met free Page 191
Page 191
Qin Ye walked over and gave Lai Mingcheng a thumbs up, "At your age, you still use connections; you really make the Censor proud!"
Chen Pingping was pushed over by Fan Xian. Both of them looked at each other with admiration. Chen Pingping sighed.
"I am willing but unable to do so. In the future, Fan Xian will accompany Imperial Censor Lai to visit Zuixianju more often."
"Girl, let him order whatever he wants, I'll reimburse you, so he won't keep complaining about us."
Fan Xian nodded and said, "Sure, I understand, I'll go through the back door!"
Lai Mingcheng was furious. He just couldn't understand why everyone believed those lies.
"You! Why do you believe such a clumsy lie!"
"How corrupt and incompetent the court is!"
In reality, no one believed it; the old foxes were just pretending to believe it, giving this honest man, one of the few honest men in the court, a way out.
The worse a person's reputation, the less the Emperor will want to kill him.
Since Fan Xian investigated and punished the corrupt officials under the Second Prince in one fell swoop, this anti-corruption campaign can be considered a complete success.
As for Lai Mingcheng's impeachment of the Supervisory Council, Chen Pingping, and Fan Xian, it had virtually no effect.
Therefore, Fan Xian was directly appointed by Chen Pingping as the official head of a department.
As the Director of the Supervisory Council and concurrently the head of one of its departments, Fan Xian became the top person in the Supervisory Council after Chen Pingping.
A few days after the court assembly, Fan Xian was pleasantly surprised to find that Wu Zhu had returned.
Fan Xian tells Wu Zhu all of Xiao En's secrets, hoping that Wu Zhu can remember something.
However, after thinking for a long time, Wu Zhu still couldn't recover any new memories.
"Uncle, are you fully recovered from your injury?"
Wu Zhu said confidently, "Do I still have a faint fragrance on me?"
Fan Xian leaned closer and sniffed it, then said with absolute certainty, "Neither fragrant nor foul!"
Wu Zhu nodded in satisfaction. "The maintenance was very successful this time, and I am very satisfied."
Just as Fan Xian was pondering why it was about maintaining the effect, Wu Zhu suggested sneaking into the palace at night.
"Now that you hold a high position and your identity is public, you must have many enemies hiding in the shadows."
"We can't delay any longer about the box. Tonight, we'll sneak into the palace!"
Chapter 136 Barrett in hand! One hundred bullets! (33)
Upon hearing Wu Zhu's suggestion, Fan Xian also felt that this matter could not be delayed any longer.
"Uncle, Yan Xiaoyi from the palace died in battle at the border, so Gong Dian, who was at the peak of the eighth rank, is much weaker."
"However, there is a Grandmaster hidden in the palace!"
Wu Zhu said, "The Grandmaster in the palace should be the Grand Eunuch Hong Sixiang."
"I can lure him away, and you can sneak into the Empress Dowager's palace to get the key. That should be fine, right?"
Having already broken through to the eighth rank, Fan Xian was very confident in his domineering true qi.
"Yan Xiaoyi is skilled in archery and has a strong ability to locate objects by sound, making him very difficult to deal with. Gong Dian is much weaker."
"The Censorate has locksmiths skilled in making complex keys, and it is not far from the palace."
"I'm more than 80% confident I can get the key to the palace this time!"
After Fan Xian secured his position as Director of the Supervisory Council and Head of the First Division, he arranged for Guo Youzhi to be transferred to the Supervisory Council as a way of repaying Guo Baokun for protecting him over a thousand miles.
That evening, Fan Xian, Guo Baokun, and He Zongwei met for drinks at Zuixianju.
Fan Xian once again used drunkenness as a cover, preparing for the possibility of his alibi should the matter be exposed.
Without Yan Xiaoyi, the entry into the palace seemed to go very smoothly on the surface.
Wu Zhu lured Hong Sixiang away and used the Four-Looking Sword Technique to successfully confuse him.
Anyway, this wasn't the first or second time that the disciples of Si Gu Jian had brazenly attempted assassination in Kyoto.
Wu Zhu was puzzled because Hong Sixiang had not revealed any of his Grandmaster-level aura.
To be on the safe side, Wu Zhu did not reveal his true abilities, suppressing his strength to delay Hong Sixiang.
Fan Xian entered the Han Guang Palace where the Empress Dowager was located and used a sleeping potion to knock out the Empress Dowager and all the palace maids and eunuchs.
He carefully opened the hidden compartment under the Empress Dowager's bed and found three things inside.
One was a strangely shaped key, the other opened an envelope, and the other was a white silk ribbon.
Fan Xian dared not delay, so he took the key and rushed out of the palace to have the locksmith make him a new one.
His poison was enough to make the Empress Dowager and the palace servants fall into a coma for more than two hours.
So, after putting the counterfeit key he had made into the hidden compartment, he curiously looked at the other two items.
Because Yan Xiaoyi wasn't in the palace, it was much easier for Fan Xian to infiltrate, so he was bolder.
The white silk ribbon was nothing special; it was probably just the kind used for hanging oneself.
Fan Xian wondered why the old lady kept the white silk used for hanging herself.
When he opened the envelope and saw the letter inside, he finally understood where the white silk had come from.
It turns out that Ye Qingmei and Emperor Qing had feelings for each other back then, but she refused to enter the palace, which made Emperor Qing lose his mind.
The Empress Dowager believed that Ye Qingmei was a witch who brought chaos to the country, disregarded the law, and seduced the Emperor.
Therefore, the Empress Dowager sent a white silk ribbon to Ye Qingmei in the Taiping Villa, ordering her to commit suicide.
However, Ye Qingmei had Wu Zhu return the white silk to the old lady under cover of night and place it by her bedside.
This letter from Ye Qingmei was sent back along with Bai Ling. In it, she jokingly recounted the whole story and expressed her dissatisfaction.
The entire piece consists of mundane family matters, with no other important information.
To avoid alerting the enemy, Fan Xian put the letter back unopened, unaware of what the old lady intended to do with the white silk and the letter.
Inside the palace, after Fan Xian left, Emperor Qing emerged from a corner like a ghost.
The Grandmaster's perception range is limited, but the Empress Dowager's secret compartment was within his perception range.
Recently, the secret agent in the inner court who was watching Fan Xian suddenly disappeared, and Emperor Qing is already suspecting that Wu Zhu has returned.
A quarter of an hour later, Hong Sixiang came to Emperor Qing's side with shame.
"The newcomer is using the Four-Looking Sword Technique; his skill is profound and unfathomable!"
Emperor Qing asked, "How can it be so unfathomable?"
Hong Sixiang knelt down, a rare occurrence for him, and said, "The newcomer's true energy is deeply concealed and not revealed at all, but his speed and strength are comparable to this old servant's."
"This old servant failed in his duty to capture the thief; I beg Your Majesty to punish me!"
Emperor Qing realized that the person who had visited the Empress Dowager's palace twice was Fan Xian, as evidenced by the light chuckle he gave when reading the letter.
Emperor Qing naturally guessed that Fan Xian had taken the key and left behind a fake, because Fan Xian had entered and exited the Empress Dowager's palace twice.
In the original novel, Fan Xian didn't have time to put the key back and only went in and out once. Emperor Qing assumed that Fan Xian had come to see Ye Qingmei's handwritten letter.
But Fan Xian's operation went smoothly tonight, so Emperor Qing immediately thought of the key and the box left by Ye Qingmei!
It goes without saying that it was Wu Zhu who lured Hong Sixiang away.
Wu Zhu is back! The two of them need to work together to open the box!
The guilty Emperor Qing, even as a Grandmaster, felt a chill run down his spine!
What exactly is in Xiaoyezi's box?
What kind of thing is hidden under Wu Zhu's blindfold?
"Get up. That person is indeed too strong. You have no way to deal with him. The only option is to seek help from the temple."
"I thought he would need several years to recover from his serious injuries, but I didn't expect him to come back so soon."
"There is no time to lose. You should leave the palace now and bring the High Priest into the palace."
An hour later, Hong Sixiang brought the high priest of the Kyoto Qingmiao Temple to the Imperial Study.
Ye Qingmei came from the temple, but her actions have had too great an impact on human society and have violated the temple's principles.
Therefore, after Ye Qingmei accomplished some deeds, the temple sent an envoy to Nanqing to eliminate Ye Qingmei.
At that time, Emperor Qing and the mysterious temple messenger completed their first collaboration.
The temple messenger lured Wu Zhu away, and Emperor Qing himself led a western expedition, taking Fan Jian with him, while Chen Pingping was transferred to oversee the northern frontier.
Ye Qingmei was left alone and was killed in a rebellion launched by nobles in Kyoto.
The high priest of Keimyo Shrine in Kyoto is the person chosen by the temple's messengers to communicate with the temple.
When the temple messenger left, he made it clear that if any traitors were discovered, the temple should be contacted.
The so-called traitor, of course, refers to Wu Zhu, whom Ye Qingmei brought out of the temple.
The high priest's methods are limited to sending messages one-way to the temple, with no response from the temple.