Marquis Jinyang’s face was filled with grief and indignation. As he spoke his last words, he kowtowed, his head striking the ground with dull thuds. When he lifted his head, his forehead was already covered in blood.
The assembled ministers felt a chill, thinking that today it was Marquis Jinyang’s misfortune, but tomorrow it could be their own. If Lin Yuan continued to be consumed by internal strife, its future was dire.
Ji Hong’s face flushed with anger. The Demon Hunter Army’s actions were clearly trampling his dignity underfoot.
“Uncle!” Ji Hong knew very well who Zhang Heng was obeying and who had issued the order to seal Marquis Jinyang’s manor. He ignored Zhang Heng and turned to look at Ji Jinmo, who had stood with his eyes lowered the entire time. The rage in his eyes blazed.
The crowd felt as if they were in a cauldron of boiling oil, flames searing them, their bones twisting and softening under the intense heat.
They could barely stand.
Ji Jinmo lifted his eyelids, his dark eyes falling on Ji Hong. His expression was so calm, it was as if he could not perceive Ji Hong’s fury, nor was he affected by it in any way.
His voice was cold, “What is it?”
“Without my permission, Uncle has unilaterally ordered the Demon Hunter Army to seal a First-Rank Marquis’s manor. Do you still respect imperial authority and law? Do you still hold any reverence for the imperial legal system?”
“Or do you believe that you yourself are the heavens of Lin Yuan?”
The last sentence was spoken with extreme weight. However, after Ji Jinmo led his troops to attack the imperial palace, raze the Ministry of Justice, confront the Black Armored Army before its gates, and threaten the emperor before the ancestral stone tablet, these words no longer sounded like rhetorical questions. They held no deterrence, seeming instead to have become a statement of fact.
Ji Jinmo was the heavens of Lin Yuan.
Even if he nodded and admitted it, what could they do? Besides hurling insults, what else could they do?
“Has Your Majesty forgotten?”
Ji Jinmo did not seize the opportunity to agree. He had surprisingly given Ji Hong a final shred of dignity. Yet, with the situation as it was, the crowd found his intentions difficult to fathom. He had clearly trampled the emperor’s face repeatedly, so why bother with such meaningless pretense? Was he perhaps afraid of not being able to silence the mouths of the world?
Yes!
And also yes!
The Demon Hunter Army had been stationed in the outskirts of the capital for so long, yet they had not entered the city or occupied the imperial city. Perhaps Ji Jinmo had known that His Majesty held a secret force, or perhaps he did not want to be denounced by the common people and the literati of the world as a traitor. If it hadn’t been for the Princess Consort that day, he would not have led his troops to surround the imperial city.
It seemed that since that day, it was as if a passage to an abyss had been opened, and Ji Jinmo’s actions became increasingly audacious.
The power struggle in Lin Yuan had moved from under the table to on top of it.
Thinking about it this way, it truly was a case of beauty causing ruin.
If it hadn’t been for that Nan Shiying, the internal conflict between the emperor and the prince would not have escalated to the surface and reached such a point!
The crowd beat their chests and stamped their feet, cursing Nan Shiying thousands of times. Their gazes towards Nan Chaoyin became increasingly strange. This man had played a clever game: one daughter to win over the prince, and the other, from birth, had been labeled for the emperor. He played both sides, ensuring the Nan family’s power no matter who became emperor of Lin Yuan in the future. Truly cunning.
Sensing the gazes upon him, Nan Chaoyin was slightly taken aback, his expression turning somewhat unpleasant.
“As per the late emperor’s decree, I am acting as regent, and possess the authority to act first and report later.”
“I am merely exercising my authority. How can this be considered disregard for the law?”
“Or does Your Majesty believe that after you came of age and I returned governing power, I lost the right to act first and report later?”
With each sentence Ji Jinmo spoke, Ji Hong’s expression grew more distressed. Ji Jinmo did indeed have the right to act first and report later, but he had not exercised this right for so long that Ji Hong and the ministers had all forgotten.
Ji Hong fell silent, and the others were also speechless.
They merely looked at Marquis Jinyang with some pity. The emperor could no longer afford to be the Marquis Jinyang’s master.
“Instead of dwelling on my supposed transgressions, Your Majesty might as well first examine the letter Zhang Heng is carrying out from Marquis Jinyang’s manor.” Ji Jinmo adjusted his sleeves, his phoenix eyes cast askance as he glanced at Zhang Heng. Zhang Heng, understanding immediately, stood up, pushed aside the Imperial Guards blocking him, and walked towards Ji Hong.
The Imperial Guards refused to let him pass and drew their weapons to block Zhang Heng.
In the standoff, Ji Hong waved his sleeve, and the chief eunuch hurried forward, taking the dossier from Zhang Heng’s hand.
Tucked within the dossier were several light sheets of paper.
The dossier enumerated the crimes committed by Marquis Jinyang and the people implicated in his misdeeds.
Ji Hong read with great speed, his expression growing colder and more somber as he read. At the end, he threw the letter forcefully at Marquis Jinyang’s face.
“You scoundrel!”
Among Marquis Jinyang’s numerous and serious crimes, besides the appropriation of land and disregard for human life, what Ji Hong could not tolerate most were the letters exchanged between him and the Empress Dowager.
What was written in them?
What was it all?
The paper striking his face caused no physical pain, but Marquis Jinyang felt as if his soul had been struck by a hammer. He hastily picked up the scattered letters from the ground, scanned them quickly, and his face turned ashen. He had burned all these letters, hadn’t he? How could this…
He suppressed the fear in his heart and kowtowed again, “Your Majesty, be discerning. None of these letters are from my hand. I am framed, I am framed!”
“Framed?”
Ji Hong’s eyes widened in fury, “Do you think I cannot recognize your handwriting?”
Marquis Jinyang was, after all, a relative on his mother’s side. When he was young, he had even been held by Marquis Jinyang, and he was exceptionally familiar with Marquis Jinyang’s handwriting and writing style.
Marquis Jinyang naturally knew it was his handwriting, but how could he admit it?
“Your Majesty, my handwriting is not impossible to imitate. Someone must have…”
“Is Marquis Jinyang referring to me?”
Before Marquis Jinyang could finish speaking, Ji Jinmo’s chilling voice cut him off. Marquis Jinyang had never dared to confront Ji Jinmo before. But now, if he didn’t dare, he would face beheading. To save his life, and for the sake of the entire Marquis Jinyang manor, he suddenly lifted his head, looked directly at Ji Jinmo, and said loudly, “This humble subject dares not. But based solely on these letters, this humble subject is not convinced!”
Ji Jinmo smiled.
At this point, Zhang Heng said, “Your Majesty, I have witnesses.”
Ji Hong cast a deep glance at Marquis Jinyang. In his rage, he paid no mind to how unsuitable the time was for such an inquiry. He roared, “Bring forth the witness!”
“Yes!”
Zhang Heng rose and walked out of the palace.
Ji Hong then waved his hand at the chief eunuch, who quickly ordered men to carry away the assassins’ corpses from the ground.