Chapter 83 - A Dejected Prince with a Cold Outside and Tender Inside (39)
Chapter 83: A Dejected Prince with a Cold Outside and Tender Inside (39)
Translator: asassin
Prince Beiding goes to the palace at once.
What Prince Beiding has said is hard for Emperor Huizong to believe.
He doesn’t know Prince Yi well.
As an emperor, he has many sons. A son without a mother from a powerful family is normally marginalized.
Prince Beiding doesn’t tell him that Prince Yi was going to do something dishonorable towards Ah Zhao and was thus beaten up. It concerns Ah Zhao’s reputation after all.
He just mentions implicitly that Prince Yi who has been unnoticeable isn’t as simple as he pretends.
Emperor Huizong trusts Prince Beiding.
Though he hasn’t taken much notice of this son of his, he has ordered his secret guards to start a specific investigation on Prince Yi.
Once the results are out, Emperor Huizong is first shocked by the information submitted by his secret guards then he slowly becomes apathetic.
“I’ve never thought that…” Emperor Huizong’s face grows colder and colder.
“Summon Prince Yi!”
Poor Zhao Yi, because of that kick, the truth of which he dares not to revel to the world, he could only tell everyone that he has fallen off the horse out of carelessness and stay in his manor for recuperation.
He hasn’t fully recovered when he receives the order from the emperor.
It is very normal for the emperor to summon his son.
However, out of nowhere, Zhao Yi has a bad feeling about it.
The order from Emperor Huizong comes in such a hurry that it leaves Zhao Yi no time to investigate, so he goes to the palace not recovered.
Zhao Yi goes into the chamber.
The gate closes behind him.
The light dims. He kneels down on the ground with the aroma oozing out of the gold-plated censer around the tip of his nose, uneasiness clouds his mind.
“Prince Yi, do you know why I send for you?” The tranquil voice of the emperor, who is sitting in front of him, reaches him.
Zhao Yi says in a low voice: “I’m too stupid to figure out.”
“Stupid?” Emperor Huizong sneers. “I think otherwise!”
Emperor Huizong stands up from his throne and watches this son who he has never put on mind intently: “I’ve been underestimating you.”
Zhao Yi’s heart sinks. He says slowly: “Father, I don’t understand what you are saying.”
“Don’t understand?”
“Let me give you a hint. Who instructed Prince Fu to put his hand to Prince Yan and hide witchcraft in his manor?”
Zhao Yi answers calmly: “I have no idea.”
“The young son of Minister Li died from falling off the horse. Who it was that Minister Li offended?”
“I don’t know.”
“Justice Zhang of the Imperial Court of Justice, Jiang Yuan, Vice-president of Board of Revenue, Magistrate of Xizhou, Jiang Congwu, General Pingnan…” Emperor Huizong has said over ten names at a stretch.
“Who do they work for?”
Zhao Yi breaks out in a cold sweat.
Has His Majesty actually come this far?
He knows it all the time that if His Majesty wants to investigate a person, he could get all the things out.
So he has been very careful, hiding in an unnoticeable corner with the greatest of care, watching those fools jockeying for power in a detached manner.
His Majesty ought not to have investigated him.
“Are you going to stick with ‘don’t know’ again?” Emperor Huizong looks at him.
Zhao Yi raises his head slowly. At this moment, he is still calm, not showing any trace of fear.
“This time I want to ask why do you start to investigate me all of a sudden, father?”
Seeing how Zhao Yi behaves, a hint of pity passes Emperor Huizong’s mind.
Calm, patience and steadiness.
This kind of personality is excellent.
Only that he is too brutal.
The young son of Minister Li did nothing more than tease this prince that he was a wimp and he took the young man’s life a short while later.
If a man like him becomes the emperor, then the world is not far away from the rule of a tyranny.