Chapter 255
Tricky (1)
Although the Emperor and the rest of the royal family had fled to a safe place, they all still felt some lingering fear. Even the Fifth Princess, who had earlier received a sugar figure from Mu Mingtang, not knowing why everyone had suddenly turned serious and scary, started to cry and kept asking her mother what had happened.
In order to stop her from saying anything further, her mother quickly covered the Fifth Princess’s mouth. Another young prince became even more scared after seeing the Fifth Princess cry and also started screaming.
The cries of the children were shrill, making people panic. The little prince’s birth mother and his wet-nurse hurried to coax him, but the more anxious they got, the more they could not coax him. While everyone was panicking, they suddenly saw brilliant light coming from the place they had all just fled from.
In the direction of the city gate, the dragon lantern had actually lit up.
After seeing that the dragon lantern was lit up, the emperor was at first shocked, but his face soon turned red from anger. Thinking about something, he turned to look at Jiang Mingwei with a suspicious gaze with some apparent anger hidden in it: “Prince Jin, Princess Jin, what is going on? Don’t you think you should give an explanation?”
Xie Xuanji had a deep frown on his face, as he wasn’t even sure what was going on. However, one thing was obvious, even he won’t be able to clean up his name after creating such a stir among the audience and forcing the Emperor, Empress and Empress Dowager into such a situation.
Since Jiang Mingwei was definitely not ignorant enough to make jokes about this sort of thing, all Xie Xuanji could do was pray that she really did possess some good explanation. Instead of answering the Emperor, Xie Xuanji chose to turn around and wait for Jiang Mingwei to speak.
However, when Xie Xuanji found out that Jiang Mingwei also had a puzzled expression all over her face, he immediately felt an ominous premonition in his heart.
At this moment, a eunuch came running and said hurriedly while being out of breath: “Your Majesty, the Emperor, this servant has finally found you. His Royal Highness Prince An has just returned to the tower, and he was asking about the whereabouts of the royal family.”
The emperor’s expression changed immediately. “Is he on the tower now?”
“Yes, your majesty.”
This time, everyone could feel sudden changes in the Emperor’s face, and no one dared to make a noise. The Emperor glanced back at Xie Xuanji and Jiang Mingwei, then swept his embarrassed and furious gaze around the people.
He roared in anger, “Ridiculous!”
The Emperor always paid attention to his image and rarely showed such vulgar and intense feelings to others. The Emperor was visibly furious this time. He hurried towards Xuande Gate while grimacing.
When Xie Xuanji heard what the eunuch said, he was shaken to the core. He swept Jiang Mingwei with an intense gaze filled with fury. Without saying a word, he ran after the Emperor.
After the Emperor and Xie Xuanji left, the place suddenly buzzed with all kinds of voices and discussions. Everyone was talking to each other with unsightly expressions.
The Empress walked up to Jiang Mingwei with a gloomy face. The coldness in her words was enough to freeze anyone: “You should better give this Empress an explanation.”
Jiang Mingwei kept looking at the Empress as though she was possessed, and it took her a long time to form a complete sentence: “Mother Empress, what I said is absolutely true. I clearly heard someone saying that they want to set fire to the Empress Dowager’s Palace.”
“What?” The Empress Dowager was visibly agitated when she heard this news. Soon, her agitation turned into anger. She pointed at Jiang Mingwei and scolded, “You wicked woman, how had Aijia mistreated you to actually curse Aijia like this?”
[TL Notes: ‘Aijia’ is a Chinese word which is used to self-address themself by Empress Dowagers.]