Chapter 508
Prince Cheng was silent for a moment, then suddenly laughed, the smile full of mockery. "History books?"
He repeated the words coldly, then looked around the hall, his voice neither loud nor low, pitched to reach every ear present clearly. "History is written by the victors, Sister-in-law. Surely you understand this principle."
The Empress Dowager trembled all over, her face changing drastically.
Prince Cheng paid her no further heed, turning instead toward the dragon bed, drawing the edict scroll from his sleeve and spreading it open once more, placing it before Gan Sheng.
Then, he unfastened an emblem token from his waist and cast it to the ground, the crisp sound ringing out.
"Your Majesty, my soldiers have secured the entire imperial palace. The palace gates, the city gates, and the imperial guard barracks — all are under my control."
His voice remained calm, yet every word he spoke was chilling. "Whether Your Majesty signs or not, the outcome will not change. If you sign, we can all keep our dignity. If not..."
A smile tugged at the corner of his lips as his gaze fell upon Consort Shu, trembling in the corner, and the Crown Prince cradled in her arms.
Consort Shu's eyes brimmed with tears. The ten-year-old Crown Prince, long aware of their family's dire predicament, buried his head in his mother's embrace.
He feigned cowardice, careful not to let Prince Cheng see the hatred and penetrating awareness in his eyes.
"Little Zhu, in the original timeline, what became of this Crown Prince?" Gan Tang had seized Gan Sheng's position before the latter could even think clearly, and in both lifetimes, this prince had never been destined for the throne. Such was fortune's fickleness!
[In the original timeline, Gan Minghao was never named Crown Prince. With the support of the You family and Ling Yuanhang, Gan Tang's rise to power was far smoother than Prince Cheng's current path.]
[However, this Gan Minghao did not live to see Gan Tang ascend the throne. By the Da Yan calendar, he fell ill and died in the tenth year of Yuankang. Otherwise, given Gan Sheng's fondness for this mother and son, the position of Crown Prince would have been his sooner or later.]
"Died of illness? Genuinely ill, or something else?" Yue Fuguang detected the scent of poison in this.
[It started as genuine illness, but the medicine used to treat him was altered behind his back, and before long, it killed him.]
"Who did it?" Asking this aloud, her eyes unconsciously flickered between Consort Shu and the Empress.
[You must have guessed by now, Master. It was the Empress who struck. As for why — of course, to avenge her two sons. Though her loss of two children was tacitly approved by the Emperor, it was Consort Shu's people who had acted. Once the Empress lost her sons, she certainly wasn't about to watch her enemy's child grow to adulthood and seize the throne. She took her revenge on Consort Shu, and she did not forgive the Emperor either.
Gan Tang's smooth ascent to power owed much to the Empress's covert support.]
So that was it.
Yue Fuguang reflected — one should never underestimate a mother. Consort Shu, for the sake of her own child, had instigated the deaths of the Empress's two sons in succession.
And the Empress, in turn, could lie in wait for over a decade, avenging her sons and herself, even willing to hand the realm of Gan Sheng's bloodline into another's hands.
Yue Fuguang caught the Empress's gaze pausing briefly on Consort Shu and her child — a surge of raw murderous intent flashing through it that instant. So she already knew who her enemy was at this point.
Perhaps she had suspected long ago, merely lacking solid proof.
"If you refuse to sign," Prince Cheng's voice arose once more, feather-light, "I cannot guarantee that within these palace walls, some accident might not befall..."
It was open, naked threat.
The Empress Dowager's face turned deathly pale. She opened her mouth to speak, but Gan Sheng pulled at her sleeve, silencing her.
Gan Sheng lay upon the bed, gazing at the scroll of yellow silk before him, at the bold, vigorous calligraphy inscribed upon it, and felt the whole scene was utterly absurd.
He was the late Emperor's most beloved son — not the eldest, but the one his father had marked as heir from the very beginning.
So what if his elder brother had been made Crown Prince? In the end, the throne fell into his own lap.
He had never needed to scheme for that seat, never had to fight tooth and nail for it the way his brothers had, cracking heads and drawing blood.
He simply devoted himself to being his father's most dutiful, filial son, never grabbing or scrambling. His eldest brother died, his legitimate uncle died, and his father pushed him into the position of Crown Prince. The path he had walked had been far too smooth.
In the early days of his reign, he had harbored grand ambitions — to govern with diligence, lay strategies across every front, and swallow up the geographically richest land of Da Yan, annexing it into Nan Yue, forging a mighty empire.
Everything had gone splendidly at first. The kingdom was peaceful at home, and Da Yan, just as he had wished, had been riddled through with his infiltration like a sieve.
Only a few more years and it would have been time to reap the harvest. But heaven did not comply. His nemesis — Yue Fuguang — had appeared.
Who could have imagined that this young girl's arrival would mark the beginning of his downfall?
He was merely twenty-eight years old, and the ambitions in his heart had yet to be realized — and now he was going to die, poisoned, no less.
Just like his elder brother and legitimate maternal uncle, succumbing to the same poison. Heaven's cycle of retribution was merciless after all.
He suddenly recalled his father's dying words: "Beware of your little sister, and your uncle... a man who will never amount to much, but one who can certainly ruin things."
These years, that little imperial sister had remained quiet enough. When his brother and the former Empress died, she had still been a child, and he had paid her no particular suspicion, raising her alongside his own princesses.
He had never imagined that he would ultimately die at her hands. As for the kingdom itself — his gaze shifted to Prince Cheng — it would fall into the hands of this fool who would never amount to anything.
Heaven truly was betraying Nan Yue.
Yue Fuguang was unaware that within a few brief breaths, Gan Sheng's inner turmoil had been so rich — not only crediting her as the root cause of his ruin.
But also, as if at death's very door, retracing all twenty-eight years of his life.
Gan Sheng thought of resisting to the death, but he knew the ranks of officials filling this chamber were beyond helping him. Some, no doubt, were already quietly lining up behind Prince Cheng.
His edicts would never leave the palace; his orders would be carried out by no one. He was a dying man, and no one now cared that he was still the one sitting upon the dragon throne.
Dai Ping'an... at the very moment he needed him most, the man was nowhere to be seen. Not a trace of movement from him this entire time.
Either dead, or gone over to the enemy.
Having worked all of this through, Gan Sheng slowly extended his emaciated hand, the tips of his fingers brushing the edge of the silken scroll.
"Your Majesty!" Fei Yongxing knelt prostrate, tears and mucus streaming down his face. Every official in the court knew he was the Emperor's trusted confidant — if the Emperor fell, his entire household would follow.
Thus, Fei Yongxing's weeping came from a true place, and his words carried genuine sincerity. "Your Majesty, you cannot! The foundations laid by our ancestors must not be handed away! Your subjects swear to live and die with Your Majesty!"
His voice echoed through the bedchamber. No one answered.
The colleagues around him, who moments before had been stirred to fervor by the Empress Dowager's words, now stood like clay effigies, utterly still.
Li Jie and the others thought: This performance thing — you clearly don't grasp it. Emotional support is given because it is given; who actually takes it seriously!
What Fei Yongxing did not know was that the men behind him, though appearing statue-still, were in truth watching him with complex expressions, lips pressed tight — not in silence, but in observation, in calculation, waiting for a safe moment to choose sides.
Gan Sheng did not look at them. His gaze settled upon the Crown Prince, held in Consort Shu's arms — the ten-year-old boy trembling in his mother's embrace, shoulders quivering, seemingly terrified out of his wits.