Translator: Aristophaneso
The vine led to the fruit, and it was discovered that the evidence also pointed to the Seventh Prince’s involvement. The Crown Prince was overjoyed, but he was afraid that if he directly reported these matters to the Emperor the crimes would be ignored, so he planned a trick. He commanded the servants to delay the gate opening for the morning court, keeping the ministers outside the palace while his men gathered witnesses, and his guards used his Crown Prince seal to arrest the officials involved in the crimes.
The Crown Prince was afraid that when Fifth and Seventh Prince might lash out in desperation, and ignoring the advice of his Eastern Palace aids, wrote out an order with his own hand, commanding the countryside Shu Wei Army to enter Dijing and surround the manors of the two princes. The Fifth Prince wished to see the Tian Sheng Emperor, but was stopped each time by the surrounding army. In a fit of fury, the Fifth Prince was about to order the Yu Lin Guard to break through the blockade, and if it were not for the Seventh Prince’s timely arrival, bloodshed would have been inevitable.
The Seventh Prince surrendered, and the Crown Prince was delighted, feeling that all the dust had settled, and in his happiness held a private banquet in his Eastern Palace. At the feast, he cried out: “Father Emperor always says that my character is soft, let the old man see my vigor now!”
Before his words were over, a voice called out coldly: “Not necessary!”
A man stepped out from behind a partition screen, eyes ghastly cold, face terrifying — it was the Tian Sheng Emperor himself.
All the rumors ended here. What happened next, no one could truly say — in this short span of ten days, the situation had turned and flipped and turned again. Just as the Crown Prince had controlled and defeated the Fifth and Seventh Prince and consolidated his power, the situation turned again, and the Crown Prince’s power was sealed. The side ministers in the Fifth and Seventh Prince courts seized the opportunity and attacked, impeaching the Crown Prince and his followers, replacing officials in the Ministry of Punishment, interfering in its affairs and punishing innocents. Both sides attacked and made wild claims, and chaos reigned in the affairs of the country.
Some of these matters were widely known by anyone and everyone, and some were only uncovered through the Yan Family’s impressive intelligence network and Feng Zhiwei’s own inferences. While others were still confused and unsure about the situation, Feng Zhiwei already knew that the Crown Prince had fallen into quicksand.
From the very beginning, Ning Yi’s target had been the Crown Prince.
And with him, his powerful brothers.
On a beautiful summer day, with the sun shining brightly and the mild wind bringing a cool breeze, Feng Zhiwei sat by a window, using golden pliers to crack walnuts. At every crack, she would bark out a laugh.
“A good scheme! A brilliant chain of stratagems!”
Gu Nanyi sat across from her, and every walnut she cracked, he ate.
“This is the Crown Prince,” Feng Zhiwei said, gathering the walnuts and arranging them into formation. She placed a smaller piece next to the large one. “This is Ning Yi, widely acknowledged throughout the Imperial Court as a faithful prince in the Crown Prince’s camp.”
Gu Nanyi immediately picked up Ning Yi and ate him.
Feng Zhiwei’s face blanked, and she immediately grabbed a shelled walnut to play Ning Yi, but it was no use and Young Master Gu still gobbled it up, accurately spitting out every piece of shell.
Finally, Feng Zhiwei grabbed a brush to play Prince Chu, and he finally escaped the fate of being devoured.
“Because he was an established member of the Crown Prince’s party, before he rid himself of this title, he definitely could not touch the Crown Prince, for if anything happened, he would face the same charge of betrayal.”
Feng Zhiwei grabbed a handful of walnuts and flicked them at the Crown Prince and Ning Yi. “Even if he overthrew the Crown Prince and survived, all the other ambitious princes would pounce, and every one of them is more favored by the Tian Sheng Emperor, and more powerful. In the end, he would be only cooking for others to eat, and the seat would never be his.”
“Then what was he to do?” Feng Zhiwei smiled faintly, and then tossed the Crown Prince at the other walnuts, bouncing the little pile in every direction. “First, remove himself from the scene, and then use the enemy forces against each other until only he is left standing.
She lifted the Ning Yi brush and tapped the Crown Prince walnut. “The assassin was the first stroke, not to assassinate the Emperor, but to lead to Ning Yi’s wrongful imprisonment.
“Ning Yi intentionally introduced this assassin to the Crown Prince, and intentionally allowed the other Princes to coincidentally see them together. He was familiar with the Crown Prince’s selfishness, and was confident that the blame would be pushed to him.” Feng Zhiwei lifted her eyes and speculated. “If I am not wrong, the full backstory of this assassin has already been revealed to the Emperor one way or another, and even if Ning Yi did not leak this information, with the Tian Sheng Emperor’s ability, how could he not understand his sons? This is why the Tian Sheng Emperor’s face was so dark when the Crown Prince placed the blame on Ning Yi and the other princes piled on to drop stones down the well.”
“Ning Yi accepted the wrongful charge and kept silent for the benefit of all — the other Princes clearly knew they were attacking the innocent, but cast away the ties of kinship and spoke barefaced lies. The Tian Sheng Emperor saw this all play out right in front of him, and it was no wonder that his expression was so colorful.
Feng Zhiwei picked up the Crown Prince walnut and slowly used the hard end of the brush to dig out the walnut meat, sharing half with Gu Nanyi. “The old Emperor is no simple figure, and though he acted as if he did not understand, allowing Ning Yi to be detained and imprisoned, but the truly laughable ones were those princely brothers, who had believed that they had succeeded in defeating a rival when in fact the test had only begun.”
“Everything that came after was still part of Ning Yi’s plan, only now he was no longer a member of the Crown Prince’s entourage. Since he was “detained in the side palace, recovering from a serious injury,” no matter how the score was tallied, no blame would land on his head, and so the table was set…” Feng Zhiwei smiled. “Poisoning food, commanding armies, manipulating all manners of evidence … when the Crown Prince and the other princes had duked it out and ruined each other, His Highness would have fully recovered, the injustice hanging over his head cleared, and it would be time for him to step onto stage in full regalia.”
Feng Zhiwei clapped her hands and brushed the walnuts princes towards Gu Nanyi who impatiently grabbed them and stuff them into his mouth.
A figure clapped behind the window before sticking his head through. “What a wonderful deduction of the political situation. If Prince Chu knew you grasped all his plans, would he wish to tear you apart?”
“My bones are soft, but they are not so easy to break.” Feng Zhiwei smiled, and with a flick of her hand, accurately returned the brush to its pot.
“I bring you the newest report.” Yan Huaishi hopped up and sat on the window sill, turning to look in the direction of the Imperial Palace. “The Emperor rejected the Crown Prince’s request to meet and has summoned three Great Secretariats to the Imperial Palace.”
Feng Zhiwei smiled, confident that the Crown Prince was doomed.
That same night, after the Crown Prince was refused audience multiple times and understood that the three Great Secretariats had never left the Imperial Study, he desperately summoned the Eastern Palace Guards and the Dijing country’s Shu Wei Army, breaking into the Imperial Palace in order to “bring down the Emperor’s evil ministers.”
But by then, the Tian Sheng Emperor had long moved his court from the Palace to the Hu Wei Army camp.
Two Imperial Edicts were swiftly sent out, replacing the Shu Wei Army general, and sending for the Hu Wei Army to surround the rebel forces.
Feng Zhiwei was one of the ministers accompanying the Emperor, though in truth, the Tian Sheng Emperor was chiefly concerned with bringing the Young Master Gu by her side.