The maid's road to success

By June, the weather was getting hotter. Many people changed their clothes early and there were many vendors selling cold cakes on the streets.

The Fourth Prince felt very irritated when he saw so many people on the street. He didn't know why he had been feeling uncomfortable since a month ago. His lower body was out of control and he couldn't get it up at all. He couldn't even have sex with his favorite concubine. He made many attempts and saw many doctors, but none of them could cure him. They all said that he was in this condition because of severe deficiency. Although he was not very weak before, he was not as completely useless as he is now.

If a doctor hadn't told him that this might be due to excessive emotional influence, he would have exploded. No toxins could be found in his body, and there was nothing abnormal around him, so it didn't look like he was poisoned. The Fourth Prince felt very powerless.

At this time, there was a problem with the casino under his control. This casino was the most profitable shop under his control. The servants also advised him to go out and relax, change his taste and see if his body could react.

But there were too many of them. In order to avoid suspicion of the casino, they hid behind a pharmacy in a busy street. Now it seemed that they had suffered.

At this time, a steward beside him seemed to have seen the identity and just stood there. The Fourth Prince turned around and almost bumped into him. He kicked him in the lower back and knocked him to the ground.

"Things without eyes don't look at the road."

The steward ignored the pain and pointed at a child in front of him and showed it to the Fourth Prince.

"Your Majesty, look."

This man had been following him for many years, and he rarely acted so rashly, so the Fourth Prince looked directly in the direction of his hand and was stunned at the time.

"Doesn't it look like that one?"

The fourth prince nodded, and when he saw the child preparing to leave after buying things, he told his subordinates to follow him and take a look. The first reaction of the fourth prince when he saw the child was to think if it was possible, since the child looked so much like his second brother, could he use him?

However, he did not expect that the news brought by the people below would let him know a shocking secret.

"Your Highness, we followed the child and saw that the child went to the residence of the Prince of Lin'an."

The Fourth Prince knew about the Prince of Lin'an, who was a relatively close branch of the royal family. The Prince of Lin'an was a cousin of the late emperor, and Prince Li was the late emperor's uncle. The Prince of Lin'an and Prince Li were cousins. Before the late emperor ascended to the throne, Prince Li was the one who supported the late emperor, while the Prince of Lin'an was the one who supported other princes. Therefore, after the late emperor ascended to the throne, he treated the Prince of Lin'an very coldly, and even refused to allow his children to be named the crown prince. It was only after the current emperor ascended the throne that he reluctantly agreed to let the eldest son succeed to the throne. However, after years of suppression by the late emperor, the Prince of Lin'an now only has the rank of a prince in Kyoto, and is not even as good as an ordinary baron's mansion.

The current Prince of Lin'an seems to be quite old. When he was young, he was thrown into the battlefield by the previous emperor and was injured. His legs can no longer walk, so he has no other children except his eldest son and concubine's daughter. So the child is likely to be the child of his eldest son.

The Fourth Prince knew very well what the eldest son of Prince Lin'an looked like. He didn't look very much like that child. Could it be the child of Prince Lin'an's married concubine?

It is not surprising that a clan relative can give birth to a child who looks like a royal child due to blood relationship. What is strange is that the emperor and the empress dowager look alike. This child is not like other royal children, but looks like the current emperor. This is a very strange thing. After all, the current emperor was disliked by the late emperor because the emperor and the late emperor did not look alike.

How is it possible that the Prince of Lin'an's family would have a child who looks just like the emperor? If it was an ordinary family, the Fourth Prince would have thought it was a coincidence. But it happened to be the Prince of Lin'an, a family that could participate in providing the emperor with an heir, so he had to give it more consideration.

"Did you see him go to the residence of Prince Lin'an?"

The guard shook his head.

"We only saw the young man sneaking to the corner gate, but we didn't get close to him. The Lin'an County Prince's Mansion is heavily guarded and difficult to get close to. The young man also took a detour, but that section of the road only leads to the corner gate of the Lin'an County Prince's Mansion. There is no other way out. Moreover, the young man was followed by seven or eight guards, and he didn't look like a child from an ordinary family."

The Fourth Prince carefully considered the words of the guards. There were seven or eight guards. Normally, a family would not bring so many guards. But why did the child go through the corner gate instead of the main gate? A declining prince's mansion would not even choose a better family to marry into, so why was there such strict security? Was there really something wrong?

"Let the secret guards investigate and see what's going on in the Prince of Lin'an's mansion. There must be something unusual about this child. There aren't so many coincidences in the world. To look like the emperor, this child is really a genius."

The guards took the Fourth Prince's order and went directly to find the secret guards who were best at hiding, and told them to investigate the Prince of Lin'an's mansion at night.

After midnight, the Fourth Prince sat in the study and listed the emperor's schedule in the past few years. The emperor coveted women. He sneaked out of the palace to find women a few years ago before he filled the harem. He even went to the imperial mausoleum to bring Zhou Ruoyuan into the palace. So it is not impossible that this child is a prince, but why is he in the hands of Prince Lin'an? Could it be that the emperor did not know that the existence of this child was discovered by Prince Lin'an?

Thinking of using the child to get what he wants? The Fourth Prince did not think that it was the Prince of Lin'an who took the initiative to help the Emperor conceal the raising of the child. After all, the Emperor was also the child of the previous Emperor. At the beginning, the Prince of Lin'an supported another prince to fight against the previous Emperor and almost failed to inherit the throne. Everyone knew about this, so the Prince of Lin'an had suffered for so many years. It was not only because of the previous Emperor, but even the Emperor had never treated the Prince of Lin'an well.

So it was unlikely that the Prince of Lin'an would forget. Besides, the bloodline of the current emperor was rare. Even if he really had a child outside, he could just bring it into the palace. A healthy child was so rare. Why should he live outside and suffer in danger? The emperor needed a healthy prince more than himself and the Sixth Prince. He had a child, but the boy was a concubine's. Although he was a little sick, at least his life span would not be affected. The Sixth Prince should not be able to give birth. His concubine gave birth to a boy, but according to the Fourth Prince, it might not be the Sixth Prince's biological child. It didn't matter. Anyway, the Sixth Prince had no chance to ascend the throne.

However, the emperor's two children did not have the looks to live long lives. Even though it was already June, they had to wear thick clothes and were afraid of getting sick, as they could easily die.

Therefore, if the emperor knew about this child, the child would definitely not be left outside, and he is in the hands of Prince Lin'an. There is only one way that Prince Lin'an took the initiative to discover the child and secretly brought the child to his mansion to raise him. Although I can't guess what he wants to do with the child, he should be like me, thinking that such a child would be a treasure if he is useful in the future.

What the Fourth Prince never expected was that the more he investigated, the more frightened he became.

"Are you sure you heard me clearly?"

An extremely thin man knelt on the ground and nodded in agreement.

"Your Highness knows that my ancestral skill is to shrink my bones. I disguised myself as a maid and stayed there for three days. I drugged a girl who could enter the yard and then successfully walked into the yard to clean. I heard the child crying for his mother. The servants comforted him and persuaded him that his mother could not come recently and asked him not to cry. The child then said that it would be fine if someone secretly sent him to the palace to see his mother. After that, those people didn't want to let others hear us and drove us out. The Lin'an County Prince's Mansion was heavily guarded. I got in through the dog hole and then disguised myself as a maid to avoid the guards. After hearing these words, I threw the girl into the well and escaped. However, the Lin'an County Prince's Mansion was too cautious. They conducted a large-scale inspection just because a maid died. Now the guards are even stricter."

The Fourth Prince and his men only paid attention to what the child said about her mother being in the palace, and did not care that they had killed a girl in order to get information. In their hearts, the girl was like a rag that could be thrown away after use, not even as good as a kitten or a puppy.

After the secret guards left, the Fourth Prince immediately sat down and began to sort out the matter. The boy lived in the Prince Lin'an Mansion and was under very strict protection. It was obvious that he had a very special identity. It must not be a coincidence that he looked like the emperor. There must be other reasons. A child who looked like the emperor lived in the Prince Lin'an Mansion while his mother was in the palace and had no way to come out to visit him.

The Fourth Prince's face changed immediately. Yes, he had overlooked a person, a person who was most likely to give birth to a child who looked very similar to the Emperor, a person who had every reason to raise the child in the Prince of Lin'an's Mansion, a person he had overlooked due to objective conditions.

That was the Queen Mother. The child was born to the Queen Mother. Because the Queen Mother was almost fifty years old, she had never thought that she could continue to have children. But why was it impossible? The Queen Mother was well maintained and had been taken care of by the imperial physician and had taken the best tonic medicine. It was entirely possible that the old clam could give birth to a pearl.

Moreover, the child born by the empress dowager really needs to be hidden outside. The child was obviously born a long time after the death of the late emperor. He is still young and very healthy. A child who is not the late emperor's child and looks extremely similar to the current emperor, if brought to the public casually, it will probably cause an uproar, not to mention that the mother of this child is the mother of a country.

The Fourth Prince felt that his guess was completely reasonable, so he swept the papers on the table that listed the Emperor's visits outside the palace and continued to write the papers that listed the Empress Dowager's visits outside the palace or the summons of her ministers into the palace.

The Fourth Prince was particularly concerned about Zi Li, the eldest daughter of the Prince of Lin'an's Mansion. If there was even a slight mistake in such an important matter, neither the Queen Mother nor the Prince of Lin'an would have a good outcome. On what basis did the Queen Mother place this child in the Prince of Lin'an's home? They didn't seem to have a very close relationship, so the most likely possibility was that half of the blood of the child born by the Queen Mother came from the Prince of Lin'an's Mansion.

However, it is also possible that the Queen Mother promised great benefits, and it is not impossible that the Prince of Lin'an is willing to take the risk, but the Fourth Prince is more inclined to the former reason.

After he recorded the empress dowager's whereabouts for the past five years, he felt that he had obtained the truth. Although he could not completely grasp the empress dowager's whereabouts, he could at least know about many banquets or the empress dowager's absence from the palace.

He worked his way back through the timeline of these events. The child is now almost five years old, and he still remembers that five years ago, the empress dowager said that she wanted to go to the royal temple to pray for blessings and stayed there for half a year. At that time, the people praised the empress dowager as a good one.

Now it seems very likely that she couldn't give birth in the palace, so she found an excuse to go out to give birth. Moreover, before that, the Empress Dowager held banquets very frequently. She held banquets during the peony blooming season, in spring, on birthdays, and on festivals.

There were a few times when the Queen Mother left early halfway through her stay, using the excuse of feeling unwell. The Fourth Prince and Princess were also present at the time. Because there were too many banquets in the palace that year, even the Imperial Household Department was worried. The Fourth Prince was in charge of purchasing for the Imperial Household Department for a period of time, and he still remembered that the expenses were very high that year.

However, because the Prince of Lin'an had never been favored, the Fourth Prince did not remember how many times he had been to the palace, or whether he had found opportunities to meet with the Queen Mother in private. After thinking it over, the Fourth Prince decided to secretly collect evidence first.

"Go find the princess and ask her to go to the royal temple and pray for me to have children. Ask her to stay for a while longer. Kyoto is not stable right now, so ask the princess to bring more people for protection."

Of course the butler knew that the Fourth Prince's real purpose was to go to the royal temple to gather some information, but because there were other spies in the mansion, he could not say it publicly. However, the butler would naturally convey the Fourth Prince's intention to the Fourth Princess.

As for the Prince of Lin'an, the Fourth Prince did not intend to alert the enemy. Looking at the current situation in the Prince's Mansion, it was obvious that everyone was on high alert. Who knows what had happened during this period. If he made any more attempts, the child would be transferred away immediately and no one would be able to find him, which would be a waste of time.

However, the Fourth Prince is not without people he can use in the palace. The Prince of Lin'an is too cautious, and the guards in the prince's mansion are like an iron barrel, but the same is true for the Imperial Palace. Apart from the imperial guards and the people of each palace, no one else can replace them. Whoever is powerful in Kyoto does not have his own people in the palace.

He just wanted to find out whether the Queen Mother had any chance to contact Gong Li, or any other man. The people he arranged were capable of doing it. He didn't ask them to catch the Queen Mother and Gong Li in bed.

After arranging everything, the Fourth Prince stood in front of the window looking at the dark night. The sky at night was still a little cooler than during the day, but the Fourth Prince found this coolness very comfortable. The sky in Kyoto was gradually getting dark.

No wonder the Queen Mother is now much more distant from Duke Cheng'en. She didn't even help when the Sixth Prince attacked Duke Cheng'en like a mad dog, and she has always advocated that the Emperor choose an heir from among the royal family members. It turns out that she doesn't really want to choose an heir, but wants her other child to continue to be the emperor and preserve her future honor and glory.

In the past, I only thought that this woman was extremely vicious, but now it seems that this woman is also very courageous. However, how can a woman who dares to poison her father and harm loyal ministers be timid? It's a pity that God also wants to help him. He has discovered such an important secret. He can't wait to see the miserable appearance of the queen mother crawling on the ground and crying for mercy. Just thinking about it makes him happy.