Masquerade in Bridal Attire and Marry the Prince

202. Fury

Translator: Bryan

According to Luo Yi, the claim that the emperor had never slept with any of his concubines was not true. It was just that all those he had slept with had been covertly transferred. Given that so many concubines had borne the emperor sons, it was impossible that the empress who had been married to him for such a long time had not done the same thing.

The emperor had undoubtedly gotten the empress pregnant with his children before, even if it was merely a measure to make sure the empress toed the line. There was even the possibility that arrangements were being made for the emperor’s trueborn son, who somehow had never shown his face before, to get all the best things eventually, and all he had to do was to show up at the perfect time.

Du Chuxuan had every reason to believe in a conspiracy theory like that. The way the emperor had been treating Yuxing Tianrui so far struck Du Chuxuan as intolerable. He had kept his mouth shut about the matter of the account book in the East Palace because he was able to put up with it; afterward, two concubines had gained entry into the East Palace, and Du Chuxuan had managed to swallow it as well.

But if the emperor wanted to give all the credit that was rightfully Yuxing Tianrui’s to a prince none of them had seen yet, Du Chuxuan would not take it lying down.

Luo Yi handled the matter with high efficiency. Barely four hours later, he gathered all the information. The emperor had not wasted any time during the past few decades. The thick wad of documents was more than enough to prove that he was a lecher instead of the good ruler that common folk thought he was.

“Tsk, tsk. It seems I underestimated him.” At the sight of the number, Du Chuxuan had an urge to clap his hands and pay a compliment to the emperor. It had been only ten years or so since Yuxing Tianrui had been entrusted to that man, but there were actually twenty-three books here. The emperor had so many sons. Du Chuxuan was uncertain if he should marvel at the emperor’s virility.

Luo Yi felt somewhat embarrassed. They had also been amazed when they first found out. However, all these were the emperor’s family affairs. They had no right to judge the emperor’s sex life even if they wanted to.

“Why are these in front marked in red?” Du Chuxuan quickly browsed through the documents. It was not until he browsed half a dozen of them that he spotted a detailed record. He immediately asked about it.

“Your Highness.” Luo Yi looked at it and naturally understood what Du Chuxuan was asking about. “Those people are the emperor’s sons borne in earlier years. Most of them were borne by concubines, but because those concubines couldn’t stand the humiliation of being banished from the palace, their children are either ill-behaved or unhealthy.”

Du Chuxuan couldn’t help frowning at his reply. He had a general idea of what might have happened to those princes. “You mean these people are all dead?”

“Some of them were born feeble and died young. The emperor only gave them a chance to enjoy a wealthy life and he didn’t care much about them. There are also some who are foppish and frivolous, so the emperor abandoned them,” Luo Yi answered honestly.

“Abandon? You mean some of them are still alive? They’re unaware of their parentage?”

“The emperor instructed his henchmen to give those princes a cover identity and arrange for some men to look after them. Those deemed incapable didn’t even get a chance to know about their parentage. All those around them were killed, and the princes were left to die.”

Du Chuxuan was stunned for a moment. As the saying goes, “Even a tiger doesn’t eat its own cubs.” It came to him as a great surprise that the emperor had given up on his own children like that. Or maybe the emperor had realized that those princes wouldn’t be able to survive the competition for the throne, so he had actually given them a chance to live.

The emperor had a very different way of handling things, and Du Chuxuan naturally couldn’t be bothered to judge him, but this meant that those the emperor had kept in the palace must be elite ones. Du Chuxuan continued to read the documents.

When he suddenly saw the No.7 that Luo Yi had written on one of the documents, Du Chuxuan suddenly halted. “This guy is…” Luo Yi, who had been standing beside him all along, naturally saw the information on it. He promptly said, “He’s the Empress’ son, but because of the unique identity of the Empress, this prince gets to meet her on a yearly basis.”

“Which means this person is aware of his parentage.” Du Chuxuan gently tapped the portrait. “Seeing as how the emperor has told him, he sure as well has plans for this son of his.”

A sneering smile touched his lips unnoticeably. “He’s such a wily old fox. I wonder if this little fox is just as cunning. If he isn’t, he’ll end up becoming cannon fodder.” He had noticed Yuxing Wei’s name on the document numbered 12 a moment ago.

Compared to Yuxing Wei, this Prince No.7 was obviously more capable. But why had Yuxing Wei not been accepted by the emperor in advance? One of the reasons must be that Yuxing Wei had his own plans and understood that he was different from his rivals, and he wanted to come back to fight.

And the emperor wanted to take advantage of the fighting between Yuxing Wei and Yuxing Tianrui to make the situation more complicated and unpredictable so that the seventh prince would have a better chance to ascend the throne. He was playing such a long game.

Du Chuxuan was lost in thought when he suddenly heard a growl from outside, which was closely followed by the sound of a plate landing onto the ground.

Du Chuxuan’s body reacted faster than his brain did. The voice was from Yuxing Tianrui. He promptly rushed out, subconsciously shoving the documents into Luo Yi’s hands. By the time he caught on, he had already reached Yuxing Tianrui’s side.

Yuxing Tianrui was still wearing the clothes he had worn in the morning. Du Chuxuan had thought that as he had been ignoring Yuxing Tianrui all morning, the latter definitely had gone to the study to deal with state affairs. At the sight of the soup spilled onto the floor, he felt terribly frustrated.

He held Yuxing Tianrui’s both hands and scrutinized them over and over again. Having checked that they were unharmed except for a small path of burn, he swept Yuxing Tianrui into his embrace.

“You could totally just let the servants handle these things. Why did you do it personally? Doesn’t it hurt?”

Yuxing Tianrui looked at the soup which had taken him the whole morning to make. It had all gone to waste. Before he could feel any heartache, he was startled by Du Chuxuan’s reaction, which was so heart-warming that his eyes reddened slightly. Feeling a little embarrassed, he burrowed his face into Du Chuxuan’s neck, unwilling to lift his head.

Not having heard a response from Yuxing Tianrui, Du Chuxuan became rather anxious. He swiveled his head and yelled at Ada, “What the heck were you doing just now? Is it really so hard for so many of you to keep an eye on a single person? Why didn’t you give him a hand when he couldn’t handle it on his own?! Go and bring Luo Qing to me. If anything happens to His Highness, I’ll make sure you people will suffer!”