Chapter 332: Tong Yi

The Emperor saw him and smiled, "You stubborn mule, didn't I say it was up to you to handle?"

The Second Prince's eyes couldn't help but flicker with this warmth, this trust. Who exactly was this person of the Gu family beneath the mask?

Gu Yanxi knelt down on one knee, "Reporting to Your Majesty, the Seven Stars Bureau discovered traces of the Chaoli tribe in the capital."

The Emperor's smile froze on his face. He stood up, imposing without anger, "Are you sure it's the Chaoli tribe?"

"Yes, Your Majesty, I'm sure." Gu Yanxi had been watching Tong Yi all along, still displaying a puzzled and petulant demeanor. However, when he mentioned the Chaoli tribe, she unmistakably stiffened for a moment.

"Good, very good. The soldiers of the Five Camps in the capital are dead? The city guards are dead? And now your Seven Stars Bureau have only discovered it when it's right under your noses. What have you all been eating?!" The Emperor's face twitched, feeling as if the Chaoli tribe had trampled his face into the ground.

Everyone in the room kneeled in unison. The Emperor snorted coldly and strode out.

Gu Yanxi, like the others, waited until the Emperor had left the hall before standing up. The palace attendants hurried to support their own masters.

Now was the time!

Gu Yanxi moved like a predator on the hunt, his whip slicing through the air with a precision that could only come from years of practice. In a blink, he yanked Tong Yi straight into his grip, her body crashing into him with the force of the pull. She barely had time to gasp before a harsh, calculated chop to her neck sent her spiraling into unconsciousness with a sickening thud.

"Daredevil!" Concubine Hui's voice cut through the tension like a blade. Her eyes were sharp with fury, but her words held a layer of panic. "This is the Emperor’s beloved consort! What do you think you're doing?" She was seething—jealous, of course, but it was more than that. Tong Yi was her golden ticket, her family's status wrapped up in the young woman’s favor with the Emperor. If anything happened to her, it would be more than personal—it would be a disaster.

Gu Cheng’an, ever the observant one, felt the prickling sense of something wrong in the air. The usual pulse of the palace intrigue was there, but this? This was different. He knew Tong Yi well enough to read between the lines, but her crime? Vying for the Emperor’s attention was nothing new; surely there was more to it.

"What's going on?!" The Emperor heard the commotion and returned with Chen Qing guarding him. He looked at the once beautiful and beloved consort, now unmercifully held by Gu Yanxi, furrowing his brow.

Handing over Tong Yi to his subordinate, Gu Yanxi's gaze swept over the shocked crowd. "Lai Fu, count the numbers. Anyone found deceiving or disobedient will be dealt with accordingly."

"Your Majesty..." The Concubine Hui's face paled, her voice full of sorrow as she looked at the Emperor, hoping to soften his heart for a moment. If not, even if she and her son were innocent, with today's events, she would never be able to rise again.

The Emperor looked at Gu Yanxi.

Gu Yanxi remained silent. He helped the Emperor to a side room by the palace window, removed some wooden bars from the window frame, and soon, a lifelike wolf with long horns on its head and a fierce howl occupied the entire window. Its sharp horns seemed to have tasted blood, emanating a fierce light.

The Emperor took a step back, trembling as he pointed a finger at the window, "Chaoli tribe totem! How dare they, how dare they be so brazen?! Investigate! Find out who did this to the window, I want their entire family exterminated!"

"I have sent someone to investigate."

The Emperor leaned heavily against the table, his breath ragged, chest heaving as the disarray of emotions swirled inside him like a storm he couldn’t quite tame. The discomfort—no, the utter displeasure—was unbearable, gnawing at him so fiercely that he wanted to force everyone around him to feel that same sharp, suffocating sensation. Make them understand, he thought bitterly. Make them all feel this poison.

“When did you find out about this?” His voice was cold, yet there was an edge, a sharpness that cut through the air.

“Just now, Your Majesty,” Gu Yanxi said, helping the Emperor settle onto a side chair, his tone serious but with a slight tremor, the weight of the situation hanging over them both. “Lady Tong is a new face in the palace. As is customary, anyone close to you undergoes a thorough investigation. I was eager to report the Second Prince’s... indiscretions to you, but after returning from Yingshan Pass, I never had the opportunity to do so.”

The Emperor’s jaw clenched. The sting of betrayal from his own blood—his second son—seeped deeper into his core. How could he not have seen it? The Second Prince, with his thick-headed arrogance, was obviously being manipulated. But if Tong Yi had ulterior motives, then surely the daughter of the Tong family—now his Concubine—was just as guilty, if not more. The pieces of the puzzle were falling into place, yet it made everything feel more like a trap than a revelation.

“Damn it,” the Emperor thought bitterly. “If Tong Yi was a puppet, then who’s the damn puppeteer pulling his strings?” He had let his second son get away with too much today, and now it all felt like he’d been made a fool. What the hell have I been doing?

"With that blockhead of a Second Prince, it’s hard to believe he could ever outsmart someone like Wu Yong on his own. Someone had to be behind him, pulling the strings... quietly, carefully. And all those generals sent off to the same place over the last two years—no way he could have orchestrated that on his own." His thoughts were like wildfire, consuming every bit of logic in their path.

Gu Yanxi continued, unwavering. “After seeing Noble Lady Tong in Lanxi Palace, the pieces started to fall together. Initially, I didn’t suspect her; the Tong family is too prominent in the capital for that. A Concubine daughter and a grandson who is a prince... why would they go against the Great Daqing Dynasty?”

The Emperor’s mind raced, his gut twisting. He could feel it—the sudden realization that he might have been played for a fool, lulled into complacency by his own overconfidence. The weight of Gu Yanxi’s words struck him like a hammer.

"What made you suspect her?" the Emperor asked, his voice now colder than ice. It was sharp, demanding an answer, though his insides churned with the fury of a thousand betrayals.

"My subordinate informed me that she lived in Yuzhou before the age of ten, and due to the matter involving Yuan Shifang's incident, I am now very sensitive to Yuzhou. Upon further inquiry into Tong Yi's background, I began to truly suspect her." Gu Yanxi looked at the wooden wolf that seemed to silently mock him, "Tong Yi is a distant relative of the Tong family. At the age of ten, her mother passed away, and her father treated her poorly. She sought help from Lady Tong and came to the Tong family, where she was recorded under the second son's name. I immediately thought of the methods used by the Chaoli tribe, and it all made sense when applied to Tong Yi."

"So you had Lai Fu stay behind with me, while you sought evidence?"

"Yes."

Lai Fu knelt down, "I deceived Your Majesty, deserving to die a thousand times."

"If everyone deserves to die a thousand times, will there be anyone left alive in this palace?" The Emperor's eyes were bloodshot and he suddenly smashed the tea pot and cups on the table towards the window, "Tong Yi! Tong family! Guards!"

Fu Gang entered in response.

"Tong Zhensheng has conspired treason! Capture him immediately, I want him tortured to death!" The Emperor turned around, his expression fierce, "Lock up all members of the Tong family and interrogate them rigorously!"

"I obey your command," Fu Gang bowed and left, the Tong family was finished, and the most powerful Concubine, Huifei, was also finished during this period.

"Bring the Second Prince here, I want to ask him whether he can't wait for my death, whether he wants to send me on my way!"

How absurd.

Gu Yanxi actually laughed behind his mask. He didn't care that the guards at the border nearly perished, or that the Hua family was on the brink of extinction, or that Zeng Xian died so unjustly, or even whether the Second Prince was colluding outside the borders. All his current anger was because someone was threatening his own life, someone coveted the throne he sat on.

As silence spread, Gu Yanxi looked at the chaotic scene and felt that everything he had done was meaningless. His efforts to address shortcomings across the country couldn't compare to the turmoil caused by the father and his sons. Instead of trying to fix things, he might as well just destroy the kingdom completely, so that everyone could start afresh.

Soon, Gu Cheng'an was pushed in, and Chen Qing knew exactly what he had done. He wasn't going to be gentle with him.

The moment Gu Cheng'an walked in and took in the scene, he knew things were about to hit the fan. The air was thick with tension, and without even giving the Emperor a chance to speak, he dropped to his knees, the desperation in his voice cutting through the silence. “Father, please. I swear I had no idea. I’m completely in the dark about whatever crime Noble Lady Tong is accused of. Please, just listen to me.”

The Emperor didn’t even blink before delivering a swift kick that sent Gu Cheng'an sprawling to the ground with a sickening thud. He stumbled back, barely managing to catch himself, but before he could collapse completely, Gu Yanxi was there, steadying him with the grace of someone who’d seen this all before.

"Trying to exterminate the Hua family. You knew about this, didn’t you?"

The words came at him like daggers, each one sharper than the last.

"Colluding with the enemy, playing the game of a traitor. Were you in on that too?"

"Poisoning the last male of the Wu family, the very bloodline that protected the Yingshan Pass for generations—were you part of this plot?"

Gu Cheng'an scrambled to find his footing, his voice a mix of panic and self-preservation, “Father, I... I was tricked. It was a grave mistake... I had no idea what was going on.”

But before he could finish his plea, Gu Yanxi’s voice sliced through the air, cold and unwavering, “Deceived by who, exactly?”