Chapter 43: Indulging the Son in Crime
In the Grand Princess's mansion, the people who went to arrest Huan Yanbo were stopped.
Princess Yuanheng slapped the bed in anger: "Did you hear that I was ill and came to bully me?"
She has been at the center of power for a long time and is suspicious of everything. The slightest disturbance is enough to make her think deeply, but she doesn't know that the matter is very simple. The Fourth Prince just can't bear the humiliation and wants to seek justice for himself.
The Emperor of Southern Qi and his ministers in the Golden Palace waited for a long time, but Huan Yanbo did not enter the palace. The Emperor felt a little embarrassed, so he had to send another team of warriors to the Princess's Mansion.
It was not until the third wave of warriors headed for the princess's mansion that the eldest princess finally lost her patience and ordered people to summon Huan Yanbo to come and prepare to bring her son into the palace.
Huan Yanbo was beaten up by Tang Ying yesterday, but he had too much fat on his body, which was like a cotton-padded jacket that was resistant to beatings. Tang Ying never had the habit of attacking ordinary people, and the force he used was less than half of that used to tame the Wild Horse King. In a hurry, he still adhered to the motto of "don't hit people in the face", so he didn't cause him much physical harm, and there wasn't even a bruise on his face. It was just that the psychological trauma was too great, and the murderer was not caught, so Master Huan couldn't sleep well in the middle of the night, and was woken up in the morning when he was still in bed.
When he heard that he was going to the palace, he was not afraid at all.
The eldest princess was in favor, and he had almost regarded the palace as his second home over the years. He could enter the palace by just raising his foot and scanning his face, and he didn't even need to provide a token to enter the palace. He sat in the eldest princess's carriage, yawning, and complained: "What urgent matter does the emperor's uncle have to send so many people to invite his son?"
"You did a good thing. Did you bully the fourth child again yesterday?"
Speaking of this, Huan Yanbo didn't think it was a big deal. He leaned against the back wall of the car and prepared to take a nap: "I was in a bad mood outside yesterday. I passed by the bookstore and happened to meet him, so I scolded him." In fact, he went to Cuihonglou yesterday, but it turned out that the most popular girl already had a lover. I heard that he had paid a month's worth of money and took him out for fun. He happened to run into Yuanjian and took his anger out on him.
As for being beaten by a beggar, Huan Yanbo felt it was too embarrassing and was too embarrassed to mention it to his mother. He planned to send someone to investigate secretly today, arrest the beggar and beat him up first.
The eldest princess did not take it seriously. The warriors in front of the palace who came to pick up the person only thought that the Fourth Prince had complained to His Majesty, saying that Huan Yanbo had attacked him, and His Majesty had just invited Prince Huan to the palace. The Fourth Prince's desire to commit suicide was beyond everyone's expectations, and they were also in a state of shock, so they temporarily blocked the news.
A group of people entered the palace, and the warriors in front of the palace led the eldest son and his mother straight to the Golden Palace. Yuan Heng did not expect how big a scene there would be until she stepped into the Golden Palace and saw the sea of people in the palace. Only then did she remember that today was a grand court meeting.
She walked past the ministers and came to the front where she found the Fourth Prince, his face covered in bruises and blood, lying on a low couch that had been carried into the palace. Beside him were the Second Prince and the Third Prince. Several other ministers were also waiting by his side with concerned expressions, as if they were caring for a dying patient. The atmosphere was quite depressing.
The Crown Prince was ill in bed , recuperating in the East Palace. The Fourth Prince went to the palace and wanted to hit his head against the pillar to commit suicide after a disagreement, which caught the Second Prince off guard. The ministers performed very well on the spot and did not give the Second and Third Princes any chance to show their brotherly love. By the time they squeezed past, the Fourth Prince had already finished his performance in one go. In front of His Majesty the Emperor, they could only grab one hand each and advised him half-seriously, "Fourth brother, don't let this get you down..."
The eldest princess glared at her son and thought to herself: You may be naughty, but how come you don't know the severity of your actions? You almost beat someone's brains out.
Huan Yanbo: I am innocent!
The mother and son knelt down to greet the emperor, and heard the emperor's deep voice from the throne: "My sister has been ill for a long time. She should rest in the mansion. Why did you make this trip?"
The eldest princess had never looked down on Yuan Jian, and her son had also looked down on and humiliated the Fourth Prince since he was young. The Fourth Prince was nothing but a lowly child born from a maid's bed, but since the Emperor had sent someone to invite Huan Yanbo in a grand manner, and this lowly child had even made trouble in the Golden Palace, they had to make some arguments.
"I heard that His Majesty urgently summoned my son. Even if I am sick and have only one breath left, I will crawl here. I just don't know what my son has done wrong."
In the past, the Emperor of Southern Qi and the Grand Princess got along well as siblings, and he didn't think there was anything wrong with it. But today, Yuan Jian kept saying that he had disgraced the dignity of the royal family and insisted on dying in the Golden Palace. It was like a dose of refreshing liquid that made him feel refreshed. Looking at the Grand Princess's attitude now, he felt something was wrong.
Her son beat the prince into a pig's head, and made such an honest child who usually kept silent want to commit suicide. When he came into the palace and saw the Fourth Prince, he didn't even say hello.
The Emperor of Southern Qi was unhappy.
After all, he is his son.
He was unhappy, and his tone was no longer friendly as before. He pointed at Yuan Jian and said, "Old Four said that Huan Yanbo had a few arguments with him and beat him up like this. I summoned Huan Lang to ask, the wound on his face... was it you who beat him up?"
Huan Yanbo had done this before, so he habitually bit back, "He was the first to say something rude!"
This means admitting that he did it.
Yuan Jian screamed in a mournful voice: "Father, am I the kind of person who would stir up trouble? He insulted my mother first and beat me later. If no one had rescued me, I would have been beaten to death in the alley yesterday! This is not giving my son a chance to live!"
As soon as he moved, the blood on his forehead flowed down. The imperial physician beside him wanted to sprinkle some hemostatic medicine on him, but he pushed him away fiercely: "Father, you might as well let your son die sooner or later!" As he said this, he was about to jump off the couch and hit the pillar.
At the critical moment, the Second Prince and the Third Prince quickly held him down, and Gan Jun, an expressionless man, stood by to stop him, making it extremely difficult for the Fourth Prince to commit suicide.
Huan Yanbo had developed an arrogant character since he was a child. Moreover, the eldest princess was very powerful, so he was not afraid of anyone. He stiffened his neck and shouted, "Didn't you let your accomplices beat me? Where is your accomplice, the beggar?" They ridiculed him, "A prince is associating with beggars. Aren't you afraid of bringing shame to the royal family?" He didn't care about the embarrassment at this time. He first decided to convict Yuan Jian.
Yuan Jian was filled with grief and indignation. The blue veins on his neck throbbed, and his face, which was already swollen and purple, changed color even more. His teeth were chattering, and his finger was trembling as he pointed at Huan Yanbo: "You have made me a disgrace to the royal family. If this gets out, people won't say that I'm weak and can be bullied, but will laugh at the fact that the royal family of Southern Qi was insulted by their subjects, bringing shame to our ancestors!" He tried to struggle to get up, but was held down firmly by the other two.
When the emperor saw this scene, he felt even more unhappy.
Huan Yanbo could not understand the deeper meaning of his words, but the eldest princess knew what they meant and hurriedly tried to smooth things over with a smile: "Oh, what do you mean? It's just cousins playing around like children at home, but it has ended up in the court. Isn't that a joke?" With just one sentence, she wanted to make a big thing small and a small matter disappear.
The emperor frowned, guessing that Huan Yanbo must have bullied the fourth prince a lot in the past. It also reminded him of the time when Yuan Jian complained to him when he was a child, but was bitten back by the Grand Princess and Huan Yanbo. He held back his tears and apologized to the Grand Princess and her son.
He was thinking a little too far ahead... Later, the child never seemed to complain to him again, and only came to pay his respects to him during festivals.
The fact that he was willing to fight to the death today shows how severe the humiliation was.
Yuan Jian was determined to make a big deal out of this matter, so he arrested the well-known Imperial Censor Wang You and questioned him, "Master Wang, you are responsible for supervising all officials. I wonder how you will judge today's incident?"
Wang You was a man of steel and iron, and he was also the backbone of the Censorate. He immediately seized on the Grand Princess' words and said, "Grand Princess, you are wrong. How can you use the excuse of children playing to evade insults and beatings of the prince? Huan Yanbo is a minister, how can such a crime be treated as a family matter? The Fourth Prince was beaten, isn't it Huan Yanbo's contempt for the imperial power? He is so contemptuous of the imperial power, who gave him such courage?"
Someone in the Censorate started the attack, and it was like a hornet's nest was blown up. Several censors stood out from the crowd and began to attack the Grand Princess and her son, accusing the Grand Princess of allowing her son to commit crimes and of disregarding the dignity of the royal family. All of Huan Yanbo's past evil deeds were also thrown down at once, and the Grand Princess was stunned and suspected that the Emperor was secretly manipulating this.
She had spent half her life working hard to stabilize the imperial power, and except for doting on her son, there was nothing wrong with her in other aspects. But this one thing became her biggest shortcoming.
Huan Yanbo had never seen such a scene before, and he was so angry that he shouted at the top of his voice: "Yuan Jian and the beggar attacked me. If you don't believe me, catch the beggar and ask him!" After all, it was just a fight between everyone, and the fault could not be put entirely on him.
He originally just wanted to divert the target, but unexpectedly Yuan Jian said, "Please Your Majesty, I want to die with a clear conscience. That beggar saw injustice and saved me. He is still in my house. Please send someone to bring the beggar to the palace to testify for me!"
The eldest princess's mind raced. On the one hand, she suspected that the emperor had begun to doubt her after she left office and was using her son to punish her. On the other hand, she was thinking about how to help her son recover from his decline. As the saying goes, concern leads to confusion, and she lost her usual calmness. In her haste, she actually thought of the same thing as Huan Yanbo: "Two children are fighting, and my son is also injured. Why don't we call the beggar to confront him in the palace?"
"Approved. The palace warriors will go to the Fourth Prince's mansion to bring the beggar into the palace."
All the civil and military officials in the hall put aside the affairs of state and stretched their necks waiting for the beggar to enter the hall. Many of them wanted to see this daring beggar who dared to attack the eldest princess' only son.
Only a young man who was one of the military generals slightly suppressed the anxiety between his brows and glanced at the Fourth Prince. The two men's eyes met in the hall and then disappeared, as if they had no friendship at all.
That man was none other than Jinyiwei commander Fu Chen.
