Chapter – 10
Whether it was poisoning the crown prince or raising a rebellion, every word Liu Sanqi spoke left everyone beneath the heavenly screen utterly stunned.
No one had ever imagined that the Third Prince, Yin Wenâwho had always appeared so gentle and refinedâcould have committed such horrifying acts.
Inside the palace, outside the Golden Throne Hall, the scene was so silent that only the sound of Yin Wen sobbing and kowtowing to Emperor Jingming could be heard.
Watching Yin Wen weep bitterly as if full of regret, Emperor Jingming laughed in rage and ground out through clenched teeth:
“Excellent! I have truly raised two fine sons! Both of them have done me proud!”
Hearing the emperor’s icy voice, now at the peak of fury, Yin Wen grew even more panickedâlike an ant on a hot panâbut had no idea how to respond.
During Liu Sanqi’s last broadcast, he had secretly gloated over Yin Rui’s misfortune, even wishing she would expose more of Yin Rui’s scandals.
But now the tables had turned. Now that Liu Sanqi was exposing him, he wished the heavenly screen had never appeared at all.
Meanwhile, in the harem, Yin Ning was sitting with Empress Xu and her tutor Shi Qingyuan on a couch by the window in Kunning Palace.
Yin Ning and Shi Qingyuan had long suspected the Third Prince was the true culprit behind the crown prince’s murder, but Empress Xu had been completely unaware.
Yin Ning had not told her because she lacked solid evidenceâtelling her would only add to her worries.
Moreover, grief and anger harmed the body. Empress Xu’s mood had visibly improved over the past few days, so Yin Ning had planned to wait until she had concrete results before informing her.
But fate had other plans. Liu Sanqi’s broadcast not only saved Yin Ning the trouble of further investigation but also revealed to Empress Xu who had murdered her son.
Even if the crown prince had not been particularly close to Empress Xu during his lifetime, he was still the child she had carried for nine months and given birth to with great pain.
How could Empress Xu not have feelings for him?!
So, upon learning that Yin Wen was the murderer of her son, Empress Xu was instantly consumed with rage and hatred toward himâshe even wished she could tear him apart!
When she later heard Liu Sanqi mention Yin Wen’s planned rebellion, she was so agitated that she clapped her hands in delight, exclaiming that Heaven had eyes and that good and evil would be repaid.
Though Empress Xu rarely had access to court affairs, she knew Emperor Jingmingâher bedmate of many yearsâvery well.
She did not believe that after learning Yin Wen would rebel in the future, Emperor Jingming would spare his life.
Yin Wen was now just like Yin Ruiâa dead man waiting for his end!
Just thinking that in the near future, the murderer Yin Wen would also walk the road to the underworld, Empress Xu felt some of the pent-up anguish and hatred in her heart begin to ease.
On the heavenly screen, Liu Sanqi looked at the camera with a relaxed expression:
“I’m sure many of you know that being a crown prince in ancient times was no easy job!”
“The position of crown prince was practically the most dangerous profession of allâsometimes even more hazardous than being the emperor himself!”
“So today, let’s start by talking about how the Third Prince, Yin Wen, managed to kill his eldest brother, Crown Prince Yin Lin.”
“To be honest, the first thing to blame is Yin Lin’s inability to keep his trousers onâthat’s what gave Yin Wen the perfect opening!”
“The details of Yin Wen’s scheme, to be honest, weren’t all that complicatedâit was just the old honey trap!”
“The concubine Shu Xianwei, whom Yin Lin doted on most during his lifetime, was actually a spy secretly arranged by Yin Wen to be planted in the Crown Prince’s residence!”
Under the heavenly screen, at the Crown Prince’s manor.
When Liu Sanqi mentioned the name Shu Xianwei, Crown Princess Jiang Xinyue was momentarily stunned, then let out a cold laugh.
She had certainly sensed something amiss about Shu Xianwei’s sudden drowning the night before last.
But she never imagined that Shu Xianwei was actually a spy infiltrated into the Crown Prince’s residence by Third Prince Yin Wen.
Thinking of how Yin Lin, while alive, had favored this concubine Shu Xianwei above all others in the rear courtyard, and how Shu Xianwei had even been by his side administering his medicine when he died, Jiang Xinyue couldn’t help but find it all bitterly ironicâshe even felt that Yin Lin’s death was not undeserved.
Jiang Xinyue’s relationship with her husband, the Crown Prince, had been cold for years, partly because in all their years of marriage she had borne only a daughter, and partly because compared to the other concubines in the rear courtyard, they were clearly younger and more beautiful than her.
For instance, Shu Xianwei, who had gained Yin Lin’s favor over the past two years, was fully half Jiang Xinyue’s age, only nineteen this year.
Jiang Xinyue knew that no matter how she competed for favor against these younger concubines, she could never win back Yin Lin’s heart, so she put all her energy into raising her daughter.
What troubled her most about Yin Lin’s death was its impact on her daughter’s marriage prospects.
After all, her daughter was only thirteen this year, but had already reached the age where she needed to start considering betrothals.
Previously, when Yin Lin was the Crown Prince, her daughter, as the legitimate daughter of the current Crown Prince, could pick from any family she pleased. But now, with Yin Lin’s sudden death, her daughter’s marriage prospects had changed dramatically.
On the heavenly screen, Liu Sanqi was giving everyone a detailed introduction to the inside story behind the Crown Prince’s death:
“In Yin Lin’s eyes, this concubine Shu Xianwei was a stunningly beautiful, orphaned girl who had been sought out by his subordinates to curry favor with him.”
“But in reality, Shu Xianwei was not an orphan at allâshe even had elderly parents still alive. And Yin Wen had coerced Shu Xianwei into working for him by threatening her parents’ lives, forcing her to actively infiltrate Yin Lin’s side.”
“The official historical records only mention that Yin Wen had Shu Xianwei administer poison, but they don’t go into detail about exactly how she did it.”
“But before doing this livestream, I looked up quite a bit of material and came across an unofficial historical account claiming that Yin Wen possessed a very insidious prescription that could cause a person’s organs to fail rapidly in a short period, while making it appear as if they had died of illness.”
“I’m not sure if that account is accurate, but historically, Yin Lin’s cause of death is indeed recorded as a sudden illness.”
“And a life-or-death secret like poisoning the Crown Prince would naturally not be something someone as ruthless as Yin Wen would trust to Shu Xianwei!”
“So Yin Wen once again threatened Shu Xianwei with her parents’ lives, hoping she would have the good sense to take her own life.”
“Shu Xianwei had never had the chance to choose in her entire life. Faced with Yin Wen’s coercion this time, she was still left with no choice but to walk alone into the cold, deep lake one dark night, ending her young life.”
Under the heavenly screen, Empress Xu had originally harbored deep hatred for Shu Xianwei, who had murdered her son. But now, listening to Liu Sanqi’s account, she couldn’t help pressing her lips together tightly.
In the end, Shu Xianwei was nothing more than a pawn in Yin Wen’s hands. A pawn’s fate was not its own to decide, but was manipulated and controlled by the hand holding the piece.
“Mother, that Shu Xianwei drowned the night before last.”
Hearing Yin Ning’s words, Empress Xu looked at her in utter shock.
She had just been agonizing over how to deal with this Shu Xianwei, but now she had no need to worryâbecause Yin Wen had already heartlessly silenced her.
Meanwhile, in the imperial harem, many maids and eunuchs were also looking up at the livestream on the heavenly screen.
Many could not help but sigh inwardly at Shu Xianwei’s life story, a pang of sour grief welling up uncontrollably in their heartsâthe sorrow of the fox mourning the hare, of seeing one’s own kind in another’s misfortune.
On the heavenly screen, a contemptuous smile curled at the corner of Liu Sanqi’s mouth:
“There’s a saying that was popular online beforeâ’Better to believe in ghosts than to trust a man’s mouth’âand it really fits Yin Wen to a T!”
“After Shu Xianwei drowned herself, Yin Wen did not keep the promise he had made to her to spare her parents. On the contrary, he even planned to root out the problem entirely and silence her parents as well!”
“In Yin Wen’s view, killing two elderly people he had under house arrest was as simple as could be.”
“However, this very link was where things went wrong!”
“Initially, Shu Xianwei’s parents had been kept under guard in a secluded courtyard in an alley by Yin Wen’s men, and Yin Wen thought his actions were discreet enough that no one should have been able to detect the old couple’s whereabouts.”
“But just as the assassins Yin Wen had sent were about to lay their hands on Shu Xianwei’s parents, another group of people suddenly burst in and rescued the elderly couple.”
“Naturally, Yin Wen was furious at this unforeseen turn of events, realizing that he had been watched without his knowledge. Still, upon reflection, he felt somewhat relieved, thinking that Shu Xianwei’s parents had known nothing from start to finish.”
“After that, Yin Wen racked his brains trying to find out who had rescued Shu Xianwei’s parents.”
“Yet even when Yin Wen was sentenced to death by Emperor Jingming for raising troops in rebellion, he still hadn’t discovered the truth of the matter.”
“Of course, we later generations now know for sure that it was Emperor Jingwu who sent people to rescue Shu Xianwei’s parents.”
Because Liu Sanqi was livestreaming, there were no subtitles displayed on the heavenly screen showing what she was saying, so no one noticed that she had used the feminine pronoun “she” rather than the masculine “he.”
However, just as Liu Sanqi’s words fell, a sudden “crash” sounded in Kunning Palaceâthe teacup in Shi Qingyuan’s hand had slipped and shattered on the floor.
Empress Xu was startled by the sound and instinctively looked toward Shi Qingyuan.
When she noticed the rarely seen look of astonishment on Shi Qingyuan’s face, she assumed she had simply been frightened by the teacup breaking, and comforted her:
“It’s alright, Teacher Shi, I’ll have someone clean up these shards.”
Shi Qingyuan: “…”
Shi Qingyuan looked at Yin Ning with an extremely complicated expression, because she knew that Shu Xianwei’s parents were at this very moment hidden in a garden estate Yin Ning owned on the outskirts of the capital.
At that instant, even Shi Qingyuan was so alarmed by the conjecture that surfaced in her mind that her heart began racing wildly and her breathing grew hurried.
She felt that her speculation was simply too earth-shattering.
The legendary sage emperor Jingwu mentioned on the heavenly screenâturned out to be a female emperor?
Shi Qingyuan thought that if outsiders knew what she was thinking at this moment, most people would probably suspect she had lost her mind.
And yet, Shi Qingyuan was suddenly overcome by a powerful premonition that her speculation might not be baseless.
Because, having shared a decade of teacher-student bond with Yin Ning, she knew all too well just how extraordinarily gifted her student was.
She had even lamented countless times before, regretting that it was a pity Yin Ning was not born male, for otherwise she would surely have achieved great and glorious deeds.
