Eight Treasures Trousseau

71-75

Chapter Seventy-One: Assassin?

After returning to the wang fu, Hua Xi Wan had a comfortable hot water bath before burrowing into her warm blankets. The wang fu's servants put away every object that was bright, and put out somber-colored objects before the night was over

When Hua Xi Wan woke up in Yan Jin Qiu's arms in the morning, the entire wang fu had changed. It was like a beautiful woman who took off her makeup. She was still beautiful but not as stunning as she usually was.

Yan Jin Qiu watched as Hua Xi Wan put on a snowy white robe with blue adornments. She even changed her usually preferred coral and precious stone jewelry to jade and pearls. He said, "This month will inconvenience you."

The time when the Crown Prince died was not a good one. This was the interchange between the old and the new year, and winter thunder had sounded without any cause. When the news reached the common people, it would cause panic among them.

In the hearts of the people, this Crown Prince was probably a calamity. Even in death, he could not pick a good day, and had to bring misfortune to such a joyous day. Wasn't this purposefully causing everyone to not have a good year?

Xian Wang Fu was peaceful, but that did not mean that it was so smooth in the other fu. For example, Ning Wang, Baron Jing Ping, Min Huai Junzhu and the others had a sleepless night after they returned home. Today, they had to go into the palace to mourn for the Crown Prince. It was a double test of their endurance and mind.

There were officials who put forth the suggestion that because the Crown Prince was of a younger generation, his uncles should not have to mourn for him. The result was that the Emperor had him beaten to death in a fury and said to the court, "The Crown Prince may have been younger, but he was the heir to the throne. He is not the same as other imperial sons. Other than the Empress Dowager and his birth mother, everyone has to mourn for him."

Maybe it was because he had killed one of the officials, and the Emperor only had this one son no matter how terrible he was—they would do as the Emperor said. In any case, the one who would lose good fortune would be the Crown Prince, not them.

The officials and noble ladies in Jing who were of second rank and above went into the imperial palace to mourn for the Crown Prince. Requiems for the Crown Prince came to Jing on express horses from all parts of the country. Just as everyone thought the Emperor would finally settle down, Qilong Emperor threw out another bomb.

The Emperor wanted to elevate the Crown Prince to Pingxiao Emperor. This caused a ruckus in court. In history, they had seen emperors title their fathers as emperor, but where was the rationale in having a son elevated to being an emperor while his father was still alive?

This was connected to the traditions of the entire dynasty, and the whole court opposed this. Many officials knelt down at the doors to the palace and would not rise in a request for the Emperor to take back his order. Qilong Emperor refused to do so, and thus he entered a faceoff with these court officials.

The paternal family of the Empress, the Fang Clan, and the people who were formerly in the Crown Prince's camp ran around trying to gather support. If the Crown Prince was titled as emperor, then if the child inside the Crown Princess was male, the Crown Prince would not be heirless.

This was also Qilong Emperor's intention. He did not want the throne to land in the hands of other people after he died, so what he had to do now was construct a path for the child inside the Crown Princess' belly.

The neutral factions and the factions supporting the Crown Prince continued mourning for six days for the Crown Prince, and Qilong Emperor started a long fight against the opposing faction. Hua Xi Wan heard how a senior official who had seen two generations of emperors committed suicide against the Eastern Gates. The blood had splattered over the ground and the scene had been extremely bloody.