[Holy shit!]
[I have seen ungrateful wretches, but never anyone ungrateful to this extent!]
Desperate to know what happened next, Prince Heng was on tenterhooks, itching to grab Wenren Luoshui by the arm and make her blurt out the rest of the story.
Seeing his intention, Wenren Qiao quickly grabbed and held him tight.
This was his own precious daughter, and if she got hurt by this old bastard, he would bite someone back himself!
The gossiping officials around them: Oh, Princess, tell us the rest already.
They were so caught up in the gossip that they completely lost interest in discussing state business.
[Princess Heng's sister wanted to get back at her, so she brought her domestic-abusing husband along to visit her sister at the estate. Then came the cliché framing trick from cheap romance novels: taking advantage of the princess's inattention, she drugged the princess's tea and had her husband sleep with the princess, then drew all the estate servants over so everyone could catch the princess in her scandalous act.]
[After sobering up, Princess Heng committed suicide in grief and fury. The young princess of the Prince Heng Estate saw her mother smash her head to death right in front of her, and the shock left her mute ever since. Prince Heng and the princess shared such a deep bond that a year after her passing, he died of depression too, leaving the little princess all alone in the world.]
[A single misguidance, two crooked minds, and just like that, three innocent lives were ruined!]
[Having relatives like these ungrateful wretches is worse than spending spare cash on charity! At least donating money to pave roads leaves behind a good reputation. Give money to such ungrateful relatives, and not only do you get no thanks, but they even feel entitled to your handouts!]
Wenren Luoshui was fuming so hard over the original text's ending for Prince Heng's family that smoke practically came out of her ears. How on earth were such people's brains wired?
Her own marriage turned out terrible, yet she listened to her birth mother's twisted logic and convinced herself that all her misfortunes were actually caused by her older sister, the princess, who had always supported their family.
With an attitude so great at deflecting blame, why didn't she go become a chef!
Hearing the fate of his entire household, Prince Heng choked on his breath and passed out on the spot!
The venomous bitch!
To think she used such a vicious scheme to frame his princess!
That was the apple of his eye!
As soon as Prince Heng fainted from pure rage, the emperor hastily ordered the grand eunuch to fetch an imperial physician.
The others silently sighed in their hearts for Prince Heng's family.
Although Prince Heng was usually unreliable, as a prince, he had never once bullied the common folk.
To be killed by the scheme of a concubine-born daughter was quite pathetic.
The emperor also found this rather headache-inducing. The late emperor had achieved some accomplishments in state affairs, but he was a man of romantic pursuits; his inner palace held the highest number of women in the dynasty's history, and he had the most children as well.
The current sovereign still could not forget the days before his ascension, when he fought other princes for the throne and watched a brother die every few days.
Among his full brothers still alive, Prince Heng was the one he shared the closest bond with.
He had thought this foolish younger brother could just live out his life like that, and now someone was telling him his brother would die at the hands of a stupid woman?
Did they really think the majesty of the imperial house was a joke?
In the heart of the emperor Lang Ling, the only person he protected was someone he alone could bully.
If outsiders wanted to bully them, they had better ask for his permission first!
After that day, the family of Princess Heng's maternal relatives suddenly learned a truth.
That was, the daughter born to Old Master Qi's concubine was not actually of Qi bloodline.
Back then, a great flood hit the concubine's hometown, and the houses in several neighboring villages were basically all submerged.
She left her hometown to seek out relatives in Qingzhou, but as she neared the capital, she was seized by a band of bandits and violated before being tossed by the roadside.
Later, upon arriving at the Qi family in Qingzhou, she found their living conditions far superior to her own family's. Combined with discovering she was pregnant, she decided to climb into her cousin's bed.
The birthmark on that concubine-born daughter's face when she was born was actually inherited from her biological father.
The leader of that band of bandits had a large birthmark right on his face.
Learning of this, the Qi family dragged the concubine away by night to be drowned in a pig cage, while as for that concubine-born daughter, they had already severed all family ties with her.
Subsequently, the lady of the Qi family wrote a personal letter to her daughter far away in the capital, informing her of the whole story.
After court dismissed, I pulled my dear father along, followed right behind the emperor's coattails, and entered the Imperial Study.
"Little girl, court is over, why aren't you heading home, tagging along after Us to the study?"
The emperor accepted the tea handed over by the eunuch and took a gentle sip.
The water temperature was just how he liked it, it was his favorite tea, and on top of that, during today's morning court, he had quietly partaken in someone else's gossip.
The emperor's mood today was far more cheerful than usual.
Yet he showed none of it, keeping only a hint of warmth hidden deep within his eyes.
"Hehe, Uncle Emperor, isn't your Imperial Treasury running a bit short on little money~"
As Wenren Luoshui spoke, she made a coin-counting gesture with her hands, a facial expression that could only be described as sleazy.
"You have a way to make money?"
Finding Wenren Luoshui's sleazy look somewhat harsh on the eyes, the emperor hurriedly averted his gaze from her.
Thus, his sight was caught by his good brother, who was sitting quietly to the side cracking melon seeds.
He saw him holding a handful of melon seeds in his left hand while his right hand swiftly picked up a plump seed, popped it into his mouth, and cracked it open with a gentle bite of his upper and lower teeth so the kernel dropped inside.
As for the useless shells, he casually tossed them into a brush holder nearby.
Wait!
What was that brush holder he was using as a trash can?
"Wenren Qiao, you stop right there!"
Seeing clearly what Wenren Qiao was using to hold his seed shells, the emperor let out a sharp cry.
"That's something We managed to win from the Grand Chancellor only after enduring untold hardships! And you! You actually!"
The moment the emperor thought of his treasured brush holder being treated like a trash can by this silly brother, he wanted to break ties with him right on the spot.
Every time he was driven to exasperation by Wenren Qiao and Prince Heng, such thoughts would pop into his head.
Yet once the anger passed, he would find himself oddly missing these two blockheads.
So he would send his chief eunuch out of the palace to find them and summon them back to chat and dispel his boredom.
The emperor's sudden roar made Wenren Qiao jump, his robe hem nearly knocking over the brush holder full of melon seed shells on the table.
He hurriedly reached out to steady the brush holder, putting on an expression of being frightened by the emperor's voice.
"Daughter, your uncle is yelling at me."
Wenren Luoshui: ...
No, how on earth do you have the nerve to act coquettishly toward me, your daughter?
Stripped of all temper by his shameless and spineless demeanor, the emperor waved a hand, and eunuchs immediately stepped forward to swap out the brush holder.
"Little Luoshui, go on with your idea."
Actually, Wenren Luoshui's idea was very simple: the lifelong goal of ancient scholars was to place top in the imperial examinations, so where in all the world were the most imperial exam papers?
Naturally, with the imperial court!
Moreover, the imperial archives within the palace housed countless genuine masterpieces by renowned masters.
So, you see, they could borrow the modern blind-box model.
Wenren Luoshui intended to cooperate with the emperor: the emperor would provide her with past imperial examination questions and model answers, she would take them to be copied by the system, turn them into blind boxes, and sell them in a shop.
They could even copy the essays of all the civil officials in the court and stuff them into the blind boxes.
Ancient times lacked nine years of compulsory education, so anyone who could study came from a family with a certain level of economic means.
Add in the fact that her blind-box shop would have official backing, and she wouldn't have to worry about a lack of buyers at all.
Listening with rapt attention, the emperor agreed to cooperate with her the moment Wenren Luoshui finished laying out her pitch.
As for how to split the profits, Wenren Luoshui directly opted for an eighty-twenty split in her favor.