As Su Rong expected, the journey back to the city went very smoothly, although it was difficult to walk in the heavy snow.
After entering the city gate, King Ruian's carriage in front stopped and waited for Su Rong's carriage to approach. He opened the curtain and asked, "Miss Su Qi, I think we should enter the palace directly. What do you think?"
Su Rong nodded, "Okay."
She turned to Ye Guixue, and was about to send him back to the Duke Protector's Mansion, but Ye Guixue said: "I am also involved in this matter, and I will enter the palace with you."
When King Ruian heard what Ye Guixue said, he immediately said, "This is better. I'll bother you, Young Master Ye."
Ye Guixue shook her head, "Don't bother."
So King Ruian simply took the abbot and others to the palace.
In the palace, the emperor had already left the morning court and was reviewing memorials in the imperial study room. Without Yu An's service, he felt that others were not serving him well and everything was unsatisfactory, but he could not let Yu An go. In addition, there were several major cases.
They are all implicated together, and we don’t know what King Ruian will find out. This morning, the fourth prince Yan Shen went to court again to prove his innocence and requested to investigate Li Concubine’s case, which also made the emperor feel that there is really something else in Li Concubine’s case.
Because he didn't think Libi could handle such a big case alone.
Hearing that King Ruian, Miss Su Qi, and Young Master Ye had brought the abbot monk of the Great Buddha Temple into the palace, the emperor immediately said: "Xuan."
Not long after, King Ruian and others came to the imperial study room.
The royal golden charcoal warmed the entire royal study. As soon as they stepped into the door, they felt a rush of heat and warmth. Su Rong shook off the snow on his body, Ye Guixue brushed his sleeves, and at the same time helped
Su Rong straightened the hairpin that was crooked because she was shaking too much.
The emperor was originally looking at the two of them, but when he saw Ye Guixue's actions, his eyes froze.
King Ruian bowed his hands in greeting and said, "Your Majesty, I left Beijing last night and re-inspected the Great Buddha Temple..."
King Ruian told the emperor in detail what happened after leaving Beijing last night. During this period, he mentioned that Su Rong and Ye Guixue had found a gold hiding place on the Eagle Beak Cliff behind the Great Buddha Temple. This was based on Su Rong's retelling of what happened to him.
He repeated the story and mentioned that the abbot and several hall masters of the Great Buddha Temple should be escorted back to Beijing for questioning.
After hearing this, the emperor was shocked and angry, "There are two hundred boxes of gold in the gold hiding place halfway up Yingzui Cliff? Was it done by the monks of the Great Buddha Temple?"
King Ruian nodded and shook his head, "Back to Your Majesty, who did it needs to be investigated thoroughly. The abbot of the Great Buddha Temple has always denied it, saying that he did not know about it."
"How much is two hundred chests of gold?" the emperor asked.
"One box is fifty kilograms of gold, and two hundred boxes are one thousand kilograms of gold." King Ruian said: "It is equivalent to more than one million taels of silver."
The emperor nodded. Although more than one million taels was a lot, for the emperor, he would not take it seriously. He asked again: "According to what you said, the place where the gold is hidden is so big that it can hide more than this."
gold?"
King Ruian glanced at Su Rong and nodded, "The seventh lady mentioned it to me, and I also think so."
Su Rong also spoke at this time: "Your Majesty, yes, so after Gui Xue and I found the place where the gold was hidden, we felt very strange and had this doubt."
The emperor nodded, "Did you find the place where the gold was hidden because you first found the Great Buddha Temple and based on the clues from the Great Buddha Temple?"
"That's right." Su Rong concealed Yan Shen's visit to the East Palace to ask for Yan's response. Naturally, he also concealed the place where the gold was hidden from Yan Shen's mouth. Everything was based on the case of Qin Yuan, the censor Zhongcheng, and the concubine Li.
There are similarities in the cases and there are doubts about the Great Buddha Temple.
The emperor suppressed his anger and said, "This is unreasonable. Call me the abbot of the Great Buddha Temple."
Someone went immediately, and after a while, the abbot was escorted into the royal study.
The abbot's face turned pale at this time. When he saw the emperor, he immediately knelt on the ground and said, "Amitabha, Your Majesty, this poor monk has been wronged."
The emperor looked angry and said, "I ask you, what do you mean when you say injustice? In the Great Buddhist Temple, a dignified place of Buddhism, a monk has been found to harbor evil intentions and hide evil, and now he has even found it in the Yingzui Cliff in the back mountain.
Is there a place where gold is hidden? If you call it truthfully, I will remember your kindness when the Queen Mother was alive and deal with it lightly. If you don't call it truthfully, I will let you die without a complete body and seal the Great Buddha Temple, a thousand-year-old temple.
"
The abbot trembled, "Your Majesty, the poor monk is really unjust. The poor monk doesn't know how there is a place to hide gold on the Eagle Beak Cliff at the back of the Great Buddha Temple." He defended with a gray face, "The poor monk has never set foot in these years.
Back Mountain. I have never been to Yingzui Cliff."
"In the cave at the bottom of Yingzui Cliff, monks loaded trucks and carried rocks in the middle of the night. How do you explain it?" the emperor asked.
The abbot said: "Eleven years ago, before the poor monk's uncle Pu Hui traveled, he said that he wanted to build a Buddha platform. The poor monk naturally supported it, so he selected rocks from the Eagle Beak Cliff and polished them into flat stone slabs.
It was temporarily stored at the bottom of Yingzui Cliff, and he chanted sutras in front of the Buddha statue every day. It was supposed to be built in three years, but the uncle never returned from his travels, so the matter was postponed again and again until now. Recently,
The Great Buddha Temple was not peaceful, and the poor monk felt panicked. He thought about whether the Buddha blamed the Buddha for the fact that the platform that should have been built long ago has not been repaired, so he quickly discussed it with his brothers and sisters and put the matter on the agenda. Unexpectedly, it happened yesterday.
But I was misunderstood by the prince."
King Ruian said: "It doesn't matter whether I misunderstood or not. What matters is the gold hidden place halfway up the Yingzui Cliff. What do you say?"
The abbot shook his head with a pale face, "This poor monk really doesn't know."
The emperor smacked the table and got angry, "Don't you know? I heard that the mechanism is located halfway up the mountain. How time-consuming and laborious it is? How exquisite? It cannot be done in a day and a half. If it is labor, there will naturally be a lot of movement. Your Big Buddha Temple is
Haven't heard anything? How many years have you been the abbot? When the Queen Mother was here, you were the abbot, for twenty years, right?"
The abbot was speechless.
"Why don't you bring me the truth!" The emperor was completely angry, "I will give you another chance. If you say you don't know or make excuses again, I will first chop off your head, then chop off the heads of all the monks in the Great Buddha Temple, and seal the Great Buddha Temple.
."
The abbot opened his mouth, with a gray face, as if he was suffocated, but he made no sound.
Su Rong said from the side: "Master Abbot, please don't be confused. You'd better explain it seriously. Since His Majesty gave you the opportunity, he asked you to recruit him truthfully and receive a lighter punishment. If you are confused again and shield someone, you are bullying someone."
For your sin, if the Great Buddha Temple is massacred by everyone, you will be the eternal sinner of the thousand-year-old Great Buddha Temple."
The abbot's face became even grayer when he heard this. After a while, he gritted his teeth and said: "Amitabha, your Majesty, forgive me, poor monk... Back then, my uncle suddenly mentioned building the Buddha's platform. The poor monk did not agree, because it was too big to start a fight. Okay.
, why should we re-build the platform? And it is so laborious and laborious, but the uncle is very insistent. The uncle is highly virtuous, so the poor monk can only agree. Therefore, the construction is supervised by the uncle, and the poor monk has not interfered. At that time, the poor monk
I had my doubts, but later I saw that what my uncle said was true, the poor monk was relieved. Half a year later, his uncle went on a trip, and he has been gone for ten years and has not returned yet. Now the prince found out that he was halfway up the Yingzui Cliff.
The poor monk suddenly thought of what he had done on the hillside of Yingzui Cliff by building the Buddha's pedestal. Because so many years ago, only ten years ago, because his uncle was there,
There was only half a year of digging caves and forging rocks at the bottom of Yingzui Cliff. During the rest of the time, the entire back mountain was very quiet. Just as Your Majesty said, there was absolutely no big commotion. This is something that the poor monks don't know."
