CH 63

The Emperor’s Will - She Was a Cunning Woman who Needed to be Taught a Lesson (2)

He didn’t have to be like Xiao Yu—deliberately restrain himself and maintain his reputation in order to win over the courtiers and maintain his reputation. Could it be that he, like those few upright and even slightly old-fashioned ministers, was against keeping a concubine for the sake of rules?

But he was clearly not a person who paid attention to rules, otherwise he would not pay attention to her at all...

Thinking of the situation when he stopped her from serving her forcibly, she suddenly felt a little strange in her heart, so she just pretended he pitied her.

This person was probably an outlier in the Xiao family.

She just didn’t know if today's appearance achieved what she wanted. Before leaving, his indifferent look that could not be understood was really obscure.

She deliberately did not take advantage of today to say what she wanted and instead left a hook and waited to see his reaction.

If he intended to, he would give her a chance. If he didn’t, her telling him today would have been of no avail either.

After thinking about this, she slowly relaxed and gradually fell asleep.

...

The next few days were peaceful in the palace.

The door beside Wude Hall was still open every day.

At first, the palace people in the East Palace were still gossiping a lot, and they kept guessing about the intention of the Taiji Palace, but after a few days, they didn't see anything else, so they couldn't help but lose interest and stopped watching.

The atmosphere of fear faded day by day, and it seemed that the East Palace had returned to its previous appearance. Because Xiao Yu was away, the atmosphere became more relaxed.

Cui He quietly went to the door to look a few times, but the palanquin from the Wude Hall didn’t appear again that day.

She was a little anxious, but seeing that Chu Ning was calm, she felt relieved and stopped looking at it.

Seeing that it was almost mid-November, the real winter season was coming.

The Taiji Palace was low-lying, which made it difficult to withstand the severe cold. Therefore, in previous winters, the first emperor would move to the Lishan Tangquan Palace for self-cultivation, and return to the Taiji Palace in the spring of the following year.

This year, when a new king ascended the throne, the courtiers would take the initiative to ask the Emperor to move.

Naturally, Xiao Kezhi would not object, and immediately issued an order to set off in five days to go to Lishan Tangquan Palace.

In the Ganlu Hall, Liu Kang handed over the prepared list to Xiao Kezhi for review, and finally sent the one involving the East Palace carefully.

According to him, the Crown Princess was also a member of the royal family, and naturally, she had to accompany her. But these few days, the Emperor had been serving in front of the Imperial court, and he had never seen the Emperor mention the Crown Princess again, which made him hesitate for a while.

"Your Majesty, look at the East Palace. The Crown Prince is not in the capital, and the Crown Princess-?"

Xiao Kezhi's eyes lingered on the word "Chu" for a moment, and then he frowned and said, "I said that everyone in the palace will go. Why do you still ask?"

Liu Kang was agitated and immediately understood, so he hurriedly said, "This old slave understands. This one will let people pass the order to the East Palace."

The East Palace seemed to be adjacent to the Taiji Palace, and although they were separate now,  when it was first built, it was regarded as an attached palace of the Taiji Palace. In this way, the princess was naturally a "person in the palace".

"Okay." Xiao Kezhi glanced at him but did not stop him, only called Jin Jiang in.

"How's the investigation on Bozhou?"

He had previously been suspicious of Zhao Lun's movements in Bozhou because of Zhao Yue's sudden appearance, so he asked Jin Jiang to send someone to investigate.

Jin Jiang said, "I am ashamed. Bozhou is remote and the terrain is steep. I haven't found out any concrete details, but I have only caught some clues."

In fact, it has only been half a month since that day. Xiao Kezhi didn't expect him to find anything in such a short period of time. Hearing that, he just shook his head and said, "No matter, tell me what the clue is."

"It seems to be related to the late General Zhao. There have been some local rumors that in the past few years, there was a close relationship between General Zhao and the Nanzhao royal family."

Xiao Kezhi listened, pondered for a moment, and then ordered, "Continue to check. In the capital, send people to track Zhao Erniang's underlings and find out the situation between her and Zhao Lun."

Jin Jiang's words weren’t clear, but just that rumor already revealed a lot of things.

It was also a marginal area that was difficult for the court to reach. Xiao Kezhi had been in Ganzhou for ten years and naturally understood what Tiangao Emperor Yuan meant. The Zhao family had been guarding Bozhou for generations, and it is inevitable that some thoughts that should not be born will arise.

When Jin Jiang heard the words, "Yes", he remembered them.

"Where's the Crown Prince? How many days will he be in Huazhou? How did those people in Huazhou deal with him?" Xiao Kezhi turned over a stack of documents about dredging the river a few days ago and glanced at it.

Jin Jiang nodded and said, "The Prince will be in Huazhou for seven days. Everything in the prefecture is as usual, and there is not much difference, but in the nearby states, there are rumors that His Majesty wants to replace the generals. Some people seem to be interested in meeting the prince."

"Sure enough." Xiao Kezhi sneered and quickly said a few names, all of which were confirmed by Jin Jiang as the ones who wanted to meet with Xiao Yu.

He sent this useless nephew to Huazhou on purpose to test a few officials nearby.

Xiao Yu and Empress Dowager Qi seemed to be completely opposite sides, but in fact, they had some subtle points in common. For example, they were both short-sighted and blindly expended their energy on the struggle for power and profit in the court while ignoring the management of officials. This resulted in the entire court—a luxuriant tree— being riddled with holes of countless silverfish. Although it seemed to be a towering giant tree that was difficult to shake, the inside was crumbling due to its hollowness.

In the end, they were all selfish people who only considered their own interests.

Since he had chosen to keep Xiao Yu as the crown prince, he could not let either of the two parties collapse too quickly. Only by slowly eliminating them little by little could the stability of the court situation be guaranteed to the greatest extent.

Thinking of this, he quickly ordered, "Let the Hanlin Academy draw up a decree to summon generals from Caozhou, Weizhou, and Bianzhou to report their duties in Changan."

Time to dig up the sores there.