Chapter 343. It Depends on What the Empress Does (I)
Translator: Storm in a Teacup
What happened next was basically as Long had expected.
The death of the third prince caused the Emperor’s huge anger.
Even some of the officials in the Ministry of Punishment and Dali Court were dismissed and investigated!
As for the reason, of course, it was that they had failed to do their job.
After all, the one who had murdered the second prince was still not arrested!
Long Xiaoyuan guessed that it might be Lord Zhou’s idea. Maybe he still wanted to make use of the second prince’s death to do something. Therefore, the “murderer” couldn’t be found now.
Probably, Zhou Suye also got involved.
But they never had thought that, in such a short time, the third prince would have been a.s.sa.s.sinated as well.
Unluckily, the two “bodyguards” hired by the third prince now had already been beaten to death with a club.
Although, it was proved in the end that they were actually from the martial art community and had high cultivation of Martial Arts.
However, under their “protection”, the third Prince was still a.s.sa.s.sinated. Besides, they were unable to track down the murderer, even though they had foreseen that it would be bad and did not come back at all. The emperor in his anger still immediately sent someone to catch these two men.
The only weakness was that these two people had families. If not, it was not so easy to find martial art masters who had gone on the run.
These two people were directly clubbed to death after being found.
Because, they failed to protect their Lord.
The Ministry of Justice and the Dali Court were waiting for Lord Zhou to give them an order to solve the case within a deadline. However, they didn’t get the order, because, in the second morning meeting after the death of the third prince, Lord Zhou brought a person named Zhou Suye, who was actually the prince living outside the palace as commoners!
And, this prince’s mother was the former empress!
It took a lot of effort for Lord Zhou to take the throne when he was still a prince.
At that time, he had a woman he loved. It was his consort.
However, during the compet.i.tion for the throne, his consort was a.s.sa.s.sinated and disappeared.
At that time, he always thought that she was dead.
Until he succeeded to the throne, and because he missed the woman he loved, who had repeatedly averted disaster for him, he made her the honorable Empress, and allowed her cenotaph to enter the royal tomb.
The current empress was not really willing, but at that time, Lord Zhou was already the emperor, and she did not dare to go too far, plus, it was just an honorable t.i.tle granted to the deceased woman, so she did not stop it.
In this way, Zhou Suye’s mother became the late empress.
After that, the current crown prince, the second prince, and the third prince were born one after another.
In the year when Fang Shuoyang was born, Lord Zhou went on an inspection tour, encountered a heavy rain and a landslide, so he fell to the bottom of a valley and was saved by a woman.
And that woman, as it turned out, was the woman he loved, whom he thought was dead! That is, Zhou Suye’s mother!
However, at that time, although Zhou Suye’s mother survived and was saved, she had amnesia and didn’t remember who she was at all!
Lord Zhou wanted to take the woman back, but she had no memory of him, so naturally she did not want to go back.
Lord Zhou stayed at the bottom of the valley for a whole month, and the woman was finally touched by his sincerity, and Lord Zhou found many proofs of her ident.i.ty.
The woman was finally convinced of her relations.h.i.+p with Lord Zhou.
However, after living in the valley for several years, the woman had already gotten used to the life in the valley and was reluctant to return to the palace.
Lord Zhou loved her, so he did not want to force her, thinking that the valley was not far from the imperial city and he could sneak out of the palace to spend some time with her.
After the woman was touched by Lord Zhou, Lord Zhou naturally would not refuse to have s.e.x with his beloved one.
So Lord Zhou returned to the palace and came out again two months later, and the woman was already two months pregnant.
Lord Zhou once again offered to take the woman back, but she refused.
Lord Zhou again thought, “If I take her back now, she will be the empress!”
However, there was still an empress in the palace now. The woman had their own child in her womb.
If I fail to protect her well…
Lord Zhou was very protective of this child, who was the one he was most looking forward to!
So, after much deliberation, Lord Zhou agreed to let the woman stay. However, he said that he would send a mammy to take care of her. She finally agreed.
From then on, until the woman gave birth, Lord Zhou secretly visited her once or twice a month.
And he visited her even more frequently during the time when she was about to give birth.
Such frequent visits were noticed by the present Empress, who was a ruthless and secretive woman.
She found a way to control the Mammy by making her families the hostage and wanted the Mammy to kill the woman when she was delivering the baby!
The Mammy did so, but at the last minute, Zhou Suye’s mother seemed to sense something. At that time, Lord Zhou was right outside the room, so the woman shouted, attracted him in.
Mammy immediately knelt down and begged for mercy with fears as soon as she saw Lord Zhou.
Though Lord Zhou was very angry and couldn’t wait to kill Mammy, there was only one Shadow Guardian there besides him, and neither of them knew how to deliver the baby!
In the end, the woman herself gave birth to Zhou Suye with all her might. Her child survived, but she perished.
Lord Zhou knew that the Empress got involved in the whole thing. At that time, however, the empress’s relatives were so powerful that he couldn’t ignore them. What’s more, the Mammy committed suicide after spitting out the truth. Therefore, he lost the exact evidence to accuse the empress of murderer. Therefore, Lord Zhou had no option but to let it go.
However, he hated the empress from then on, and even disliked the Crown Prince very much.
Yet, because the Queen’s powerful family background, the Crown Prince had already been decided, Lord Zhou could not do anything to change it even though he prefered his son, Zhou Suye, to be the Crown Prince.
Looking at the newborn baby, Lord Zhou didn’t not take Zhou Suye back to his palace after he took care of the mammy.
He already failed to protect his own beloved woman, so he would never allow himself to put his son in danger.
Thus, this kid was secretly raised by him in ordinary family. Moreover, he arranged people to teach him both kingcraft and many other things. However, they seldom had seen each other in more than twenty years.
To protect his son, Lord Zhou had done all things.
As for Fang Shuoyang’s mother, it was a woman who looked somewhat similar to Zhou Suye’s mother. And that’s why Lord Zhou would have slept with her for several times and Fang Suoyang’s mother would have the chance to have his baby.