CH 91

As a result, Yuan Ci Xian fell unconscious after touching the pillow, and when she opened her eyes again, she saw that the sky was dim, and it was almost maoshi (5-7am). She turned over, thumped her sore back, and saw that Lu Shi Qing, who used to get up earlier than her, was still fast asleep, showing no sign of waking up.

She tried her best to open the eyelids that were about to close back, counted the days with her fingers, and then pushed him violently: “Lu Shi Qing, are you not going to court? You’re going to be late!”

Lu Shi Qing, who was floating in his dream, was rudely woken up by her shouting. He frowned and still closing his eyes tightly, didn’t know if he heard it clearly, just casually said “oh”.

She got up and continued to push him: “You should get up.”

He was so annoyed that he pulled the quilt over his face and said half-deadly: “… Can’t get up.”

Yuan Ci Xian didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

Who told him to torment her for most of the night last night, now it’s good, you squeeze yourself dry!

She struggled to tear off the corner of the quilt that he was holding on tightly, and said angrily, “You want the whole capital to know what you did last night?”

Lu Shi Qing turned over and pressed his face to the bed to bury himself, and said “um”, unmoved.

In a fit of anger, she stretched her long legs, straddled his waist, leaned over to straighten his face, pinched his chin and said, “You can’t get up?” She then grabbed his two hands and pulled him hard, “Get up, your salary will be deducted if you can’t get up!”

Lu Shi Qing finally raised his eyelids, and seeing her posture like a female warrior, a smile appeared on the corner of his mouth, it seemed to be a posture that could lead to unintended consequence, so he took a deep breath and suppressed himself for a while before saying: “Will you help me dress?”

Yuan Ci Xian originally wanted to say “in your dream”, but seeing that his bleary-eyed appearance was so cute, she couldn’t help but feeling soft, and even last night’s anger was mostly gone. She lowered her head and held his face, threw him a seductive look, and said, “Get up, and I’ll help you get dress.”

He stretched out his hand, motioning for her to pull him up.

Yuan Ci Xian wrinkled her nose at him, reached out to pulled him up, but because of his posture, she knocked into him and unsteadily fell back.

Hearing her “Ouch”, Lu Shi Qing’s reaction was sharp, and he quickly reached out to support her waist, and held her firmly in his arms.

Their noses touched because of this movement. He looked down at her slightly red and swollen lips, stretched out his thumb, and stroked them soothingly.

Yuan Ci Xian thought that he was going to kiss her, hurriedly leaned back: “You’re still confuse from sleep, I haven’t rinsed my mouth yet.”

Lu Shi Qing froze when he heard this. He didn’t plan to do this, but if he didn’t kiss her now, it meant he dislike her.

He had no choice but to sleepily half-open his eyes, lowered his head and pecked her, and said, “I also haven’t.”

Yuan Ci Xian glared at him, but there was a smile on the corner of her mouth, she tucked her hair behind her ears, urged him to hurry up, and then climbed down and went to the wooden hanger on the side to get his official uniform.

Lu Shi Qing sighed and followed, stretched out his arms and continued to doze off. He was so sleepy that he didn’t enjoy the feeling of being dressed by Yuan Ci Xian for the first time in his life, until he heard her doubtful voice from below: “Is this belt of yours fastened on the third jade button?”

He stood there squinting his eyes, and gave a weak “hmm”.

Yuan Ci Xian continued to bend over to fiddle with his clothes, and when she finished, she felt it looked strange, but she couldn’t tell what was wrong, so she hesitated and said “Okay”, until Lu Shi Qing finished washing his face and went out like a wandering soul, only the she slapped her head.

She forgot to ask whether it was the third from the top or the third from the bottom.

She immediately ordered Cao An to chase after Lu Shi Qing, wanting to tell him to quickly check and confirm, but unexpectedly, Zhao Shu’s driving skills have improved so much that this chase didn’t even see the tail, so in the afternoon of the same day, the news that Assistant Minister Lu fasten the jade belt in upside-down spread throughout Chang’an City.

Yuan Ci Xian anxiously waited until dusk for Lu Shi Qing to come back with a dark face and scold her, but instead he looked refreshed and didn’t even change the wrong belt. The next day when she went out, she saw men, women and children in the streets and alleys, four or five out of ten used this method of upside-down buckle to fasten their belts, which could be say to be fashionable.

“…” This world was too tolerant of good-looking people.

It’s a pity that the emperor tolerated the unruly behavior of his favorite courtier, but he didn’t tolerate others. Within a few days, the shocking reversal of the two major cases blew up the entire court.

One was the case of Cai He, which had been going on for more than ten days. Given the conclusive evidence, Cai He’s crime was a certainty. However, what everyone did not expect was that the official of the Ministry of Justice department who exposed him before had stumbled into a scandal at this juncture, saying that tens of thousands of silvers and dozens of beautiful concubines of unknown origin were hidden in his private house.

It was not a strange thing to be rich and lustful, what strange was this unknown origin. The “sharp” emperor immediately ordered the supervisory censor to arrange for the investigation, and after following along the way, he “discovered” that these things were all came from the Vice Minister of Dali Temple.

When Cai He, the Chief Minister of Dali Temple, was taken into custody for accepting bribes and wrongly convicted, the Vice Minister below gave a benefit to the official of the Ministry of Justice who exposed him.

The emperor with “eyes like torches” ordered people to investigate further, and then “smoothly” found the secret letter between the two of them. This proves that it was the Vice Minister of Dali Temple who failed to be promoted before, and was overstepped by Cai He, felt dissatisfied and intended to frame him and drag him down.

Cai He’s injustice were cleared away, but his body was weakened after being imprisoned for more than ten days. When he was taken to the Xuanzheng Hall, he was already skinny and covered with bruises. In an instant, the crowd in the court was agitated.

Of course, it was not that no one had seen the loopholes and doubts in the entire process of overturning the case. It’s just that they also saw that the root of this matter was that the emperor wanted to cover the sky with one hand. In this man-eating place, the truth was never as important as power and the general trend. Those with a little discernment naturally chose to shut up and pretend to be stupid.

Therefore, the whole court begged the emperor to severely punish the Vice Minister Dali Temple and the official of the Ministry of Justice. Even if anyone had grievances in their hearts, they took a note of Emperor Huining in their heads. Only Lu Shi Qing, who set the whole thing, was on the side from beginning to end, smiling and watching.

After Yuan Ci Xian learned of this, she could only sigh that he was a wily old fox.

But this wily old fox was her husband, so this was a compliment.

The second case was the Qujiang case that shocked the court and the public. The two princes were assassinated together by the Qujiang River. Just when everyone wondered who was so daring, news came out from the Capital Commandery that the suspect had been successfully captured and was being tortured and interrogated.

As soon as the news came out, the Second Prince was unavoidably confused, and sent his cronies to investigate the matter. Unexpectedly, the news was a trap to lure him into throwing himself into the net—the Capital Commandery did not catch any suspects at all, but now, they caught his secretive cronies.

Zheng Ji was sure that his cronies would never betray him, but the old emperor was already extremely disappointed in him. As long as the result was correct, he didn’t care about the process at all, so he directly ordered someone to draft a confession, forcing that person to admit committing the crime.

The story of the Second Prince’s thief shouting to catch the thief quickly spread throughout the court. The emperor was furious, and smashed a jade brush rest on his son’s head in public, giving him a big bum. No matter whether he knelt or crawled, spoke with heartfelt remorse and promised to repent, the emperor did not listen, just flung his sleeves and left in resentment.

Whether the world is warm and cold, you will know when you die.

At this time, sympathizing with the Sixth child was the general trend, and everyone might as well say a word to express their position, but no one in the Second Prince’s party dared to show their faces easily and intercede for Zheng Ji. It’s inconvenient for Ping Prince’s party to get involved, so they could only wait and see.

But the old emperor really made up his mind this time, and didn’t let everyone guess for too long. Within a few days, he issued an imperial decree, saying that the Second Prince’s intentions were not righteous, and he had provoked internal strife several times over the years, causing brothers to fight against each other, making brothers to be at odds, inciting chaos on the Great Zhou people, and destroying the peace of the court, so now he was deprived of all his powers and exiled him to Yazhou, an isolated border island in the south, to reflect on his mistakes and was not allowed to return to the capital without his order.

The battle of the imperial family for the Great Zhou’s throne had been going on for several years. The old emperor let the position of the crown prince be vacant, and never made a clear statement until this eloquent imperial decree.

The moment the prison carriage escorting Zheng Ji drove out of Chang’an City, the court of the Great Zhou also shattered into fragments at the same time, waiting for a godly pair of hands to reassemble and piece it together.

Everything was within Lu Shi Qing’s expectations.

The movement of Chang’an City quickly spread all the way to the southwest region. On the day when the marriage team stepped into the gate of Nanzhao, Xi Ju received these two pieces of news from the capital.

Shaohe was sitting across from him silently, leaning slightly against the wall of the carriage, listening to him talking about these things that she didn’t care about.

Xi Ju finished speaking on his own, and let out a sigh of emotion: “Lu Zishu is really capable.”

Shaohe didn’t say anything when she heard the words, even her expression didn’t fluctuate, just quietly looking at the lush tree’s scenery passing by outside the carriage curtain, blinking her eyes lightly.

Seeing that she was so stubborn, Xi Ju was not annoyed, only said: “The Nanzhao Imperial City is in front of you. After passing through this gate, you will be the future empress of Nanzhao, and you will have nothing to do with Great Zhou. Her Highness, a person who knows the current affairs is an outstanding talent, I don’t know how you think about the cooperation I proposed last time?”

Shaohe turned her head and said indifferently: “I don’t understand what else in me is worthy of Your Highness’s cooperation. I still say that, even if I I have nothing to do with Great Zhou, I won’t have anything to do with Your Highness.”

Xi Ju smiled: “Since Her Highness doesn’t understand, I’ll mention a few more words. I think Her Highness should have a little-known secret, and this secret will not only allow me to hold Nanzhao in my hands, but also help me wipe out all the surrounding Tubo, Pyu Kingdom, and even the Great Zhou.”

Shaohe’s eyes flickered for a moment, and the hand hidden in her sleeve trembled imperceptibly, then she said as calmly as possible: “I don’t understand Your Highness’s words.”

Xi Ju slowly leaned over to her across the narrow table in the carriage, and asked with a smile: “Since you don’t understand, why are you afraid?”

The distance between the two of them was too close that the heat of his words sprayed on her lips, she didn’t speak any more, just stared at him while holding her breath.

The corner of Xi Ju’s lips twitched: “There has never been a so-called inviolable destiny or decree in this world, some are just going the wrong way. And you have been wrong from the very beginning.” He looked at her slightly bent eyes, and said word by word, “Zheng Yun, Buddha can’t fulfil you, but I can save you.”