Da Li Temple - Chapter 29.1

Chapter 29.1
Past Matters

The 37th year of the Tianqi era. Spring.
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Like every spring in Sheng City, snow dyed the mountains in the suburbs, and the azaleas competed with the cherry blossoms. Under the melting colors of spring, Empress Wei (1), the Empress of the current Emperor, led a group of women in the harem to Mount Li to hold a silkworm ceremony.
T/N: 1. different Wei from Wei Shu.

The purpose of this ceremony was different from the previous ones. The Emperor had been working hard on the affairs of the state, and his health was deteriorating. When the Crown Prince came to age, he was very popular for his diligence and love for the people. The two concubines of the East Palace came out with good news one after another. The royal family had a direct lineage. Emperor Yonghui intended to cultivate and handed over the major matters of the dynasty to the Crown Prince to deal with. Because of the lack of a Crown Princess, one of the two royal concubines will become the next Empress.
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Therefore, in this silkworm ceremony, Empress Wei intentionally arranged for them to attend the trip and personally teach the empress duties and etiquette.
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Chen Royal Concubine was born into a noble family in Sheng City. Her mother was the first daughter of Marquis Wu’an, and her aunt was the concubine of King Liang, the younger brother of Emperor Yong Hui.
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The other, Xiao Royal Concubine, was from a humble background, the daughter of a fifth-ranking official in the imperial court. She had an older brother named Xiao Jingyan. After her father’s early death in battle, the court, to sympathize with the meritorious officials, sent a pair of Xiao Sima’s son and daughter to Sheng City, and Xiao Jingyan has served in the Golden Guard ever since.
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Later, Xiao’s daughter entered the East Palace as a Royal Concubine. The Crown Prince loved her so much that she soon became pregnant. Based on status and position, it should be a matter of public expectation that Chen Royal Concubine should be the Empress.
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But perhaps fearing King Liang and Chen Royal Concubine’s family background, the young Crown Prince intended to keep the harem away from the previous dynasty’s power and cultivate his inner circle from the bottom.
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Only in a few years, Xiao Jingyan’s official position had leaped from the sixth-grade to the fourth-grade general, and the Crown Prince fully handed the security matter of the pro-silkworm ceremony to him. Xiao Jingyan’s popularity was unrivaled for a moment, and many people were envious of him.
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But on the way back from the silkworm ceremony, an accident happened. When the Empress’s ceremonial entourage passed through the official road of Mount Li, a group of armed men suddenly attacked them. They were pointing towards the Empress’s carriage. In a panic, the accompanying Golden Guard immediately followed, and after a few fights, they stabilized the situation.
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When the crowd thought the scene was under control and everything was safe and sound, a bigger commotion came from the back line. Upon investigating, the Golden Guards discovered that the ladies’ carriages in the back had suffered from the arrow attack. Among them, Chen Royal Concubine’s carriage received the most severe attack and had already been on fire.
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Due to safety, the government road was very far from the river. Thus, facing this fire, the people could not do much. With the blazing fire, black smoke was rolling. At this time, Chen Royal Concubine came out from Princess Anyang’s carriage. When she saw the scene before her, she fainted in fear. The fire did not kill Chen Royal Concubine, but Princess Anyang, who had secretly switched her carriage with her due to her concern for her pregnancy. The Empress was devastated, and the Emperor was furious.
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The investigation order was immediately issued, leaving Sheng City in panic. Under a series of intensive investigations, Xiao Jingyan’s fault of dereliction of duty turned into the crime of trying to exterminate the royal heir due to being obsessed with power.
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Among the arrested prisoners, there was Xiao Jingyan’s most trusted subordinate. He confessed that Xiao Jingyan had conspired and arranged to attack the Empress first to draw the guards’ attention and then planned to assassinate Chen Royal Concubine. The purpose, naturally, was to help his sister remove her rivals and thus become the Crown Princess, coveting the position of Empress in the future.

The Golden Guards were well-equipped and had strict security arrangements for the ceremony. Someone from inside must have well-planned this matter in order to make it happen. However, the most unusual thing was that Xiao Royal Concubine, who should have been present at that ceremony, was allowed to stay in the palace to recuperate because her fetus had moved the night before, and she excused herself from the ceremony.
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Then, people from the Ministry of Criminal Affairs dug out a box of armor and weapons in the backyard of the Xiao Mansion, consistent with those used by the bandits that day. All the coincidences left Xiao Jingyan speechless. Thus, it settled the case of Princess Anyang’s murder.
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Xiao Jingyan received a death sentence, while Xiao Royal Concubine was exempted from the death penalty because she was pregnant with the royal heir but sent to the Cold Palace instead. But in the end, she still died in that place due to difficult labor on a miserable night.
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The weakest love is the Emperor’s household. No matter how much favor you receive or how useful you are, they will all disappear at the charge of rebellion.
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A few years later, the new Emperor ascended the throne, with Chen Crown Princess as the Empress. Then, the world was peaceful, and the society was prosperous. The Xiao siblings and their over-twenty-people clan became a few sentences in the case file in Lin Wanqing’s hand. Her white fingers stroked across the yellowed pages, stopping at the official seal of the Minister of Criminal Affairs, who had organized the case at that time—
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Song Zhengxing.
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It was his first case after the Emperor transferred him from Hongzhou to the Ministry of Criminal Affairs. It was also the case that made him famous. From then on, he rose to great heights and was highly favored.
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Her childhood memories were too fuzzy, and Lin Wanqing vaguely remembered that she seemed to have a beautiful aunt. As a four-year-old, she didn’t care much for where that aunt married later and the Xiao family matter after the collapse. So it seemed that the only people who knew about this case were Song Zhengxing, Empress Chen, and the Empress Dowager.

But Lin Wanqing couldn’t ask the Empress and the Empress Dowager, so the only breakthrough left was Song Zhengxing. It just so happened that she could use Wang Hu’s case to check up on him in passing. Well, as long as Su Moyi nodded.
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Lin Wanqing tidied up the case files in her hand, put them back on the shelf, turned around, and went to Su Moyi’s study room.