The Ups and Downs of the Birthday Banquet

Two thousand words for three updates, changed to three thousand words for two updates—get it done before two o'clock.

The Sedan Chair advanced slowly, parting the dancers before it like waves. Wherever it passed, the dancing girls bowed and retreated.

Yet the child's identity spread through every corner of the birthday banquet ten times faster than the Sedan Chair itself, like a plague.

Grand Heir Apparent!

The Crown Prince's "son"!

Almost in the blink of an eye, the noisy clinking of cups and merry toasts at the feast was replaced by deathly silence.

Even the music and dancing around them seemed to have been shut out beyond the square.

Among the civil and military officials and nobles present, there were inevitably a few incompetents filling seats, but the overwhelming majority were considered the elite of officialdom.

When they had first seen the three tables and chairs arranged side by side in the center, quite a few had sensed that the emperor intended to elevate Jia Yuanchun, perhaps even to depose the Crown Prince and appoint another heir.

And now, in the span of a moment, the Grand Heir Apparent—who had been the subject of gossip for a full two years yet had never appeared before the public—had suddenly made a grand entrance at the birthday banquet.

If this was not the Crown Prince's counterattack, even fools would not believe otherwise!

For a time, hundreds of eyes stared fixedly at that tiny figure, though the emotions contained within them varied greatly.

Among them, Sun Shaozong naturally had the most unusual thoughts.

It had been his idea to have the Grand Heir Apparent appear at the birthday banquet. Moreover, from the Crown Princess's strange behavior earlier, he had already guessed that the Grand Heir Apparent would most likely make his entrance onstage.