CHAPTER 550: CHAPTER 550 EMPEROR CHU: FEELING A BIT OMINOUS

Emperor Chu heard that Empress Dowager Wang had eaten and let out a sigh of relief, his previously furrowed brows relaxing.

"Aunt always has her ways, I knew she could persuade Mother Empress."

Song Zhiyuan raised his head and said, "Empress Dowager is not someone who doesn’t listen to reason, Your Majesty, you were just anxious."

Emperor Chu said helplessly, "I have no other way, who would have thought Father left behind such a posthumous edict."

Song Zhiyuan thought to himself, the late Emperor must have been too idle and left such an edict—did he feel that his youngest was living too comfortably or what?

A vassal king returning to the capital is no good news; once they arrive, it’s hard for them to leave.

In fact, Prince Min always stayed quietly in his fiefdom, why would he personally submit a memorial mentioning the posthumous edict, isn’t he just asking to be reprimanded by the Emperor?

What, reaching the marrying age, and still having no official wife, must return to choose one?

Have you lost your mind coming back to the capital to select a consort!

Xuzhou, does Emperor Chu really not want to reclaim it?

"Your Majesty, with Prince Min returning, what are your plans for Xuzhou?" Song Zhiyuan looked at Emperor Chu.

Emperor Chu rubbed the ring on his finger, lowered his eyelids, and said, "Xuzhou is rich, contributing taxes of a million taels a year. Since I’ve ascended to the throne, it has not changed, but Xuzhou handed over a million taels when my fourth brother received it back then, and it is still a million now. Prime Minister Song, don’t you think it should be increased?"

"The memorials submitted by Prince Min every year cry poverty."

Emperor Chu sneered, "Should I just believe him because he cries?"

You don’t believe it, yet you haven’t taken any action either.

"A yearly tribute of just a million—what do you think he’s doing with all that silver on the side?" Emperor Chu tapped his fingers on the table and said, "Before, I thought his youth made him insignificant, but now I feel that being small is a kind of protection; seemingly harmless, yet perhaps not just a little lamb."

Song Zhiyuan: "No matter how formidable, he can’t escape Your Majesty’s eyes."

"You’re wrong about that; didn’t this posthumous edict escape?" Emperor Chu chuckled lightly, "It’s just a permission to return to the capital, who knows if there’s anything else?"

Song Zhiyuan furrowed his brows, "Are you suspecting there’s more?"

"Back then, Father truly contemplated deposing the Crown Prince," Emperor Chu said nonchalantly. "The reason was that he somehow learned that Ji was a descendant of the Zhou Dynasty."

That Ji of the Zhou Dynasty was indeed of imperial descent.

However, Ji Lijiao’s forebears for five generations were all farmers; only in Ji Lijiao’s generation did one become a scholar.

Yet the late Emperor believed it, thinking that Prince Min’s other half’s bloodline was nobler than the Wang Family’s.

This was what frustrated Emperor Chu the most back then.

Now it seems not without reason that Mother is so averse to Princess Consort Ji and her son.

"A posthumous edict is not necessarily true; if there’s one, so be it, but if there are more, then surely someone else knows as well," Song Zhiyuan analyzed.

The two exchanged a look and spoke in unison.

"Grandmaster Fu."

Grandmaster Fu was someone the late Emperor trusted the most at the time. After the late Emperor passed, he retired and now serves as the Mountain Master of Lushan Academy, already seventy years old.

"It seems I need to visit the old Grand Tutor," Emperor Chu said.

Song Zhiyuan immediately replied, "A gentleman does not stand under a perilous wall; why should you leave the palace without reason? I will go personally."

"You?"

Song Zhiyuan nodded, "Actually, I even planned that once my eldest son, Su’er, passes this academy exam, he would study under Grandmaster Fu."

"Making him his teacher?"

"Grandmaster Fu is also a great scholar of his time and a man of insight; if Su’er could study under him, it would be a great fortune for him."

Emperor Chu snorted lightly, "He doesn’t favor officialdom; aren’t you afraid Su’er will follow his teachings and disdain entering officialdom, going on to become a ’famed scholar’ instead?"

Song Zhiyuan was silent for a moment and then said, "If that’s the case, then everyone has their ambitions, and that is fate."

Emperor Chu: "..."

This feels a bit ominous!