Chapter 633: - Best Actor! (Please Subscribe)

Zheng Fan put the dagger away and sat down beside the bed.

The Fifth Prince, still lying on the floor, stretched out one hand with some difficulty.

Zheng Fan ignored him.

He silently took out his Zhonghua-brand iron cigarette case, drew out a cigarette, and tapped it against the back of his hand.

The Fifth Prince shook his head and gave a bitter smile.

Then he struggled to get up by himself, grimacing with pain.

Seeing that, Zheng Fan set the case aside and reached out, helping the Fifth Prince up and letting him lean back against the bed.

“The wound is real?” Zheng Fan asked.

The Fifth Prince nodded and pointed toward the left side of his chest.

“You stabbed yourself?” Zheng Fan asked.

The Fifth Prince frowned.

“Shouldn’t you first be asking why the saber apparently wasn’t poisoned?”

The implication was clear.

You skipped a step.

You used to hate it when I skipped steps, and now you’re doing it yourself!

Zheng Fan shook his head and lightly tapped one finger against the area over the Fifth Prince’s left chest.

He did not use any force, so the wound was not disturbed.

“I have fought my way through more battlefields than I can count. At this location, unless the person holding the saber is a complete green recruit, one stab is fatal whether there is poison or not. Since you are still alive, that proves you stabbed yourself.”

The idea that someone could casually take a bullet or arrow through the chest, rest for a few days, and then bounce back to full health was pure nonsense.

And these assassins had obviously been trained martial artists.

Once a blade entered this part of the body, even a little qi and blood driven into it would cause tearing and shock throughout the organs.

Where would there even be room left for treatment afterward?

The Fifth Prince nodded gloomily.

“Yes. I stabbed myself.”

“Are you sick in the head?”

The Fifth Prince did not answer immediately.

Instead, he pointed at the tea table not far away.

“I’m thirsty.”

Marquis Zheng looked at him.

The Fifth Prince looked back at Marquis Zheng.

In the end, Marquis Zheng had no choice but to stand, walk over, pour a cup of tea, and hand it to him.

The Fifth Prince took the cup.

The tea was warm.

He drank several mouthfuls before finally recovering a little.

“I say, you are a Marquis now. Great Yan’s Marquises raised through military merit really are worthy of respect. But I am still an imperial prince. Could you give me just a little face? I’m not asking you to behave as though terrified before me. I know perfectly well you won’t. But could you at least show some respect?”

Marquis Zheng dusted off one shoulder of his armor and said blandly:

“Talk business.”

“Tsk.”

The Fifth Prince held his cup, apparently organizing his thoughts.

Marquis Zheng asked directly:

“The poison. Was it yours?”

Thump.

The teacup slipped from the Fifth Prince’s hand and landed on the bed.

“Zheng Fan, you cannot talk nonsense about something like that. This affair had nothing to do with me at all. I am a victim too! It was a perfectly good banquet, and then so many people suddenly died. Am I insane? Why would I do something like that? After this, who would dare attend another banquet I host?”

Zheng Fan turned and looked at the Fifth Prince.

“Then why are you lying here pretending to be poisoned? Missed me?”

If the Fifth Prince had not been poisoned, Marquis Zheng would not have come to Yingdu in the first place.

The Fifth Prince immediately shook his head, obvious discomfort appearing on his face.

That wording, combined with the particular patch of earth beneath their feet, invited some very unhealthy implications.

“Tell me everything you know. Quickly.”

“Are you busy?”

“I’m sleepy.”

“The banquet was organized by me. A great many of the guests came only because they were giving me, an imperial prince, face. Then someone put poison in the wine and killed a whole group of people.”

“That’s it?”

“That’s it.”

“Then talk about yourself. Why did you stab yourself?”

The Fifth Prince fell silent.

Zheng Fan stood.

“If you refuse to speak, fine. My personal guards will come in later, tie you up, and send you back to Yanjing. You can explain yourself slowly before the Court of Judicial Review, the Court of Imperial Clan, or His Majesty in the Rear Garden. There is no reason for secrecy anymore. Not at a time like this.”

With that, Zheng Fan turned and walked toward the door.

He disliked conversations full of hesitation and evasive half-statements.

Too tiring.

Too tedious.

More importantly, ever since formally establishing his Marquis Residence and raising his own command, Zheng Fan’s mentality had changed.

He had gradually begun worshiping one simple principle:

I have troops in my hand.

Everything else is negotiable.

A perfectly standard warlord’s mentality.

He had drifted.

He had swollen.

“Zheng Fan.”

The Fifth Prince stopped him.

“The man who tried to kill me. I know him.”

Zheng Fan halted and waited, not particularly patiently, for the rest.

“His name is Wen Yin. He belongs to the Crown Prince. He specializes in recruiting people from the jianghu for the Crown Prince.”

Wen Yin?

Zheng Fan turned around and looked at the Fifth Prince sitting on the bed.

“You know Wen Yin too?”

The Fifth Prince looked as though he did not know whether to laugh or cry.

“Shouldn’t I be asking you that? You are a military Marquis commanding armies. How do you even know Wen Yin?”

Zheng Fan pointed at his own face.

“You should know why I know.”

“Yes. I know. Little Sixth must have told you. After all, you’re the greatest fighting dog in Sixth Master’s faction. Damn it, what kind of luck does Little Sixth have? He backed one man and somehow managed to support him all the way from Commandant to Marquis of military merit.”

“You’re off topic.”

“I know. But when you ask me things like that, it hurts. It hurts worse than the wound in my chest. This Prince is still a prince, all right? This Prince is still an imperial son. A rotten ship still has three thousand nails. Am I not even allowed to know that Wen Yin is one of the Crown Prince’s jianghu hounds? Yes, I like carpentry. Yes, I like inspecting construction sites. That is all true. But at minimum, I am still Father Emperor’s son. Maybe I cannot compare with Little Sixth, who exposed so many hidden cards just through one wedding. But surely I am not so pathetic in your eyes?”

Aggrieved.

Extremely aggrieved.

Utterly aggrieved.

Zheng Fan laughed.

“Wen Yin personally attacked you?”

“Yes. I saw him clearly. It was him. Years ago in Yanjing, when the Crown Prince celebrated his birthday, I once saw Wen Yin at the Crown Prince Residence. Later, I had people investigate and learned his identity.”

Whether that account of their first meeting was true, Zheng Fan did not bother judging for the moment.

Perhaps it had genuinely been coincidence.

In any case, a prince was still a prince.

Even if he usually kept a low profile, secretly keeping a few people around to gather information was not especially strange.

“Wen Yin’s saber hit me.”

“And you didn’t die?” Zheng Fan asked.

“My guards protected me with their lives. His blade did not penetrate deeply. On top of that, I was wearing hedgehog armor underneath, so at first it only cut the skin.”

“And then you stabbed yourself?”

“Yes. I was afraid. I was fucking afraid!”

The Fifth Prince almost roared the words.

“My Second Brother. My Crown Prince. He actually wanted me dead!”

Zheng Fan walked back to the bedside and looked down at him.

“Zheng Fan, yes, we are imperial princes. But we are brothers too. I always believed the brothers in our family were different from the imperial families of other states, different from the brothers written about in history. Eldest Brother has always acted like an eldest brother, and he stopped caring about the throne long ago. He has no chance anyway. Second Brother is steady. Little Sixth is a monster. I’m just someone who likes carpentry. I never wanted to fight for it. I never even thought about fighting for it. Why does he want to kill me?”

The Fifth Prince pulled open his clothes, revealing the bandaged wound.

He pointed at it and continued:

“Third Brother is gone. In truth, every one of us brothers felt terrible after that. It wasn’t merely sorrow at the death of one of our own kind. It was because we really did have feelings for one another. Zheng Fan, do you believe me? We brothers genuinely had brotherly affection.”

Zheng Fan said nothing.

“If the Crown Prince thinks I am in the way and wants me removed, what can I do? I can only cooperate. Wen Yin failed to kill me...”

“Wait. Weren’t all the assassins who attacked you supposed to have swallowed poison and killed themselves?”

“A few escaped, Wen Yin among them. The rest were surrounded afterward by my guards and the City Patrol Office. They bit through poison capsules hidden in their teeth and killed themselves.”

“The case files didn’t say that.”

The files Zheng Fan had read stated that every assassin involved in the attack had either been killed or committed suicide.

“I didn’t tell them,” the Fifth Prince replied as though it were the most natural thing in the world. “I even thought Wen Yin’s strike wasn’t convincing enough, so I added another stab myself. Fortunately, my craftsmanship is excellent. The wound did not touch anything vital. But I was afraid people would notice something wrong, so I swallowed a few pills too and made myself look poisoned and weak. Even the best physician would only assume I was unconscious because the poison in my body had not yet fully cleared.”

“You still haven’t explained why you stabbed yourself.”

“I can’t afford to provoke them, so I can at least hide. I cripple myself. Is that acceptable? I was planning to lie here and slowly recover. One year. Half a year. Long enough to...”

The Fifth Prince stopped.

Zheng Fan understood what he had meant.

Long enough for Father Emperor to die.

Once the new ruler ascended, he would be free.

As long as he continued behaving obediently, even if the new ruler was that man, there would no longer be any reason to kill him.

Instead, the new emperor would treat him well and display the harmony of the imperial household, establishing an example of brotherly affection.

“Marquis Zheng, is that explanation enough?”

The succession struggle had already entered its final stage.

The Prince of Jingnan had agreed with Zheng Fan that they would enter Yanjing after autumn began.

Clearly, the Fifth Prince wanted to use this assassination to remove himself from the board.

To withdraw.

To hide until the storm passed.

The reasoning held together.

It also matched the Fifth Prince’s character.

In truth, the Emperor of Yan had seven sons.

Six had reached adulthood.

Not one was a fool.

The Fifth Prince’s aptitude was perfectly respectable.

And he had the additional hidden joke known only to Zheng Fan and the Demon Kings: the “carpenter emperor” archetype.

But compared with those other two, he truly had no realistic chance.

Yielding was forced upon him by circumstances.

“Please keep this secret for me, Marquis Zheng. I’ll lie here for another half month before waking. After that, I’ll remain weak and bedridden.”

“All right.”

Zheng Fan nodded and agreed.

“Then I’m going back to sleep.”

“You won’t stay and talk a while longer? Pretending to be unconscious all day is boring. I can’t even use a hammer and nails.”

“Rest properly. I’m tired too.”

With that, Marquis Zheng turned again and headed toward the door.

But this time, when he reached the doorway, the Fifth Prince did not call after him.

Yet Zheng Fan stopped anyway.

He turned around again and faced the Fifth Prince.

He simply stared.

The Fifth Prince gradually began feeling uneasy beneath that gaze.

“Wen Yin is not actually the Crown Prince’s man,” Zheng Fan said.

“Huh? What?” The Fifth Prince looked genuinely shocked. “Marquis Zheng, what... what do you mean? Then whose man is Wen Yin?”

“Wen Yin was one of Little Sixth’s hidden pieces placed beside the Crown Prince.”

“What? Little Sixth’s man? How... how could that be? Why would Little Sixth want me dead? Why him? No. No, impossible...”

Zheng Fan tilted his head slightly.

He looked at the Fifth Prince.

Then raised one hand and pointed at him.

A faintly amused smile appeared on his face.

“You already knew that Wen Yin was Little Sixth’s man, didn’t you?”

“I...”

“Oh. Hehehe.”

Marquis Zheng burst into laughter.

“So when I first entered this room and stood beside your bed reciting that line, ‘Anyone who dares stand in Sixth Highness’s road has to die,’ you were actually panicking like hell inside, weren’t you? You really thought this Marquis had come here on Little Sixth’s orders to finish you off?”

The Fifth Prince sat frozen on the bed.

His body began trembling faintly.

Zheng Fan took two steps forward and continued:

“And everything I asked you afterward, everything you answered, you thought I was probing you. Probing whether you knew Wen Yin was Little Sixth’s man?”

Cold sweat began appearing on the Fifth Prince’s face.

“So from the moment I entered this room, Your Highness, you have been acting the entire time. Wow. Now that is a genuine star performer. Impressive. Truly impressive.”

“Marquis Zheng... how did you see through me?”

“Oh, I didn’t. I was just about to leave and decided to bluff once. Since you supposedly didn’t care whether Wen Yin belonged to the Crown Prince, then naturally it shouldn’t matter if you learned he actually belonged to Little Sixth. You were planning to surrender and hide either way. So why not try?”

“...” the Fifth Prince.

Zheng Fan shook one finger at him.

“Fortunately, ever since I was made Marquis, I’ve been handling some correspondence.”

The Blind Man had worried that Master would grow too idle and look bad, so he had deliberately left a share of letters for Zheng Fan to answer.

At least Master could spend some of his free time writing to his pen pals.

“So there is one more thing, Your Fifth Highness. If you knew it, you would probably be even more shocked.”

“What... what is it? Please enlighten me, Marquis Pingxi.”

“Wen Yin died three months ago.”

...

Excerpt from a letter:

Little Fanzi, that old dog Wen Yin is dead. Died of illness.

Years ago, I sent that old dog to the Crown Prince as a hidden piece. The Crown Prince was short of people then, so Wen Yin rose quickly.

Starting a few years ago, he began hinting that he wanted to retire. I knew he was tired. He felt old and wanted a few peaceful years.

But he also knew I would never agree.

He understood perfectly well that if he tried to retire, there were only two possible endings.

Either the Crown Prince’s people would silence him, or my people would.

Even so, he still mentioned it.

Because he really was tired in his bones.

So even though he knew retirement was impossible, he still wanted to say it to me once in a while.

To sigh about it.

I listened.

Then he died.

He died in an inn.

People really are like that once they get old. One day they simply vanish.

The innkeeper said that the night before he died, he ordered several pots of wine and a plate of peanuts and drank by himself for most of the night.

Then he returned to his room, went to sleep, and never woke again.

It was not murder.

It was not poison.

He really did just die.

He probably knew his time had come.

He left me a letter.

There was only one sentence inside:

Sixth Master, now I can finally rest.

The Eastern Palace buried him.

There is a grave for him west of the city.

I found time to go see it.

From far away.

The old dog is lying there.

He should finally be resting.

Little Fanzi, tell me.

What is the difference between me and that old dog?

He was tired, but he knew he was not allowed to stop.

I am the same.

In the early years, I never wanted to compete for this damned thing.

But those brothers of mine refused to let me go.

My father refused too.

They dragged me back onto the board.

The old dog got tired, lay down beneath a grave mound, and that was the end of it.

He can rest now.

What about me?

What happens to my wife?

My son?

And now two more women have babies in their bellies!

Little Fanzi, only after getting married did I understand how nice it used to be living alone.

When one person wants to lie down and rest, you do not need to go looking for a second bamboo mat.

...

“I’m not lying!”

The Fifth Prince spoke with intense agitation.

“The man I saw was Wen Yin!”

Marquis Zheng nodded.

“Your Highness, what you saw may not have been real.”

...

Creak.

A courtyard gate opened.

A servant in green robes walked into the courtyard.

He did not push open the room door.

Instead, he leaned toward the window and whispered:

“That Marquis has entered the city.”

A voice answered from inside:

“Have all our people withdrawn?”

“Yes. Just as you ordered, they left long ago. I am the only one still inside the city, waiting for your instructions.”

“Good. Very good.”

Whoosh!

Without warning, a chopstick shot through the gap in the window and pierced straight through the green-robed servant’s throat.

The servant clutched his neck.

His face filled with disbelief.

Then he collapsed to the ground.

The room door opened from within.

An elderly man stepped outside.

He wore a broad-brimmed cap and a dark blue-green robe embroidered with coiling green snakes. Golden thread decorated the cuffs. His boots had red uppers and black soles.

His complexion was ruddy.

His skin smooth and carefully maintained.

This man was clearly the old eunuch who had once served as Chief Eunuch of the Inner Court under Situ Lei and later remained beside Situ Yu.

The old eunuch bent down.

He picked up the chopstick.

Then he extended his tongue and slowly licked the blood clean from it.

Afterward, he shook his head to himself and murmured:

“This is bad. That Marquis went straight to Stone Mountain and used the late Emperor’s mausoleum to humiliate the Queen Mother, confine the young lord, and dispose of the entire Prince Residence. Hiss... Could it be that Marquis already knows the truth?”

[End of Chapter 633]