frightfiction Chapter 247 Hesitation
Chapter 247 Hesitation
That night, in a place where no one could see, the undercurrent began to roll and surge.
In the following days, everything seemed calm in the court and nothing happened.
In the blink of an eye, it was the end of April.
The prince rested in his mansion for a month. On the last day of April, Li Ce finally spoke and withdrew the guards.
The prince went to the palace to express his gratitude immediately.
Li Ce looked at his eldest son who was kneeling below him, and after a while, he spoke.
"Get up! How is your wife? What did the doctor say?"
The prince stood up, clasped his hands, lowered his head, and replied politely.
"In reply to your father, Mrs. Fan is getting better now, and the fetus is much more stable, but she still needs to rest."
As the prince spoke, he raised his eyes imperceptibly, and then changed his tone to one that was both excited and nervous.
"The baby in Fan's belly has moved in the past few days. This is the first time I have felt it and I am very surprised."
Li Ce said "hmm".
"This is your first child after all, so you should pay more attention to it. I was not by your mother's side when she was pregnant with you, and I have always felt deeply sorry for it. I just hope you won't have such regrets."
This topic obviously softened Li Ce's tone a lot.
"When your mother was pregnant with your fourth brother, she always pulled me to talk to him."
The prince secretly breathed a sigh of relief.
My father mentioned my mother, and it seemed that he did not take the matter seriously.
He looked up and smiled.
"Fourth brother has a lively personality and is most like father. This must be because he often listened to father's teachings when he was in mother's womb."
Li Ce raised his beard and nodded in agreement.
The two chatted for a few more sentences about the children before Li Ce waved his hand.
"Well, it's getting late, you should go to the government office first!"
The prince bowed with both hands and was about to leave when Li Ce suddenly called him back.
"By the way, your wife needs to stay in bed to take care of the baby. The move will be postponed for now. Let's talk about it when she is feeling better!"
The prince paused, without any strange expression on his face, and replied "yes" respectfully, then walked out.
As soon as he left, Li Ce stroked his beard, turned back to the table and sat down.
He pulled out a memorial from the bottom of the pile, opened it, and looked at the words on it with dark eyes.
This is a memorial submitted by the Dali Temple.
Still a secret letter.
The content of the secret memorial was very simple. It said that the Dali Temple had encountered a thorny problem while interrogating the case of the concubine in the Prince's Mansion, and did not dare to make a decision on its own, so it came to ask for instructions.
It has been a month, and the murder case of a concubine has not been fully investigated yet. Li Ce is somewhat unhappy.
He originally wanted to send the memorial back, but some recent events in the palace made him hesitate.
Li Ce was a little hesitant.
He stared at the secret letter for a long time without moving.
I don’t know how long it took, but Liang Gaosheng’s voice was heard outside.
"Your Majesty, it's almost noon, it's time to serve the meal."
Li Ce came back to his senses in shock, turned his head and looked at the clock, it was indeed almost noon.
He closed the folder with a snap, stuffed it under the other folders, stood up and walked out.
When Liang Gaosheng saw him come out, he hurried over and spoke enthusiastically.
"Just now, the Queen sent someone to ask questions. She wanted to invite you to have a meal at Fenglai Palace. She said that the Third and Fourth Princes were both here."
After saying the most important news, Liang Gaosheng continued without stopping.
"In addition, Concubine Wu, Concubine Liang, and Concubine Duan have also been here. Concubine Wu and Concubine Liang said they made soup by themselves and wanted to give it to the emperor to taste, and Concubine Duan made a new painting and wanted to invite the emperor to taste it."
Li Ce raised his eyebrows.
"They came over, and the Queen didn't say anything?"
"No, the Queen is always generous and did not scold me."
What Liang Gaosheng said was very interesting.
Li Ce twitched the corner of his mouth, as if he wanted to say something, but in the end he said nothing.
He walked out of the hall and took a deep breath.
"Go to Fenglai Palace."
Li Ce used to think that Jiang Wanyue was virtuous and generous. He never felt jealous of other women around him and even protected them.
For example, Zhu Yan.
Jiang Wanyue and Zhu Yan have been good friends since they first entered the mansion, and the two have never had any conflicts.
Another example is Wei Fuxue.
Jiang Wanyue even spoke well of Wei Fuxue many times, asking her to meet Qixia and get her married...
Jiang Wanyue was also very kind to the concubines under her. She never suppressed them and would only step in to stop them when they fought fiercely.
Who wouldn’t feel good to have such a virtuous wife?
Li Ce doesn’t feel that way now.
He always had a weird feeling in his heart.
He actually had this feeling a long time ago, but he had never realized it.
When did it start?
On the way to Fenglai Palace, Li Ce couldn't help thinking about this question.
It seems like it was after the last memorial was submitted from the Dali Temple.
On that occasion, the Dali Temple Minister organized part of the interrogation content and presented it to his desk first.
The concubine named Wanxia died due to the conspiracy of another concubine named Zhaoxia.
The matter was simple. Concubine Chaoxia was jealous of Wanxia's favor and also jealous of the Crown Princess' pregnancy, so she came up with a plan to kill two birds with one stone. After the Crown Princess punished Wanxia, she instigated her to hang herself when the Crown Prince returned home, and put on a show for the Crown Prince to see in order to get in touch with him.
Then, the concubine Chaoxia bribed someone in the front yard to spread the false news of the prince's return, so that Wanxia, who had already prepared everything, would take action. She also sent the maidservant around Wanxia to the front yard to invite the prince.
As a result, the person who was supposed to show up and save Wanxia within the specified time arrived late.
She just died like that.
After being severely tortured, the concubine named Zhaoxia finally revealed the truth.
Li Ce was deeply impressed by Zhaoxia's confession.
"I have admired His Royal Highness the Crown Prince since I first met him. Originally, I just wanted to be by His Royal Highness's side, but I couldn't help myself. Every time I saw His Royal Highness favoring someone else, I felt like there were thousands of insects gnawing at my heart. Let me ask you, who can hold the person they love by her side day and night? Who can bear the person they love having a child with someone else? I just did what an ordinary woman would do."
Li Ce had not expected that women could be so jealous.
The women around him, whether it was Lu Qingshuang in the past or the concubines now, would fight and scheme, but mostly for the sake of interests.
Love between men and women?
In the past, Li Ce believed that love between men and women was like what he did to Wei Fuxue, trying to use her for his own benefit.
Later, he thought that the love between him and Jiang Wanyue was true love between men and women, and his feelings for Wei Fuxue were just an inevitable shortcoming of his youth.
But now, he was a little uncertain.
Before he could figure out a clue, people had already arrived at the gate of Fenglai Palace.
Before he even stepped into the hall, he heard the noise of two children.
The next moment, Li Chengze and Li Chengxu ran out together.
"Father!"
Xu'er rushed to Li Ce, shouting loudly and opened her arms for him to hug her.
"Father."
Li Chengze stopped in time and called out politely.
Li Ce subconsciously caught Xu'er and weighed her: "Xu'er, have you gained weight again?"
"Xu'er didn't!"
Li Chengxu refused to admit that he had gained weight.
Li Chengze grinned and said, "Just now the Queen asked me to weigh myself, but I refused. Now that the Emperor is here, I want to see how you can escape."
He made no effort to conceal his gloating.
Li Ce glanced at his third son with some surprise. In his impression, this son was always well-behaved, a little petty, and spoke in a low voice. But now he has become a lot more lively.
It seems that taking him away from Concubine Shu is a good thing.
Li Ce was just thinking about it when he saw Jiang Wanyue coming towards him with the palace maids.
She was wearing a lavender dress, with her hair in a simple bun, and walked towards him with a gentle smile on her face.
Li Ce was in a trance for a moment.