Chapter 11: Your Highness, Please Hear Me Out
“Is your belly hurting again?”
Yan Bei didn’t let the three wet nurses in line touch him. He personally lifted the child onto his left leg, gently patting his back with his left hand to soothe him. Only after the sobbing quieted a bit did he turn his face around: “The weather has been cold lately. A Li caught a cold and is inevitably a bit delicate.”
“Speak softer.”
Marquis of Guangling dazedly let out an “oh,” his standing posture increasingly resembling a quail.
Grandmother’s, clearly a baby boy was born, yet he spoiled him into a piece of tofu! This scared him so much he almost thought he’d be chased back to take a bath again.
Suddenly remembering the purpose, he pulled his heart back up and said softly: “Does Your Highness have any orders?”
Yan Bei continued holding the child to feed him: “Earlier I ran into Du Yu…”
Marquis of Guangling dropped to his knees with a thud: “Your Highness, please hear my explanation!”
Yan Bei paused, his eyes glued to his face.
“Explain what?”
Marquis of Guangling looked up: “Ah, this…”
Yan Bei sneered: “Looks like you’ve done something bad.”
“No! This official wouldn’t dare!”
Yan Bei patted A Li lightly over and over, and only after seeing sweat beading on his forehead did he slowly say: “Your Du Family has bullied others using your power and been caught multiple times. The censors reported it to the Emperor, and yesterday the Emperor came to me again.
“I merely summoned you to warn you. If you offend again, you won’t be Imperial City Department Envoy anymore.”
“This official obeys!”
Yan Bei glanced at the ground again: “The Emperor still has a year before he can take the Imperial Seal and formally rule personally. You can see the situation in the Palace clearly.
“If you cause trouble at this juncture, guess what your fate will be?”
Marquis of Guangling dared not speak again.
Yan Bei scraped the last of the yam paste from the bowl clean: “I’ll count to three. Confess the matter you’ve been hiding from me.”
A gust of wind blew, nearly blowing Marquis of Guangling into collapse.
So after all that roundabout talk, he still hadn’t forgotten this!
He braced himself and said: “No, nothing. How would this official dare? This official is just… just a bit tired lately…”
He raised his hand to wipe sweat and stood up.
Yan Bei stared at him intently for a moment, then pulled out a silk handkerchief to wipe the nursing child’s mouth: “Tired, huh? If you’re tired, go back and rest.”
Marquis of Guangling, feeling his head hanging precariously, could hardly believe his ears. He looked up and saw him still composed as ever, tending to the nursing child without seeming to set a trap. He hurriedly agreed, standing up.
Yan Bei wiped the child’s face clean, then carefully applied a layer of fragrant ointment to the little face dried by the autumn wind. Turning his head and seeing the man still there, he frowned: “Why haven’t you scrammed yet?”
Marquis of Guangling fled in relief.
After leaving the garden and reaching the eaves, Gao An was waiting there again with a smile to lead the way.
Marquis of Guangling wiped his sweat and grabbed him, asking: “Mr. Gao, about the matter I entrusted to you last time, has there been any result? In ten days or so, my mother will have her major birthday. If Your Highness could make time to attend…”
Gao An smiled: “Your Highness has been busy lately, and the young heir apparent is ill, so he fears he won’t have time to attend the banquet. However, Your Highness does remember the bond between the two families. At that time, he will surely prepare a fitting gift for Madam’s major birthday and send it over.”
Marquis of Guangling disappointedly let out an “oh,” walked two steps before coming back to his senses, and clasped his fists toward Gao An in thanks.
After seeing the man out, Gao An turned back to Yangrong Zhai.
Yan Bei was holding A Li to coax him to sleep: “Du Minghuan is acting off. Send someone else to Shuntian Prefecture to ask what exactly Du Yu went to do.”
Gao An nodded: “When this subordinate was seeing off the guest just now, he already dispatched someone. There will be results soon.”
A Li lay on Yan Bei’s shoulder, reaching softly toward Gao An: “Grandpa Gao, hold.”
Gao An hurriedly stepped forward to take him.
With his hands free, Yan Bei lowered his head to wipe the cake residue from his fingertips: “How’s the search for the Hua Family people going?”
“The Hua Family has long resided in the mountains. Since Princess Duan passed away fourteen days ago, no one has been able to find them. People have been sent to Luoyang several times, and all say the Hua Family’s last descendants went down the mountain six or seven years ago. No one knows their whereabouts.”
After Gao An finished speaking, he fondly stroked A Li’s back: “But we subordinates haven’t given up. The guards have even sworn to find the Hua Family members and restore the young heir apparent’s health!”
……
Yue Tang didn’t withdraw her gaze from the Prince’s Mansion’s high walls and the densely packed mansion soldiers under the door until Marquis of Guangling drove his horse away as if fleeing the Prince’s Mansion grounds.
“The Prince’s Mansion has guarded the border for years. Though powerful, it had no chance to build connections in the Capital City. Once summoned back, bearing the heavy duty of regent, the Du Family became his ready-made allies.
“Whether they were the masterminds back then or not—if they were, with such formidable power, we must not make any missteps. If not, once the Du Family’s matter erupts, given his position, he certainly won’t stand idly by.
“Prince Jingyang reacted so quickly to the Marquis’s Mansion side. We must quickly ascertain just how deep his ties with the Du Family run, or else complications will inevitably arise later.”
Though the previous generation had deep friendship, Yue Tang had never met this current Prince Jingyang. She had only heard that after the old Prince passed away four years ago, with the old Princess Consort having borne only three daughters and one son, he rightfully succeeded the throne at seventeen.
The first thing after ascending the throne, this man killed his own master…
Afterward, rumors spread of his cruelty, unpredictable temperament, and so on. Even Yue Tang, long residing outside the Capital City, heard of it repeatedly.
Before the Former Emperor’s death, he summoned him to the Capital City to serve as regent—no one knew if such concerns were a factor. After all, with the Prince’s Mansion garrisoning the Border Pass, if this Prince Jingyang acted aberrantly and rebelliously, the border’s stability might not hold.
Huo Yun worried: “But this subordinate and Master have both tried. We really can’t get in.”
In the three years since Prince Jingyang entered the Capital City, he has almost never accepted overtures from subordinate officials. His interactions have been almost solely with his close kin, Marquis of Guangling’s Mansion, and with such strict guards, let alone entering to probe his background.
Yue Tang poured herself a cup of tea: “Don’t act rashly. First complete the matter at hand and get what I want from He Jianzhong and Zhang Shaode’s mouths.”
With the true culprit not yet surfaced, Yue Tang and the others didn’t know the situation in the Capital City that night.
That day, she had only received an urgent report from a messenger from the Prince’s Mansion saying the Former Emperor was gravely ill and might be at death’s door. Father King ordered her to pack and return to the Capital City immediately.
That was in the morning of the day of the incident, and half a month later on the eighteenth of July was her and the Second Prince’s sixteenth birthday.
Back then, the old monk at Xiangguo Temple said that the calamity they brought from the womb could be resolved as long as they safely passed sixteen.
So her and the Second Prince’s sixteenth birthday was a joyous occasion worth grand celebration for both the Palace and the Prince’s Mansion. The Palace had prepared a Palace Banquet for the siblings.
If not for that report, Yue Tang would have been ready to formally return to the Prince’s Mansion in three days.
The night before, she and the son-in-law had settled that marriage. In the morning, she ordered things packed, and in the afternoon received the bad news. After hasty preparations, she returned to the city overnight.
But halfway, they encountered assassins. Wei Zhang arranged for her to jump off the cliff, then took her fleeing to find Hua Lin. Afterward, they immediately joined Lan Qin and Huo Yun, who were still in Bie Ye handling the aftermath, and the few of them fled far from the Capital City together.
