Chapter 032 – His Majesty is up to something

This chapter is the second one of this week’s double update thanks to ko-fi goals! Don’t miss the first one!

After learning that Chu Xun had returned, Gu Yuanbai felt ecstatic.

Chu Xun walked into the hall and bowed low. Gu Yuanbai personally got up from behind the table and walked out, stepping forward to help Chu Xun up, with a kind, gentle expression. “Chu Qing has worked hard.”

After two months of hard, dangerous work, Chu Xun felt moved by the Emperor’s words. He said, while tearing up, “This official did not discredit the trust Your Majesty placed on me. The cause of the spring floods is in the memorial.”

Gu Yuanbai glanced at the memorial and asked Tian Fusheng to bring it, but he didn’t rush to look through it. Instead, he first offered Chu Xun a cup of tea and let him rest before opening the memorial.

Chu Xun had been ordered to discover the cause of the spring floods, as well as the officials who had concealed it. The most important thing, of course, was dealing with the floods. As Gu Yuanbai had expected, because of the sedimentation after several days of rain, when Chu Xun arrived at the middle and lower reaches of the Yellow River, there was already a risk of the dike breaking.

Fortunately, Chu Xun’s knowledge regarding water management wasn’t just theory. He immediately began to discuss plans for controlling the waters based on the terrain, and made constant adjustments and inspections, day and night, finally succeeding in overcoming the small flood season.

Besides water management, he was also sent to check on the workers. Chu Xun’s official position was not without reason. He moved very directly and wouldn’t even think of misinterpreting the Emperor’s orders. Gu Yuanbai had asked him to find out the source of the information and who had concealed it. Because of how direct he was in his inquiries, he came close to being killed multiple times. Despite that, Chu Xun used all of his willpower and went straight to the local governor to get him to send troops to arrest the local officials planning for his death.

“The governor is still on the road with these officials, and they should arrive at the capital in two days,” said Chu Xun.

Gu Yuanbai read the list of officials on the memorial, nodded and asked with a smile, “Official Chu, did you find out whether these local officials were in collusion with anyone from the capital?”

Chu Xun said with a guilty expression, “This official is incompetent and didn’t find out about that.”

Gu Yuanbai’s expression did not change. He comforted Chu Xun with a few words and, noticing his haggard face, he asked him to go back to his house to rest first.

After Chu Xun left, Gu Yuanbai stroked the memorial, his smile deepened, and then he slammed the memorial on the table, saying coldly, “Tian Fusheng, send someone to bring the Imperial Censor.”

After the Imperial Censor learned that the Emperor had summoned him, his eyelid twitched.

When he knelt down before the Emperor, the vague feeling he had grew even stronger.

He had felt uneasy ever since Prince Qi was arrested, but, after waiting for many days, he had seen no movements. He thought he had been unnoticed, so what happened?

The Emperor was holding a teacup and sipping calmly. The brew that day was Shuangjing green, which was mellow and light, Gu Yuanbai’s preference.

The Emperor sipped tea leisurely, but the Imperial Censor, who was kneeling on the ground, had a thin layer of sweat on his head.

Such quietness made his heart feel like something was wrong, and the speed his heart was beating at made it difficult to breathe. The Imperial Censor kept his head down and continued trying to guess, finally saying, “I, Feng Chengzhi, beg Your Majesty for forgiveness!”

Gu Yuanbai finally raised his eyes and glanced at him, opening the teacup lid to push away the tea leaves. “What are you guilty of, Official Feng?”

Huge beads of sweat on the Imperial Censor’s forehead dripped past his temples, and he said respectfully, “This official has to oversee hundreds of officials, but have slacked as of late. I have committed many mistakes, and the number and magnitude of my sins is so big that I must ask Your Majesty for forgiveness.”

“Oh?” Gu Yuanbai said indifferently. “If the Imperial Censor is so guilty, then what will happen to the whole Imperial Court?”

The Imperial Censor’s breathing grew ragged, and his spirit slowly sank to an abyss. “I…”

Gu Yuanbai took a sip of tea and said lightly, “Go and bring Prince Qi.”

The Imperial Censor was surprised.

Soon, someone brought Prince Qi into the hall. The trials and tribulations of the past few days had made Prince Qi age twenty years, and his spirit was languished. The three days fasting prior had made him even more haggard as well, and he didn’t look as graceful and noble as he did in the past.

At that time, when he saw Gu Yuanbai, Prince Qi felt, naturally, hate and fear. He barely attempted to adopt the appearance of an Emperor’s uncle. When he spotted the Imperial Censor kneeling next to him, his eyes opened wide and his entire body shook.

Two middle-aged, older men in their forties and fifties were kneeling in front, each sweating more than the other, while Gu Yuanbai continued to sip his tea without hurry.

“Your Majesty.” Prince Qi couldn’t resist speaking up first, and he asked in a frightened voice, “What’s this?”

“We ask you two to come, and you still have to ask Us why?”

Gu Yuanbai looked at the Imperial Censor, who shook under his gaze and, forcing himself to remain calm, said, “Your Majesty, this official…”

“The Imperial Court,” Gu Yuanbai interrupted him, carefully enunciating each word, “supervises hundreds of officials and locations, acts as my eyes and ears, and upholds the law. I placed my trust in Official Feng. After all, when the late Emperor was still here, Official Feng wrote many times to correct my mistakes when I was younger. Because of that, I have believed that Official Feng is a good and selfless courtier who dared to speak up and call out wrongdoings, a model for hundreds of officials in the nation.”

The Imperial Censor’s heart thumped, trembling with fear and trepidation.

“But We discovered that you don’t seem to be as good as We had thought.” Gu Yuanbai’s tone became colder and colder. “Your eyes aren’t staring at those hundreds of officials, but at Us. You extended your hand towards Grand Concubine Wan. Why? Does the position of Imperial Censor not satisfy you? Are you trying to advance further, perhaps even pull Us from the throne?”

The Imperial Censor felt cold and terrified.

He had never seen Gu Yuanbai like this.

The Emperor treated all his officials well, he listened to their advice, and he was known to be a virtuous person. The Imperial Censor knew that the Emperor wasn’t simple.

But he had only realized how terrifying the Emperor was when he sent his troops to the Qi Mansion.

That day, the doors of every official in the entire capital remained shut, the cries of the Imperial family echoed down the streets, and the Imperial Censor remained in his own mansion, frightened out of his wits.

However, at that time, everything he had to do was already done. That ship had sailed, and whether the person holding the rudder was going in the right or wrong direction, he could no longer get off.

“I, I…” the Imperial Censor’s voice trembled, “This official did not…”

“You did!!”

Gu Yuanbai threw the teacup in his hand violently, and it smashed next to the Imperial Censor. The liquid inside splashed onto the Imperial Censor and Prince Qi, and the two of them were so scared that they felt faint.

The guards in front of the door and the servants inside the hall all knelt down, and there was no sound in the entire palace. The Imperial Censor already felt as if he was being asphyxiated, and his heartbeat almost stopped because of fright.

Gu Yuanbai was full of anger, his inner organs burned with it, and his breathing began to grow heavy. He tempered his mood, his face turning expressionless. The more expressionless the Emperor grew, the more scared the men underneath felt.

Prince Qi’s legs had already failed him and he collapsed to the ground, with fearful tremors running through his entire body.

The hollow jade that was found in Prince Qi’s Mansion was thrown in front of the two.

Looking at the hollow jade pendant and the expressionless face of the Emperor, Prince Qi and the Imperial Censor fell completely limp on the ground, full of despair.

The Emperor rarely got angry, especially in the Imperial Court. Since the officials in the Imperial Court were personally responsible for overseeing hundreds of officials, the Emperor needed them to be daring enough to speak up and not too frightened to do so. In order to avoid that, the Emperor was very kind to the people there.

This was the first time the Imperial Censor and Prince Qi had seen the Emperor so angered.

The two men went pale with fear and their eyes seemed hollow. At that point, the Emperor threw another memorial before the Imperial Censor and said in a very cold tone, “Read.”

The Imperial Censor picked up the memorial with trembling hands and opened it just to read a list of local officials that worked around the Yellow River area during the small floods season.

After seeing he had finished reading, Gu Yuanbai spoke. “The Imperial Censor colluded with local officials, took bribes, and used these ill-gotten gains to win over Prince Qi. Prince Qi and the Imperial Censor were treacherous and secretly cooperated with traitors and thieves, colluding and driving local officials to take advantage of common people, each thing is hard to even write about! It’s shameful that the Imperial Court, which should be fighting against corruption, is corrupting itself! How many good officials can there be in the Imperial Court?! And the local officials also collude with capital officials to commit these deeds, how many of them are still clean?!”

The Imperial Censor and Prince Qi suddenly raised their heads.

They have never done these things at all!

Gu Yuanbai looked at them with cold eyes and continued to speak slowly. “Do you confess your guilt?”

“This official…” The Imperial Censor’s head throbbed with pain.

Gu Yuanbai said coldly, “For your sake, since you two took the initiative to confess your guilt and denounce these officials, We can save you from the death penalty.”

For a long time, under the cold eyes of the Emperor, the Imperial Censor burst into tears. He slowly raised his hand, bowed heavily, and knocked his head heavily on the ground. “This official confesses his guilt.”

The Emperor had pinned the blame on him and made him lose all his face. After confessing his crime, it was easy to imagine what would happen to an Imperial Censor that was guilty of corruption.

The entire Imperial Court and all of the local officials would be investigated by the Emperor.

But the Emperor had only given them one way to go.

The Emperor would forgive them for their conspiring, no need for them to die or be implicated, but the price was no better than death.

Their whole families would be exiled, deprived of their origins and banned from participating in the Imperial examinations. They would be seen as sinners for generations and leave a legacy of infamy for centuries afterwards.

Seeing the Imperial Censor’s acknowledgement, Prince Qi moved his dull eyes and looked up at Gu Yuanbai.

After meeting Gu Yuanbai’s gaze, he shuddered suddenly.

Gu Yuanbai snorted coldly and began to speak out orders.

He was dismissed from his position as Imperial Censor of the Court, deprived of his status as a citizen of the capital, and his family would be exiled for three generations to work in the desolate lands of Guangnandong. They were not allowed to return to Beijing for three generations and were not allowed to participate in the Imperial examinations. Deprived of the title of Prince of Qi, demoted to a commoner, expelled from the Imperial family, confined to an estate outside the capital, never to return to the capital again, and his family could not participate in the Imperial examinations for three generations.

And seeing the corruption in the Imperial Court, the Emperor had decided that it could not be trusted and had to be reformed. As for the local officials that had been caught by Chu Xun, not just concealing the crimes but also refusing to report it, they were to be executed directly.

They had been sentenced to imprisonment and exiled.

More importantly, the Imperial Censor had admitted personally that he had colluded with local officials.

What did it all mean?

Gu Yuanbai couldn’t resist laughing out loud.

It meant that he could now start a vigorous battle against corruption.

And in this big battle, he could use thunderous means, deploy soldiers and cavalry, and investigate a large region. And, as it is well known, anti corruption investigations have always been a way for rulers to get rid of certain individuals.

The Imperial Court.

Finally, it would truly become his eyes and ears.

When the Imperial decree was published, the Court was shocked.

Everyone in the Imperial Court was now in danger. The Imperial Censor was about to retire, yet at that moment he had decided to undertake a big task, thinking it was a step too late. Now they were on thin ice.

Prince Qi and his household were driven out of the capital. All of them were nobles that had been born and raised in piles of wealth and honor. Now, after being kicked out, everyone seemed to be at a loss, old and young alike. Looking at each other, they felt as if they didn’t have a home anywhere.

The Imperial guard, with a fierce look, drove them to an empty manor, and from then on they would no longer be allowed to step out, remaining in confinement until their deaths.

Gu Wen, the youngest son, had never been treated harshly even when his father and brothers were in prison. He held onto the corner of his mother’s clothes anxiously and cried, “My pearls! My pearls!”

His mother wiped her tears and said nothing, and the Imperial guard drove them out of their residence. Apart from the brocade and satin they wore and a few jewelry, where would they take anything else?

Prince Qi seemed so desperate that his expression was vacant. He didn’t know how he could have ended up in such a situation in the end after just deliberately sending a false message to the Emperor.

After he heard his youngest son’s cries, he suddenly came back to his senses. Prince Qi pinched his younger son’s neck, his eyes glaring so intensely they looked as if they were going to burst out. “I’m going to strangle you to death! I’m blaming you! It’s all your fault!”

The wailing and pulling was chaotic, and the low whimpers of adults and cries of children were intrusive.

The older sons of Prince Qi watched the scene from the side with chills.

Could this pampered family, who had lost its position as the Imperial clan, still survive in that manor?