His entire family perished in battle; he rose from the ashes to conquer the world.

Mu Yuan kowtowed and bowed again:

"In my opinion, this case is not about the Fang family colluding with officials of the Crown Prince's Palace to sell smuggled salt. Rather, someone deliberately planted people from the Crown Prince's Palace along the Grand Canal to fabricate evidence and frame the Fang family, intending to kill two birds with one stone—to eliminate the Fang family, a powerful salt merchant family in Jiangnan, and to throw dirty water on His Highness the Crown Prince, sowing discord between Your Majesty and the Crown Prince."

After he finished speaking, the hall became eerily quiet.

Zhu Qi's face was as white as paper. He opened his mouth, wanting to say something, but couldn't utter a single word.

The smile on Zhu Xu's face finally vanished completely.

He stared at Mu Yuan, a sinister glint in his eyes. He had been setting up this scheme for so long, calculating that Zhu Qi was impatient for quick success and would definitely take the account books to the palace to impeach him, and he had also calculated that the Fang family would be unable to defend themselves and could only wait for their doom.

But he didn't expect that Mu Yuan, who should have been a pawn in the game, would turn against him in the imperial palace.

Zhu Youzhen remained silent for a long time.

So long that Zhu Qi's forehead began to sweat, so long that Zhu Xu's fingers slowly clenched in his sleeve.

Finally, Zhu Youzhen spoke.

"Issue my decree." His voice was as deep as iron. "The three officials involved in the case are to be immediately escorted to the capital and handed over to the Ministry of Justice, the Censorate, and the Court of Judicial Review for joint trial. Fang Bai of the Fang family is to be detained in the capital for the time being and is not allowed to leave until the truth is ascertained."

He paused, his gaze sweeping over Zhu Qi and Zhu Xu, his voice suddenly becoming sharper: "I don't care which of you is behind this, listen to me clearly—this world belongs to me, not to you to fight for power. If anyone dares to touch the canal transport or my purse, don't blame me for showing no mercy to my sons."

Zhu Qi and Zhu Xu knelt down simultaneously, saying in unison, "Your subjects dare not!"

Zhu Youzhen snorted coldly, stood up, and left in a huff.

The eunuch's shrill voice echoed through the hall: "Dismiss—the court—!"

When Mu Yuan walked out of the Golden Palace, the back of his court robe was already soaked with cold sweat.

He stood on the white marble steps, gazing at the rising sun in the east, and exhaled a long breath.

Footsteps sounded behind him. Zhu Xu walked to his side, stood with his hands behind his back, gazing at the distant palace walls, and suddenly chuckled. "Young Master Mu, you have quite the methods."

Zhu Xu's voice was very soft, so soft that only the two of them could hear it: "I spent three months setting up a plan, and you turned it all upside down with just a few words."

Mu Yuan stepped aside to bow, his expression calm:

"Your Highness is too kind. I am merely reporting the facts and would not dare to deceive Your Majesty."

"The truth?" Zhu Xu turned his head, his gentle eyes finally revealing a sharp edge hidden deep within. "Mu Yuan, do you think I don't know that you're the one pulling the strings behind the Fang family's smuggled salt trade?"

Mu Yuan's heart sank, but his face remained expressionless.

Zhu Xu suddenly laughed, reached out and patted his shoulder. The force was neither too light nor too heavy, but it felt like a knife pressed against bone.

"take it easy."

Zhu Xu withdrew his hand, turned and walked down the steps, his voice drifting back, "This round, you win. But Prince Mu had better remember—"

He paused, turned back to look at Mu Yuan, and the smile on his lips was as cold as ice shards in the twelfth lunar month.

"The crown prince is still me. There's plenty of time; let's take our time."

After saying this, he strode away, followed by a flurry of eunuchs and palace maids who knelt down on the ground.

Mu Yuan stood there, watching Zhu Xu's figure disappear at the end of the palace gate, his fingertips slowly clenching in his sleeve.

He knew that from this day forward, there was no room for negotiation between him and the Crown Prince.

The account book in his arms felt as heavy as a red-hot iron.

Because inside, there was a page of records he hadn't shown to anyone—a handwritten account of the smuggled salt trade by Fang Yuyan, every entry pointing to the same ultimate buyer. —Xifu Army.

Mu Yuan pressed his fingertips against the hidden account page through his court robes. The edges of the page were already slightly roughened from his repeated rubbing last night.

The figures on those numbers are not embezzled silver, but rather the military pay hole that the Western Army has been quietly filling over the past three years. The southwest is bitterly cold, and the grain and pay allocated by the imperial court are deducted at every level. If it weren't for the Fang family secretly providing financial support through salt profits, the Western Army's border defenses would have collapsed in last year's snow disaster.

"Young Master Mu, please wait."

Zhu Qi's trembling voice came from behind.

The prince, who had been so confident just moments before, now had disheveled hair, and the hem of his robe was stained with dust from the steps of the imperial palace; he was no longer the dignified prince he once was. He rushed forward and grabbed Mu Yuan's wrist, his knuckles turning white from the force.

"Are you crazy? We clearly agreed last night that we would join forces to bring down the Crown Prince today, why are you turning around and biting me?"

Mu Yuan gently pulled her hand away from his, her voice extremely low:

"Your Highness, the account books in your hands were deliberately handed over by the Crown Prince from the very beginning. You thought you were using the Fang family's case to bring him down, but in reality, he was using you to muddy the waters of the smuggled salt trade and then conveniently pin the accusation of 'colluding with salt merchants' on you."

Zhu Qi's pupils suddenly contracted:

"Impossible... those ledgers were dug out of the canal transport bureau's secret files by my men, how could he have deliberately placed them there?"

"Because those two transport officials were already the Crown Prince's henchmen three months ago."

Mu Yuan looked up in the direction where the Crown Prince's entourage disappeared at the end of the long street.

"Their testimonies are so well-rehearsed that as soon as the three judicial departments begin their joint trial and torture is applied, they will immediately recant their confessions and accuse you, the fourth prince, of orchestrating the plot to frame the crown prince. At that point, your charges of fabricating false evidence and sowing discord within the royal family will be irrefutable."

Zhu Qi's face instantly drained of color, and he staggered back half a step. He stared at Mu Yuan, his lips trembling for a long time:

"Then... what do we do now? The joint trial by the three judicial authorities is scheduled to begin tomorrow, and those two transport officials are still in the hands of the Crown Prince's men. We can't get close to them at all."

"Don't touch it."

Mu Yuan took out a thin roll of silk paper from his sleeve. The morning light fell on the silk paper, revealing the dense red ink marks on it.

"After reviewing the accounts last night, I immediately dispatched someone by express horse to the three checkpoints along the canal to retrieve the original inspection records for the past three months. The Crown Prince can forge testimonies, but he cannot alter the logistical records archived by the Canal Transport Office and personally stamped by each checkpoint commander—his scheme had this one missing link."

Zhu Qi's eyes suddenly lit up, but then dimmed again in the next second:

"But even if the confession is proven false, the matter of the Fang family's smuggled salt..."

"The Fang family's smuggled salt never went through the waterways controlled by the Crown Prince."

Mu Yuan stuffed the silk paper into his hand, his voice as cold as the southwest wind: "We were using the Western Army's naval intelligence network. I will take full responsibility for this."

Zhu Qi froze. He looked at the sword that His Majesty had bestowed upon Mu Yuan at his waist and suddenly realized that this man had never intended to follow his lead from the very beginning.

When he tapped the cover of the account book three times last night, he had already played the entire game again.

The midday sun shone into the temporary residence of the Western Army in the capital. As soon as Mu Yuan stepped into the courtyard, he saw a familiar figure in blue standing under the eaves.

Fang Yuyan was wearing a plain-colored long dress with a small white chrysanthemum pinned to her temple. When she saw him come in, the handkerchief she was holding loosened slightly.

"Reports have already come back regarding what happened to you in the Golden Palace."