Is He Worthy?

This imperial palace was resplendent and magnificent. It housed the most exalted people in the empire.

The people sustained them, and they were pampered with every luxury, living in boundless extravagance.

Yet no matter how splendid things looked on the outside, they couldn't keep vermin from breeding within. It was as if the whole foundation had rotted away.

The consorts, trapped within the palace walls and locked in vicious schemes against one another, were bad enough. The princes and princesses they raised were even worse, each more evil and cruel than the last, utterly devoid of humanity.

The Grand Princess treated the palace maids and eunuchs as less than human, and the Third Prince was no different.

His behavior was even more bloodcurdling and infamous. He not only flogged palace servants to death at the slightest provocation, but was also cruel by nature. He kept ferocious beasts, and to see them unleash their wild instincts, he would shove living people into their cages and let the beasts tear them apart and devour them.

If the Second Prince's deeds got out, people would surely condemn him, and the censors might even impeach and denounce him. But what could anyone do when he had a loving mother who cherished him like her own life?

To shield her son, Consort Xian covered up his wicked deeds so thoroughly that not a whisper escaped. If one eunuch hadn't been so terrified that he risked everything to ask the Crown Prince for help, the Crown Prince would never have learned that his younger brother was a beast in human skin.

The Crown Prince was devastated. He angrily beat the Third Prince, ordered all the beasts he kept to be killed, and called him a monster—something with a human face and the heart of a beast.

When Emperor Yongchang learned of it, he punished both of them equally. The Crown Prince had struck his younger brother, which was unbecoming of an Heir Apparent; the Third Prince had acted with such cruelty and inhumanity that he disgusted Emperor Yongchang. From then on, the Third Prince lost the emperor's favor.

The incident would damage the emperor's reputation if it got out, so Emperor Yongchang ordered it hushed up and had a great many people put to death.

This tormented the kind and benevolent Crown Prince. He began to doubt the character of his own family and no longer trusted them. They smiled and joked together in public, but what were they really like behind closed doors?

The incidents involving the Grand Princess and the Third Prince could be said to have directly prompted the Crown Prince to pay attention to the palace's low-ranking servants. He noticed how wretched their lives were, and later established rules forbidding the wanton flogging and abuse of palace servants. If a servant died, the Punishment Department would investigate, and anyone who broke the rules would be punished.

As for paying for a life with a life, that was impossible.

A servant was a servant, and a master was a master—especially when it came to members of the imperial family. In their eyes, everyone under heaven was their servant. How could they possibly give their lives for one lowly servant?

It was already impressive that the Crown Prince had managed to restrain them and make them think twice.

But his actions displeased not only the masters of the palace; they also enraged Emperor Yongchang. A rift gradually opened between father and son, and they grew less close than before.

Because of this incident, the Third Prince fell out of the emperor's favor and hated the Crown Prince to the bone. He believed the Crown Prince had deliberately schemed against and framed him, without ever reflecting on what he had done wrong.

When the Crown Prince fell into dire straits, the Third Prince seized his chance to take revenge. Knowing that Qiyu was the Crown Prince's favorite, he cut the flesh from Qiyu's body while he was still alive and fed it to the dogs, leaving not even a bone behind.

In the entire palace, no one was good except the Crown Prince.

Shumo steadied his breathing, reined in his hatred, and turned to ask Eunuch Hai, "Huaying and Qiyu both died in the Grand Princess's and the Third Prince's palaces. Neither has offered any explanation to this day. What does Eunuch Hai have to say?"

Eunuch Hai grumbled inwardly: As if anything he said would make a difference.

He lowered his eyes. "With the Palace Rules in place, we'll naturally handle this according to the regulations. I'll personally visit them and question them. Everything will be done by the book."

The Grand Princess and the Third Prince were merely too prideful to humble themselves before the Crown Prince. They would only have to put forward a palace servant as a scapegoat; they certainly wouldn't oppose the Punishment Department over that.

Shumo gritted his teeth. "The Palace Rules state that if there's evidence proving someone was the mastermind behind a murder, the punishment ranges from a salary reduction and demotion for a lesser offense to confinement and degradation to a Commoner for a graver one."

His gaze fixed on Eunuch Hai.

Eunuch Hai's eyelid twitched. He wants the Grand Princess and the Third Prince dead.

He smiled. "Those are the regulations, but when Imperial Princes and Princesses are involved, the emperor must decide."

Would Emperor Yongchang confine his own children and degrade them to Commoners over a few palace servants? Anyone could see that was impossible.

Even if the emperor disliked the Grand Princess and the Third Prince, he wouldn't punish them so severely; he had the imperial family's dignity and reputation to consider. At most, he would cut their stipends and have them confined for a few months.

The same went for the Grand Princess and the Third Prince, and for Consort Min and Consort Jing as well.

A murderous fury welled in Shumo's eyes. Were they really going to let the true culprits who had killed Huaying and Qiyu off with nothing more than a token cut to their stipends?

Xiao Qianyu had changed into clean clothes and was now sitting in the study, looking through some leftover letters and documents. He wanted to use the chance to sort out the original owner's connections and study his handwriting, so he could imitate it later without anyone noticing.

The study was furnished far too simply and plainly. It didn't have anything like the grandeur befitting a Crown Prince. Xiao Qianyu guessed that someone had taken the precious furnishings, leaving behind an utterly empty study.

He idly toyed with the writing brush in his hand, wondering to himself: Could they have cleared out the Crown Prince's storerooms, too?