Joy of Life: The melon-eating prince sees through Fan Xian's fake death

Chapter 66 Cuckolding the Princess

The princess didn't know the contents of the letter yet. She lazily leaned back on the recliner, sipping tea from the porcelain cup in her delicate hands. From time to time, she tilted her beautiful face to look at the painter, instructing her to draw the person in her mind:
"Make his eyebrows more handsome, put a small mole on the bridge of his nose, and outline his lips a little more."

The painter drew a man's appearance according to the princess's request, but she didn't know who the man in the painting was and what would happen if someone else saw him. The maid took a glance and was terrified.

Because the man in the painting is about 70% similar to the current emperor, Emperor Qing.

He looks more like a younger version of Emperor Qing.

If you look more carefully, you will find more.

The person in the painting is the crown prince, His Royal Highness the Crown Prince!
The eldest princess secretly painted a portrait of the crown prince in her private room for fun. If the news got out, it would surely lead to rumors of adultery within the royal family, exposing their illicit relationship. The maid didn't know what happened to them, and didn't dare to guess. She could only bow her head and read the letter.
"Yes, it's a letter written by the Second Prince."

The princess was quite surprised. She raised her head slightly and put down the teacup next to her mouth. "Oh? It was Li Chengze, not Chengqian who wrote to me? He has been indifferent to human feelings since he was young. If he is not in trouble, he will not take the initiative to find me. Just continue reading."

The maid was horrified when she saw the contents on the back of the letter. She read out tremblingly that Li Chengze pretended to care about her aunt, but in fact he accused the Crown Prince of colluding with Fan Xian and even having an engagement with Fan Ruoruo, and wanted the Fan family to join his alliance.

in this process.

Li Yunrui's originally calm and charming face became cloudy and full of worry. When he heard that Li Chengqian and Fan Ruoruo were in love, he became even more angry and threw the teacup in his hand down fiercely:

"boom!"

The painter was so frightened that he almost ruined the portrait of Li Chengqian.

"Keep drawing. If you can't draw well, I'll kill you!"

Li Yunrui vented her anger and resentment, and fiercely warned the painter not to make any mistakes and to paint the prince's portrait perfectly. However, she became even angrier when she looked at the handsome face on the drawing paper:

"Why?!!"

"Why did Li Chengqian betray me after I left Kyoto for only a few months?"

Li Yunrui was so angry that her hands were shaking, and her chest was surging. In her eyes, Li Chengqian was the carrier of her morbid love for Emperor Qing, because she had known him since childhood because he looked very similar to Emperor Qing.

Li Yunrui was intimate with him and even displayed her feminine charm in front of the prince who was just beginning to fall in love, in order to seduce her nephew and make the prince become her slave and kneel at her feet.

When the time is right, she will pick the prince as a fruit to satisfy her unsatisfied desires from Emperor Qing. She will also use the prince as a subordinate to rebel and ascend the throne to complete her revenge on Emperor Qing.
But now everything has changed.

The prince is no longer in alliance with the eldest princess. He seems to have forgotten how good his aunt was to him and how beautiful she was. He chooses to stand with Fan Xian and the Fan family. If he is just taking advantage of the situation, it would be fine. Li Yunrui can understand that.

But he actually took the initiative to ask His Majesty to grant him marriage to Fan Ruoruo?
Li Yunrui was completely broken. The prince not only betrayed her in terms of interests, but also betrayed her in terms of feelings. He was just like Emperor Qing who was bewitched by Ye Qingmei and turned a blind eye to her.
She hated Fan Xian, and she hated Ye Qingmei even more. Now she also hated Fan Ruoruo, who had snatched her man away just like Ye Qingmei. A kind of crazy and sick expression appeared on Li Yunrui's charming face: "Just wait for me. I will definitely take back what you owe me!"

·······
"What happened between the Crown Prince and the Princess?"

Fan Jian asked this question, and Fan Xian could not give an answer for a long time. The father and son talked in the room, shielding the women in the family, because the answer to this question might kill many innocent people:

"Do you know why the princess was driven out of Kyoto?" Fan Xian thought for a moment and answered his father's question: "She reached out to the Supervisory Council, an institution of power that belongs exclusively to His Majesty. So His Majesty was furious and drove her out of Kyoto even though she was a royal relative?"

Fan Jian shook his head: "This is just a fuse."

Fan Xian was confused. From the assassination attempt he encountered in Danzhou, to the assassination on Niulan Street after arriving in Beijing, and the near miscarriage of justice of Mei Zhili in Jingzhao Prefecture, he could guess that these things that posed a threat to him were done by royal relatives.

The princess wanted to kill him because he had seized the princess's inner treasury power, which was understandable, but was there any conspiracy? Who was the accomplice? How was this done behind the scenes? He was still confused and couldn't figure it out.

Fan Jian pointed out the answer: "Your Majesty drove away the eldest princess and handed over the power of the inner treasury to you, probably for the purpose of decentralizing power."

Fan Xian suddenly understood.

He understood this truth. In order to monopolize power, ancient emperors not only monopolized divine power and imperial power, but also tried to weaken the power of the outer court and even the power of the prime minister. That is why they used eunuchs who were close to them, built the inner court, and gradually weakened the power of officials in the outer court.

This is the power struggle between the outer court and the inner court.

When the inner court institutions gain the upper hand in power, their influence will become too great.

The emperor will then set up a new power institution to share power with the inner court, and this cycle will continue, with the goal of making everyone fight within the rules of the game he has set, while he himself remains in a high position and monopolizes power. This is the expansion of power.

Fan Xian shuddered. The owner of the inner treasury, from Ye Qingmei to the eldest princess, and finally returned to him, wasn't that the reason? He realized more and more at this moment how clever the political tactics of the Emperor of Qing, his father, were.
"Father, I should understand."

"No, you don't understand."

Fan Jian shook his head. He knew the reason why Emperor Qing drove the princess away was not just to share power. "I used to suspect that if the princess was in charge of the inner treasury, His Majesty would not have allowed you to come to the capital to marry Wan'er and take over the inner treasury if she had no other intentions."

Fan Xian underestimated Emperor Qing's plan again: "What does father mean?"

Fan Jian narrowed his eyes slightly: "The eldest princess once intended to assist the prince to ascend to the throne. Emperor Qing once drove the eldest princess away and asked Mei Zhili to retire and return home. On his way back home, he was robbed and killed by horse bandits. This was all to dispel the bad intentions of these two people."

Fan Xian was puzzled: "Since the Princess and the Crown Prince were once allies, why did he choose to help me and even let Ruoruo become the Crown Princess? He knew that the Princess and I were enemies, but he still chose the Fan family and opposed the Princess."

"Just because the eldest princess was driven out of Kyoto and failed, is the prince going to change someone to support him?"

Fan Jian sighed: "This is what I have been thinking about and can't figure out."

Fan Xian immediately stood up and said, "Father, no matter what, since His Royal Highness the Crown Prince has chosen the Fan family, this will inevitably lead to an alliance between the Second Prince and the Eldest Princess. And it was His Majesty who granted the Crown Prince Ruoruo his marriage, which shows that this is the balance he wants."

Fan Jian nodded and looked outside the house.

Fan Xian understood what he meant: "I will go to the Yannian Palace and ask His Royal Highness the Crown Prince what he thinks."

(End of this chapter)