I play the role of Jiajing in Zongwu: What crime have I committed?

Yan Donglou slammed his hand on the table in anger.

But when he looked up and met Qinglong's seemingly smiling eyes, he suddenly remembered that this man was a genuine Grandmaster.

She immediately suppressed her anger and forced out a smile that looked worse than a grimace.

"Sir, I know you must have some brilliant insights, and I hope you will not hesitate to enlighten me."

Zhu Houcong then explained, "Lord Yan, your plan is simply not going to work. Think about it carefully. As the Minister of Personnel, Lu Shiyu was the one who orchestrated this exam."

"If he really wanted to leak the exam questions, why would he send someone to steal them?"

"Why not just write it down from memory?"

After hearing this, Yan Donglou slapped his thigh.

"Oh dear! How could I not have thought of that!"

Looking at Yan Donglou's foolish appearance through the perspective of the Azure Dragon, Zhu Houcong felt disgusted.

How could this be a high-ranking official of the imperial court?

He's clearly a brainless idiot!

If all of Southern Chu were like this, that would be great.

"So even if this matter is investigated to the end, at most it will just be a case of an old official embezzling public funds."

"Lu Shiyu could easily absolve himself of any blame by accepting a trivial charge of 'negligence'."

Upon hearing this, Yan Donglou immediately wilted like a frostbitten eggplant.

Looking at Yan Donglou's foolish appearance, Zhu Houcong suddenly felt exhausted.

It's better to go it alone than to work with such a terrible teammate!

However, he still revealed the scheme from the TV series.

"Lord Yan, it's not impossible to let that old clerk steal the exam questions, but the key question is who instructed him to do so."

He wrote the words "Crown Prince" on the table.

"We need to give the prince a bait he can't refuse, so he'll bite the hook himself."

"Please speak, sir!" Yan Donglou said hurriedly.

Zhu Houcong's lips curled into a smile.

"Crown Prince Yuwen Quan lost his mother and sister, was not favored by the emperor, and his uncle was forced to leave the capital."

"His biggest weakness is that he has lost too much in the past and is too attached to what he has left."

"The more you try to hold on, the more you will lose, and when you lose it, you will be more and more pathetic and ugly."

“We can use this against him, like this…”

Zhu Houcong explained the plot of that TV series in detail, bit by bit.

Yan Donglou exclaimed in admiration.

The next day, he began to lay out the plan according to Zhu Houcong's proposal.

The most crucial element in this situation is the seating arrangement in the examination room.

Zhu Houcong instructed Yan Donglou, who was in charge of inspecting the examination sites, to suspend the use of one of the examination rooms due to its long-term disrepair.

Yan Donglou chose examination room number 30 in the "Heaven" section.

In this way, the candidate who was originally sitting in examination room number 30 of the "Heaven" section will be moved up one position to examination room number 31 of the "Heaven" section, and so on.

He then refined his original, crude plan to steal exam questions into a more sophisticated one.

And so the whole thing turned out like this.

The night before the exam, the old clerk went to the room to steal the original exam paper, but was "accidentally" caught red-handed by Yan Donglou.

Instead of reporting him, Yan Donglou seized on his weakness, forcing him to keep the original document, and then framed the Crown Prince, dragging him down with him.

Then he was asked to make a copy of the contents and hand it to Gu Xichao before the exam began, saying that it was given to him by the Crown Prince.

The old official did everything according to Yan Donglou's instructions.

Yan Donglou also caught Gu Xichao and the old official's nephew cheating on the day of the imperial examination.

As expected, the matter alarmed Emperor Yuwen Jian of Southern Chu. Since it concerned the important matter of the imperial examination, he naturally took charge of the trial.

During his confession of stealing the exam questions, the old official, following Yan Donglou's instructions, said that he was acting on Lu Shiyu's orders.

Just then, the Crane Control Guard, one of the Twelve Guards of Southern Chu, actually found the original examination questions in the Qi King's mansion.

The old official immediately turned against him, saying that he had done so under the orders of Prince Qi, Yuwen Tang.

This forced Yan Donglou to admit that he had orchestrated the whole thing and that it had nothing to do with the Prince of Qi.

Yan Donglou was imprisoned and awaiting trial as a result.

After receiving this news from the Southern Chu spies, Zhu Houcong couldn't help but chuckle, a smug smile playing on his lips.

The fish bit the hook.

Suddenly, there was a soft knock on the door.

The steward of the manor respectfully said through the door, "Sir, my master requests your presence."

Zhu Houcong frowned slightly. Wasn't Yan Donglou already imprisoned?

How can you still meet people so freely?

It seems that the Grand Secretary's power in the Southern Chu court is even more deeply entrenched than imagined…

Half an hour later, Zhu Houcong controlled the Azure Dragon to change into a prison guard's uniform and came to the outside of the prison gate.

"Sir, you've arrived!"

Upon seeing the Azure Dragon, Yan Donglou exclaimed excitedly, "Sir, your calculations are flawless! The Crown Prince has truly fallen for your trap!"

Zhu Houcong smiled slightly: "Of course the Crown Prince will fall for it, because he's a smart man and can see through the fatal flaw in our plan at a glance."

"What flaw?"

"The weakness lies with this old official; we simply cannot fully control him."

"Sir, you are right. It was this old official who openly betrayed me in court and turned against me."

Yan Donglou sighed and asked doubtfully, "But how can you be so sure, sir?"

"Because what the old official did was for his nephew's future."

"Such a person can be won over by promising him a better future, such as an official in the Crown Prince's palace!"

"Officials under the Crown Prince?" Yan Donglou was taken aback.

“That’s right. What if the Crown Prince directly promised that even if his nephew failed the exam, he could still become an official in the Eastern Palace?”

"Those are future close advisors to the emperor. Compared to the mere imperial examinations, which is far more desirable? It goes without saying."

Azure Dragon stood with his hands behind his back and laughed, "That's why I had you reveal our entire plan to the Crown Prince."

"With the Crown Prince's intelligence, he will surely realize that even if he stops us, he will not gain any benefit."

"On the contrary, if we turn the tables and take advantage of this opportunity to bribe the old official first, we can naturally obtain the original examination paper. This is why the original paper was found in the Prince Qi's mansion."

"So what should we do now?" Yan Donglou nodded repeatedly, then asked.

Zhu Houcong smiled confidently: "Hehe, do you remember that the candidates' examination rooms were all moved up one position?"

"This will be the key to the Crown Prince's downfall!"

Chapter 119 Yuwen Quan Falls into the Trap, Lu Shiyu Resigns (Part 2)

Inside the office of the Ministry of Personnel in Southern Chu.

Crown Prince Yuwen Quan, beaming, pushed open the door and entered: "Teacher, your student has come to see you!"

Lu Shiyu sat upright in the armchair, his face ashen and grim.

Then he slowly pulled out an ebony ruler from his sleeve and slammed it on the table.

Yuwen Quan was so startled that he trembled all over.

"The late Emperor entrusted me with the task of instructing Your Highness before his death. I have taught Your Highness daily to be an upright and honorable person, but I never expected Your Highness to resort to such treacherous schemes."

Lu Shiyu said with great distress, "Those exam papers, Your Highness instructed the old official to steal them, didn't you?"

Yuwen Quan's eyes instantly reddened, and he looked like he was about to cry again.

"How did the teacher know?"

"The imitation of my handwriting is almost indistinguishable from the real thing. There is no one else but Your Highness who could do it," Lu Shiyu said disappointedly.

Yuwen Quan opened his mouth, but seeing that he couldn't hide it any longer, he chose to tell the truth.

It turns out that after learning of Yan Donglou's plot to persecute Lu Shiyu, Yuwen Quan immediately saw an opportunity to bring down Yan Donglou.

He's just an old official. If you, Yan Donglou, can control him, then I, the Crown Prince, can naturally control him as well.

So he preemptively found the old official who was guarding the exam papers and made a solemn promise.

As expected, the old official was successfully recruited into his camp.

A counter-espionage plot was staged.

And so, the whole incident turned out like this.

Yuwen Quan secretly instructed the old official to steal the exam papers, deliberately arranging for the old official to be "accidentally" encountered by Yan Donglou.

This seemingly coincidental encounter was actually a trap meticulously designed by Yuwen Quan.

Yan Donglou, however, believed that he had coerced the old official.

He immediately ordered the examinee to secretly make a copy of the exam paper and hide the original in his own residence.

This was precisely so that the Imperial Guards could catch the suspect red-handed during a future search.

But to his utter surprise, the old official did not take the original document home, but instead handed it over to Yuwen Quan.

Yuwen Quan's teacher, Lu Shiyu, was the foremost calligrapher in Southern Chu. He studied under Lu Shiyu and also learned excellent calligraphy.

Imitating someone else's handwriting is something you can do with ease.

So he took matters into his own hands, obtained the original exam paper, and then copied it again, imitating Lu Shiyu's handwriting. He then secretly put the copy back in its original place.

Even more ingeniously, he forged a secret letter between the King of Qi and the old official.

The letter explicitly stated that the exam questions should be hidden in examination rooms number 50 and 60.

These two examination rooms were the examination rooms for Gu Xichao and the old official's nephew.

Upon arriving here, Yuwen Quan made all the necessary arrangements.

Then, on the day of the imperial examination, he instructed Gu Xichao and Gu Xichao to work together to deliberately smuggle in forged exam questions upon entering the venue, waiting for Yan Donglou's men to come and check.

As expected, Yan Donglou discovered that the two had cheated as soon as he investigated.

He thought it was his own doing, unaware that Yuwen Quan was simply going along with the flow.

When the trial began, the old official was the first to make trouble, falsely accusing Lu Shiyu of secretly instructing him to give the exam questions to Gu Xichao and the other man.

Immediately afterwards, the Imperial Guards seized "conclusive evidence" from the Prince of Qi's residence.

The forged secret letter and the original exam paper.

Upon seeing the evidence, the old official immediately turned the tables, shifting all the blame to Prince Qi, claiming that Prince Qi, Yuwen Tang, had forced him to do so.

This series of meticulously planned schemes directly drove Yan Donglou into a desperate situation.

In order to protect the Prince of Qi, Yan Donglou had no choice but to take all the blame upon himself and confess his crimes.

Ultimately, this led to the imprisonment of Yan Donglou, who held immense power in the court.

Yuwen Quan's clever scheme not only eliminated his political enemies but also cleaned himself up completely.

His cunning and meticulous planning are truly astonishing.

Unfortunately, he didn't know that this was all Zhu Houcong's secret scheme.