Chapter Forty-Eight: Implications

When he came out of Concubine Jing's Chaohua Palace, he saw a beam of sunlight shining directly on Zhong Lishuo's body. Zhong Lishuo was overjoyed in his heart, and stretched out his hand to touch the first warmth in the morning.

When he looked up, Zhong Lishuo suddenly felt a sense of relief, and even his steps felt much lighter. Originally, there was still a distance from Chaohua Hall to the Feixia Hall of the Emperor's Bedroom, but before he knew it, Zhong Lishuo was already standing outside the Feixia Palace. Zhong Lishuo stood outside the door, looking at the palatial ear palace and actually had a trance-like feeling. A meaningful smile tugged at the corners of his mouth.

Maybe in the near future, this palace will be his.

At this moment, Zhong Lishuo's ambition was infinitely magnified, and he felt that he was full of strength. Looking at the guards standing at the entrance of the hall, he suddenly felt that they were all guarding his palace, and he was suddenly full of confidence and walked towards the Feixia Palace.

The palatial palace inside, perhaps because there have not been too many people coming in for a long time, has invisibly given birth to a musty smell, just like the feeling of death between people and death. Zhong Lishuo walked on the marble floor and felt a cold touch coming from the soles of his feet, and that feeling made him shiver. He asked about the unpleasant musty smell, and the thought of his father, who was getting closer and closer to death, gave him an extremely complex and contradictory emotion.

If you say from the bottom of your heart, Zhong Lishuo is extremely eager for his father to die, once he dies, Zhong Lishuo may be able to sit on his throne and become a king who can command the world, and also win back the anger that he and his mother Jing Guifei have endured for many years, but on the other hand, if he is not powerful enough at all, the death of his father will be tantamount to pushing him into a darker and more miserable world. If he hadn't defeated his rivals Prince and Shangguan Hong before his father's death, then he would have watched his opponents sit on the throne, and the best outcome for himself would have been to become a prisoner, trapped in a cage and watch the enemy enjoy the glory, and more likely, he didn't even have this opportunity. That is death, and maybe not even death.

As soon as he thought of this, Zhong Lishuo felt cold, the kind of cold that came from fear, but his father and he were blood relatives after all, even if it was not good for him, he still had a trace of affection with him.

Zhong Lishuo suddenly felt confused at this moment, he didn't know how to weigh the pros and cons between them.

After a "squeak", Zhong Lishuo's mind was pulled back to reality. In front of him is his father who is asleep. There was not much light in the palatial room, Zhong Lishuo squinted, and barely saw the old emperor lying on the bed.

The musty smell in the air became stronger and stronger, and even emitted a faint stench emitted by the corpses of animals after they died, Zhong Lishuo subconsciously wrinkled his nose, and his eyes adjusted to the light in the room.

"Your Majesty, the eldest prince is here." The eunuch beside Zhong Lishuo went to the bedside to report to the emperor on the bed. In the dimness, Zhong Lishuo saw his father raise his body with a little difficulty, swinging in mid-air, and indeed did not speak. The eunuch understood, turned his head and said to Zhong Lishuo:

"The eldest prince, Your Majesty asked you to come and speak." After speaking, he passed by Zhong Lishuo with a flattering smile, exited the temple gate, and closed the door from the outside.

Zhong Lishuo heard the sound of the door closing, hurriedly took two steps forward, knelt down beside the emperor's bed, and said goodbye. Looking down, I heard the old emperor's faint and somewhat weak voice:

"Get up." Zhong Lishuo got up in response, and then heard the old emperor continue: "What you asked you to check has been clarified?" Zhong Lishuo listened, and bowed down to the old emperor:

"It's been checked. Lord Shangguan did covet the throne, and the sons also found out about another matter, and the sons were really frightened, and they didn't know if they should tell their fathers. When the old emperor heard this, he opened his eyes, and although he was seriously ill, his eyes were not as clear as before, but his eyes were as sharp as before, and he squinted:

"Say." Zhong Lishuo nodded:

"Erchen found out that the killer organization that exists in the rivers and lakes, and the mastermind behind the Phantom Pavilion is Shangguan Hong, whose purpose is to neutralize his authority in the court and drive away dissidents. Erchen not only disturbed him during the investigation, he had sent a killer to assassinate Erchen, fortunately Erchen was able to escape with the blessing of his father, but he didn't want the killer to be left by other killers, and he couldn't catch the witness, but the killer was already seriously injured and left this before leaving. After speaking, Zhong Lishuo took out the short dagger from his arms, wrapped it in a white paragraph, and presented it in front of the emperor.

The old emperor looked at the dagger from a distance and felt familiar, so he trembled and stretched out his hand to take it from Zhong Lishuo's hand and carefully studied it in front of him. Zhong Lishuo noticed that the old emperor's expression became more solemn as he looked at the subtlety of the dagger. Zhong Lishuo smiled in his heart and continued:

"Father, please look here." As he spoke, he pointed to the Western Regions inscription on the handle of the dagger, "There are three inscriptions here, Erchen sent someone to check, these three words are Western Regions characters, if they are translated into Chinese characters, they are" Shangguan Xuan', Erchen suspected that this was a person's name, and his surname was Shangguan, so he sent someone to check the genealogy of Shangguan Hong's family, and learned that Shangguan Hong had a son, one son was born to his wife, named Shangguan Yi, and the other son was called Shangguan Xuan, but Erchen found that the child named Shangguan Xuan died violently when he was very young, and no record of Shangguan Xuan's mother was found on the genealogy of Shangguan's family. When the old emperor heard this, he suddenly coughed:

"The child's mother knows." The old emperor's voice was still weak and slow, and he had to take a long breath every time he spoke, "That woman used to be a singer, and I gave Shangguan Hong a concubine. Later, I heard that she died violently along with the child she had born. When Zhong Lishuo heard this, he hurriedly said:

"Yes, Erchen also thought it was strange at first, but think about it, how could this dagger fall into the hands of others, and later sent someone to visit and learned that Shangguan's family did not have a mausoleum for the child who died young, so Erchen thought, isn't that the child not dead." Speaking of this, the old emperor's eyes suddenly widened with anger:

"Bold!" Zhong Lishuo was startled and hurriedly knelt aside:

"The father was angry, and the retainers knew that such speculation was unfair to Lord Shangguan, so they interrogated the entourage who resisted the assassin on behalf of the retinue that day, and several of them said that the assassin's appearance was somewhat similar to that of Lord Shangguan, and his age was only in his twenties, which was similar to the age of the child who died in Shangguan's family." As soon as the words fell, I saw the old emperor sit up from the bed with difficulty, and one hand clenched into a fist and kept smashing against the bed.

Some deafening sounds attracted the eunuchs outside the door, who hurriedly stepped forward to persuade the emperor. Zhong Lishuo didn't dare to say anything more, just waiting for the emperor to make a decision. But I didn't want to, and after a few coughs from the old emperor, I heard a sentence:

"Lone knows. The emperor has worked hard, go back and rest. If you are lonely and lacking, you will retreat first. ”

This caught Zhong Lishuo off guard, he wanted to say something more, but after thinking about it, now saying anything is a snake to add to it, so he can only obediently withdraw from the hall.