Chapter 37
Face-Slapping the Son of a Concubine and a Transmigrating Girl (11)
Editor: ghost
Leisurely sitting upright, Zhou Xu smiled faintly towards the crown prince beside him, “Good scheme.”
The crown prince reached to lightly pat Zhou Xu’s head for a while, then stood up. At the moment, apart from the shadow guards, all the imperial guards had all already entered the room. The person who had chopped off Chen Fu Min’s hand was precisely Ye Qi who had left earlier.
“Ye Qi, there is nothing left to handle. You may go.”
“Yes.”
This time, Ye Qi really left. Chen Fu Min was still shrieking miserably and Bai Zhang’s head was wet with cold sweat.
With a thump, Bai Zhang knelt onto the ground and said, “This subordinate’s crime is absolutely unforgivable. May your highness allow me to commit suicide.”
“Bai Zhang, didn’t you follow me since you were nine years old?”
“Yes.”
“Then you felt that after many years, I still wouldn’t know your habits?” The crown prince ordered the other imperial guards, “Drag him out to execute.”
“Yes.”
After Bai Zhang was dragged out, Chen Fu Min stopped wailing. He began to violently tremble. Kneeling on the floor, he kowtowed repeatedly. The sound of head against floor resounded and Zhou Xu already felt pain listening.
“Enough, don’t knock anymore. I will give you a chance; say everything you know and I’ll spare you this once.”
“Thank you, your highness. Thank you, your highness.”
“Speak.”
“Your highness, I’m just a p.a.w.n. Everything was instructed by the Minister of Rites Zhang Liu Quan.”
“The Minister of Rites Zhang Liu Quan? What else did he order you to do?”
“There is really nothing else, your highness. I was forced; I have to take care of my aging parents and young children. He held my official position against me. How could I refuse? May your highness judge fairly.”
“Then the previously sent disaster relief funds?”
“I really don’t know anything about that. All the money received was spent on the common people. I definitely did not embezzle even one silver. Your highness may investigate.”
The crown prince laughed coldly, straightforwardly ordering his imperial guards, “Chop off his other hand.”
“Yes.”
“Ah…. No no no, I embezzled, I embezzled. Right, right, I still have other things I know. Please wait, your highness, please wait.”
“Speak!”
Chen Fu Min spilled everything. Naturally, the higher-ups had concealed a lot from him, hence he did not know everything. However he provided the crown prince with a lot of clues and leads.
Chen Fu Min told them where he had hidden the evidence and it was in line with Zhou Xu and the crown prince’s guess. It was precisely under the long table in the office.
When Ye Qi returned, he brought along the evidence he had found. Afterwards he followed what Chen Fu Min said and found other evidence. Moreover, they also knew where the majority of the relief funds had gone: Min Nan. This was precisely where the third prince raised his personal army.
They could say that it was a coincidence, but no one would believe that. After Chen Fu Min was imprisoned, Zhou Xu asked, “You really want to go to Min Nan?”
“En.”
“You know that it’s where the third prince is raising his soldiers. It is too dangerous.”
The crown prince touched the graze on Zhou Xu’s neck, saying, “Nothing ventured, nothing gained.”
“Don’t touch.” Zhou Xu avoided the crown prince’s hand. Although it was a small wound, even just a touch hurt. He hated pain the most.
Zhou Xu did not expect the crown prince to obediently stop touching his wound using his hand; he began using his tongue instead.
Feeling his tongue graze across his skin, Zhou Xu went limp with gooseb.u.mps. The slight pain also vanished. All that remained was stimulation.
Hugged by the crown prince, Zhou Xu raised his neck. The fine and smooth contour of his neck was like a carving – there were no imperfections. The crown prince retracted his tongue, but the movement of his throat showed that he was restraining himself, and rather painfully at that.
Zhou Xu did not need to look at his throat to know what state he was in. A certain hard and stiff thing was pressed against Zhou Xu and it would not be lying.
“What, you want to do it again?” Zhou Xu gently laughed.
“No, it is just that I will react whenever I touch you,” the crown prince loosened his embrace, continuing, “I can bear with it.”
Zhou Xu burst into laughter seeing that the crown prince’s ears had reddened again.
“Come over, apply medicine for your wound.” The crown prince took out an ointment.
The ice-cold and transparent ointment was applied onto his skin, making Zhou Xu tremble.
It was just applying medicine to a small wound, but the two made the room full of ambiguity. When it was Zhou Xu’s turn to apply medicine on the crown prince, a certain place formed a magnificent tent.
Taking the ointment the crown prince pa.s.sed over, a corner of Zhou Xu’s mouth hooked. His slender appearance expressed some joking manner, “This ointment is really slippery. Maybe it has other uses?”
The crown prince looked doubtfully at Zhou Xu. Zhou Xu grabbed a certain place that was tall and erect, fondling it after removing his pants.
Shocked by Zhou Xu’s actions, the crown prince’s immediate reaction made Zhou Xu even more playful. That place went soft before slowly standing up again.
In the end, the two naturally did not do it. However using the ointment’s properties, Zhou Xu let the crown prince release once.
Afterwards, Zhou Xu asked the crown prince how he found out it was Bai Zhang. The crown prince explained a simple reason: Bai Zhang always carried out matters with prudence and caution, but after arriving at Jiang Nan, he unconsciously became more active. If it was under normal circ.u.mstances, the crown prince would not notice, but ever since the ambush incident, he noticed.
For the antidote, the crown prince had someone follow Chen Fu Min, with three people taking shifts. Hence the crown prince already knew the plan he would deploy, but he wanted to beat them at their own game. Naturally, before Chen Fu Min and Bai Zhang had entered, both of them had already taken the antidote.
Zhou Xu nodded. The crown prince was born in the imperial family. In front of the crown prince, Chen Fu Min’s little tricks were only pitiful and laughable.
After that, Zhou Xu returned to his own room to rest, but the crown prince did not. Instead he carried his sword and headed to the prison.
The imprisoned Chen Fu Min dispiritedly sat at the same spot. The crown prince let people open the cell door.
Chen Fu Min a.s.sumed that the crown prince came to release him. As he was going to kowtow, his head had had already fallen to the ground.
He was beheaded. The crown prince did not even glance at the head on the floor and turned to leave. The imperial guards behind him were in some shock. As the crown prince, he had always been low-key and cautious. Straightforwardly killing Chen Fu Min, this could be taken advantage of by people with intentions, becoming an excuse to suppress the crown prince.
However, the crown prince did not regret it. Daring to covet Zhou Xu, just this point alone was enough for Chen Fu Min to receive death; It was an unpardonable crime.
As the plague was being cured, the arrangements made to relieve the disaster victims were systematically carried out. Although money was still tight, with Zhou Xu’s financial aid, it could still make do.
In addition, they secured Chen Fu Min’s personal treasury. Hence the common people who were living in hunger and the cold could finally eat a hot meal. When all the people found out that it was the crown prince’s hard work, naturally his ascension was in line with popular sentiment.
The crown prince really did not know that a magistrate could live so extravagantly until he saw Chen Fu Min’s mansion. He was left with only anger. This was an official of the Left Court?
The mansion’s floor area was huge and each building was finely ornamented. The fountains were grand waterfalls and the garden had rockery that were too numerous to count. Everything showed that the owner had put in a lot of thought and spent a lot of money to construct this courtyard; yet it was only a courtyard.
When they took a look into the building, they were greeted with another scene of grand luxury; even the bed curtains were made of fine silk. It really embodied a verse from a poem: behind the red doors meat and wine go to waste while out on the road last the frozen bones of the poor.
Furthermore, Zhou Xu’s wide-spread banks hired storytellers. They began to spread praises of the crown prince’s fairness and wisdom everywhere, and naturally blackened the third prince’s name in pa.s.sing.
This kind of matter actually did not need much energy to carry out, but the results were quite good. The crown prince would not carry it out, so this was left to Zhou Xu.
At present, Chen Zhou’s disastrous situation was mostly under control. The matter of Chen Fu Min definitely would have alarmed Zhang Liu Quan in the capital and his superiors, hence they needed to rush to Qin Zhou, another badly-affected region, on the same night.
The plague situation in Qin Zhou was already under control due to the crown prince sending medicine. A portion of the rations and money were already distributed, but Qin Zhou had thrice the population of Chen Zhou thus when rationing, a small wave of refugee riots happened. Although it was temporarily suppressed, Qin Zhou’ magistrate Qin Shu Qiang could never feel at ease due to Qin Zhou’s much too large population.
Qin Shu Qiang was past fifty years old. Despite being an official for so many years, he had always remained free from corruption and had never fawned on or curried favour with people. He never submitted to force, mostly due to his temperament – being upright to the point of stubbornness. Hence in his fifties, he only made it to the position of magistrate and was unlikely to raise his position anymore.
Knowing that the crown prince had yet to arrive, Qin Shu Qiang was in no rush to receive him and continued to handle official doc.u.ments. With Qin Zhou’s large population, there were many provincial and county magistrates that he was unable to control. For example, Feng Huang prefecture’s magistrate Jiang Qi Fang was someone he could not control despite the prefecture being within his jurisdiction.
It was widely known that he was once a commoner but because he had saved the life of the late Emperor, he had received a golden death exemption plaque that acted as a life-saving talisman; no matter what he did, he would not receive punishment.
With no one to receive them, the crown prince and Zhou Xu headed to the government office by themselves and entered the rear of the building where they handled administrative work. They found Qin Shu Qiang unexpectedly lying on the long table, dead.
Swiftly going forward to look over the situation, Ye Qi reported, “He’s dead. The corpse still has some warmth; he most likely died within the past fifteen minutes.”
Zhou Xu went to take a look as well. Seeing that the blood at the corner of his mouth was not bright red but rather dull red, with traces of some black substance inside, he concluded, “Poisoned.”
Ye Qi nodded and picked up the teapot. He sniffed it, then handed it to another imperial guard.
The guard took out a bit of medicinal powder to put inside. In no more than an instant, he ascertained, “There is poison inside.”
The government office’s adviser, registrar and others were all present. The crown prince directly instructed, “Adviser, first temporarily take over the magistrate’s duties. A newly-appointed magistrate will be sent over by the higher-ups within a month. Also, this prince will ensure that you will all get to justify yourselves in regards to Magistrate Qin’s matter.”
“Many thanks to your highness.”
The adviser was already no longer young. As Qin Shu Qiang’s colleague for over twenty years, he was enduring his sorrow at the moment and naturally the registrar was the same. Seeing their grief that was hard for them to restrain, the crown prince knew that Qin Shu Qiang was a good official.
Letting them first handle Magistrate Qin’s corpse and console his family, the crown prince decided to personally deal with Jiang Qi Fang, not informing Qin Shu Qiang’s advisors for the time being.
The imperial guards also helped out. Fifteen minutes later, Qin Shu Qiang’s corpse was carried away. The crown prince took out the doc.u.ment that was stained with blood. The more he looked, the angrier he became. He had already known before arriving that Jiang Qi Fang was nothing good, but after seeing the matters he carried out for real, he then knew that he was basically worse than a beast.
Without mentioning what he did in the past, in the present in the situation where refugees were everywhere, he unexpectedly could search house to house for food, saying that it was the collection of taxes. But after the great disaster in the south the emperor had long since exempted the people of this region from taxes.
Feng Huang Zhou had received no less food aid and relief fund sent by the court yet why were their residents escaping from there?
When the crown prince was in Chen Zhou, he had ordered people to first give Qin Zhou a portion of the rations. But when other regions in Qin Zhou distributed the food, why was it only Jiang Qi Fang’s Feng Huang Zhou that did not distribute?
This did not end there. Because of starvation, the commoners in Feng Huang Zhou had started selling their sons and daughters. Jiang Qi Fang was truly excellent, as someone who the common people relied on for their livelihood, he had the impudence to buy young children for a low price, then selling them. He even kept a few beautiful girls to serve as maids and to warm the bed.
The crown prince read every word on every line on the doc.u.ment. He finally understood why Qin Shu Qiang already had a head of grey hair at barely fifty years of age.
Unable to continue reading, the crown prince put the doc.u.ment down. Zhou Xu saw that the crown prince was upset. He picked up the doc.u.ment on the table and swiftly read through it.
“What, feeling sorry for them?”
The crown prince went silent for quite awhile before answering, “I must sit at that position. The mistakes Father Emperor made, I will correct them.”
“That position is yours without a doubt.” Zhou Xu could understand the bitterness the crown prince felt after reading the doc.u.ment so he did not say much; the crown prince knew what to do.
After gaining first-hand knowledge of the people’s walks of life, the present crown prince became all the more quiet. It was like there was a sinking object, slowly falling into his steel heart.
“I have an idea. See if it’s feasible.” Zhou Xu said.
“Let’s listen to it.”
“The death exemption plaque is the most important thing to your royal family, hence the emperor can not touch Jiang Qi Fang. Even if you ascend you still would not be able to take action. Since the plaque is so important, why don’t we start from there?”
“Good idea.”
The news that Magistrate Qin was murdered spread like wildfire. The commoners of Qin Zhou cried themselves hoa.r.s.e. That evening, the Feng Huang Zhou magistrate’s home had been robbed. The death exemption plaque bestowed onto them by the late emperor had been stolen. The robber had even left behind a letter, accusing them of seventeen charges, all of which were punishable by death.
On the second day, the crown prince paid Jiang Qi Fang a visit. Jiang Qi Fang slightly smiled, showing a mouth of yellow teeth, “Respectfully welcoming your highness the crown prince.”
The crown prince was expressionless. He held up a complaint letter and asked, “Magistrate Jiang, do you plead guilty to these seventeen charges?”
Jiang Qi Fang looked at the sheepskin scroll, then revealed his yellow teeth, “But this humble official’s death exemption plaque wouldn’t let this humble official acknowledge.”
A handsome and bright scholar stepped forward from the crown prince’s side. His long and narrow eyes were filled with ridicule.
“Dare I ask Magistrate Jiang why your house contains seven imitations of the death exemption plaque? How will you give an explanation?”
Translator’s Note:
oof c.o.c.kblocked by the author T.T also, may a kind artistic soul bless this novel with fanart (wink wink)
for the poll, I would translate Chidai army to the Red Army since there is another army called the Zhanlan army which means Azure Army. So we can have Red and Azure or leave it as Chidai and Zhanlan