After Murong De relayed the message to his fifth elder brother, he promptly fell ill. He refused to visit Murong Chui's residence again, nor did he actually go to the palace to ask for his imperial sister-in-law's maid. Instead, he returned to his empty residence and began sleeping late.
At this point, sleeping late was all he could do.
But even those days did not last long. Early on the third day after he went home to sleep, which was also the seventh day since his cousin Gongsun Te had left, an imperial decree suddenly arrived from the palace, ordering him to enter at once.
Murong De dared not delay. He soon followed the official bearing the decree into the palace and met the emperor and empress.
"Yisheng, what did the Prince of Wu say to you that day?" Murong Jun came straight to the point.
Murong De fell silent for a moment. He could not say whether his heart grew heavier or lighter just then. It was a sense of release tinged with shame.
Of course, none of this prevented him from answering his imperial brother, and there truly was no longer any need to conceal anything... So he recounted the entire sequence, from entering the hall that day and seeing the crimson silk, through hearing Lady Duan's words in the Imperial Prison, including threatening the empress's maid after coming out, and finally finding Murong Chui, relaying the message, and going straight home. He left out not a word and changed not a word.
Unlike the empress, who tried several times to interrupt, Murong Jun listened attentively to the entire account and even stopped his wife from interjecting.
When he had heard the end, the founding emperor of Great Yan asked solemnly, "Yisheng, do you think I went too