in Princess Rongcheng’s heart. The Crown Prince’s temperament truly made things difficult for people. If he didn’t want to speak, he would clench his teeth and refuse to relent no matter what. Her Majesty the Empress couldn’t get answers from him, and neither could she as his younger sister.
When she went to see the Crown Prince again, Princess Rongcheng couldn’t care about anything else. She grasped the Crown Prince and asked him with furrowed brows: “What exactly happened that day? Now the matter has been made into a great commotion. Everywhere people are speculating about how Madam of Marquis Jinxiang provoked you. She has now burned down the entire Marquis of Jinxiang’s residence with a fire. If you don’t give an explanation, things won’t go well with Father Emperor either!”
Actually, the Crown Prince understood everything clearly in his heart, but how could he tell Father Emperor? How could he explain to the people of the realm? Could he directly tell them that his own sister-in-law had run over holding a hairpin to tell him that his beloved concubine of so many years was actually childhood sweethearts with his sister-in-law’s husband, that they had long ago pledged themselves to each other for life and even exchanged love tokens? So he had fainted from anger and alarmed the entire palace’s imperial physicians and consecrated priests?
He couldn’t afford to lose this much face!
Father Emperor and Mother Empress had already warned him many times back then because he favored Fan Liangdi excessively, but he hadn’t listened to any of it. Now if he revealed the matter, wouldn’t he become a laughingstock?!
Prince Gong and his wife were harmonious. By now they already had a long string of legitimate sons and daughters. In his fiefdom too, he was a virtuous prince universally praised by everyone. Even his health was more robust than his own. Every year he personally hunted many furs to send back to Father Emperor and Mother Empress.
The Crown Prince only felt his head splitting with pain. Irritably, he paced back and forth in the great hall.
San Bao entered with light hands and light feet to add tea and change the incense for him. Only when the Crown Prince finally stopped and looked toward him did he humbly lower his head and report in a low voice: “Your Highness, Liangdi娘娘 requests an audience.”
Fan Liangdi came almost every day. Each time he refused to see her, she didn’t force the issue, but she did come every single day.
The Crown Prince looked at San Bao with a cold, severe gaze. The glass window had fogged up; he couldn’t see clearly the scenery and figures outside. After standing calmly for a long while, he finally nodded, swept his robes and sat on the kang: “Let her enter!”
San Bao was already dripping with cold sweat. He only felt that the Crown Prince’s gaze just now seemed ready to devour people. No matter how weak and sickly the Crown Prince was, in the end he was still the Crown Prince, the future sovereign of the realm who could determine life and death with a single word. He gently raised his hand to wipe the cold sweat from his forehead, resolving never again to speak out of turn.
Eunuch Feng who served at Emperor Jianzhang’s side was his adoptive father and also his mentor. He had once taught him: be cautious in speech, cautious in action, cautious in thought. He had told him to remember this firmly in his mind and not dare forget for even a moment. He had almost forgotten.
Fan Liangdi turned her head to glance at San Bao. Points of apology floated up in her exquisite, beautiful eyes. The palace attendant behind her immediately perceptively offered a thick purse.
But San Bao no longer dared to accept. Discreetly borrowing the cover of his wide sleeves, he pushed it back, respectfully bent at the waist, and made a gesture of invitation.
Don’t covet the petty gains before your eyes—compared to the head on your own neck, they were truly not worth mentioning. He silently recited the words his master had taught him over and over, his gaze gradually becoming clear.
Fan Liangdi’s expression didn’t change. She gently pushed open the door and entered the hall, hurrying forward with quick steps to approach the Crown Prince. Yet she stopped three steps away from the Crown Prince and bowed deeply.
The elder Madam Fan before his eyes was still as beautiful as in his memories, bright and vivid like fruit on a branch, ripened to make people salivate with desire. The Crown Prince looked at her with complex emotions for a long while, then raised his hand to pick up the tea cup and take a sip of tea.
“Why have you come to see me?” He set down the teacup, his gaze carelessly passing over the elder Madam Fan to land on the large porcelain jar used for storing paintings behind her.
Others all said the Crown Prince’s health was poor, so he had become weak-natured. But the elder Madam Fan, who spent day and night with the Crown Prince, knew this was entirely untrue. The people of the world only glimpsed one corner of matters, then naively used their own ideas to speculate about others.
If the Crown Prince were truly weak and incompetent, it would be impossible for him to have sat firmly in the Eastern Palace for so many years despite his weak health. What he was best at was playing the pig to eat the tiger. Even his own brother Prince Gong and his own sister Princess Rongcheng thought he was fundamentally kind-natured and without desires, surviving until now only through a bit of the Emperor and Empress’s pity and his inherent advantages as the legitimate eldest son.
But if he truly were like this, Empress Dowager Rongxian back then couldn’t possibly have died so miserably, and the Yangzhou corruption case couldn’t possibly have become known throughout the entire nation. It was only because the Yangzhou corruption case had been made too large that the Emperor suddenly realized the Crown Prince might not necessarily be as content with the status quo as he had imagined. Only then did the Crown Prince become quiet again for this period of time.
The Crown Princess and even her own son Prince Dongping both felt that the Yangzhou corruption case was the Fan family’s growing ambitions instigating the Crown Prince to act. But only she knew this was entirely the Crown Prince’s own decision.
He fundamentally was no longer satisfied with just the northwestern route seized from Prince Duan’s hands, nor was he satisfied with Han Zhengqing’s management. He wanted to grasp the southern economy in his hands too—this was why there was the matter of Zhang Yuan wildly implicating officials.
The elder Madam Fan’s head slowly lifted. The arc of her slightly raised chin was exquisite and smooth. She let out an almost inaudible soft sigh: “Because this concubine is guilty.”
The Crown Prince still wore that neither cold nor warm expression, turning the archer’s ring on his finger. He laughed extremely lightly: “Oh? What crime do you have?” As if completely unaffected, nothing like a patient who had been ill for a long time—sickly and weak.
“This concubine shouldn’t have, based on my own likes and dislikes, forced my younger sister into such circumstances.” The elder Madam Fan’s voice gradually lowered. Her almond eyes filled with tears: “This concubine shouldn’t have…”
She looked toward the ancient zither called Waiting for the Moon beneath the south window, her eye sockets brimming with tears—what she had told her son was a lie. That she had already diligently practiced the zither and could play “High Mountains and Flowing Water” no differently from the younger Madam Fan—it was all false.
The Crown Prince had discovered something amiss that very evening. Someone who listened to the zither often and had accomplishments in this area—how could he possibly not hear something was wrong, that it wasn’t played by the same person?
But not only did the Crown Prince not blame her, he appreciated her even more. He said she knew what she wanted and strived for it—she was a clever person.
So the younger Madam Fan’s grievances were truly without reason. She thought she had sacrificed herself, not knowing she was merely one of the Crown Prince’s chess pieces as well.
“You never told me about that hairpin.” The Crown Prince stared at her coldly, the corners of his mouth even hanging with a faint smile: “Or are you the same as those people, thinking I won’t live much longer?”
The Crown Prince’s voice was still very soft and very low, the same as when in front of outsiders before. But hearing it in the elder Madam Fan’s ears, it was no different from a thunderclap. Cold sweat from under her arms dripped into her armpits. A trace of panic appeared in her eyes.