Chapter 289
[He also said that the Emperor was gravely ill and the imperial court was in decline, so they definitely lacked the energy and strength to deal with the powerful Murong family. If his father reported it, it would only offend the Murong family and make life difficult for both siblings. With this, he successfully persuaded Hong Feng.]
Hong Feng is a dignified Hanlin scholar, yet he is so easily swayed! What happened to Hong Yueling after she was captured and taken back by Murong Qian?
[After being taken back, Hong Yueling would rather die than submit. In the end, Murong Qian broke her legs and placed her under strict house arrest.
She endured for nearly another year before finally dying of depression.
Before her death, she secretly left a final letter, which saw the light of day again a century later. Only then did the world learn of the rotten flesh hidden beneath the loyal and patriotic facade of the Murong family's founding ancestor Murong Liang and Emperor Shizu Murong Qian.
It could be said that Hong Yueling's final letter gave history its truth, tearing away the fig leaf the Murong family had hidden behind for a hundred years.
It also shattered the fragile outer shell of the Great Liang Dynasty, which supposedly governed the country with loyalty and filial piety.
Only then did the people of that time suddenly realize that the Murong family's frequent boasting about their past loyalty to their former master, Great Yan, was the biggest lie and joke of the Great Liang Dynasty.
Because of this, the name of Hong Yueling was remembered by the world.]
Hong Yueling and Chu Qiuyue were both extraordinary women; they used different methods to return the truth to the world.
So that means Emperor Shizong of Liang wasn't Hong Yueling's child. To think that the impotent Murong Qian could actually still have children!
Addicted to cutting off people's bloodlines, Yue Fuguang thought rather maliciously that it would have been great if Hong Yueling had a packet of sterilization poison called 'Not a Single Seed' on hand back then.
Just look at how the Pingyue Marquis's family had been turned upside down because of it.
That day, Xue Chao poisoned his three younger brothers with the sterilization drug overnight. Now, the Xue family had four infertile legitimate sons, and only two and a half grandsons. The old Marquis probably couldn't even enjoy his meals anymore.
[Murong Qian was heartbroken after Hong Yueling's death. After a period of decadence, he actually began to cultivate his moral character in a rare change of pace, no longer going out to visit brothels or getting close to women.
By the time war broke out everywhere and Great Yan perished, he was entirely focused on his career.]
Yue Fuguang was speechless for a moment. Is it really this melodramatic? Don't tell me Murong Qian only realized then that Hong Yueling was his true love!
This was an insult to Hong Yueling. Ultimately, Hong Yueling died because he imprisoned her. Yue Fuguang suddenly felt that Murong Qian was even more disgusting!
[Master, there's more. When Murong Qian later died of old age, he was buried together with Hong Yueling.]
Yue Fuguang ground her teeth. He shouldn't even dream of it in this lifetime. If that Hong Feng agrees to the marriage between the two families, Little Zhu, your master allows you to break Hong Feng's legs.
And confiscate Murong Qian's reproductive tools!
Everyone who heard this felt a chilling breeze run down their legs. Hong Feng was so scared that he curled up his body and shook his head repeatedly; he wouldn't dare do it again!
Curled up into a ball, Hong Feng didn't know if it was just his imagination, but his legs ached faintly.
Meanwhile, the eyes of the girls in the Hongwen Pavilion lit up. Yue Fuguang seemed to have accidentally opened the door to a whole new world for them.
[Rest assured, Master. Little Zhu promises to do it cleanly and efficiently, without leaving a trace.
Furthermore, as for this Murong Qian, those few years of cultivating his character really allowed him to nurse his body back to health. A year after the fall of Great Yan, his newly wedded wife gave birth to a son for him the following year.]
The Heavenly Dao really treats him well, actually letting him recover his health! Is this son the future Emperor Shizong of Liang, Murong Xi? So Murong Qian's so-called focus on his career was colluding with Nanyue to bring down Great Yan?
Yue Fuguang's questions cut straight to the bone, slicing into the hearts of the Great Yan monarch and his ministers, stabbing into Hong Feng, and sealing the doom of the Murong family.
[Master guessed correctly. Emperor Shizong of Liang is Murong Qian's only son, Murong Xi.
Murong Qian's so-called career building wasn't just as simple as colluding with Nanyue, being good brothers with Ling Yuanhang, and the two of them undermining Great Yan together.
He even persuaded his father to withdraw their troops early when Ling Yuanhang attacked Lancheng, calling it preserving their strength.
He also secretly joined Panshan, the mysterious organization that manipulated regime changes behind the scenes in various countries and provoked internal court disputes.
Panshan put in a lot of effort behind the scenes to help Murong Xi successfully replace the Southern Zhou established by the Tong family.]
Yue Fuguang instantly understood. A person's success, whether it was Ling Yuanhang or Murong Xi, always had various reasons behind it, or various people acting as driving forces.
And this Panshan organization was like a shadow enveloping this vast land; it wasn't just a threat to Great Yan.
Even the succession of heirs in those other countries faintly bore its traces.
Unfortunately, with the system's current capabilities, it was still unable to uproot this deeply entrenched organization, let alone lock onto the helmsman of Panshan.
All the two of them could do right now, when facing this invisible, shapeless behemoth, was to dismantle it node by node.
[Host, don't worry. Once my data recovers a bit more, I will definitely be able to find their bigger bosses.]
No rush, we'll take it slowly.
Now was the time to lay out their plans. They would first sort out Great Yan's internal problems. Only after enriching the country and strengthening the military would they begin to expand outward.
If the interior was unstable, doing more would only be working for the benefit of others.
To put it bluntly, her first step was simply to keep Great Yan from dying.
Then, she would cure its severe illnesses, nurse it back to health, arm it, and only then let it out to bite people!
The various officials in the imperial court didn't know what had suddenly provoked their Majesty, but ever since returning from the Hongwen Pavilion, he had angrily issued several edicts.
They covered both military and political matters, with their target pointing directly at the Southwest Border Army.
Minister of War Huo Ying had truly been having a hard time these past few days.
The new army of ten thousand men had actually been infiltrated. From the rear kitchens to the vanguard, if it hadn't been for the Junior Preceptor, they wouldn't have known how long it would take to discover it.
He and Wei Shouyi, along with others, investigated back and forth, but after several days, they had only found three people.
He hadn't even wrapped this matter up cleanly yet, and now the matter with Murong Liang had cropped up!
Huo Ying thought: My life is over!
Equally enveloped in gloom were Cai Xian, Wei Ping, and the others. It was already known that the Eastern Yi prince, Matsuyama, had secretly sneaked back into Shangjing City, and Feng Yang, the old pavilion master of the Wind and Rain Pavilion, had also come to Shangjing with an unknown purpose.
For these two people, they had dispatched extra manpower to search for about ten days, yet they hadn't found a single clue. This left the two of them feeling incredibly frustrated.
As if that wasn't enough, just as the two of them were leading their respective men on a city-wide search for Feng Yang and Matsuyama, the bait laid by their ruler and ministers was almost eaten by the fish due to a moment of inattention.
Of the Fourth Prince and the Ninth Prince, one was riding a horse outside the palace when it suddenly got spooked. If the guards beside him hadn't reacted quickly...
The Fourth Prince would certainly have been killed or injured then.
Meanwhile, the Ninth Prince, who still held the title of prince within the palace, accidentally slipped and fell into a lotus pond while playing in a secluded garden of the imperial palace.
If the weather hadn't been slowly warming up, he wouldn't have even lasted until the passing Eighth Prince discovered and rescued him; he would have inexplicably become yet another wrongfully dead ghost in the lotus pond.
The last person to die there seemed to be Zhuo Fei, his mother's cousin, who, in order to cover up their illicit affair, ruthlessly drowned a young palace maid who had witnessed their scandalous deed in that very lotus pond.