After the thunder, the fifth prince's screams rang out.
The emperor asked him to draw the curtain earlier, and when he saw those people, the fifth prince's expression changed. When he heard the emperor's words, he jumped up.
The prince was shocked and couldn't believe it, the second prince and the fourth prince suspected that they had heard wrongly. Zhou Xuan and the third prince looked calm, and the iron-faced general showed no expression as usual.
"Father, my third brother was attacked, and you feel sorry for him, but you can't blame all this on me!"
"If you are still angry that I am disobedient, just beat me like you did to Zhou Xuan."
The fifth prince stood in the palace and shouted angrily.
"Why did I just pay to kill my third brother? My father really thinks highly of me."
The emperor interrupted him: "I don't think highly of you. I have always underestimated you. Of course you can pay for the murder. You have money and people."
The fifth prince's face was livid, and he stiffened his neck and wanted to speak again. The emperor had already given instructions to the side, and a eunuch came forward holding a stack of thick books.
"Your Highness, Fifth Prince," he said, "This is a record of the business you have conducted in the past ten years from Xijing to Zhangjing. There are properties, shops, fireworks, brothels, rice, grain, salt, and iron sales."
The fifth prince's face turned green and white. Okay, okay, his father is staring at him. Of course, this is not surprising. Money-making cannot be done silently.
"Yes." He gritted his teeth and said, "But father, which prince doesn't do business? The second brother and the fourth brother——"
The second prince and the fourth prince all knelt down.
The second prince said in panic: "My business belongs to my uncle's family. I just join in the fun and want to make some money to honor my father."
The emperor looked at him and sneered: "What are you doing to join in the fun? Do you think your money can be exchanged for ten times or a hundred times the money? Can your brains and talents make the business successful? Because of your status as a prince, the Tian family
The power! Not to mention you, you don’t know how your uncle’s family became the richest man in Luyang County, but your uncle knows it very well!”
The second prince bowed his head and shouted: "My son is guilty."
When the fourth prince saw this, he simply said nothing and continued shouting that he was guilty.
The fifth prince stopped shouting, and looked like he had smashed a jar, and said: "Father, since you know everything, you should also know that this is nothing. Among all the royal relatives, relatives, powerful people and children of aristocratic families in the capital, who is not like this?
?I just know that the treasury is in dire straits, and my father is frugal. I don’t want to ask for money from you, and I don’t want to ask you for money. My father doesn’t like it, so I won’t do it, and I don’t want the money.”
The emperor did not scold him again, and sneered: "It really came easy and I don't care. You have not lived a casual life these past few years. You have raised strong slaves in the name of business, and if you let these people hang around, you can't
You are smart, don’t make friends with the children of the rich and powerful, and only make friends with the rangers and libertines. After raising them for so long, you are going to use these robbers and thieves to murder your brother!"
He pointed to the people kneeling over there.
The fifth prince only shouted: "I don't know these people. Who knows who bribed them to frame me."
The emperor sneered: "Okay, you really won't shed tears until you see the coffin - bring the things up."
Then a eunuch stood in front of the fifth prince with two seals: "Your Highness, this is your seal, and this is the marching order of Lord Zhou."
The fifth prince looked at it and glared: "So what?"
"They first took your seal and defrauded the marching order from Zhou Xuan's deputy general." The emperor said, "Then they took the marching order and entered the third prince's barracks as a scout. That's why, those bandits
The attack will be so silent, so precise and sudden."
The fifth prince seemed to laugh angrily and shouted, "Father." He pointed at Zhou Xuan who was kneeling on the ground, "In order to exonerate Zhou Xuan, you blame all this on me, but I have been following you all the time.
When Zhou Xuan is together, why do you only think that I am the one who hired the murderer? Not Zhou Xuan?"
Zhou Xuan, who was kneeling on the ground, turned to look at him: "Your Highness, apart from you and me, after setting off, there were about a hundred people following the army. These are all your people."
The fifth prince looked stiff and shouted: "Zhou Xuan, don't talk nonsense. There are so many people passing by, how come you are mine?"
Zhou Xuan said calmly: "Your Highness, if I can't tell whether it's a passing public or someone with an ulterior motive, I would have been wasting my time in the military camp all these years. I pretended not to know because I thought
You wanted to take the opportunity to go out and do business, but I didn’t expect that you actually wanted to do this kind of business.”
As he spoke, he knelt down and kowtowed.
"Your Majesty, I knew it was wrong but didn't say anything, which caused today's catastrophe. I deserve death for my crime."
The emperor ignored him, and the fifth prince wanted to say something else. The iron-faced general who had been silent all this time said: "Your Highness, Lord Zhou has identified the corpses of the bandits, and he testified that many of them were the people who followed you at that time."
The fifth prince jumped angrily: "Even if they are with the army, why are they my people? What evidence is there?"
The emperor looked at the jumping fifth prince with a sad and mocking expression: "Chu Murong, do you really think that you can leave no evidence if you don't interact with these people? Do you really think that as a prince, you can do anything?
, can you do whatever you want in this palace? Don’t forget, this is my world, this is my imperial city!"
There were chaotic footsteps outside the palace, and another group of people were escorted up. This time they were not civilians, but eunuchs and some minor officials in official uniforms, as well as some soldiers and guards——
Some of the people present were very familiar, especially the fifth prince, as they were all his close eunuchs and bodyguards.
His face finally turned pale, he moved his mouth without speaking, and bit down hard.
"These people have already confessed." The emperor said, "You don't recognize those bandits, but your subordinates are always passing through when messages are passed layer by layer. There is no way that there are no traces of what you have done.
Chu Murong, as long as something is done, it will leave traces, no one can escape!"
The emperor shouted these words, and the prince, who was kneeling on the ground in a daze and lost his mind, trembled slightly, as if he felt that the emperor had glanced at him. He looked over with wandering eyes and saw that the emperor did not look at him, but only stared at the fifth prince.
The corner of the fifth prince's mouth moved and he said: "The witness is just a mouth." His voice was hoarse, and he seemed to be smiling, his smile was sad and crazy, "Father, why should I kill the third brother? Kill him.
What good does it do to me? It doesn’t make sense.”
The emperor looked at him: "Probably because you and the queen didn't kill him at Zhou Xuan's banquet last time, so let's kill him again."
Another explosion of thunder sounded in the palace, this time everyone looked shocked, even the third prince and Zhou Xuan couldn't believe it.
The fifth prince took a step back, thought of something again, and looked outside the palace.
Mother!
.....
.....
Mother?
Princess Jin Yao stood outside the Queen's Palace and was stopped by the guards again. What happened? The guards were surrounded by her father and the queen, as well as her mother.
Different from the silence and solemnity at the Emperor's side, there were shouts, roars and curses coming from the Queen's Palace.
"You are brave - you dare to touch me - I am the queen!"
