I Got Marked By My Shadow Guard After Pretending To Be An Alpha [MPREG]

15. A Kiss

In less than a month, the truth about the fourth prince's murder was brought to light.

The fourth prince was ambushed on his way back to his country because his whereabouts was leaked to the Western Xia.

The case implicated numerous courtiers, nearly 1,000 of whom were imprisoned and dozens of official residences were raided.

The day of the fourth prince's burial saw dozens of ministers suspected of communicating with the enemy, ordered to death with a thousand cuts at the city gates.

The rest of those implicated were either beheaded and exposed to the public, or banished far away to an army post, or relegated to slavery.

Henceforth, the case was settled.

From the beginning to the end, there was no evidence to implicate the fifth prince, Yu Hong.

"What a good tactic......" Yu Yan set the secret letter in his hand down and sighed.

Mu Yungui was serving tea beside him and he paused at his words. "Is Master talking about the fifth prince?"

"Yes." Yu Yan folded the letter unhurriedly and drew out his words, "If it were me, I would not be able to do it without a flaw. All these years, I have really underestimated him."

He suddenly thought of something else. "Did you get any results on the thing you were investigating earlier?"

Mu Yungui shook his head. "The year the fifth highness was born, no other imperial concubine in the palace was pregnant or died in a strange way."

Yu Yan fell silent.

"Is Master doubting the birth of the fifth highness?" Mu Yungui asked.

Yu Yan narrowed his eyes and softly remarked, "I just have a feeling....."

Yu Hong was not born in the palace.

He was born prematurely, when the empress was nine months pregnant, coinciding exactly with the Yan Kingdom's annual ritual to the gods.

Together with the Yan Emperor, the empress went to the ancestral temple to pay their respects, and on that same night she had abdominal pains and gave birth to the fifth prince, Yu Hong, the following day.

Yu Yan had been there, but he was so young. Furthermore, over the years, the empress had always loved him so much that he never suspected Yu Hong's origins.

But when he thought about it, there were indeed many coincidences and doubts about what happened back then.

Initially, even the imperial physician had diagnosed the empress as infertile. How had she conceived again?

The empress had been in perfect health during her pregnancy. Why did she give birth prematurely and during the time they were at the ancestral temple?

Also, not long after Yu Hong was born, all the inner servants in the empress' palace hall were replaced, leaving no one behind.

"Look into it again." Yu Yan ordered. "The former people in the empress's palace, as well as the Qin family's Duke Zhenbei. I remember that it was also a few years after Yu Hong's birth that he brought his whole family to the fiefdom."

Mu Yungui: "Understood."

Yu Yan rubbed his brow, got up, and threw the secret letter into the brazier pot.

The letter quickly burned to ashes. Yu Yan added, "But this is not without benefit to us. There will be more and more people in the court urging for a crown prince these days. Imperial Father will most likely issue a decree soon."