Song Jue had boundless indulgence toward Song Chuyi. Standing before Song Chengru, he made no attempt to conceal this indulgence: “I’ve thought about it for a long time—if Xiaoyi ultimately truly decides to accompany the Grand Prince on his path forward, that may not be a bad thing at all.”
Emperor Jianzhang was certainly fine, but the Song family had always been marked in his records because of matters concerning the Eastern Palace. Moreover, Emperor Jianzhang would eventually grow old. After he aged, given the current situation, the Crown Prince would certainly ascend the throne, and the Crown Prince’s health was poor…
Song Chengru’s gaze deepened. His eldest grandson had always been exceptionally patient with this sixth younger sister, even closer to her than to his eldest sister, Consort Song. Now he had even said such words. Song Chengru couldn’t help staring at him for a long moment: “Your eldest sister, after all these years, has never received such words from you.”
That was different. Consort Song was neither legitimate-born nor the eldest, and Emperor Jianzhang had already established the Eastern Palace for over twenty years. Even if Consort Song bore a son, it would be of no use—the Empress, besides the Crown Prince, also had a legitimate-born Prince Gong who was extremely favored by Emperor Jianzhang. No matter how you counted, it couldn’t possibly fall to the current young prince. The Song family also lacked the courage and ambition to insist on supporting a prince with Song bloodline to ascend. That would be far too large a gamble. When Song Chengru was young, he dared to gamble because at that time Earl Changning Manor had already been demoted due to inheritance disputes and had reached the point where they had no choice but to fight. But now Earl Changning Manor was at the height of its glory—several generations of accumulation couldn’t all be staked on one bet.
Song Jue spoke his views without reservation, adding at the end: “Just because we can’t compete now doesn’t mean we won’t need to compete in the future. Choosing the path to take early allows us to intensify preparations now.”
Song Chengru sighed. What he had originally discussed with Old Madam Song was that Song Chuyi needn’t sacrifice anything more for the family—it would be best to let her marry someone she admired, a family that matched in talent and appearance, and pass this lifetime peacefully and steadily. But now Song Chuyi and His Highness the Grand Prince were drawing closer and closer, running somewhat contrary to both his and Old Madam Song’s wishes.
After a moment of silence, Song Chengru no longer brought up Song Chuyi’s matter. After all, she wasn’t present now, and her letter hadn’t stated clearly what she truly thought. They would still need to wait until she returned to the capital to ask her carefully. He turned instead to speak of Elder Chen’s affairs: “During court today, the Minister of the Court of Judicial Review claimed illness, and Vice Minister of Justice Tong Yuchun also felt unwell. Only Surveillance Commissioner Censor Tao readily agreed to take on the assignment of chief investigator for the spring examination leak case.”
As a newly promoted Centurion of the Yulin Guard, Song Jue had already had this news delivered to him. The Minister of the Court of Judicial Review and Tong Yuchun were both Eastern Palace people—it was normal that they would avoid such matters like the plague.
Even if this assignment were handled well, there would be no reward. What was rare was how easy it was to offend people. Elder Chen was after all the Junior Grand Secretary, managing the Surveillance Commissioner’s censors, with disciples distributed widely. The Eastern Palace had recently been riding high—finding someone who dared to try this case would indeed require considerable effort.
But Censor Tao was different. This matter had almost been single-handedly pushed forward by him from behind the scenes—teaching Yin Zicheng how to make things bigger, teaching him how to provoke Zhou Chengfang’s fury to make things even more uncontrollable, even stirring up the students of the Imperial Academy together, creating such an uproar throughout the city that now, having been appointed chief investigator, he had long been eager to try.
“Tong Yuchun and the Minister of the Court of Judicial Review fell ill, but there are always other capable officials.” Song Jue found this not at all surprising. That Elder Chen had stayed in the cabinet for so many years and had a few helping hands he could reach out to in the court was perfectly normal. But now that matters had reached this point, the more everyone avoided it like the plague, the more it would provoke Emperor Jianzhang’s fury. Emperor Jianzhang had finally, with great difficulty, cleared out all the remnants of Prince Tai’s faction and those left behind by Empress Dowager Rongxian after becoming emperor these years. Now the court was completely under his control, yet Elder Chen still caused this trouble to hold him back—the imperial examinations were a major matter of selecting talent for the nation, and also a major matter of infusing the Great Zhou Dynasty with fresh blood, blood completely under Emperor Jianzhang’s control. That Elder Chen still wanted to stick his hand into even such matters—it would be difficult for Emperor Jianzhang, who was originally quite sensitive about power, not to suspect he harbored ulterior motives. And Elder Chen happened to be an Eastern Palace person…
The smile on Song Chengru’s face was somewhat enigmatic. He glanced at Song Jue and slowly sat down in his armchair: “Do you know who was ultimately appointed?”
For Song Chengru to ask this way, the choice must be extremely unexpected. Song Jue lowered his head to think for a moment, then slowly raised it to look at Old Master Song: “Could it be that Prince Dongping was appointed?”
Song Jue wasn’t on duty today and didn’t yet know that the chief investigator had already been appointed. But hearing Song Chengru speak this way, guessing who was appointed as chief investigator wasn’t difficult.
Since Emperor Jianzhang already felt the Eastern Palace’s hand was reaching too far, and Elder Chen was an Eastern Palace person, and now both the Court of Judicial Review and the Ministry of Justice were pushing the matter away, terrified of inviting disaster—he simply pushed the matter to the Eastern Palace.
“During court today, His Majesty said that His Highness the Grand Prince and Prince Dongping are similar in age, both already learning to handle affairs. Now he’s even handling matters quite beautifully. As brothers, Prince Dongping should also gain experience—starting with learning to reform official governance. He appointed him as supervisor.” The smile on Song Chengru’s face was inscrutable: “His Majesty’s move was truly a stroke of divine inspiration.”
At that time, the faces of Vice Minister of Justice Tong Yuchun and Minister of the Court of Judicial Review Feng Yinglong, who had claimed illness, turned deathly pale. His Majesty was clearly determined now. Since these Eastern Palace faction members were unwilling to offend Elder Chen and unwilling to try this case, he simply dragged out the Crown Prince’s other son.
“Supervisor?” Song Jue was momentarily unable to react. Once he did react, he couldn’t help but laugh mockingly: “This way, when the time comes, those in difficulty won’t just be the chief investigators trying this case—there’s also the Eastern Palace, and Elder Chen who’s already covered in bruises.”
His Majesty’s meaning of warning the monkeys by beating the mountain was now very clear. Would Prince Dongping handle things fairly and sever his own arm, or would he abuse the law, operate behind the scenes to preserve Elder Chen as a source of power? Both of these were too difficult for him—this was almost a matter with no benefits. No matter which he chose, he would suffer on both sides. Prince Dongping was probably so anxious right now his hair was turning white.
“Those people in the Administrative Office of the Crown Prince can worry about these matters for him—it’s none of our concern.” Song Chengru stroked his beard: “As for Fang Xiaoru’s side, we can instruct him to make a move. I recall he and Tao Dinghu still have some friendship, don’t they?”
It was no wonder Elder Chen would value someone like Fang Xiaoru so highly. He had also contributed effort to the scheme designed against Cui Shaoting back then. This person handled matters far too meticulously. Even if there had been no friendship before, after this affair, there was now.