Chapter 6 — The Heir to the Throne with the Wicked Face

The Truth After Twenty Years

The suburban farmhouse where Khấu Đình Ân was imprisoned was hidden behind a thick bamboo grove. On the outside it looked no different from the rest of a normal retired mandarin, but inside there were always four soldiers in civilian clothes on duty day and night, pretending to be servants.

Tang Dịch Phong, dressed as a traditional medicine man, led a young man - in fact, Nhược Hi in disguise - to the manor house with the pretext of periodically examining the elders in the area according to village custom. Thanks to having worked hard to establish a relationship with the physician in charge of this area many months ago, the two were allowed in without much difficulty.

When entering the small room where Khấu Đình Ân was sitting in the sun by the window, Nhược Hi had to bite her lip to keep from crying out loud. Three years of house arrest turned him from a dignified general manager of internal affairs into a skinny old man with white hair, his left arm still twitching and motionless due to the after effects of his past torture, and his eyes were half cloudy.

"The doctor came to examine him." A guard spoke up, his voice somewhat wary. "Let's get examined quickly, don't talk nonsense." Tang Dịch Phong nodded and began to check Khấu Đình Ân's pulse with the maturity of a true healer, while Nhược Hi stood behind, pretending to arrange a medicine bag, secretly looking at the guard standing not far away.

"Do you hear clearly?" Tang Dịch Phong asked loudly, intentionally letting the soldier hear the harmless content, and at the same time gently used a finger signal to touch Khấu Đình Ân's wrist - a secret language that former loyal subordinates of the royal family still used to identify each other.

Khấu Đình Ân was startled, his dull eyes suddenly sparkled with a strange light. He looked at the young boy standing behind the healer, then suddenly recognized the familiar posture and bowing.

"Your Highness..." he whispered softly, his voice shaking so much that it was almost silent, just enough for Nhược Hi to hear.

"Don't be rash," Nhược Hi replied in a whisper, without taking her eyes off the guard standing a few steps away. "I came to find the truth about the night of the incident that year. Do you know anything else besides what you told me before I left the capital?"

Khấu Đình Ân was silent for a moment, his trembling hand pulled out an old, worn piece of cloth from his sleeve, deliberately letting it fall to the ground as if by accident. Tang Dịch Phong quickly picked it up, pretending to give it back but cleverly transferred it to Nhược Hi's hand.

"That's what he still remembers, recorded in signals that only people in the government's internal affairs can read and understand," he whispered, his voice choked. "He knew he didn't have much longer to live, so he tried to write it down from memory and hide it with him in case Her Highness returned one day."

"Can you tell me more?" Nhược Hi asked softly, trying to suppress her emotions. "Why did Khưu Bá Trạch do such a terrible thing? What benefit did he gain from the death of his father and mother?"

"It's not just about Khưu Bá Trạch." Khấu Đình Ân lowered his voice as low as possible, his eyes quickly glanced at the guard who still stood still without the slightest suspicion. "Twenty years ago, when the First Emperor was still the crown prince, the court had a fierce debate about who to make the heir apparent. At that time, Uất Nguyệt Hàn - who was still a favored concubine at that time - gave birth to Khương Bạt Nghi before the Queen gave birth to the First Emperor. Many ministers supported making Bạt Nghi the crown prince because of his son's age, but in the end the throne still belonged to the royal family according to the will of the first king."

Nhược Hi was stunned, the disparate pieces in her mind began to fit together into a complete picture.

"Uất Nguyệt Hàn harbored a grudge for twenty years because her son was stripped of his throne?"

"That's right." Khấu Đình Ân nodded slightly. "And Khưu Bá Trạch, at that time just a small official in the Ministry of Rites, was the one who submitted a petition supporting the deposition of Bạt Nghi to maintain the orthodoxy of the lineage. But no one expected that, many years later, when he had risen to the position of Deputy Grand Deputy, he would suddenly turn around and become Uất Nguyệt Hàn's closest ally."

"Why that change?"

"I heard from a close maid of the Queen Mother before the incident happened, that Khưu Bá Trạch was repeatedly punished by the Immortal Emperor for his stubborn temper, and had intended to be promoted but was personally rejected by the Immortal Emperor because he doubted his loyalty." Khấu Đình Ân sighed, breathing heavily as if each word consumed all his remaining strength. "From then on, he harbored a grudge, thinking that the highest position of power must belong to someone with real intelligence, not a bloodline predetermined from birth. Uất Nguyệt Hàn found him, the two of them shared the same resentment, the same ambition, and the conspiracy was conceived from there."

Outside the door, the guard began to show impatience and urged him. Tang Dịch Phong quickly stood up, packed his medicine bag, and signaled Nhược Hi to also step back.

"Your Highness," Khấu Đình Ân called out softly one last time, his voice weakened by the effort of saying so much in such a short time. "In that piece of cloth, he also wrote down the names of a few people who directly participated in the night of the incident and are still alive, hidden in the army. If you find them, Your Highness will have living witnesses, not just the words of an old man about to be buried halfway in the ground."

"I will find a way to get you out of here, safer," Nhược Hi said, her voice choked.

"Don't take any risks." Khấu Đình Ân shook his head slightly. "This old man is no longer important. The most important thing now is that Her Highness must live, preserve this clue, and wait until she has enough strength to act. Don't sacrifice the whole situation for her."

On the way back to Thông Bảo Trang, Nhược Hi sat silently in the palanquin, her hand tightly clutching the old piece of cloth containing the shocking secret she had just received. She looked out the gap in the palanquin curtain and saw that the capital's streets were still bustling with people. No one knew that right under this veneer of peace and prosperity, a sinister plot had been smoldering for twenty years, just waiting for the right opportunity to erupt into blood and tears.

"Twenty years of resentment," she whispered to herself, her voice cold as ice. "Then, I will make those twenty years of resentment pay the price with the justice my parents deserve."

When she returned to the commercial corridor, she immediately summoned Trường Phong and Tang Dịch Phong, spread the old cloth on the table under the light, and began to carefully decode each symbol. That night, the three of them stayed up until dawn, piecing together fragmentary information into an increasingly clear picture of the conspiracy that had robbed Nhược Hi of her childhood and family.

The symbols that Khấu Đình Ân used were originally government internal affairs codes, arranged in reverse alphabets, and could only be read and understood by those who had worked for a long time in the palace. Tang Dịch Phong, thanks to his father-in-law, who was a small clerk in the Ministry of Rites before his death, still remembered a few old rules, gradually helping to decipher three names: a captain of the imperial army who had directly commanded the assassination team that night, has now changed his name and family name, hiding in a remote border camp; a trusted henchman of Khưu Bá Trạch, specializing in spending money on shady cases, currently holding a minor position in the Household Ministry; and one last name stunned all three people - a maid serving the Queen Mother, the only person who was said to have personally witnessed the entire conspiratorial conversation between Khưu Bá Trạch and Uất Nguyệt Hàn before the night of the incident, but disappeared with unknown whereabouts shortly after.

"If we find this maid, or find out whether she is alive or dead, we will have the most important witness," Trường Phong spoke, his voice thoughtful, his fingers lightly tapping on the table in rhythm with his thoughts. "But three years have passed, and there are hardly many traces left of a missing maid."

"I will have people check the districts around the capital and seek news from the border where the captain is hiding," Tang Dịch Phong said, carefully rolling up the cloth and hiding it in a wooden box beneath the floor. "If even one of these three people testifies, combined with what Khấu Đình Ân remembers, we can build a dossier capable of shaking the court."

Nhược Hi looked at the half-burning candle, the firelight reflected in her eyes no longer had any of the impatience of sixteen years old, only the cold calculation and patience of a person who had learned to wait for the right opportunity remained.

"This cannot be rushed," she said, her voice firm. "If we raise the alarm too early, Khưu Bá Trạch will definitely kill him immediately, like he did with that maid and countless others. We must collect enough evidence, enough witnesses, enough power so that when he takes action, he has no way to deny or run away."

Trường Phong looked at her, in his eyes there was both admiration and sadness that was hard to describe. "Your Highness has grown up a lot compared to the young lady I first met at the foot of Lam Phong mountain."

"I have no choice but to grow up," Nhược Hi replied softly, her eyes still not leaving the shaking candle. "Every day that passes without justice being served, is a day that we owe our parents an apology."