Xie Ming

As the Hongguang Emperor lay dying, a major upheaval was imminent.

Wang Zhixin intentionally sided with the Southern Party, and his confidant Qin San'er rushed into the cabinet to secretly report this.

Upon hearing this, Ma Shiying was shocked and immediately began to strategize before making a decision.

After capturing Qin San'er, he was tasked with urgently persuading Qiu Weizhen to come to the palace for a secret discussion about the next steps.

Upon hearing his order, Qin San'er hesitated.

"Uh, ah, I understand."

However, given the chaotic situation, it was not easy for them to shirk responsibility and remain uninvolved.

"But, but this, I, I still..."

Seeing Qin San'er wavering back and forth, Ma Shiying stepped forward, closing in on him without further ado.

"Qin San'er, you'd better be careful."

"With chaos imminent, there's not much to worry about."

"Come on, quickly repeat it for me to hear." Ma Shiying gave Qin San'er no chance to refuse, insisting on her wording.

Upon hearing this, the young eunuch gritted his teeth and had no choice but to obey orders and enter the game.

"Oh, yes."

"This... instead of returning to the inner palace, I'll leave the palace now and go to Grand Secretary Qiu's residence. I'll give him the jade pendant in person and tell him that you, Minister Ma, have invited him to the palace immediately to discuss important matters."

Qin San'er was quick-witted, needless to say, and he explained everything in detail.

Upon hearing this, Ma Shiying nodded in agreement, speaking earnestly and instructing him to leave immediately.

"Okay, okay."

"Go, hurry up, don't delay on the way!" Ma urged.

"Okay, okay," Qin replied.

After the two sides finished their discussion, Qin San'er steadied himself and ran off to run his errand.

Meanwhile, in the Cabinet's warm room, Ma Shiying was still sweating profusely, unable to calm down, and pacing anxiously in circles.

His throat was burning with heat, so he turned around, took two steps to the table, picked up the teacup, and was about to drink.

But when he raised his arm, he discovered that the teacup was already empty.

It's true what they say, bad luck just keeps coming; even drinking cold water can cause problems.

"Help! Help! Where are the people? Are they all dead?"

Immediately, Ma Shiying took his anger out on the waiter, turned around and started shouting at the outside.

"Bring some tea!"

"That unresponsive thing!"

He uttered unusual and vulgar curses.

The raging winds and towering waves piled up the ship, and the heavy cauldron crumbled like a mountain.

The boatmen have abandoned their mooring lines and oars and fled; the cries of the party and the wailing of ghosts fill the gloomy sky.

On the night after August 14th, people from all walks of life in Hangzhou were filled with anxiety and were suffering greatly.

Around 2:30 AM, a strong night wind blew.

Suddenly, the sweltering heat of summer turned into a sudden downpour.

Qin San'er hurried along, riding his horse out of the palace, and went straight to Qiu Weizhen's residence.

In the face of such a calamity, Qiu Ge was old and frail, his legs suffering from rheumatism for a long time.

But having no other choice, they hastily prepared a carriage and hurried to the palace with their companions in the rain.

Afterwards, they went to the carriage. Along a stone-paved path in the palace, Qin San'er stood in the rain, holding an umbrella.

An old man and a young boy, in the dead of night, struggled to take their steps, and after a long while, resting several times, they finally made it closer to the front hall of the inner chamber.

There is no time to spare.

Suddenly, a loud voice was heard.

"Grand Secretary Qiu has arrived!"

The eunuch outside the door was shouting.

Upon hearing this, Ma Shiying, who had been impatiently waiting inside, panicked and became flustered.

He hurriedly tried to stand up by the table, but accidentally swept his sleeve, knocking over a nearby teacup which fell to the ground.

A crisp cracking sound.

The porcelain ware immediately shattered into pieces, exploding into tiny fragments.

Just then, Qiu Weizhen, the Grand Secretary, stepped across the threshold with one old leg and entered sideways.

Seeing this, he couldn't help but twitch his right eyelid slightly, momentarily stunned, before quickly covering it up.

As if nothing had happened, Grand Secretary Qiu preemptively struck.

"Yao Cao (Ma Shiying, courtesy name Yao Cao)"

"Yaocao, what's wrong with you now?"

"They really know how to give this old man a hard time."

"Don't you even look at what time it is?"

"It's the middle of the night, can't we postpone anything?" "We can discuss it tomorrow, it's the same thing."

"More haste less speed."

"The sky isn't going to collapse anytime soon."

Qiu Weizhen's words were cryptic and vague, demonstrating his penchant for empty rhetoric and avoiding the important issues.

But at this moment, Ma Shiying no longer possessed that composure.
Seeing that it was the Grand Secretary entering the room, they hurriedly went to greet him.

I brought over a chair, showing the proper respect due to a junior.

While busy working, they couldn't wait any longer.

"Oh my, Your Excellency!"

"Things are different now. The world is different now."

"Ugh."

“If it weren’t for something so earth-shattering, I wouldn’t dare disturb you in the middle of the night.”

Ma Shiying interrupted the sentence.

As they were talking, Ye glanced at Qin San'er, calculating in his mind.

Could it be that, in the past half hour, he, a man of royal intentions, really didn't reveal a single word to Grand Secretary Qiu in detail?

This shouldn't be the case.

Moreover, even if he didn't speak up, given Qiu Weizhen's shrewdness and deep-seated cunning, it was impossible for him not to understand the situation and rush over to cause trouble.

Perhaps this old gossip is playing cryptic with me; who knows?

Therefore, having considered this matter, he became even more annoyed.

As for Qiu Weizhen, he glanced around without making a sound, and realized that Ma Shiying had ulterior motives. So he simply spoke first and sent Qin San'er away.

"Ah, that... Eunuch Qin, thank you for your trouble."

“Eunuch Wang is probably too busy to be at someone’s beck and call.”

"You go ahead and do your thing."

"Thank you so much, thank you so much."

The enemy intended to expel him, and Qin San'er was well aware of his intentions.

Go with the flow and seize this opportunity to escape and avoid disaster.

"Yes, yes!"

"Well then, Grand Secretary Qiu, Minister Ma, you two continue your conversation. I still need to report back to Eunuch Wang."

"I'll head back now." Taking advantage of the situation, Qin San'er didn't want to stay a moment longer and slipped away.

Seeing this, Ma Shiying was quite pleased.

After the eunuch left the room, Minister Ma cautiously followed him to the door curtain, lifted the curtain to make sure the person was far away, and then returned to continue spreading the secret.

"Oh dear, Your Excellency."

"Along the way, didn't you ask Qin San'er what was going on that made him come to see you in the middle of the night?"

"Oh dear, this is a huge problem, a real disaster is about to strike!"

"We just received news that His Majesty is vomiting blood and has lost his pulse."

"You mean this, this?"

Ma Shiying intentionally started a conversation in 10 minutes, just to wait for Qiu Weizhen's reaction.

"Oh?"

"This"

"Summon the imperial physician! Summon the imperial physician to the palace immediately for diagnosis and treatment!"

"Your Majesty's health cannot be compromised in the slightest."

"you"

"Ugh"

"Yaocao, you, you're so confused."

"How could you call me here alone in the middle of the night to discuss this privately, especially at this critical juncture?"

"If some petty person were to spread this around, wouldn't that give others a handle to use against us and invite criticism?"

"You, you."

Qiu Weizhen put on a great show, his eyes widening in a way that made it hard to tell what was real and what was fake, leaving Ma Shiying with absolutely no ammunition or clues.

Ma Shiying was even more speechless when he saw this.

You old fox, always pretending to be a big shot.

What kind of time is this to be pretending to be doing something important and public-spirited?

He simply couldn't believe that Qiu Weizhen was completely unaware of such a commotion tonight and hadn't thought about it at all.

fart!
They probably already had it all planned out in their minds.

They just didn't want to start it. (End of Chapter)