The return of the son-in-law

Now that it has been suspected that King Liang is inseparable from Huo Yu's death, this "sixth prince" who inexplicably came out of the Liu Mansion, Li Shaojun and Guo Zhan'an feel that they should start with the true identity of this "sixth prince".

Fuquan couldn't help here, so Guo Zhan'an sent him to another room to rest, and took him home later, so that Fuquan would not appear in Guo's mansion in broad daylight and be given by Liu Pianpian or others. Found.And Ah Xin, as Li Shaojun's confidant, naturally stayed to serve him.

"Has Your Majesty carefully looked at the jade pendant worn by the 'Sixth Prince' brought back by King Liang?"

What Guo Zhanan was most concerned about was the four-clawed dragon jade pendant, which was the most powerful physical evidence of the identity of the sixth prince.Huo Yu's four-clawed dragon jade pendant had been locked in a box by him all the time, keeping it safe for a while. No matter how powerful Liang Wang was, it was impossible for him to steal the four-clawed dragon jade pendant from him.

This jade pendant will only be carved by a dedicated royal jade craftsman after each prince is born, and sometimes a tassel embroidered with numbers will be hung to indicate the prince's rank among brothers.

"I've seen it before. The four-clawed dragon jade pendant is exactly the same as mine." Speaking of this, Li Shaojun couldn't help but feel a little frustrated, "He has always carried the jade pendant of King Liang, and I saw the two jade pendants together. It may be that King Liang gave his piece to that impostor."

Guo Zhanan frowned and said: "Your Majesty, the jade craftsmen in the palace earn a lot of money, but there are also skilled craftsmen outside the palace. Such a large piece of mutton jade is not available to ordinary people, but the King of Liang can. Could it be that the King of Liang is looking for it? A jade craftsman outside the palace, let the jade craftsman carve an exact replica of his four-clawed dragon jade pendant?"

Li Shaojun shook his head and said: "Although it is not impossible, the possibility is really too small. The jade craftsmen in the palace have mastered a technique of carving jade that has long disappeared outside the palace. There is a huge crowd of people. You have to find it outside the palace. Such a person is tantamount to finding a needle in a haystack."

After hearing this, Guo Zhan'an had another guess: "Dare to ask Your Majesty, where are all the jade craftsmen in the palace? Who can you usually contact?"

Li Shaojun didn't care to tell Guo Zhan'an these things: "These jade craftsmen live in a palace in the southwest of the imperial palace. They are not allowed to go out at ordinary times. Food, clothing, and the raw materials and tools used for carving jade are all supervised by special internal supervisors and The guards sent them in. Except for them, jade craftsmen rarely see other people. Even if the concubines in the palace wanted these jade craftsmen to carve some jade for them, they had to ask the emperor's permission, and then the jade craftsmen in charge of guarding the jade craftsmen would Under the supervision of the prison and guards, meet with those jade craftsmen and talk about your requirements."

At first, when Emperor Wen ordered the prince to wear the four-clawed dragon jade pendant, in order to show the difference between the prince and other members of the royal family, he ordered those jade craftsmen to only carve the four-clawed dragon jade pendant and leave everything else alone.It's just that there are more or less princes, sometimes three princes are born in a year, and the jade craftsman will be busy for a year, and sometimes there is no more prince in the palace for several years, these few jade craftsmen just Being able to carve useless objects in the yard all day long is a pastime.

After Emperor Jing ascended the throne, he felt that it was a waste for jade craftsmen to only carve four-clawed dragon jade pendants, so he changed the rules, and other members of the royal family could also ask these jade craftsmen to carve some jade for them with the emperor's permission.

It's just that in this way, the jade craftsman can get in touch with many people after all.

After Li Shaojun finished speaking, he also realized the purpose of Guo Zhan'an's question: "If the king of Liang threatened jade craftsmen, what could he use to coerce them? These jade craftsmen entered the palace at a young age, and their families outside the palace were completely gone." Contact, not to mention marrying a wife and having children. Unless the emperor at that time thought of them, he would point out a maid to the jade craftsman. If the child was a girl, she would stay in the palace as a maid, and if it was a boy, she would continue to stay in the palace. If the boy is found to have no talent for being a jade craftsman, he will be sent to sort out jade materials and equipment. At the time of the emperor, none of the jade craftsmen married wives and had children, and these jade craftsmen could not be like others Playing around in the casino and owed a whole lot of gambling debts. What else can King Liang use to coerce the jade craftsman?"

Guo Zhanan shook his head and said: "Although I can't think of it for a while, your Majesty, other guesses have been ruled out. The breakthrough now lies with the jade craftsman. As long as you find out which jade craftsman carved this four-clawed dragon jade pendant, then Liang The king's strategy, the identity of the 'sixth prince' in the palace, the answers to these questions are not far away."

After hearing this, Li Shaojun pondered for a moment, and said: "What Guo Qing said is true. Since King Liang concocted a 'sixth prince', he must have a plan in place to prevent us from finding out anything. You don't have to do it yourself. Let's do it, so as not to startle the snake, I have my own arrangements."

Huo Yu is Li Shaojun's younger brother, Guo Zhan'an is naturally not worried that Li Shaojun will be perfunctory, he also knows that his identity is conspicuous, and the eyes and ears of King Liang may be watching him, so he will not take the initiative to take on this errand.

But this doesn't mean that he can't do something about investigating the "Sixth Prince".

"According to the 'Sixth Prince', he has lived in the Liu Mansion for more than ten years, and only Liu Yuanheng and a few people have known of his existence. Except for three meals a day, no one has ever been near the house where he lives." Guo Zhanan Recalling the scene when a living person was searched out of the house that day, he continued, "When I saw him come out that day, although his expression was flustered, his steps were firm and his complexion was very good. Those prisoners in the big prison will be released after a few months. All of them were sallow and emaciated, with sluggish looks. He has been locked in a room for more than ten years, and he rarely contacts strangers, how could it be like this?"

"Do you believe his nonsense?" Speaking of this, Li Shaojun sneered, "That Beijing dialect is even smoother than mine. Liu Yuanheng is not from the capital. He only came to Beijing in his 30s, and his housekeeper also came from his hometown The ones brought there are probably at such an age. When people get old, they can’t change their accent. If what the housekeeper said is true, who did he learn his Beijing dialect from? Also, just yesterday , the emperor asked me to lead him to worship in front of the portrait of my mother. He imitated my movements behind me. He looked like he didn't understand anything, but he was very proficient in his gestures and gestures without any hesitation. One was imprisoned for more than ten years since he was a child. People who have never read the book know this set of etiquette?"

After hearing this, Guo Zhan'an became more firm in his guess: "There are a lot of doubts about this person, but as long as there is that four-clawed dragon jade pendant, no matter how many doubts there are, the emperor will not recognize him."

"It's not just this." Li Shaojun shook his head and said, "That day, King Liang suggested that a blood drop be offered to confess his relatives, and his blood was mixed with mine. If this cannot be explained clearly, the emperor will not believe me. "

Guo Zhan'an reassured: "It's not necessarily accurate to recognize relatives by dripping blood. In the past, the First Emperor recognized Lu Buwei as his second father. Isn't it because there were rumors that the first emperor's blood and Lu Buwei's were fused together?"

Li Shaojun raised his eyebrows and asked, "What does Guo Qing say?"

Guo Zhan'an said in detail: "First, millions of years have passed since Nuwa created humans. In these millions of years, who can guarantee that they have no relatives with others? After serving, there will be less movement between relatives, and in a hundred years, the contact will probably be completely broken. The blood of that person and His Majesty have melted together, maybe there was the same ancestor thousands of years ago? As the so-called Long Sheng The nine sons are all different. Even if they have the same ancestor, some people can achieve great success, while others can only be unknown. Second, this drop of blood can be manipulated, even if King Liang was not there at the time. Compared with His Majesty's golden words, who should we trust?"

After hearing this, Li Shaojun thought about it carefully, and couldn't help but burst into laughter: "As expected of Guo Qing, she is really amazing!"

Guo Zhan'an lowered his head and said: "Thank you for your praise. Your Majesty, it is inconvenient for me to intervene in the matter of the jade pendant, but I can do my best in the Liu Mansion. Living alone in the Liu Mansion for more than ten years, even if Liu Yuanheng and the Chief Manager of the Liu Mansion Deliberately concealing it, would the people who delivered the meals not know? Would the people who delivered the clothes not know? To take a step back, a person who eats and drinks alone always leaves some traces. There are hundreds of people in Liu's house. It cannot be kept hidden for more than ten years. If it was said that they were hindered by Liu Yuanheng in the past, they dared not speak out, but now that the Liu Mansion has been defeated, they are like duckweeds, why don't they seize the opportunity to claim credit for their crimes now?"

Li Shaojun couldn't help but nodded and said: "Guo Qing's words are reasonable. Liang Wang's big lie is full of loopholes. We must hurry up and don't let Liang Wang take advantage of it. Look at the father's words." The meaning seems to be to keep that man in the palace, to make up for the lack of father-son relationship in the past ten years. After a while, when the interrogation of the common man Li Bina is over, I am afraid that it will be announced to the world, and he will be made a prince .”

Guo Zhan'an was a little surprised when he heard the end: "Common man Li Bo? Who is interrogating?"

"Who else? Of course it's my uncle Nine Emperors. Ever since he rescued the 'Sixth Prince' from the Liu Mansion, he has been more active than anyone else, wishing he could take over all of this with one hand." Mentioning this matter Li Shaojun had a headache because of the incident, "But don't worry, I think what King Liang meant, probably he wanted to kill people to silence him. So I specially sent Zuo Xingzhi, Shangshu of the Ministry of Punishment, to interrogate him. With Li Boren in prison, he forced someone to bite his tongue and kill himself."

Guo Zhan'an said: "Your Majesty is wise, Li Bo must not die now, I always feel that the king of Liang attacked Li Bo so quickly, there must be something hidden in it that we don't know about."

"I understand, I will keep an eye on this side, and I will never let Li Bo and Liu Taichang have an accident." Li Shaojun sighed, "Back then, Li Bo and I were fighting to the death in the court, who would have thought that now I would think about it. Do everything possible to save his life? The world is really impermanent."

King Liang is now concentrating on interrogating Li Bo, which brings Guo Zhanan a lot of convenience.After he left the palace, he didn't go back to the Guo Mansion, but went directly to a prison where everyone in the Liu Mansion was detained, made a list, handed it to his subordinates, and asked them to interrogate them one by one according to the list——Guang Liu Yuanheng of the Liu family There are hundreds of people in Liu's mansion, and if he came to ask alone, he really wanted to ask forever.

Of course, the content of the interrogation was decided by Guo Zhanan alone.In order to avoid leaking the news, it is naturally impossible for him to let those yamen servants directly ask everyone in the Liu Mansion whether the Sixth Prince has been locked up in the Liu Mansion.The few questions Guo Zhanan listed on the paper were all asking why there was something strange about the Liu family. It seemed that he was investigating whether the Liu family had concealed and failed to report crimes. The "six princes".

But even if there is a yamen servant to help interrogate, this is not something that can be resolved in a short while.Guo Zhan'an could only resist the urge to avenge Huo Yu immediately, and used his hatred to drive himself to find the loopholes left by King Liang.

The earliest results came out, but on the side of King Liang.

On this day, Zuo Xingzhi, Shangshu of the Ministry of Punishment, came to see Li Shaojun in a hurry.After he entered the palace, he trotted all the way over, his official uniform was completely wet.

"Your Majesty, King Liang met Liu Taichang and Li Bo alone last night."

"Oh? How did you know that?"

Zuo Xingzhi replied: "Your Majesty has entrusted me. These days, I specially asked the prison to arrange tough-tempered jailers to be on duty at night. Last night, King Liang suddenly appeared in the prison and said that he had thought of several important questions and wanted to interrogate Liu Taichang immediately. With the common man Li Bo, the jailers are not allowed to record his name in the register. The jailers dare not refuse, but they will report to me when they change their posts early this morning."

"Oh, sudden interrogation at night? According to the rules of this dynasty, how many interrogators are required to be present when interrogating prisoners at night?"

Zuo Xingzhi replied without thinking: "Your Majesty, according to the law of this dynasty, if a prisoner is interrogated at night, three interrogators must be present to show fairness."

Li Shaojun's expression darkened suddenly, and he slammed the brush in his hand on the table: "It seems that my Nine Emperor Uncle has lived a life of his own all these years, even daring to disobey the laws of this court!"

Zuo Xingzhi hurriedly said: "Your Majesty, calm down!"

Li Shaojun was furious: "Does he really think that I can deceive you casually? What a King Liang, what a King Liang! Zuo Xingzhi, I want you to save the lives of Liu Taichang and the common man Li Bo .As long as one of them dies before my permission, you can go with them!"

Zuo Xingzhi's forehead was dripping with cold sweat, and he hurriedly responded, "I obey the order."

Li Shaojun lost his temper, calmed down, and comforted Zuo Xingzhi with a few words: "Zuo Qing, I also know that this matter has been hard on you. It's just that I have just ascended the throne, and the King of Liang is ready to move regardless of the remaining prestige of the emperor. .Looking at the capital, there are only a few of you that I can trust."

Zuo Xingzhi immediately expressed his loyalty: "Don't worry, Your Majesty, I will never fail to live up to Your Majesty's great trust!"

Only then was Li Shaojun satisfied, nodded and said: "Then Zuo Qing, you have to go to the prison again, I want to know what the King of Liang saw Liu Taichang and the commoner Li Bo last night, what did he say to them?"

As a result, Li Shaojun did not wait for Zuo Xingzhi, but instead waited for a piece of news - Liu Taichang admitted that she stole the sixth prince Li Shaoyu on the Southern Tour, but Gu Nian Li Shaoyu was just a child at the time, so he did not feel cruel, but gave it to her His father, that is, Liu Yuanheng.

When the Supreme Emperor Li Chonghao learned of this, he was furious: "Poisonous woman! It's useless for me to favor her so much back then, but this bitch is so heartless, to kill a child who is more than two years old! Come here, give Bai Ling One, let this poisonous woman understand herself, so as not to dirty my hands!"

"Father, wait a minute!" Li Shaojun rushed over with his people and stopped him with words.

"Wait? Why do you want me to wait?" Li Chonghao glared at Li Shaojun, and asked, "Your younger brother has been murdered by this poisonous woman for more than ten years. Now you let me wait? You unfilial son, Are you really going to piss me off!"

"Li Shaoyu" on the side wiped his tears at the right time and said: "Father, you don't have to be angry with your sons and ministers. Your Majesty naturally has his reasons for saying this."

The words of "Li Shaoyu" seemed to be excuses for Li Shaojun, but in fact they were like adding fuel to the fire.

Sure enough, after hearing this, Li Chonghao became more and more angry. He simply took a peach from the fruit plate on the side and threw it at Li Shaojun. After all the grievances, now that the prisoner has been found, he refuses to let me severely punish the poisonous woman, and even pleads for mercy on her behalf. How can there be such a brother in the world? Li Shaojun, you are in vain as a brother, let alone the emperor! "

Li Shaojun didn't dodge either, and let Taozi and Li Chonghao's saliva spray on him.He glanced at the smugness in "Li Shaoyu"'s eyes, and sneered in his heart——

It's just pretending to be wronged. I have been begging for justice in the palace for more than ten years, and you still want to fight in front of me?

Li Shaojun didn't need to lay the groundwork at all, and choked up with a thud: "Father, my son knows that my father has missed my sixth brother all these years, and my son is the same. Over the past ten years, my son has always thought of my sixth brother from time to time, thinking that if my sixth brother If my wife came back from the southern patrol road peacefully, what would she look like now? Would she be as naughty as I was when I was a child, or would she obediently follow the master to study? And the mother, after returning from the southern patrol road, she would miss her sixth brother day and night, In the end, the longing became sick and he passed away. Now that the sixth younger brother finally came back, the son is happy, but he is ruthless to the Liu family! Now that Liu Taichang is confessing, how can she die so easily?"

These words were touching, even though Li Chonghao had always been displeased with Li Shaojun, he couldn't help but be moved: "So that's what you meant, but I blamed you by mistake."

Li Shaojun laughed at the right time: "It's the son's fault, and it's the son who didn't make it clear. Father, the Liu family has caused the sixth younger brother to suffer for more than ten years. She can't be cheap with a white silk. In my opinion, it's just She should be allowed to suffer the crimes that the sixth brother has suffered in these years, and it won't be too late when she pays off, and when the results come to an end."

"Li Shaoyu" hurriedly said: "Thank you, Your Majesty. It's just that Yu'er has escaped from the sea of ​​suffering and the Bodhisattva has manifested. Yu'er has made a great wish in front of the portrait of the queen mother, and she wants to chant scriptures and Buddha every day to comfort the spirit of the queen mother. In my opinion, it is better to send it off early. Mrs. Liu, let's go, it can be regarded as accumulating evil virtues for the mother."

"Sixth brother still has this kind of filial piety." Li Shaojun pretended to be surprised, "Since this is the case, Father, why don't you abolish all the titles of the Liu family and let her work together with other maids in the harem? This can be regarded as making up for more than ten years. The mistakes made years ago are the better way to accumulate virtue."

Li Chonghao couldn't help but nodded and said: "After all, he is six years older than Yu'er, and he is more thoughtful than Yu'er. Just do as you want, abolish all the titles of the Liu family, and find a difficult one in the harem." Errands, let her do it."

Seeing this, "Li Shaoyu" hurriedly said: "Father, why don't you let Mrs. Liu come to work in my palace."

"Sixth brother can't do this!" Li Shaojun stopped him, "What Liu did back then is a secret. Both Liu Yuanheng and Liu Wenhua are dead. If Liu gritting his teeth and keeping silent, who would know? She is now If you say it out, I'm afraid that Uncle Jiuhuang and Zuo Shangshu used some means. This poisonous woman is cruel and merciless, and she may hate you to the core. If you bring her into your own palace, isn't it the same as putting a poisonous snake on the couch? Get up, father, Li Bo, the common man, should also send someone to keep a close eye on him, to ensure that he will do something."

Li Chonghao kept nodding his head and said: "You boy, you used to be incapable, but now you are protecting your younger brother. Okay, you can arrange where Mrs. Liu goes to work. As for the common man Li Bo, I will naturally Someone will be watching."

"Father is wise."

After Li Shaojun's goal was achieved, he was very happy, and he didn't care about "Li Shaoyu"'s face that was about to be distorted with anger, and said with a smile: "If the father has nothing else to do, the son will go and take care of this matter, so as not to have long nights and dreams. Six Brother, do you think so?"

"Li Shaoyu" almost gnawed his teeth, and replied with a grateful expression: "Thank you, Your Majesty."