Chapter 29
With a cold face, Ye Qinghuan placed a stack of secret reports in front of King Jing.
Crown Prince Ye had always been enthusiastic and rarely had such a gloomy face. After he put down the secret reports, Li Yu, who was swimming around in the fish tank, also stopped. He was afraid that he would miss the news if he wasn’t paying attention.
After the state banquet, the Emperor asked Ye Qinghuan and his father, Duke Chengen, to stay. Ye Qinghuan was cautious and restrained himself during the banquet and admitted that he didn’t stand out. In the end, he was still chosen by the Emperor to marry Princess Jinjue. It had to be said that the unimaginable words in the original letter were slowly becoming reality.
The Emperor intended to let Ye Qinghuan marry the Princess. Although he was also asking for
Duke Chengen’s opinion, the marriage was considered a state affair. Ye Qinghuan was very clear
that his father, Duke Chengen, was extremely loyal to the Emperor and would never say anything against it.
His marriage was thus decided. However, Ye Qinghuan wasn’t worried about his life after marriage.
The letter said that the Second Prince wanted to frame him for killing Princess Jinjue. Obviously, the Princess was also part of the scheme. Ye Qinghuan was determined not to let the Second Prince have his way. As for whether the Princess Jinjue would still accept his betrothal after he dealt with the Second Prince, he would have to take it one step at a time.
From the moment he received the letter, he began to keep an eye on the Second Prince and the Sixth Prince mentioned in the letter.
Ever since the Second Prince’s marriage was decided by the Emperor, Mu Tianzhao’s men frequently came in and out of the Second Prince’s residence outside the palace.
The Second Prince must be planning something.
With King Jing’s constant reminders, Ye Qinghuan didn’t believe the contents of the letter. The closer it was to reality, the more alert he had to be. Soon, his men found out about the Second Prince’s plan.
Second Prince planned to lure Princess Jinjue to Misty Rain Pavilion and kill her on the day when Ye Qinghuan and Princess Jinjue entered the palace to express their gratitude. Then he would lure Ye Qinghuan to take the blame. As long as Ye Qinghuan stepped into the Misty Rain Pavilion, he would find his fiancée’s corpse and his own sword in her chest. This sword was prepared by the Second Prince to be stolen from the Duke Chengen Manor in advance and used as evidence for Heir Ye killing the Princess.
The Second Prince would then lead a group of Imperial Bodyguards into the Misty Rain Pavilion and arrest Ye Qinghuan on the spot. Under such circumstances, Ye Qinghuan would not be able to defend himself.
The Second Prince’s plan was to slander Ye Qinghuan for ruining the marriage alliance and killing the Princess. Most of what was said in the letter matched, but there were also some things that didn’t match. The letter said that the Sixth Prince had also tampered with it, and warned Ye Qinghuan not to trust the Sixth Prince.
However, Ye Qinghuan only found the Second Prince, and there was no movement from the Sixth Prince. Compared to the Second Prince who was used to acting, and the Third Prince who wanted to compete with the Second Prince at all times, the Sixth Prince was transparent. Even on such an important occasion as the state banquet, he didn’t even approach the Emperor. Ye Qinghuan wondered if there was a mistake in the letter.
After all, there were too many mistakes in the letter. It was a miracle that Ye Qinghuan could be patient enough to read and understand the letter.
However, since the Sixth Prince didn’t do as the letter said, they had no way of knowing who the Sixth Prince would harm. King Jing and Ye Qinghuan discussed it over and over again, but still decided to have people keep a close eye on the Sixth Prince.
In addition, they also discovered that the Second Prince had secretly prepared Cinnabar Frost. It was obvious that he was going to poison the Princess, but for the time being, they didn’t know who he was going to target. In any case, he definitely wasn’t going to poison the Princess Jinjue to death, because the Princess had to be killed by the Heir Apparent of Duke Chengen’s sword in order to frame her. Poisoning her was unnecessary.
Ye Qinghuan made the necessary arrangements. The Emperor’s imperial edict for the marriage was quickly issued on the day of the Duan Yang Festival. Soon, he would have to enter the palace to express his gratitude.
King Jing’s residence. He had agreed to enter the palace with Heir Apparent of Ye. On the day of the ceremony, King Jing had already changed into a casual outfit. He wore a black crown on his head and casually covered it with a sapphire blue brocade robe with silver trimmings.
Ordinary people weren’t allowed to carry a sword when entering the palace, but King Jing was a noble prince. In addition to a sword hanging from his waist, he also calmly stuffed a dagger into his cloud-patterned boots. He looked like he was going to fight the Second Prince to the death.
Li Yu was anxiously swimming back and forth in the crystal fish tank. He also wanted to go. Now that King Jing couldn’t be together with Concubine Xiao Jiao, the premise that the Duke Chengen Mansion had no choice but to help the Third Prince didn’t exist. In reality, he didn’t know if the Second Prince and the Sixth Prince would act according to the original book. Moreover, what if there were some details that he didn’t pay attention to when he was reading the book?
In the original book, he couldn’t remember the name of the Imperial Princess who was harmed by the Sixth Prince. In the original book, she was only mentioned in one sentence. She couldn’t even be considered cannon fodder. Therefore, he could only simply remind Ye Qinghuan to be careful of the Sixth Prince. He believed that with the cooperation of Heir Apparent of Ye and King Jing, if the Sixth Prince really wanted to do anything, they would definitely be able to stop him in time.
He simply wanted to stay by King Jing’s side and inquire about first-hand information, just in case.
He originally thought that King Jing would bring him along, but King Jing didn’t take out the crystal bottle.
Without the crystal bottle, it meant that King Jing wouldn’t bring him along. If he couldn’t enter the palace with King Jing, he definitely wouldn’t be able to enter the palace by himself.
The plum fish swung its tail and jumped from the crystal fish tank to the teacup. After jumping a few times, it wanted to jump onto the crystal vase on the table. However, the vase was polished and smooth. The little carp with water stains jumped onto it. Before it could stabilize itself, it slid down from the vase and almost hit its head on the ground.
King Jing’s eyes were sharp and his hands were quick. He caught the fish and placed it into the petal-shaped teacup.
Li Yu: Sob sob sob. If he didn’t put him in the bottle, would King Jing be determined not to bring him along?
Li Yu jumped again. This time, he mustered up his courage and jumped onto King Jing’s shoulder.
His fins tightly clung onto King Jing’s robe.
He felt that he had turned into a handsome eagle that would stand on his master’s shoulder and shelter him from the wind and rain. In reality, his greedy fins quickly rubbed against King Jing’s shoulder and wet it.
King Jing: “….
Li Yu flopped on King Jing’s shoulder: Ah, ah, ah, it’s not like that!
King Jing wiped away the water droplets on his cheeks and picked up the fish.
Li Yu had been a fish pet for a long time. He knew that King Jing was unhappy. King Jing rarely held onto the fish’s head. Every time something unpleasant happened, it would be when King Jing held onto the fish’s head.
Was his master angry?
The little carp, who had made a mistake, tried to hook onto King Jing’s finger with the tip of his tail. However, because his head was being held, he couldn’t hook onto King Jing’s finger. He could only rub against King Jing’s palm.
King Jing: “…”
King Jing thought that Xiaoyu wanted to go out and play. Perhaps it was because he had been bringing this fish everywhere recently, so the fish thought that he could play with it every day.
However, he couldn’t bring it along tonight. It was very likely that he and Ye Qinghuan would fight with the Second Prince’s men. Not to mention the inconvenience of bringing the fish along, the fish would also feel uncomfortable.
King Jing had originally planned to entrust Xiaoyu to Wang Xi for the time being. However, not only did the fish jump onto the crystal bottle, it even jumped onto King Jing’s shoulder.
Hmph, it seemed that he had pampered it too much. It was getting bolder …
King Jing cursed the fish in his mind. He thought that if he left the fish in the mansion, it might be stolen again. Anyway, he would need to use the palace’s manpower for this trip. It was necessary to go to Jing Tai Palace. He might as well bring the fish to Jing Tai Palace for a few hours and ask Wang Xi to follow him.
King Jing sighed silently. He accepted his fate and stuffed the fish back into the crystal bottle.
Then, he changed into his outer robe.
Li Yu, who could enter the palace as he wished even if he made a mistake, thought, Oh, oh, oh, the plan worked!
King Jing entered the palace with the fish and met Ye Qinghuan at the palace gates. He took the crystal bottle while Ye Qinghuan held Xiong Feng’s chain.
Ye Qinghuan smiled and said, “I knew you would bring the fish along. I also brought Xiong Feng along. Let’s get down to business later. Xiong Feng and Xiaoyu can keep each other company.”
Li Yu thought, “… No way!”
He also needed to get down to business. He didn’t want to be with a dog!
As soon as Ye Qinghuan finished speaking, Xiong Feng excitedly stretched its head over and poked the crystal bottle with the tip of its nose.
Although the crystal bottle was bigger than a teacup, it felt like Xiong Feng could still hold the crystal bottle with its big mouth. Moreover, the crystal bottle was small and thin. When Xiong Feng licked the bottle, Li Yu felt as if Xiong Feng’s teeth were suddenly much closer to him.
Even though he was very familiar with Xiong Feng, Li Yu still felt a little nervous.
King Jing handed the crystal bottle to Wang Xi. Wang Xi had already tidied up the blue and white porcelain fish tank that Little Liyu used to stay in at Jing Tai Palace. She put the fish in it.
Li Yu heaved a sigh of relief. Only now did he feel safe.
Before entering the palace, King Jing and Ye Qinghuan had discussed and agreed to ensure Princess Jinjue’s safety first. They didn’t want the second prince to really harm her.
However, Princess Jinjue and the two of them didn’t know each other, so it wasn’t convenient for them to send people directly. King Jing was inspired by the letter, so he wrote an anonymous letter to Princess Jinjue. It said that someone wanted to harm the princess, and it was King Jing’s idea.
Ye Qinghuan personally delivered the letter. After all, Ye Qinghuan was in charge of the Jin Jinjue and the little princess’s safety. No one would know if he delivered the letter himself.
It was said that when Jin Jinjue received the letter, he was furious. He summoned his confidants to study the letter for a whole night. Because he didn’t know what the letter meant, Jin Jinjue ordered his bodyguards to protect the princess at all times. He didn’t even forget to enter the palace to thank the Emperor.
The Emperor didn’t know why, but he felt that Jin Jinjue was being too cautious. The palace was quite safe, but it was just a small matter. The Emperor didn’t bother to restrain Jin Jinjue.
Right now, Princess Jinjue had 16 bodyguards around her. And that was the number that could be seen. Even if they couldn’t see it, there would be more.
Once Princess Jinjue was safe, the Second Prince’s plan would fail.
A few days ago, the Second Prince’s men sneaked into the Duke Chengen Palace under Ye Qinghuan’s nose. In order to give the Second Prince a big present, Ye Qinghuan picked a special sword and let it be stolen on purpose. This made the Second Prince think that everything was going according to plan.
King Jing and Ye Qinghuan waited after they settled their pets.
Not long after, their confidants reported that an unknown person tried to get close to the Princess Jinjue. The Princess Jinjue’s bodyguards saw through him and beat him up.
King Jing and Ye Qinghuan looked at each other. They both guessed that the man was sent by the Second Prince to trick the Princess Jinjue.
“It’s time to go.” Ye Qinghuan said softly.
It was time to go to the Misty Rain Pavilion to meet the Second Prince.
King Jing nodded at Wang Xi and patted the little carp’s head. He led his men and walked into the night with Ye Qinghuan.
Li Yu watched as King Jing left. He stayed in the fish tank and quietly analyzed the current situation. Why hadn’t the Sixth Prince made a move?
It was probably because King Jing wasn’t with Chu Yanyu. The Duke Chengen Palace was an ally that the Third Prince and the Sixth Prince hadn’t won over. There was no need to take the risk to get rid of them.
Therefore, this should be the Second Prince’s one-man show. But he didn’t understand why the Second Prince still wanted to carry out this plan when the Sixth Prince had already withdrawn.
Perhaps narrow-minded and short-sighted people would always make the same decisions.
Li Yu was thinking that he could only wait for news in Jingtai Hall. Suddenly, he heard a soft click.
Xiong Feng, who was lying near the fish tank, looked up alertly.
… It wasn’t Wang Xi.
Li Yu had some recollection of Wang Xi’s footsteps. The sound came from the window.
Wang Xi was in Jingtai Hall. He couldn’t have climbed through the window.
With the help of the candlelight in the room, he saw a black shadow jump through the window.
Who was it?
Li Yu immediately thought of the female assassin. His fish body trembled.
Xiong Feng was indeed a dog that had to protect the fish. He immediately barked. The black shadow dawdled in front of the table for a while and was about to come over. Xiong Feng pounced on him and bravely bit his hand, causing him unbearable pain.
“What’s going on?”
Wang Xi’s voice sounded. The surrounding guards were also alarmed. Seeing that the situation was bad, the black shadow immediately covered his hand and turned back.
Wang Xi was very upset that he couldn’t catch the person. Fortunately, the fish and the dog were fine. Wang Xi took a box of fish food from the table and was about to feed his two masters.
Xiong Feng wagged his tail happily. Wang Xi poured the fish food into a jade plate. Xiong Feng was about to pick it up when Li Yu remembered that the black shadow touched the table for a while. A strange feeling welled up in his heart.
Li Yu immediately swung his tail and hit a blue bead that he often played with in the fish tank towards the jade plate. Because he used too much force, the bead knocked over the jade plate and the fish food fell to the ground.
The little carp rarely “lost his temper” like this. Wang Xi was surprised. “Master Xiaoyu, what’s wrong?*
Wang Xi’s eyes fell on the fish food on the ground. For a moment, he seemed to have seen something. Could it be…
Wang Xi quickly took out a silver needle from his arms.
No one would test pets for poison. Wang Xi was also afraid that something would go wrong. He would rather think too much.
The silver needle was inserted into the fish food. After a while, it was pulled out. The needle tip was already black.
Li Yuil!
The fish food was poisoned! Sob, I was almost poisoned to death. I was so scared!!
Because most of the food was for him, Li Yu was sure that someone was going to do something to him.
