Today, Wang Yibo was summoned to the palace. Three days later would be the worship ceremony for the late emperor, and Wang Xuan invited him to discuss some important details.
Wang Xuan didn't want to make it too grand, but the Xuan Dynasty had always attached great importance to worship rituals, so a superficial attempt was necessary.
But Wang Xuan came to him not only to discuss how to hold the worship ceremony, which the Ministry of Rites was in charge of, but how to deal with the people in the other palace.
There was also a former prince under house arrest in that palace.
When Wang Xuan seized the throne, the deposed prince was the first to be toppled, and then the other families began to move and seek power. When the Second Prince and Fourth Prince saw that Wang Xuan was beginning to show his power, they joined forces and sent people to assassinate him. However, there was no danger at that time. The Gold Collar Guard rescued him in time, and Wang Yibo also blocked an arrow for him. Afterwards, the two planned to kill the two princes.
Now, apart from Wang Xuan, there was only the former Crown Prince and a timid and simple Fifth Prince. After Wang Xuan ascended the throne, the Fifth Prince was sent to the northern border as a vassal lord. During the New Year, he even went to Beijing to attend the state banquet, but had not returned at this point and would wait until the ceremony was over before departing.
"The people from the Ministry of Rites say that the former Crown Prince should participate in the worship ceremony. Is there any way to prevent him from participating?" Wang Xuan asked.
"There is, assassinate him before he can participate," Wang Yibo said.
Wang Xuan laughed: "Wouldn't that give the Ministry of Rites and that Imperial Censor more topics to play with?"
Wang Yibo sighed: "Why is that fellow still not dead?"
It was called the 'other palace,' but it was actually a deserted cold palace on the mountainside on the outskirts of the city. There were only a dozen or so servants to clean it, and the former Crown Prince, who was self-indulgent by nature, suffered a lot.
They had originally thought it would take a few years for him to die, but last year, Yu Junliang was sent to visit the other palace, and when he returned, he said that the other party was a bit crazy, but still alive.
"No matter, forgive him for not being in good condition. Let him participate, and let the Father Emperor in the sky also see how shameful his favorite prince is now," Wang Xuan said. "You take someone to the other palace to inform him."
"Shi."
After Wang Yibo left the palace, he set off immediately. When he passed the market, he happened to bump into Xiao Zhan, who was on patrol.
Xiao Zhan asked where he was going, and he told him about the other palace.
"I'll accompany you." Xiao Zhan glanced at the dozen or so guards the other party had brought and whispered, "Why bring the Imperial Guard? Don't you know that your husband is a great general, ah? There are so many people under him. You can go to the training grounds and pick a few who are better than these people."
Wang Yibo was amused, and said: "The Emperor arranged it."
"Don't listen to him, wait until I find some new people." Xiao Zhan called out a few times on the road, and after a while, He Cuizhang, Zuo Ran, and some others appeared.
Listening to the chirping of the group behind him, Wang Yibo felt that he had brought a flock of birds along with him.
"When we get to the other palace, you should keep quiet. Do you hear me?"
"We hear you." Everyone agreed again and again.
The mountain road to the other palace was rugged. Fortunately, Xiao Zhan was pulling him, and picked him up after walking for a while. When they came before the other palace, he quickly patted Xiao Zhan on the back: "Okay, okay, let me down quickly."
"Why, we're already an old couple and you're still shy, ah," Xiao Zhan teased, letting him down.
"You all wait outside." After speaking, Wang Yibo turned around and walked inside, only to find that Xiao Zhan had also followed. He said, "You also wait for me outside, ba."
"Not possible, I heard that the former crown prince is a little crazy. I must protect your safety."
Wang Yibo still had some misgivings, and urged: "Then he will talk some nonsense later, you must not worry about it."
"All right." Xiao Zhan looked around. The palace had been abandoned for a long time, and even the servants were somewhat perfunctory.
Wang Yibo had been here several times, so when the servants saw him, they called out 'Wang-daren." But when they looked at Xiao Zhan again, they were a little dazed, as if they didn't know who he was.
There was no access to news here, and even the food was brought up by people from the bottom of the mountain. It was likely that Xiao Zhan deeds were rarely heard of, let alone his appearance.
The two of them didn't intend to make more introductions, and walked straight inside until they came to a door and saw a person lying on the floor beside the bed, holding a jug of wine in his hand. He held it high, and half of the wine fell into his mouth while the other half dripped on his face. He laughed loudly: "Good wine, good wine, waiter, serve me another jar."
Wang Yibo walked inside and said: "The worship ceremony of the late emperor will be held in three days, and the First Prince is invited to attend."
Turning to look at him, Wang Xu asked after a while: "Wang Yibo? You're here again?"
Wang Yibo remained silent.
Wang Xu sneered and threw the jug at him, only to be stopped by Xiao Zhan, who frowned at Wang Xu with displeasure.
Wang Xu's eyes fell on him again, and they were full of mockery. He then said: "Wang Yibo, lapdog, how are you worthy of talking to me?"
Unperturbed, Wang Yibo walked up to him and stepped on his hand that was on the ground. He looked down and said: "If I'm a lapdog, who are you? A beast that is not as good as a pig or a dog."
He would always remember that when he was in the dungeon, this beast swaggered into the cell and picked out young and beautiful women. This pair of rotten hands even touched his mother's chin as he said sarcastically: "Good-looking is good-looking, but you're a bit old. I'm looking for young birds."
"Ahhhh!" Wang Xu's fingers were crushed hard, and after Wang Yibo lifted his foot, he immediately rolled on the ground with his arms folded, his eyes red. "Wang Yibo! You just wait! Sooner or later, I will definitely peel off your skin!"
Wang Yibo slapped him across the face: "Then how about I kill you now?"
"You dare!" Wang Xu covered his face and looked at him furiously. Glancing at Xiao Zhan from the corner of his eye, he thought of something and sneered, then suddenly said, "I have something to tell you. Troubling you to make Wang Yibo get out."
Xiao Zhan was displeased, and ignored him altogether.
"Don't you want to know the real cause of the old general's death?" Wang Xu asked.
Xiao Zhan was startled at once, and looked at him in disbelief: "What do you know?"
Wang Xu glanced at Wang Yibo with obvious meaning.
"You go outside and wait for me for a while," Xiao Zhan whispered.
Wang Yibo walked out the door anxiously, and couldn't hear the voices from inside.
Xiao Zhan walked up to him: "Will you speak now?"
"It was ordered by Wang Xuan." Wang Xu lowered his voice.
"Impossible." Xiao Zhan controlled his temper.
"You just don't want to believe it. Did the Imperial physician he sent to the border for you win the father and son's hearts?" Wang Xu paused and said, "I heard with my own ears when he ordered the Imperial physician to poison the old general's wine. This was in order to let you take charge of the army, so that you would be obedient because of a little kindness. Look, aren't you qualified as a dog now?"
Xiao Zhan became short of breath. After a while, he took a deep breath and looked at him fixedly: "Is what you said true?"
"I swear to Heaven."
Wang Yibo waited outside the door for a while, and when he heard the door open, he stepped forward anxiously and asked: "What did he say?"
"Go home first, I have something to do." After speaking, Xiao Zhan asked Xiao Gao and Zuo Ran to take him back, then called He Cuizhang aside, giving him a few instructions with a hasty expression before leaving quickly.
"Xiao Zhan!" Wang Yibo shouted. The other disappeared in the blink of an eye, and he turned to ask He Cuizhang what had happened.
He Cuizhang also wore an extremely nervous expression, and he only asked Xiao Gao to take him back to the General's Mansion quickly before disappearing with the others.
Wang Xu's wild laughter came from the room.
"What exactly did you tell him?" Wang Yibo asked, walking in quickly with a dark expression.
"Wang Yibo, you became Wang Xuan's lapdog. Did you ever think that he would die one day?" Wang Xu said sorrowfully, "Especially dying at the hands of Xiao Zhan?"
Wang Yibo's pupils shrank abruptly.
"If Xiao Zhan murders the emperor and rebels, do you want to help Xiao Zhan or Wang Xuan?"
Wang Yibo immediately guessed that the killer he mentioned was Wang Xuan.
He couldn't be sure if it was Wang Xuan, just as Wang Xuan didn't know that he had arranged a spy in Beijing. It was impossible for him to know everything about Wang Xuan like the back of his hand.
But he intuitively felt that it wasn't him. Although Wang Xuan did everything possible to win his position, it was true that he had the country in his heart, and there was no reason to kill the old general.
But what if......
Wang Yibo didn't dare to think about the one in ten thousand possibility. He walked quickly out of the other palace and descended the mountain with haste. However, the terrain was rough, and his footsteps were too slow. It was already evening when he returned to the city, and he walked without stopping toward the palace.
"My Lord, the General and Brother He asked me to take you back home," Xiao Gao said awkwardly.
"Then you go follow them instead of me." After speaking, Wang Yibo saw a horse at the side of the road. He quickly mounted it, tossed a piece of silver to its master, and hurried to the gate of the palace.
Xiao Gao had no choice but to run behind fearfully, worried that he would fall off. Fortunately, the General had taught his disciple well, and his lord arrived at his destination quickly and steadily. He was, however, a little flustered when he got off the horse.
Xiao Gao couldn't follow him further inside, so he took the short weapon from Wang Yibo's body.
It was forbidden to bring weapons through the palace gate unless one had a special status, such as the General.
Wang Yibo asked the guards in a fluster: "Has Xiao Zhan entered the palace? Did he leave behind his sword?"
"I don't understand, it's been half an hour since he went in." As soon as the guard finished speaking, Wang Yibo turned around and ran in.
The number of guards patrolling the palace had clearly increased by a lot. Wang Yibo questioned them all the way, and finally came to a side hall. He heard that Wang Xuan was arranging defenses with the new commander of the Imperial Guard, and hurried into the hall.
"Why are you here? Didn't anyone pass you a message?" Wang Xuan stopped and gave the commander a meaningful look, and the commander promptly retreated, leaving only the two of them in the hall.
"Did Xiao Zhan come to look for you?"[1]* Wang Yibo blurted out.
*1] Wang Yibo uses the casual 'you' here (你) instead of a more respectful honorific when addressing the emperor.*
"En." Wang Xuan raised his eyebrows. "You're so nervous that you forgot your honorifics?"
Wang Yibo didn't pay it much mind, asking: "Where is he now?"
"Not here," Wang Xuan said.
"Where did you take him?" Wang Yibo asked, stepping forward.
Wang Xuan gazed at him silently.
After staring at each other for a moment, Wang Yibo lowered his voice and asked word by word: "Did you send someone to poison the old general?"
Wang Xuan frowned, looked into his eyes, and suddenly pointed at him and laughed. Supporting himself on the desk behind him, he laughed uncontrollably and then swept the booklets on the desk to the floor.
"Wang Yibo! Who are you speaking to? Who are you suspecting?!"
Wang Yibo said: "I want you to say it, was it you or not?"
"We've known each other for so many years, am I actually this kind of person in your heart?" Wang Xuan spoke in a hoarse voice. He had forgotten to use his honorific title, as if they had returned to the old days, but this was not truly the past.
Wang Yibo sized him up for a while, paused for a moment on the throbbing veins on his forehead, and then crouched down and picked up the booklets one by one, saying: "It's good that it wasn't you."
Wang Xuan looked down at him: "What if it was me? Would you rebel with him?"
Shaking his head, Wang Yibo got up and put the booklets back on the table, saying: "I never thought of turning against you. No matter what, you are my savior. Without you, there would be no Wang Yibo today. But if you want to kill my person......"
The following words were unfinished, but Wang Xuan had already guessed them. He smiled desolately: "You are actually willing to abandon me for him and bear the charge of regicide?"
Wang Yibo raised his eyes: "Not only for him, but also for myself. If something happened to him, it would be difficult for me to live on, so I would definitely stand by his side."
"What live on?" Xiao Zhan appeared at the entrance of the main hall.
Wang Yibo turned his head and went to him in two or three steps, asking with a frown: "What did you do?"
"I just went to arrange the defenses of the palace and the capital." Xiao Zhan touched his somewhat messy hair. "Didn't I tell you to go back to the mansion first? Why did you come here?"
"Could I go home with peace of mind?" Wang Yibo asked.
Xiao Zhan smiled: "That's right, thanks for your hard work. If you didn't make a show for Wang Xu, I feared he would not make his next move."
"What move?"
Xiao Zhan's eyes darkened slightly: "Do you still remember the private meeting between the Princess of Nanjiang and a man after New Year's Eve?"
"Could it be him?"
Xiao Zhan nodded his head: "Wang Xu told me that His Majesty sent an Imperial physician to poison my father. I just asked His Majesty for confirmation. You were the one who sent the Imperial physician to the border, and during this time, His Majesty never intervened in the matter. And you, there is absolutely no way you would do such a thing, so Wang Xu could only have lied."
"When he finished talking about this, I was thinking, the servants in the other palace didn't know who I was, so why did he recognize me? He also knew the two of us had a good relationship, and even knew everything about my father being poisoned? Either he really heard His Majesty make that order, or.......he was the murderer." Xiao Zhan's eyes turned cold.
"So you came to the palace to seek confirmation?" Wang Yibo had calmed down by now. Recalling the scene in the other palace, he suddenly said, "You deliberately snubbed me in front of him, and then secretly sent He Cuizhang and the others to guard the other palace?"
Xiao Zhan nodded: "For him to hit the grass to startle the snake like this, he must have a second move planned. And he has long lost his eyes and ears in the capital, unless he found a new backer and a way out."
"The Princess of Nanjiang." Wang Yibo turned to ask Wang Xuan, "When the King of Nanjiang came to the capitol, did he bring the princess with him?"
"He did one time, and it seemed that they came to talk about a marriage. It was the Second Princess, not the Eighth Princess. But I was still in confinement back then, and Wang Xu, the Crown Prince, was in charge of receiving them," Wang Xuan said.
Wang Yibo and Xiao Zhan exchanged glances: "It is very likely that they have been secretly working in the dark."
"That's right. As soon as the Princess of Nanjiang left, Wang Xu couldn't wait to raise this matter to anger me. On the one hand, he wanted to see if he could instigate me, and on the other, he had already arranged to escape from the capital, and he was worried that we would bring him directly to the palace to participate in the ceremony, which would ruin his plans."
"Then when the Princess of Nanjiang said she wanted to marry you, that was just to test you out," Wang Yibo said.
Xiao Zhan nodded, glancing sideways at Wang Xuan: "Your Majesty, if I beheaded the First Prince with the Chisha Sword, would you blame me?"
"Wang Xu had an affair with the princess of another country, and had the intention of committing treason. You can cut first and ask permission later."
Xiao Zhan cupped his hands. The veins in his hands stood out, and with dark but resolute eyes, he turned and left the hall while gripping the sword on his body.
Then, it was unknown what he had thought of, but he turned around to call: "Yibo, just wait for me here."
The palace was much safer than outside. Wang Yibo walked to the door and said: "Be careful."
"En." Xiao Zhan whispered in his ear worriedly, "You just stay here, don't get too close to him, do you hear me?"
Wang Yibo: "......."
Wang Xuan: "I can hear you."
Xiao Zhan hadn't controlled his volume at all, and said it on purpose. He just raised his chin and left with haste.
Wang Xuan resignedly walked to the door to watch him go, and Wang Yibo subtly moved two steps to the side.
".......Am I some kind of plague god?"
Wang Yibo also felt that his subconscious action was a little funny, and touched his nose in embarrassment, laughing softly.