After the shocking bloodbath at the Buddha-Bathing Festival and the Prince of Liang's gruesome death, Li Qianli was cast into the Blackwater Mystic Prison, the deepest level of the Court of Judicial Review's imperial prison, as the "chief culprit." He was held under strict guard, watched day and night by the Golden Scale Guards, the palace guards loyal to Empress Wei.
Yet when Zong Chuke personally led the elite Golden Scale Guards to Prince Cheng's Residence and several of its secret estates, bristling with murderous intent and determined to sweep up every member of his family and all his trusted followers in one net, they found nothing.
The important figures in the residence, including Li Qianli's adult children and several trusted advisers, had all vanished, leaving the buildings empty.
More alarming still, Crown Prince Li Chongjun and Li Qianli's son Li Xi, who should have been under close "protection," had disappeared along with them.
It was as though an invisible net had precisely scooped these people out of Chang'an's muddy waters, either before the assassination erupted or at the height of the chaos.
When Empress Wei received the report, she was both shocked and furious.
The Crown Prince's disappearance meant the greatest hidden danger had not been eliminated. An explosive charge that could detonate at any moment had been buried somewhere unknown. She immediately assigned more men to investigate both openly and in secret, while strictly suppressing the news. Publicly, she claimed only that the Crown Prince had "fallen gravely ill from fright and was recuperating in a separate palace."
-the Crown Prince had disappeared.
By the time Lu Changfeng received this news, the Buddha-Bathing Festival had ended, and he had already returned to the Princess's Residence.
The turmoil had subsided, and the sun was sinking in the west.
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