Chapter 158 The poor little girl who was married off VS the inhumane prince 43
"Royal brother, have you caught those thieves?"

After Emperor Qiming's rage, he returned to normal, looked at Prince Jin who was standing below, and asked in a deep voice.

Without waiting for the King of Jin to answer, Nangong Mo stepped out in an instant, "Your Majesty, those people were all assassins. Most of them were killed, and those who were captured alive committed suicide by taking poison."

"Is the Crown Prince here too?" Emperor Qiming turned his gaze to the Crown Prince and asked with a raised eyebrow.

"Your Majesty, I, your sixth uncle, your third brother, and several young masters from aristocratic families went to Wan'an Temple to participate in the Water and Land Dharma Assembly. After the Water and Land Dharma Assembly ended, we all returned together. We were all present when the incident occurred, and we killed the thieves together."

Nangong Mo bowed his head and said respectfully.

"Yes, Father, I was there at the time. Those men in black came in waves, hundreds of them in total. It was my brother the Crown Prince and my brother Yan who sent people to support us. I wanted to send people too, but unfortunately I had no one available."

The third prince also stood up slowly, and as he spoke, his face was filled with guilt.

Several princes standing in the court secretly rolled their eyes and sneered at these words in their hearts.

What if everyone doesn’t know how many people you support privately?
Why are you crying poor to your father?

Even Crown Prince Nangong Mo felt the same way, and his eyes turned a little colder when he looked at the Third Prince.

The corner of Emperor Qiming's mouth twitched. How could he not know that his sons all had their own power in private?
But he doesn't care. As long as it's not brought to the surface, he won't care what happens in private.

But he was quite surprised to hear that Yan'er also had power.

But he didn't care about it. Instead, he felt that the child had grown up and wondered whether he should let him enter the court.

Emperor Qiming looked at the Crown Prince and the Third Prince, "If that's the case, can you tell where those assassins came from?"

"I don't know about this, but the body has been kept and sent to the Dali Temple."

Although the prince knew that it was from the Princess's Mansion, he would not say it out loud, after all, there was no evidence.

Seeing this, Dali Temple Minister Lu Anyun stepped out immediately and said, "Your Majesty, someone did deliver several bodies last night, but there were no clues left on them. The details are still to be verified."

Emperor Qiming nodded slightly and said nothing, but handed the case over to the Dali Temple for investigation.

At the same time, he ordered the Ministry of Justice and the Censorate to assist the Dali Temple in investigating the case.

And they are given a month to find out the results.

The people in the Dali Temple, the Ministry of Justice, and the Censorate secretly groaned inwardly, but since the emperor had given the order, they could not refuse and could only obey respectfully.

After the court session, Emperor Qiming returned to the imperial study, and the first thing he did was to ask his Shadow Dragon Guards to investigate.

He wanted to see who was bold enough to assassinate Yan'er and his wife.

Afterwards, he ordered people to send a batch of generous rewards to the Prince of Jin's Palace.

He also specially asked someone to go to the warehouse to pick out some high-quality bird's nests, century-old ginseng, ganoderma lucidum and other precious medicinal materials to be sent over.

These are for Yu Yao.

After all, she was pregnant with his grandson and had been frightened, so naturally she needed to take good care of herself.

If Emperor Qiming hadn't been afraid of attracting too much attention and arousing suspicion, he would have wanted to send an imperial physician to take a look.

But thinking that there was a palace doctor in Prince Jin's mansion, he gave up.

……

Here, after the prince left the court, he went to the Pepper Palace to find the queen.

"Your son greets your mother!"

Nangong Mo bowed to the queen who was sitting on the couch.

"You kid, you are so polite to your mother, get up quickly."

The queen was very happy to see her son and pulled him up with a smile.

Nangong Mo stood up and then sat on a couch nearby. Soon a palace servant served him fragrant tea.

He picked it up and took a sip, but did not rush to speak.

The queen glanced at her son and knew that he had something to ask her, so she said to the palace servants in the inner hall, "All of you go down."

"Yes, madam!"

The palace maids in the Pepper Room left one after another, carefully closing the door when they left.

Nangong Mo and the Queen were the only two people left in the entire inner hall, and the space instantly became quiet.

Seeing that there was no one else around, Nangong Mo put down the teacup in his hand, cast his gaze towards the Queen, and asked straight to the point: "Mother, yesterday I discovered a group of men in black who looked very much like your men. I don't understand why you want to deal with Nangong Yan?" In his eyes, even if Nangong Yan was very much loved by his father, he was from the Prince of Jin's Mansion after all, and was not his biological son. No matter how much he loved him, he would have no chance of becoming emperor, so there was really no need to bother dealing with him.

The queen had expected her son to ask this question, so she did not answer him directly. Instead, she asked, "Do you know the relationship between Princess Jin and the emperor?"

This question made Nangong Mo a little confused. What kind of relationship could there be between Princess Jin and the emperor? Aren't they just uncle and his sister-in-law?
Only a few people knew about the romantic affair between Emperor Qiming and Princess Jin, and more than ten years had passed since the incident, so the news was kept secret.

Those who know don’t dare to speak carelessly, and those who don’t know don’t know.

Of course Nangong Mo wouldn't know about this kind of thing, and he had never even heard of it.

"Is there some hidden secret?"

Nangong Mo is not stupid, he can even be said to be extremely smart, and he thought of something instantly.

The queen nodded slightly, her expression a little unhappy. She glanced at her son in front of her and did not hide anything.

Afterwards, she slowly told the story of how Emperor Qiming had pursued Princess Jin, and how Princess Jin finally chose Prince Jin because she did not want to enter the palace.

Nangong Mo stood up in shock after hearing this, staring at the queen, "Mother, you suspect that the relationship between Princess Jin and father is not severed at all, and you also suspect that Nangong Yan is the son of father and Princess Jin, right?"

He asked why his father treated Nangong Yan better than his own sons.

If Princess Jin really had something going on with my father, and Nangong Yan was my father's biological child, then everything would make sense.

He couldn't help but think of himself. If Prince Yan's wife had an affair with him and gave birth to a son for him, he would also be very good to that son.

If the child is born by the woman you love and the fact cannot be made public, you will definitely want to give the child the best things in the world.

The Queen was not surprised by her son's shocked look, and her expression turned sad.

"Although my mother is the queen and his wife, he has never loved me, and I never expected it. But he is not satisfied with having three thousand beauties in his harem, and he is secretly having an affair with that bitch Princess Jin."

This is what the Queen thinks. In fact, the Princess of Jin is too busy hiding from Emperor Qiming. She loves the Prince of Jin.

But the Queen didn't know this. She only thought that Emperor Qiming and Princess Jin had been having an affair secretly all these years, so she was naturally jealous.

The Queen wiped her tears with a handkerchief and said sadly, "I can't control what they do in private, but your father actually gave the peony, which symbolizes the Queen, to that bitch, the Princess of Jin. Where does this put me?"

Seeing his mother so sad, Nangong Mo didn't know how to comfort her and simply kept silent.

He was feeling uncomfortable at the moment, and anyone would feel uncomfortable if they suddenly had a new brother.

Especially this is the royal family.

Although this matter is still uncertain, judging from my father's attitude towards Nangong Yan, it is probably true.

It’s just that people didn’t think about it this way before.

"So that's why Mother sent someone to assassinate Nangong Yan?"

Nangong Mo instinctively thought that the queen was trying to eliminate dissidents for him again.

Although he is already the crown prince, no one can predict what will happen in the future as long as he does not ascend the throne.

The Queen shook her head slightly, "That's not the case. Mother just asked someone to get Nangong Yan's blood to confirm whether he is your father's child."

Nangong Mo pressed his forehead with a headache and said in a bad tone: "My mother is confused, what is there to prove? It's better for everyone not to know, and it's best to keep it a secret forever."

What everyone doesn’t know is that Nangong Yan can only be the Crown Prince of Prince Jin’s Mansion, and even if the emperor likes him much, he will never hand over the throne to him.

But once it is proven that Nangong Yan is the emperor's child, things will become completely different.

Regardless of whether Nangong Yan regains his status as a prince, he is eligible to inherit the throne.

The queen also thought of this, and then she realized how foolish what she had done was, and she became panicked.

"Mo'er, mother is not... mother just wants to know whether Nangong Yan has any relationship with your father, and she doesn't want to make it public..."

The queen was so anxious to explain herself that she began to speak incoherently.

She was stupid to want her son to have more competitors. She wished there were as few princes in the palace as possible.

"I know that mother didn't mean that, but once something is done, it will leave traces. Fortunately, I have already cleaned up the mess."

Nangong Mo frowned and looked at the Queen, "This matter ends here. Whether Nangong Yan is the emperor's son or not, just pretend you don't know and don't be curious."

"The Queen Mother knows."

After analyzing the pros and cons, the Queen came to her senses and no longer worried about the affairs of Princess Jin and Emperor Qiming, nor did she want to know whether Nangong Yan was Emperor Qiming's child.

She only wanted her son to ascend the throne smoothly, then she would be the most noble woman in Jing Dynasty, and no one could compare to her.