The Eldest Daughter Is Beautiful and Saucy
Chapter 144: beat the drum
Chapter 144: Beat the Drum
Then people in the world will only think that he is an incompetent emperor and that he is easy to deceive!
The emperor was furious and could not control himself.
“Your Majesty, His Royal Highness Prince Liang has arrived and is just outside the door…” Gao Demao whispered in the emperor’s ear.
“Call that beast in!”
Gao Demao stepped aside and asked the young eunuch to go out and call Prince Liang to come in. The pale-faced Prince Liang came in from outside the door with a hunched back and a timid look on his face. When he saw the emperor’s gloomy face, his legs seemed to go weak and he knelt directly at the door. It took the young eunuch’s support for him to walk to the middle and kneel down.
He glanced timidly at the Grand Princess and Bai Qingyan before speaking: “Son… Your son pays respects to your father.”
The emperor looked at his timid son, and his gaze fell on the letters in front of him… He wondered if a man with such a cowardly character like Prince Liang could really do such a thing… imitate someone’s handwriting to frame the Duke’s Mansion for treason?
The emperor’s gaze involuntarily fell on Bai Qingyan, who had been keeping her eyes down and silent. But if this was a trap set by Bai Qingyan, what was she trying to achieve?
Could it be that if all the men in the Bai family died, she would also want him, the emperor’s son, to die?
The emperor’s temples throbbed. First it was Prince Xin, and now it was Prince Liang…
“An?! How can I be assured?!” the emperor said in a gloomy tone, “You beast! Tell me why you let your personal servant bribe the maid of the Duke’s Mansion to put such a letter in the study of the State of Zhenguo?!”
King Liang shuddered all over and kowtowed heavily, as if he was frightened. He quickly admitted: “Father, please calm down. I… I really admire Miss Bai too much, but Miss Bai hates me very much, so I made such a stupid move! I beg for your forgiveness!”
The emperor narrowed his eyes and tapped the letter on the table with his fingers: “I admire Miss Bai, so… I wrote a letter of treason in the handwriting of King Zhen and put it in King Zhen’s study?!”
King Liang’s eyes widened, his face pale as paper: “Father, why do you say that?! I wrote only a few love letters to Miss Bai! I just want to use the name of King Zheng of the Kingdom to force… force Miss Bai to marry me!”
“Your Majesty, these letters in your hand… were delivered to the corner gate of our Duke’s Mansion by Prince Liang’s personal servant. As soon as the servant handed the letters to our maid, he was arrested in public. The letters were also opened and read in public! If Your Majesty does not believe it… you can summon Prince Liang’s personal servant and that slave girl to ask them!” The eldest princess choked up and looked at the emperor.
“Yes…it was your son who asked Tong Ji to go! But what your son gave Tong Ji was clearly a love letter!” King Liang seemed to be panicking and didn’t know how to prove his innocence. He hurriedly knelt and crawled forward crying, “Father, if you don’t believe me, you can ask Tong Ji! Even if your son has the courage of heaven, he would not dare to do such a thing!”
The emperor narrowed his eyes and said, “Bring the person in.”
Soon, Tong Ji and Chun Yan, who were tied up tightly, were brought up.
Tong Ji was fine as he had been with Prince Liang since he was a child and had seen the emperor before. But Chun Yan was so frightened that she was afraid that she would die with just one word from the emperor. She huddled there like a quail and kept shaking. She was afraid that the emperor would chop off her tears, so she held back her tears.
“Tong Ji… you need to explain to father! What kind of letter did I give you? How did it become a letter imitating the handwriting of King Zhen?”
“Your Highness, I don’t know!” Tong Ji was also so scared that he kept crying, just like King Liang, “I don’t know why the love letter turned out the way the fourth young lady of the Bai family read it!”
Bai Qingyan spoke slowly: “After His Royal Highness Prince Liang handed the letter to you, did you ever leave? Or did you meet someone… tell others that His Royal Highness Prince Liang wanted you to hand over the love letter to the maid in the Duke’s Mansion? If His Royal Highness Prince Liang is wronged, only if you tell the truth can we find out the truth.”
Tong Ji was anxious to clear the name of Prince Liang, and said hurriedly, “No, no! I swear to God that I didn’t do that! After Your Highness gave me the letters, I never left them! I also never told anyone else! That night, I held these letters in my arms, and I didn’t sleep all night because I felt sorry for Your Highness! Oh, by the way… Gao Sheng also knew about this! It was Gao Sheng who handed these letters to me in front of Your Highness!”
Thinking of his promotion, Tong Ji suddenly turned his head and looked at King Liang.
“Your Highness! Did you ask Gao Sheng to look for Chun Yan before? I heard from the maid at the corner gate of the Duke’s Mansion that… a cold-faced guard in our mansion went to look for Chun Yan, but Chun Yan didn’t come out to see him! Gao Sheng is very skilled… there must be no one who can get the letter from him! It can only be that Gao Sheng wants to harm Your Highness!” Tong Ji’s face became paler as he spoke. He was almost certain that it was Gao Sheng who framed King Liang. He cried, “After I got the letter from Gao Sheng… Gao Sheng left the mansion and never came back! I said a long time ago that people like Gao Sheng should not stay with Your Highness. He must have run away…”
Prince Liang’s heart skipped a beat. He had never expected that Tong Ji would actually bring up Gao Sheng!
Bai Qingyan’s eyebrows twitched. Tong Ji’s bite of Gao Sheng was a pleasant surprise for her.
Gao Sheng was an old subordinate of the deceased Second Prince. In order to save Concubine Tong’s mother’s family, the Second Prince tried to raise troops to force the emperor to abdicate. He was shot dead by the Emperor at Wude Gate. Those who could escape from the Second Prince went to seek refuge with Prince Liang. What would the Emperor think of Prince Liang keeping the old subordinates of the Second Prince around him? !
“Even so, please have Your Majesty summon Gao Sheng, the guard beside Prince Liang, to get to the bottom of it! Find out if someone wants to sow discord between Prince Liang and our Bai family, or if His Highness Prince Liang really wants to kill the Bai family!” Bai Qingyan said after respectfully saluting the emperor.
The emperor looked at Bai Qingyan who was calm and composed. Before he could say anything, he heard the shocking sound of drums coming from afar.
The Dengwen Drum has stood at the Wude Gate for nearly a hundred years and has always been just a symbolic decoration. No one has ever really dared to strike it.
But I don’t know what kind of feng shui I have violated this year. The Dengwen drum was struck twice before the end of the new year. How can this continue? !
The emperor was extremely angry and irritated, and his voice became louder and louder: “Who is beating the drum again?”
“Your Majesty, please calm down. I have already sent someone out to ask, and someone will come to report later!” Gao Demao felt a chill down his spine.
The emperor gritted his teeth in anger and said, “Send someone to the Liang Palace to bring Gao Sheng to me! If he’s not at the palace…let the Ministry of Justice arrest him!”
Prince Liang lowered his eyes and pondered in his mind, perhaps Gao Sheng knew that he was summoned into the palace, so he asked someone to bring Liu Huanzhang to beat the drum to accuse Prince Zhenguo of treason. Although it was not according to the plan, it was feasible!
This time… he and Tong Ji can be completely cleared of all charges.
Seeing King Liang quietly heaved a sigh of relief and relaxed his spine, Bai Qingyan folded his hands in front of his lower abdomen and tightened them gently, just hoping that everything would go well.