The Virtuous Concubine

After hearing the news from the south, Concubine De struggled for two or three days in fear and worry before giving birth. She fought hard at the gates of death and finally gave birth to the Fourteenth Prince.

On the same day, Concubine Zhang Jia of Yonghe Palace also gave birth prematurely due to fright. Fortunately, Concubine Zhang Jia was blessed with good fortune, and both the Thirteenth Prince and his child were safe.

When the south received the good news in an urgent manner of 800 miles, Kangxi and others had already decided to return to Beijing.

These days, Kangxi has been recuperating carefully, with the Fourth Prince, Wenxian and Yinzuo serving him. He just watched coldly as the Crown Prince made drastic moves and "made waves" in Jiangnan!

The prince was young and full of vigor, so he acted vigorously and vigorously. Waves of people were taken away, beheaded, interrogated, and their homes were confiscated. The people of Jiangnan were in a panic.

If it was the other people, the prince would have killed them or chopped them off at will. However, the prince did not hesitate to attack the Cao family. In the process, his soldiers behaved violently and brutally, causing the two relatives of Madam Fengsheng to be injured and unfortunately die.

One of these two people was the grandson Cao Yong, and the other was the adopted son Cao Fu who was to be adopted by Cao Yin.

Who would have thought that the prince did not care about this and was determined to turn the Cao family upside down!

At this point, Kangxi's knot with the crown prince was completely formed.

Kangxi certainly knew that Cao Yin was greedy, but he himself enjoyed Cao Yin's offerings, so he naturally turned a blind eye.

Seeing that Cao Yin was so old and had only one son, he loved him like a treasure. But he was killed just because of the brutal behavior of his soldiers!

Even the adopted son died - these two people grew up together, were raised together, and were naturally inseparable.

When Lady Sun came to Kangxi crying, Kangxi was still lying in bed recuperating from his illness.

Kangxi always showed great favor to this wet nurse who had fed him and taken the most attentive care of him.

Others were aware of this and would not touch this bad luck. But the prince was not like that.

Of course the prince dared. He had been held in the palm of Kangxi's hand for so many years. If he was afraid of being the grandson of Lady Fengsheng, he would not be named Aisin-Gioro!

What's more, finding out who poisoned is more important than anything else.

But this matter was not actually what the prince intended.

The soldiers were indeed violent, but when faced with such a precious young master, they would not torture him to death.

It was the adopted son Cao Fu who had evil intentions - if Cao Yong died, the huge assets of the Cao family would belong to him alone after things settled down.

As long as Madam Fengsheng and father Cao Yin are alive, they have nothing to fear!

Everyone in the Cao family, from Madam Fengsheng to the doorman, groom, and laundrywoman, all felt this way.

So Cao Fu provoked Cao Yong, provoked the soldiers more often, and took advantage of them when no one was around. Cao Yong was spoiled to the same extent as a young lady in the boudoir, so naturally he died in the cold cell.

But Cao Fu was not a strong man. The soldiers were provoked by Cao Yong, who died and they were punished. Naturally, they vented their anger on Cao Fu - so he just followed his brother.

But Kangxi, who was sitting on his sickbed with a gloomy face, did not know the truth.

There was no way to find out the truth. The two bodies could not answer anyone's questions and were left covered with scars.

Lady Fengsheng came up to ask about Kangxi’s health, and then said a few words of retreat to advance, expressing her loyalty. When she talked about taking care of her grandson, she thought of the time when she raised Kangxi, and she choked up several times and fainted once. . .

What could Kangxi do? Thinking back to what the prince had done, the anger in his heart became increasingly difficult to calm down.

For the first time, he felt clearly shaken in his belief in the crown prince's status and the favor and power he bestowed on him.

As Lady Fengsheng cried and wailed, Kangxi frowned and tried to comfort her. But in his heart, he was thinking that the Crown Prince was acting so rashly without considering the overall situation and the reputation of the royal family. How could I be at ease handing over the country to him?

In Jiangnan, the aftermath of the Cao family's confiscation is still reverberating. The once prosperous Cao family mansion is now in ruins, as if it is the end of a glorious generation and the beginning of several generations of desolation.

The prince was extremely excited about his breakthrough. He brought the things back to the emperor to take credit. Before he saw Kangxi, Liang Jiugong invited him to a small Buddhist temple temporarily built in the side room.

Kneeling as punishment was a very unfamiliar word to the prince.

When Yinreng punished people, he never made them kneel, because the prince thought that was boring and lenient, so he usually just made them be caned.

If the prince wanted to vent his anger personally, he preferred to use a whip.

The thick whip with barbs was very powerful when it was wielded, and it hit the flesh and drew blood when it was used to hit.

Compared to this, kneeling as punishment is really not painful at all.

The crown prince seldom knelt. Kangxi had exempted him from most of the etiquette early on. It can be said that even with the Empress Dowager and the Queen Mother present, Yinreng only needed to kneel before the ancestors of the Aisin-Gioro clan.

But today in Jiangnan, the prince not only had to kneel, but he was punished to kneel.

The prince looked a little dazed, holding a piece of jade in his hand. He felt that Liang Jiugong's voice was very far away and he couldn't hear it clearly.

But it really seems to be saying, Father Emperor, is punishing himself, not only by kneeling, but also by kneeling for three incense sticks?

The guards and eunuchs around him were also persuading him to kneel down quickly.

The prince only felt that his body seemed to be out of his control, but his vision still changed, and his eyes were blurry, and there seemed to be a golden Buddha statue above his head.

Then, I should kneel down, the prince thought.

The prince knelt there quietly, but his thoughts were scattered like flying catkins.

He didn't know where he was wrong, he felt he was right.

The confiscated property piled up like a mountain. The Cao family, the Cao family! That courtyard and house was like a road paved with gold and a lake filled with pearls.

Everyone says that the royal family is supported by the whole country, but according to what the prince saw and heard during the confiscation of the family property... the Cao family also enjoyed a special life.

So the prince didn't know and didn't think he was wrong.

Time passed by minute by minute, the incense slowly burned, and the smoke rose. The prince's knee gradually felt pain, but he endured it without making a sound.

The air around him seemed to freeze, and the silence was so suffocating. The prince raised his head slightly, and the image of the Buddha, which was neither sad nor happy, gradually became clearer.

Liang Jiugong, who was standing by, received an order from Emperor Kangxi to personally watch the prince kneel down and burn three incense sticks. But he did not dare to stand there - the prince was already kneeling, what could he do?

He could only kneel sideways at the door and guard the prince. Three incense sticks, almost an hour, was not much for a servant. . .

Liang Jiugong was also having wild thoughts. However, because of his kneeling position, he seemed to see the corner of Madam Fengsheng's clothes today, and next to her was... the Fourth Prince?