amaotonovel Chapter 256 The Ruthless and Disabled Crown Prince (156)
Chapter 256 The Ruthless and Disabled Crown Prince (156)
Even Admiral Lin's expression changed in the hall.
"Are you talking nonsense? Do you think this will spare your life?" Admiral Lin kicked Liu Tiao, sending him sprawling to the ground, crying out in pain.
"This servant wouldn't dare! What this servant said is the absolute truth... This servant wouldn't dare to lie in any way, Your Highness the Crown Prince is right!" Liu Tiao was afraid that Ji Shuqin wouldn't believe what she said.
"The imperial seal? Why look for it in Father Emperor's bedroom?" Ji Shuqin was half-believing and half-doubting. Indeed, at first, he hadn't thought of this. He just felt that the little eunuch was going to harm the emperor.
But no matter how much he thought about it, he couldn't understand what good it would do for his father, the emperor, now. Now, hearing the words "seal" made all his doubts seem to clear up a bit.
"Your Highness, it's because there's none anywhere else..." Willow Branch said weakly.
"You searched other places too?" Ji Shuqin raised an eyebrow. If so, how many loopholes must there be in the Emperor's palace?
"No, it wasn't me who found it. It was the person who told me to do this who told me. I only did this once!"
"Once? Once is enough for you to die countless times!" Admiral Lin snorted sarcastically as he watched him struggle to defend himself.
As the head of the Imperial Penal Division in the inner court, he had seen and heard more pleas for mercy and a way to survive over the years than most people had eaten rice.
"No, no... this servant is just telling the truth!" Willow wanted to plead with His Highness the First Prince again, begging him to spare Yuegui and not to implicate her. But Admiral Lin saw through his lie and exposed him. He dared not say anything more, hanging his head, his heart feeling like a crumpled and torn piece of paper, extremely distressed.
"Who asked you to do something?"
“This servant doesn’t know.” Willow closed her eyes in despair: “The first person who came to see this servant came late at night while this servant was on duty. He took this servant to… a room, and this servant’s eyes were covered, so I couldn’t see anything.”
"Later, after I agreed to their request, that person came to see me again, but I still couldn't see his face. All I knew was... that he was a eunuch," Willow said.
"Why can't he be a palace guard?" Admiral Lin asked him.
"Because he had that scent of incense that only eunuchs have, the kind that many capable eunuchs in the palace use," Liu Tiao said with certainty. At the time, he was on edge and couldn't see, so his ears and nose were exceptionally sensitive, and the scent of that incense left a deep impression on him.
Eunuchs are different from palace maids. Because they have been castrated, even if they are carefully groomed, they sometimes still have an unpleasant odor.
Serving a noble person is dangerous; if the noble person smells it, wouldn't they be disgusted? Forget about gaining their favor, you might even lose your life.
Therefore, most of the eunuchs who served in front of nobles would use incense to conceal their faces, but they couldn't use it like women to create various kinds of makeup.
Therefore, they basically used the same kind of incense. Over time, this scent became a symbol of whether a eunuch had status or not.
"Where have I taken you?" Ji Shuqin was surprised. How many unfathomable things were happening in this palace? Even around the emperor, who knew how many eyes and hands were planted?
"It was probably near the pond in the Imperial Garden. I was taken to a room, and if you listen carefully, you can still hear the sound of water outside. It was about the same distance away. I used to deliver meals to the Empress Dowager's palace and often took that route."
Willow Branch tried her best to recall every single detail, hoping that the better she performed, the better the Crown Prince would be…
Ji Shumin, sitting in the chair behind Ji Shuqin, slowly sat up straight upon hearing this and looked at Liu Tiao: "Did he tell you that he would only search in the Emperor's bedroom?"
"Yes! Yes! He told me that the signal would be a fire. As soon as I saw the small kitchen burning, I would sneak into the Emperor's bedroom."
“That day, it was my turn to be on duty. It was already very late. I thought something had gone wrong and decided not to take any action. But who knew that the small kitchen would catch fire without anyone noticing!” Willow Branch looked puzzled.
He served in the small kitchen, having been transferred from the imperial kitchen to the emperor's small kitchen. He was only doing odd jobs, and the small kitchen was very strict.
Because they served the emperor, everything they did, from their shifts to their belongings, was meticulously recorded.
He was the only one on night duty at the time, along with two other eunuchs, but these two men had been with him constantly before the fire started.
The way that fire started was so strange, it was almost like... a ghost had set it off!
If it were during the day, with so many people around, it would be understandable if they didn't know it was someone from the small kitchen. But at the time, there were only a few of them...
Did the fire start right under their noses, or did it start from above, on the roof? What exactly happened?
But at that moment, he didn't have time to think. When he saw the fire, he shouted "Fire!" and ran outside to put out the fire. Before he had run a few steps, the flames behind him suddenly grew bigger. When he turned around, he couldn't see anything. The heat was scorching.
"After sneaking in, I saw that Eunuch Baoyi seemed not to have heard me and was still guarding there. In my haste, I shouted loudly and led Eunuch Baoyi out, which allowed me to enter the Emperor's bedroom." Liu Tiao explained everything.
Although there were many suspicious things about what he said, he didn't seem to be lying.
After confessing everything, Liu Tiao collapsed to the ground, his face ashen, his eyes vacant, waiting for his death to come.
But the First Prince simply had him taken away. Commander Lin watched him from behind with a half-smile, making Liu Tiao feel that if the First Prince agreed, Commander Lin would be more than happy to torture him to death himself.
To everyone's surprise, after he was dragged out, Admiral Lin said, "He's a rare tough nut to crack."
"He was terrified by your fierce appearance. Your methods didn't kill him, but your character almost killed him halfway." Ji Shumin sneered.
Ji Shuqin looked at the two of them with some surprise. Why did they seem to know each other so well?
After Admiral Lin bowed and left, Ji Shuqin looked at Ji Shumin with a puzzled expression.
“Your Majesty, you don’t know, I personally helped him get promoted. Back then, I saw his tough heart and ruthless nature, which is why I put him in the Censorate,” Ji Shumin said frankly.
Although he spoke frankly to Ji Shuqin, this relationship was probably not known to outsiders. It was not a legitimate business for a prince to cultivate his own power and connections in the palace, and he had to be careful to hide it. However, Ji Shumin did not protect him or tell him this now.
“Min’er…”
"Does Your Majesty mean I harbored disloyal intentions and disrespected Father, or do you want to praise my foresight and early planning?" Ji Shumin asked casually with a smile.
"..." Ji Shuqin sighed helplessly: "I just want to ask you, what are you going to do with Liutiao and Yuegui?"
Ji Shumin looked at Ji Shumin.
His elder brother, though seemingly upright and incorruptible, could not hide his soft heart.
He could remember the names of the two young palace maids and pronounce them naturally, which showed that he cared about them very much, but he asked others how to deal with them.
Ji Shumin raised an eyebrow but didn't answer him. His meaning was clear: it was up to you how you wanted to handle it.
After returning to her residence, Lu Liruan listened to Ji Shumin's explanation and recalled Lu Yushi's appearance that day—how restless and hesitant she seemed when she came to see her…
Perhaps she already knew.
"Is the Emperor's seal in his bedroom?" Lu Liruan asked.
"No."
Ji Shumin replied, "Now, no one knows where Father Emperor's seal is."
Since the emperor lost his mind, the seal has been missing.
I wonder if the emperor, while still lucid, managed to hide himself.
Lu Liruan could understand why the Second Prince wanted to find that seal.
Since ancient times, without a formal edict of succession or a will from the previous emperor, a new emperor's ascension to the throne would be accused by those with ulterior motives of being illegitimate. This is also a way to attack an emperor, and once someone stirs it up, he will have to bear the burden for a lifetime, not just for a lifetime, but for thousands of generations.
Why is the Second Prince so eager to find this seal? Is it to prevent Ji Shuqin from gaining legitimacy, or to legitimize himself?
But what interested Lu Liruan more today was the seemingly mysterious story Ji Shumin told her: the fire that inexplicably broke out in the small kitchen.
"How was the little eunuch described?"
Lu Liruan absolutely did not believe in any supernatural or ghostly matters. Even if there were some superstitions, it was inexplicable that a fire would break out in this small kitchen.
Moreover, the fire itself was a pre-arranged signal, intended to allow him to sneak into the Emperor's bedchamber...
"There was thick smoke, and it blinded me when I looked up. At first, I didn't see any bright flames either..." Lu Liruan pondered, resting her chin on her hand.
This sounds kind of familiar.
Suddenly, Lu Liruan remembered what Ji Shumin had said a few days ago: The Emperor hasn't used this small kitchen for a long time. When it's cold, the small kitchen often boils water and fills hand warmers for the palace servants on duty at night.
"Have you been cooking in the small kitchen these past few days?" Lu Liruan asked him.
"No, the winter wind was strong and blew off many tiles from the small kitchen roof, clogging the chimney. A few eunuchs went to fix it, but these eunuchs weren't from the inner palace," Ji Shumin replied fluently.
Although Admiral Lin appears sinister and cruel, he is actually extremely methodical and meticulous when interrogating people, leaving no detail overlooked and thoroughly investigating everything.
He had already shown these details to the eldest prince and the third prince yesterday.
Did you continue boiling water that night?
"Before the fire was discovered, several eunuchs were boiling water and sitting around the fire. They could see each other, so no one could climb onto the roof to set the fire, which is why it seems suspicious."
Lu Liruan understood.
"They probably used flint powder," she said seriously.
"Hmm?" Ji Shumin became interested and waited attentively for Lu Liruan to continue, as this was indeed something he hadn't figured out.
Flint is phosphorus, and phosphorus has a very low ignition point. Moreover, as someone who is bedridden for many years with nothing to do, his greatest hobby is reading novels.
Lu Liruan never expected that she would actually encounter such a thing one day.
When phosphorus burns, it produces a lot of white smoke, and the flames are not the usual orange-red color, so when Willow and the others looked back, they saw that strange sight.
"This flint must have been placed next to the chimney on the roof. It's cold in winter, so it won't catch fire easily, but once firewood starts burning below, the heat rises up the chimney, and when it gets hot enough, the flint will catch fire."
"Oh? How does Li Ruan know all this?" Ji Shumin asked with great curiosity.
“I often read supernatural tales, and the will-o'-the-wisps described in them are similar to this.” Lu Liruan thought that Ji Shumin couldn’t possibly ask her where she had read these things.
The old doctor who came to check Ji Shumin's pulse the next day also confirmed Lu Liruan's statement: "There is indeed such a method of pretending to be a ghost. When I was traveling among the people, I saw many swindlers using this method to deceive people."
Ji Shumin ordered his men to search near the chimney, which had not yet been repaired and was left in its original state, and indeed they found traces.
Not only were there flints, but there were also traces of oil poured on them, which is why the fire was so difficult to extinguish and turned into a towering flame.
"Go investigate the day the small kitchen was repaired." Ji Shumin slowly peeled an orange, his pale fingertips stained with glistening juice, while Ji Shuqin sat upright beside him, his face grim: "How could they... act so recklessly! If it really affects..." He was getting angry.
Since that day, after learning what Willow Branch was looking for, there was no need to dig deeper to find out who had instructed him.
It became clear who was behind it all – it was all too obvious!
Now, with all the open and covert struggles, both inside and outside the court, things have reached a point where they are almost irreconcilable. Who else can possibly stand against them?
"What's the point of further investigation?" Ji Shuqin retorted lightly.
Ji Shumin wiped his hands with a warm water cloth and smiled, "Of course it's going to make people uncomfortable."
“He can’t get any information from the palace now, but he has doubts in his heart. Do we know or not? If we know, what will happen to him? If we don’t know, how long can he keep it a secret? The more we investigate and the more commotion we make, the more uncomfortable he will feel…” Ji Shumin knew Ji Shuling’s thoughts and personality well, so he used this opportunity to test him.
The Censorate was ordered to investigate. When Admiral Lin arrested people in the palace, he never knew what it meant to be discreet. Creating panic was his usual way of coercing people, and this time was no different. The commotion made the palace servants feel like they had a rope hanging over their heads.
"How is the eunuch?" Ji Shumin asked casually as he came to report.
Admiral Lin chuckled, his voice soft yet sinister: "Naturally, a rolled-up straw mat was thrown out..."
"Oh, what about that little palace maid named Yuegui?" Ji Shumin continued to ask, seemingly very concerned.
"She was expelled from the palace on the orders of the First Prince. After all, she hadn't done anything wrong, but who knows if she harbors resentment. Staying in the palace would be a burden. That palace maid will be twenty-five in a few years. His Highness the First Prince is merciful and pardoned her ahead of schedule." As Admiral Lin spoke, there was always something hidden in his words.
“Oh…” Ji Shumin nodded, and with a half-smile, raised his hand to Ji Shuqin: “Your Majesty has always been compassionate and merciful to all living beings.”
Ji Shuqin's eyes held reproach, but it turned into helplessness. In the end, he said nothing. Only after Admiral Lin left did he turn back and look at Ji Shumin seriously.