Someone had to clean his body and take care of his bodily functions, and apparently, no one is better suited than a gentle and careful woman.”

“I heard people saying, that later, Lady Ning was about to move into the imperial palace, and it had caused a disturbance...because His Highness had never married back then, and yet all of sudden, this female captive of Dongyi was going to move into the palace. The Empress is very unhappy.” Fan Xian asked, “So you helped her again, right?”

Chen Pingping laughed, and more and more wrinkles appeared on his face. “I wasn’t that powerful back then. Actually, your mother’s words saved Lady Ning, who was finally permitted to move into the imperial palace.”

Fan sighed and said: “No wonder ... my mother loved meddling in other people’s business.”

“She enjoyed doing that,” said Chen Pingping. Suddenly he paused: “But ... it wasn’t really intruding on other people’s affairs, because someone had to say something positive before His Highness finally made up his mind and get married.”

Fan Xian grimaced behind him, and said, “I am not really that interested in the romance stories of older generations.”

“You should listen to these stories. It will be good for you.” Chen Pingping said with a cunning smile on his face, “At least you know now that in imperial palace, there is someone you can trust.”

“Lady Ning?” Fan Xian shook his head: “Just a small favor done for so her many years ago; does such gratitude truly last that long?”

Chen Pingping said: “Dongyi women are iron-willed and tough. They love loved ones and hate wicked people...And besides, about thirteen years ago, she did a lot to allow your mother achieve her revenge...and because of that, she offended the queen mother, who demoted her to the role of ‘The Talented,’ from which she has never come back. ”

“Are you sure that the great prince doesn’t want to fight for the throne?”

There was indifference in Chen Pingping’s voice. “He is a wise man. At a very young age, he chose to escape, and it’s probably because of his mother, who is good at educating kids. As such, the great prince is much more straightforward than the second prince and the youngest prince.”

Fan Xian remains silent for a moment, though suddenly asked, “Does Lady Ning know about me?”

“No, she doesn’t.” Chen Pingping spoke. “Let’s assume you have all the cards in your hands. You shouldn’t use all the cards at once. Always keep a few cards up your sleeves. ”

“Does His Highness know that I know?”

“No, he doesn’t.”

“Is it cheating?”

“It’s okay. If His Highness did not ask about it, it isn’t our place to tell, as we are just the courtiers.”

The young man and the old man both laughed like two foxes.

“What happened to the offending second prince?”

“Have you reached your target?”

“A total of 17 officials were caught altogether, so most of his accomplices in the imperial government are gone. However, I can’t touch anyone in the Ministry of Officials.” Fan Xian was counting on his fingers. “The Cui family has also suffered many losses. According to the news from the Northern Region, they are going to extend their power, which will make it easy for us to take them down.”

“Do not let others know that your next target is Cui family,” Chen Pingping said coldly: “Tomorrow morning in the court, His Highness will make a final decision. This will be hard for the second prince to turn around.”

“Will my family be in trouble?”

“Do you care if you lose the title of baron?”

“No, I don’t.”

“Then there is nothing to worry about. Don’t worry. Your father is more cunning than anyone else, how could he let you suffer any losses.” A thought came to him, after which Chen Pingping said in a ruthless tone, “While I wasn’t in the capital, you had been called all the way from Danzhou to the capital... so who knows what he’s thinking about.”

“Yeah. That sounds like him.” Fan Xian said, somewhat frustrated.

Chen Pingping patted his wheel chair’s armrest and said cynically, “I will admit that he is a good dad.”

Fan Xian did not like to hear such words. He remained silent. Chen Pingping hadn’t expected this kid to be all that respectful toward Fan Jian, so he some smiled, feeling a bit happy. “What did you come for today?”

“To bring my wife and sister here to for a free meal.” Fan Xian gave a reluctant smile.

“And by the way, let them have an eye-opening experience seeing what it is like for a lonely old man to keep dozens of beauties in his place.”

All of sudden, he stops joking with the elderly man. He became melancholy and asked: “I’ve always wanted to ask you a question.”

“Go ahead.”

“Are you ... really a loyal courtier?” The question seems childish.

However Chen Pingping took the question very seriously. After a long while, he said carefully, “I remain loyal to His Majesty and loyal to the Qing Kingdom ... and you should know full well by now that no matter what you do, His Majesty is watching over you. You may only achieve the things he allows you to...in a word, remaining loyal to His Majesty is equal to be loyal to yourself. Therefore you must always remember this and be loyal to His Majesty.

Does it mean to remain loyal to His Majesty or to myself? Fan Xian did not want to dig into this issue.

“But you’ve taken early action this time, earlier than what His Majesty had planned.” Chen Pingping closed his eyes and said slowly: “And due to your own way of doing things, your purposes have been revealed completely. His Majesty doesn’t know that you’ve found out the story of your life; he will be suspicious of your purpose.”

Fan Xian fell silent, as he already knew that this was the biggest issue caused by the incident.

“Do not worry. Let me take care of it.” Chen Pingping said softly.

Fan Xian was no longer worried about it. He pushed the wheelchair, walking out of these beautiful but dreary woods. The young man and old man were heading towards the west, gradually leaving their shadows behind, but the wheels of the wheelchair were constantly rolling over the grounded shadows

The court was going to meet the next day on time. Over the past few days, the father and son of Fan family pretended to be sick and failed to show up in the court meetings. Today, they finally showed up at the meeting, anticipating the raging storm of impeachment and denouncements from the ministers. The memoranda were submitted to the Overwatch Council a while ago. Minister of Revenue Fan Jian admitted his mistake and that Fan Sizhe, the black sheep of his family, behaved the way he did as a result of inappropriate family education. Fan Xian had also submitted his memorandum, admitting his error and a seeking punishment. He also admitted that the homicide case occurred in Bao Yue brothel was due to his lack of supervision.

However, the Fan family wouldn’t admit to any of the other charges. At the end of day, no one had the evidence regarding the conspiracy against the capital official or of the killings in the rainy night. Plus, these flawless actions were good enough to shut the tattler’s up.

Conversely, regarding Fan family’s allegations against the second prince, the opponent was having a hard time addressing the issues. After all, Xie Bian was one of the Bajia Warriors who killed people outside of capital court and Xie Bian himself had died suddenly in prison. All of the accusations pointed to the second prince.

To the surprise of the courtiers, the defense by the second prince was not that strong. All the counterattacks merely scratched the surface. After a short while, everyone realized that the two sides must have made secret agreements; put another way, the second prince had admitted defeat.

His Majesty the Emperor had been sitting on the dragon throne quietly and listening, and only showed an impenetrable expression when Fan Xian stepped up requesting punishment.

Not long after, the courtiers had exchanged opinions, and upon His Majesty’s confirmation, this matter has finally come to a close.

Fan Jian, the Minister of Revenue, didn’t discipline his children properly and let them go unchecked, resulting in one becoming a murderer. However, considering his many years of hard work, and as credit for the Shouju event, he was given a milder punishment, including having no salary for three years and seeing his nobility decreased by two ranks, while additionally, he should shut himself away to think over his mistakes

Commissioner of Overwatch Council and academic of the imperial college Fan Xian had also done wrong by dispatching soldiers without authority. Although he had admitted his error and requested punishment on behalf of his brother, his crime was hard to forgive. His title of nobility was removed and salary stopped. Furthermore, he was ordered to organize books donated by Zhuang Mohan for the next three years

The Ministry of Justice had issued an arrest warrant for Fan Sizhe, the second son of Fan Jian, who had fled to avoid punishment. A description of the wanted man had circulated throughout the country.

The official of the capital had been dismissed from office, put in prison and would go to trial later.

The Duke...

...

...

Finally, the rulings for the second prince became known. Due to his wrongdoing, his rank of nobility was lowered, and he would spend the next six months under house arrest.

The rulings had finally come out. The officials and the common people were trying to figure out the meaning behind the above rulings. Nonetheless, for the father and son of Fan family, even though their ranks of nobility were either reduced or removed, which were indeed heavy punishments, they didn’t suffer any substantial loss. On the contrary, the second prince had lost many subordinates, and the prince himself would be under house arrest for 6 months. These were such harsh punishments that everyone could clearly see that Fan family won the battle this round.

However, people who looked more closely had noticed an interesting coincidence in the rulings issued by His Majesty. The descriptions of the offenses were vague, as “wrongdoing” was noted for both Fan Xian and the second prince. After all, engaging in wrongdoing was not a big issue for a Commissioner of Overwatch Council, though for a prince, it definitely was.

The situation had changed in the imperial court. It became so obvious to everyone that the second prince no longer had the favor of the Emperor, and at the same time, Fan Xian had never been called into the palace alone. People started wondering: Did this mean that when two tigers fought, both lost? Furthermore, as a courtier, Fan Xian used to hold special favor of emperor. Again, did it mean that everything was over?

However, Fan Xian had no reaction to any of these changes. He seemed very happy staying inside the school every day. He worked alongside other staff organizing books. Occasionally he would go to the Overwatch Council. He even spent 2 days visiting the Bureau of military affairs and the General’s mansion, and also went to visit empresses in the palace with Wan’er and his sister. He even bumped into the great prince once in the Shufang Palace where the great princess of Northern Qi was living temporarily. Of course, during his visit to the imperial palace, he didn’t see the emperor.

On top of that, he had secretly discussed many issues with Xiaoyan Prince. The dispensation of forces along the northern region smuggling routes targeting the palace treasury was put in place, and when the time was ripe, an attack would be launched against the Cui family, which would immediately cut off the source of income for Xinyang and the second prince. Regarding the Zhenqi in the body, he’s taking it seriously. He would see what Master Feijie was going to suggest so as to determine whether or not he should take medicine.

And so the day went. Before anybody realized it, a cold autumn wind started blowing, and the well-delayed chrysanthemum viewing party had finally begun. But Fan Xian had already put on layered clothing. He was staring at the last piece of hopeless leaf with fear, and thought to himself, in this terrible weather, how could a fearless chrysanthemum to bring about their blossoms?