Ball Ball Cultivation

Chapter 481 Light and Dark31

The emperor has already confirmed in his heart that Cui Yanran is the little fairy who helped him in his childhood!

He remembered the birthmark on his arm clearly. No wonder he and Concubine Xi talked about the days when they depended on each other and the details of their escape back to the capital. She described it clearly.

The process of being trafficked and the hard life of relying on each other were vague when he talked about it. It turned out that her savior was not her.

The birthmark on Cui Yanran's arm was created by Mi Han when he was helping her treat the scar on her face. It was exactly the same birthmark as Zhang Jizhi's.

The emperor sent his most trusted people to investigate the truth.

We must also thank Concubine Xi for taking Cui Yanran's parents and relatives into her hands, allowing the Emperor to investigate the truth of that year. Because of Concubine Xi's intervention and the Emperor's mysterious methods when she was unconscious, the Emperor was skeptical about the testimony provided by Cui Yanran's parents.

As for the prince born to Cui Yanran, the emperor is not stupid. The people serving Cui Yanran were all sent by him. How could they not be his offspring?

He could accept the identity of a widow, but the sudden appearance of this husband made him feel a little uncomfortable.

Cui Yanran has always been a weak little white flower. She has also blocked a sword for the emperor, and the emperor’s “real” childhood memories have been awakened.

These two life-saving graces made the emperor's heart full of love and affection for Cui Yanran.

Thanks to Qiuqiu's advance arrangement, a female corpse died in the fire instead of Cui Yanran.

In her former husband's family, the slaves who followed Cui Yanran were either beaten to death or sold. After much difficulty, they found a nanny who had served Cui Yanran since she was a child. However, they found out that when Cui Yanran was five or six years old, she had indeed been missing for a month or two because of the unkindness of her stepmother and the inadequate care of the slaves.

At that time, Cui Yanran was found. The servants around her were afraid that they would be sold out and killed by their mistress because their master was missing, so they reported to the lady that the young master was seriously ill, and it was an infectious disease similar to smallpox.

Not only will the mistress not check it out herself, she will also help cover it up to prevent a young lady from the Cui family from being taken to the quarantine area. This will not only ruin the reputation of the young lady of the Cui family, but will also lead to the family being sealed off if the incident gets out of hand.

The servants serving her were very nervous and had to search for her secretly. It was not until Cui Yanran was sent back that they lied and said that she had recovered.

But the old lady didn't know whether Cui Yanran was abducted or not.

The servants around her were planning to report their master's death due to illness when they couldn't find her, but unexpectedly, Cui Yanran came back.

Qiuqiu slightly tampered with the old nanny's memory of Cui Yanran's illness when she was young, making it appear that she was missing, making the emperor believe in Cui Yanran's identity without a doubt.

Even if the emperor wanted to investigate further, many things could no longer be investigated clearly.

The local prefect received a report and braved the heavy rain to travel into the mountains to capture the human traffickers and rescue the children.

Because the identities of those abducted children were not simple, including princes and noble ladies, the late emperor sent his personal guards to secretly send the children home.

He knew that he had been abducted, and that his father had ordered the final work of the matter. With his father's methods, he had cleaned up the matter very thoroughly, and he could not find anything now.

It was indeed not cautious enough to determine Cui Yanran's life-saving grace just by a birthmark. After Concubine Xi's replacement, the suspicious emperor is now even more cautious.

Moreover, he had not yet found out whether Cui Yanran's fire was an accident or how she escaped outside and was rescued, so he would not act rashly.

All coincidences added together are not necessarily a coincidence!

However, it has been confirmed that Concubine Xi bribed court officials and pretended to be his savior.

There is also some vague evidence pointing to the fact that Concubine Xi's sudden appearance and the fact that she has no family members may indicate that she is a spy sent by the barbarians.

The emperor considered himself a benevolent monarch who cherished old friendships. After all, he had favored Concubine Xi for many years and had not caused many mistakes. Taking into account her somewhat mysterious methods, he would not do anything to Concubine Xi. He only asked her to hand over her palace power and move to Qingyuan Pavilion. Her allowance would still be provided according to the position of a concubine, which was a disguised way of keeping her away from him.

The current emperor believed that he was very lenient and merciful, but staying away from the emperor meant staying away from the dragon's aura, which completely angered Concubine Xi.

He had held the power of the imperial harem for many years, and his influence could not be underestimated. However, within a month, the hands and feet of the prince born to Sun Meixiang began to fester, and he died without any cure.

Sun Meixiang went crazy. Not only did she expose all the crimes of her parents, she also rushed out to obstruct the ceremony of enthroning the prince born to Cui Yanran as the crown prince. She poured kerosene on Cui Yanran and her son, causing Cui Yanran, who was afraid of fire, to suffer from the flames again.

The fire was put out in time. Cui Yanran's right face and the little prince's left face and neck suffered burns of varying degrees. The prince, with his disfigured face, had no chance of becoming emperor.

The current emperor had originally intended to compensate Cui Yanran and her son, but he hadn't expected such a misfortune. His health was failing, and at only forty years old, he had suffered a stroke from this incident.

Sun Meixiang has lived with hatred since her mother passed away when she was five years old, and her personality is very extreme.

The death of her son made her lose the motivation to live, and the violent poisonous insects in her body were also at work. She heard the evidence presented by the servants: Cui Yanran poisoned her son, causing his death.

This is why he destroyed everything without regard for the consequences.

The emperor suffered a stroke, Cui Yanran and the little prince were disfigured and had no chance of becoming emperor. The eldest and second princes were one stupid and one disabled, and without anyone to suppress them, the forces behind them began to fight for power regardless of the country.

With Concubine Xi instigating them from behind, the fight between the two became more and more intense, reaching the point of a fight to the death.

While the emperor was being served medicine by his bedside, the two older princes actually engaged in armed conflict.

The eldest prince killed the second prince in front of the emperor, and the emperor was furious and imprisoned in the sky prison. There was no queen mother or queen, and the most honorable person in the harem was Concubine Xi, whose position was not deprived.

Concubine Xi quickly took control of the court and ascended the throne as emperor.

At the coronation ceremony, the heads of the Zhang, Huo, and Xu families, as well as the nearly eighty-year-old Duke Rong, each held a copy of the founding emperor's imperial edict and walked before the civil and military officials.

The old Duke Rong had long since resigned from his official position and walked tremblingly to the front of the officials to prevent the Imperial Concubine Xi from ascending the throne.

Duke Rong faced the officials and held up the imperial edict with both hands: "This is the first imperial edict issued by the head of the Li family, the founding emperor, after he ascended the throne.

The written imperial edict expressing the promises made to supporters such as Zhang Yunzhi, Xu Ying, and Huo Mian will be kept in the hands of the four heads of our families.

Back then, the four gentlemen in the capital had a close relationship and trusted each other with their lives. They all had extraordinary talents.

The meticulous Zhang Yunzhi, the erudite Xu Ying, the brave and skilled Huo Mian, and the third prince Song Qingyun, who knew how to appoint people, formed the foundation for the new emperor of the Song Dynasty.