Seeing that Wang Daxia and Wei Caiwei had no intention of sparing him, Jing Wang, like Yan Shifan, pinned his last hope on Lu Ying. "Your father was the one my imperial father trusted most! I am one of His Majesty's only two sons—you cannot abandon me!"
Lu Ying replied coldly, "My father was loyal only to the emperor... Moreover, my father died from medicine bestowed by the emperor. I know he had no regrets even in death—that was his choice, and I respect it. But I will not walk his path. I have my own principles. And you... are utterly unworthy of loyalty."
Wei Caiwei prepared the medicine, and Wang Daxia forced it down Jing Wang’s throat. Clutching his neck as if trying to vomit the drug out, Jing Wang gasped, "What did you give me?"
Wei Caiwei said, "You sought benevolence and have attained it. Haven’t you always wanted to be emperor? So much so that you would harm an infant. This medicine will fulfill all your dreams. Sleep peacefully—in your dreams, you’ll have everything: the throne, beauties, a vast empire. All you desire will be yours."
Jing Wang felt an invisible force tearing at his soul. His mind seemed devoured by a monster; his already limited wisdom and emotions were sucked into a black hole, and then everything fell into silence.
Wang Daxia checked Jing Wang’s breathing. "Doctor Wei, he’s still alive." How could his wife’s medical skills have declined? It made no sense.
Wei Caiwei explained, "He’s merely a living corpse. He will remain in eternal slumber until death, which should come in about a month. I need him alive. The emperor values face—even if we frame the White Lotus Sect, if a Ming prince were assassinated, all the guards and Taoist priests in Taihe Palace would likely be executed. As long as Jing Wang has a breath left, these people will be punished but not put to death."
"As for you—" Wei Caiwei turned her gaze to Yan Shifan. She had stored away Poison Master Zhui Ming's bundle. "I won’t waste these 'treasures' on you. I don’t want you to die too easily. My sister died in agony on her childbirth bed."
"So..." Wei Caiwei picked up a dagger and began stabbing Yan Shifan’s body, one cut after another—over thirty strikes in one go. Skilled in human anatomy, she avoided vital points with each thrust, ensuring none were fatal. As she stabbed, she recited:
"This one is from my sister to you... This one is from my father... This one is from Masked Wu... This one is from Ding Wu—you nearly drowned him to death... This one is from my father-in-law... This one is from my brother-in-law—the child still wakes from nightmares and wets his bed... This one is for the advisors on the ship..."
Wei Caiwei stabbed until her wrist gave out and her hand trembled too much to grip the dagger. Then she handed it to Wang Daxia. "You finish it. One year of hunting the culprit ends here."
Yan Shifan felt as though he had been turned into a sieve. Every part of him screamed in agony! Blood gushed out incessantly; he felt bitterly cold, his life force rapidly fading with the flow.
With his single eye glaring in refusal to accept death, Yan Shifan rasped, "I don’t want to die! I haven’t yet become chief minister, reaching the pinnacle of power! I haven’t avenged my daughter by killing that hypocrite Duke Yansheng! My father still lives—I haven’t fulfilled my duty to care for him in old age. How can I let white-haired ones mourn white-haired ones? Please, save me! I have hoards of gold and silver hidden in various places—I’ll give you the treasure maps! Everything I have is yours—"Yan Shifan's voice abruptly ceased as Wang Daxia plunged a dagger through his heart. "You never repented until death, you believed money could solve everything till your last breath. Take those riches to the underworld and see if King Yama can be bribed to grant you extra years of life."
Yan Shifan breathed his last.
Now, only the dancing Eunuch Wei remained. This eunuch was meant to assist their escape.
Wang Daxia carried Eunuch Wei to the windowsill, urging Wei Caiwei and Lu Ying to withdraw first. The two women rushed to the staircase, where Wei Caiwei stripped a unconscious guard of his uniform and armor, replacing her Taoist robes. Lu Ying dragged the real guard to a hidden spot, then both pretended to be guards lying unconscious.
Seeing Lu Ying and Wei Caiwei in position, Wang Daxia released his hold. Eunuch Wei danced on the windowsill before stumbling and plummeting five stories down onto hard stone steps, his skull instantly crushed.
The dull thud alerted guards below. Recognizing Eunuch Wei, they realized something was amiss in Lingyun Pavilion and swarmed upstairs to rescue their master.
While guards flooded inward to save Prince Jing, none bothered verifying the four "unconscious" guards at the entrance. Seizing the opportunity, Wei Caiwei and the other two sprang up and charged downstairs, shouting, "Prince Jing has collapsed! Minister Yan's been murdered! Fetch physicians! Quick, find doctors to save His Highness!"
Feigning urgency to summon medical help, the trio blended with the panicking guards. In the chaos to save Prince Jing, no one suspected their comrades.
They successfully escaped Taihe Palace. As planned, upon completion, they launched three green fireworks into the sky - the signal for all operatives to return to Zixia Hall's hidden stakeout, ending the hunt for Yan Shifan.
Back at Great Sage Nanyan Palace, Lu Ying gathered her team to align their accounts: everything at Wudang Mountain tonight was the White Lotus Sect's doing. The temple abbot, a trusted ally of Lu Ying's father Lu Bing, nominally served as an Embroidered Uniform Guard's hidden stakeout but was actually retired in this peaceful retreat - Lu Bing always knew how to handle relationships, understanding that helping others ultimately helped himself. The weary abbot turned a blind eye, not exposing Lu Ying's scheme.
Wang Daxia pointed at Poison Master Zhui Ming bound unconscious in the adjacent room after consuming his own drug. "What about him? The dancing mushrooms were his. If Commander Zhu interrogates him, we're exposed."
Lu Ying replied, "He won't get that chance. He took poison during pursuit - we'll claim suicide. We've already retrieved the smallpox variola evidence from him."
Wang Daxia remarked, "So we have proof but no living witness."
A weariness beyond her years crossed Lu Ying's youthful face. "It doesn't matter. Even if we brought live testimony before the emperor confirming royal fratricide, the smallpox plot would never be revealed to preserve imperial dignity. His Majesty would cover for Prince Jing instead."
"Our long journey merely confirmed the emperor's suspicions. He knew everything all along - maintaining power balance between court factions and his two sons while feigning ignorance."
They say serving a monarch is like tending tigers, but emperors are worse than tigers. While fierce tigers don't devour their young, what does sacrificing descendants matter to an emperor guarding his throne?Lu Ying and the others placed the poison master who had "committed suicide by taking poison" into a coffin filled with ice and returned to the capital, even spending the New Year on the road.
On the way back, Wang Daxia threw the dagger that had stabbed Yan Shifan to death into the surging river, to console his father's spirit in heaven and the unjustly killed souls of the entire ship.
When Yan Song saw Yan Shifan's mutilated corpse, the over-eighty-year-old man lost all his fighting spirit, leaving only an empty shell. This time, the Yan family had truly fallen.
On the ninth day of the first lunar month, the long-unconscious Prince Jing breathed his last. To cover up the royal scandal, the Jiajing Emperor did not investigate Prince Jing's attempt to harm the young imperial grandson of Prince Yu's household. He ordered the Imperial Clan Court to handle Prince Jing's funeral according to the rites befitting a prince and to bury him in Hubei.
During the funeral, one of Prince Jing's concubines gave birth to a daughter, but the child was born weak and died within a few days. The officials of the Imperial Clan Court did not inform the Jiajing Emperor.
With this, Prince Jing's lineage came to an end. Since Prince Yu also had only one son at the time and could not adopt a son to continue his brother's lineage, the Jiajing Emperor, who was secretly angered by Prince Jing's evil deeds, rejected the Imperial Clan Court's suggestion to select a son from other collateral branches to serve as Prince Jing's heir. Instead, he directly abolished Prince Jing's fiefdom on the grounds of having no heir.
Additionally, the Jiajing Emperor selected a posthumous title for Prince Jing—"Gong," meaning "respectful" as in the phrase "brothers showing respect to one another."" Thus, he was posthumously titled Prince Jing Gong.
When Prince Yu heard his brother's posthumous title, he was utterly devastated: "Father, this is worse than twisting the knife! 'Brothers showing respect to one another'—how ironic! My brother tried to kill my son and deserved to die, yet you call him 'respectful,' twisting the knife in my heart! What have I done wrong?"
Prince Yu had done nothing wrong. With a father as suspicious and selfish as the Jiajing Emperor, he was unfortunate, living day and night in fear, anger, resentment, and sorrow.
Yet he was also incredibly lucky. Without lifting a finger, he had won the position of heir apparent. Without employing any schemes or tricks, he became the only surviving prince.
A struggle for succession? Nonexistent! Without contention or strife, he became the sole heir apparent. Although the Jiajing Emperor consistently refused to formally enshrine Prince Yu as crown prince, the entire realm already regarded him as the heir.
With Prince Jing dead and without heirs, the Yan family, which had served as a counterbalance to Prince Yu, lost its significance. "When the cunning hare dies, the hound is boiled." To ensure a smooth transition of power without any mishaps, the aging and ailing Jiajing Emperor ordered the liquidation of the Yan family.
Using charges such as the Yan family raising death warriors, seizing neighboring lands, hoarding gold and silver, and expanding their private residence on land deemed to have "imperial aura," the Emperor even dredged up Yan Shifan's past "connections" with Japanese pirates. He once again dispatched the Eastern Depot to confiscate the Yan family's ancestral home in Jiangxi.
Only out of consideration for their years as ruler and subject did the Jiajing Emperor spare Yan Song's life.
Yan Song was driven out of his luxurious home and left with nothing, taking refuge in the sacrificial house at his ancestral graves—according to the law, unless an edict was issued to exhume and whip the corpse, family grave properties were not subject to confiscation.
Although he had the sacrificial house and fields to sustain himself, Yan Song, who had once dominated the political scene, could not accept reality. He became like a walking corpse, utterly despondent and without hope.The following year, in the fourth month of the forty-fifth year of the Jiajing era, the eighty-seven-year-old Yan Song passed away. His ancestral graves and properties were seized by relatives in his hometown. At his death, he didn't even have a coffin—his body was wrapped in a tattered mat and hastily buried in a random spot without a tombstone.
In the Forbidden City, the Jiajing Emperor was boating on the Taiye Pond with his favored consort, Consort Shang, admiring the sight of young lotus buds just emerging from the water, when the eunuch Huang Jin brought news of Yan Song's death.
Frequently ill this year, the emperor could no longer accompany his consort on outings beyond the palace, so they remained within the palace grounds. Consort Shang scattered a handful of fish food, delighting in the spectacle of koi fish swarming to feed.
Huang Jin reported in a low voice, "...Yan Shaoting, who has been staying at the Lu residence, learned that no one had arranged a proper burial for his grandfather. He requested permission from Li Yiren and the head of the household, Lu Yi, to travel to Jiangxi. Both Li Yiren and Lu Yi granted his request and prepared a boat and servants for his journey."
The Jiajing Emperor was reminded of his milk-brother Lu Bing and sighed, "The Loyalty Earl was a generous man, and his family carries on his legacy. Let the Yan family matter end here—do not pursue any further actions against the remaining Yan relatives."
While some grieved, others rejoiced. Prince Jing, having no heir, had his princedom abolished, ending his lineage. Meanwhile, at Prince Yu's residence, the previous year, Consort Li Jiubao had successfully given birth to a daughter, completing their family with both a son and daughter, thereby solidifying her position. By the fourth month of this year, Li Jiubao's menstrual cycle was delayed, so she summoned Wei Caiwei to take her pulse.
Wei Caiwei once again detected a slippery pulse—Li Jiubao was pregnant with her third child.
Author's Note: Another three years have passed in this chapter. With the three-year mourning period concluded, Wang Xiaoxia can reemerge into society, and Wang Daxia can finally marry Wei Caiwei. This wedding has truly been fraught with delays—three years after three years.
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