Outside the palace, lightning flashed and thunder roared. Lightning carved a bright path across the sky, immediately followed by deafening thunderous rumbles. Outside, wind and rain battered together. Though the palace hall remained brightly lit, the atmosphere was even colder than the sound of wind and rain outside. The Crown Prince straightened his body and walked a few steps to stand before Empress Dowager Lu, his face still carrying a vindictive smile. “Mother Empress, are you about to get your wish? What, are you planning to hand all these letters over to Father Emperor and let him see exactly how I’ve been racking my brains to amass wealth behind the scenes?”
Empress Dowager Lu suddenly sat up and reached out to slap the Crown Prince across the face with all her strength. Even beneath the lightning and thunder outside, the sound of this slap was still exceptionally loud. Seeing the Crown Prince’s eyes turn blood-red, she backhanded another vicious slap across his other cheek. Seeing the Crown Prince reveal an expression of incredulous rage, she leaned back against the soft pillows and looked at him, her expression indifferent and her tone icy. “In all these years, the only wrong thing I’ve done to you was that one time when you were small, but I’ve spent all these years trying my best to make amends. You always feel I owe you—what exactly do I still owe you?!” She turned her head to look at the letters scattered across the spot where the Crown Prince had been standing, her eyes full of disappointment. “You’re right, it’s my fault. All of this is my fault. If I hadn’t indulged you in doing whatever you wanted, you wouldn’t have reached this point today, wouldn’t have committed such a grave error. Do you even know what a serious crime it is to privately trade war horses and secretly communicate with the Tatars?! Do you know what it means once these matters are made public?! When that time comes, not only will you be utterly ruined, even your father will be criticized, and everyone in the Eastern Palace will be implicated by you! Do you know that the Tatars may very likely use the war horses you sell them each year to turn around and attack our Great Zhou’s soldiers, burning, killing, and plundering on our Great Zhou’s territory?! You are the nation’s heir apparent, the future master of Great Zhou’s vast rivers and mountains—but you fundamentally don’t deserve it!”
“An heir apparent who would sell his own territory to enemy nations fundamentally doesn’t deserve to be master of this realm!” Empress Dowager Lu looked at the Crown Prince, speaking each word with utmost solemnity. “The only thing I regret now is persuading your father emperor to establish you as Crown Prince so early back then. The only thing I regret is later rescuing you from the Grand Empress Dowager’s hands. You’re right—in my heart, your younger brother is far more suitable than you. Never mind your younger brother; even Weizhao is far more suitable than you. Even your other son Dongping probably has far better judgment than you and wouldn’t hang himself on the pillar of shame forever for these petty gains before his eyes!”
She was simply shocked beyond measure by the Crown Prince’s stupidity. She sneered coldly as she stared down the ashen-faced Crown Prince. “Look at this Fan clan you trust so much. Don’t you feel they’re the reliable ones, the ones you can depend on? But where did these letters come from? They’re not stupid either—they’ve saved them all. These letters will be the leverage used to blackmail you once you ascend the throne in the future!”
The Crown Prince naturally knew this point. He just felt it didn’t matter. No matter what calculations the Fan clan had, if they wanted to rely on him and the Prince of Dongping and live well, they wouldn’t dare make these letters public. What they sought was nothing more than benefits, nothing more than official advancement and wealth—all of which he could afford to give. Since he could pay the price, there was fundamentally no need to worry about being betrayed, wasn’t there?
His head buzzed. He finally realized that Empress Dowager Lu seemed somewhat different from usual. If the matter of the Fan family doing things for him came out, if it truly reached Emperor Jianzhang, if people truly found out… he would probably become like that uncle from the previous dynasty—a deposed Crown Prince. He finally extracted himself from his anger and belatedly began to feel afraid. Staring at Empress Dowager Lu with wariness and vigilance, he asked her somewhat apprehensively, “What exactly do you want to do?!”
He fundamentally couldn’t perceive where he was wrong. Empress Dowager Lu looked at him coldly once, her mind already made up. Leaning back against the pillow and turning her head aside, her voice utterly frigid. “The Xibei business cannot continue any longer. The Tatars grow increasingly arrogant by the day. Datong and Xuanfu are constantly harassed by them. The matter of selling war horses will be discovered sooner or later. If you don’t want to perish together with the Fan family, be more obedient.”
The Crown Prince fundamentally didn’t think himself disobedient. His heart was quite dismissive—before when he wasn’t doing this business, others were doing it. He merely later comprehensively took over and monopolized this business. Moreover, he still had Han Zhengqing in Xibei acting as his protective umbrella, and the Fan family helping to front things. The fire fundamentally couldn’t reach him.
Empress Dowager Lu saw through his dismissiveness with one glance and mercilessly exposed this little scheme of his. “The people around you fall into trouble one after another, yet you alone stand firm and unshaken—what do you think others will think? There’s a common saying among the people: flies don’t land on seamless eggs. This incident with Chen Dezhong has already invisibly destroyed your former reputation in one stroke. If it happens again, do you think you can still escape unscathed?”
The Crown Prince couldn’t help but retort sarcastically, “Even if I stop, and you move against the Fan family, won’t others still suspect me through the Fan family? Won’t Father Emperor become suspicious of me? Who are you trying to fool?!”
“Then that’s your own doing bringing it upon yourself!” Empress Dowager Lu didn’t hesitate in the slightest. “After dealing with the Fan family, though your father emperor’s disappointment in you will deepen another layer, at least no one can prove this matter is directly related to you. In the end, it will be just like the Chen Dezhong affair—others can only vaguely suspect you. As long as you behave yourself from now on, after a few years, others will naturally forget.”
The Crown Prince couldn’t help the shock and rage in his heart, mocking in a sardonic tone, “Isn’t this just wanting me to completely lose power and be unable to reach out everywhere? I know—after the Yangquan incident, Weizhao can also stand on his own, can also take on duties. You feel you can cultivate him to rise up now…”
Empress Dowager Lu could bear it no longer and didn’t want to say another word of nonsense to the Crown Prince. “In any case, there are now two paths before you. You must know that even if you fall now, as you said, it doesn’t affect my continuing as Empress. You’re not my only son. Your father emperor also may not necessarily implicate Weizhao because of you.”
The Crown Prince pressed his lips together, his eyes brewing with storm and tempest. When Empress Dowager Lu used to yield to him in everything, he felt she treated him poorly. But now that Empress Dowager Lu truly treated him poorly, the hatred in his heart conversely lost that sense of righteous justification. First it was Fan Liangdi being forced to death, now it was the Fan family about to face misfortune. Empress Dowager Lu and the Crown Princess were clearly thoroughly clearing the path for Zhou Weizhao. He stared fixedly at Empress Dowager Lu once, both hands clenched tightly into fists hanging at his sides, the veins on his forehead bulging out.