Chapter 54: The Little Scoundrel Has Been Restless Lately

"Take him away!" the Crown Prince ordered on the spot.

The person who administered the poison was dragged away, with a piece of cloth stuffed in his mouth, capable of making only muffled sounds.

Before Ye Qingyan could manage to question anything, it was already too late.

A perfectly fine grand opening ceremony for the "Abode of Supreme Bliss" had been thrown into complete disarray.

Ye Qingyan let out a yawn, wearing a look of utter bewilderment that seemed to say, "Who am I, and where am I?"

"Tell me, is this show over yet? This young lady needs to go back to her beauty sleep."

She waved her hand dismissively, acting as though none of this concerned her in the least.

Chen Huai'an, standing nearby, looked somewhat pale as he took a step forward.

"Eldest Miss, are you alright?" he asked, leaning in closer to check if she had been poisoned.

"What could possibly happen to me? I'm perfectly fine," Ye Qingyan said lazily.

She patted him on the shoulder. "It's you who looks pale as a ghost. Did you get scared?"

Seeing that Ye Qingyan was unharmed, Chen Huai'an let out a sigh of relief and forced a weak smile.

...

Deep into the night.

Chen Huai'an tossed and turned in bed.

He was having that dream again.

It was always that same dream.

A woman whose face remained shrouded in a blur.

A lullaby he had never once heard in the Ye estate.

Its melody, both sorrowful and tender, invariably left his heart in a state of unease.

He sat up abruptly, his forehead slick with cold sweat.

Something was wrong.

Terribly wrong.

He was not a three-year-old child; there were some things he could no longer lie to himself about.

From the sudden letter from the Chen family elders, combined with Ye Chengzong's attitude toward him, down to the lingering rumors in the streets that he was the son of Chen Yi...

...

The next day.

Chen Huai'an sought out Ye Qingyan.

"Eldest Miss, I'd like to take a look in the storeroom."

Ye Qingyan was paring her nails with a small file, her head lowered without even a glance upward.

"What on earth are you going to the storeroom for? To pledge brotherhood with the dust?"

"I want to find some things from my childhood. You were frightened yesterday, so I thought I'd find some old objects to help distract you."

"Oh? Our little Huai'an has grown up, learning how to care for his elder cousin."

Ye Qingyan blew away some nail shavings. "Go on then, just don't tear down the rafters."

The storeroom was thick with the musty scent of passing years.

Chen Huai'an covered his nose as he rummaged through one dust-covered chest after another.

Found it.

The chest used during his one-year-old "Zhuazhou" ceremony of divination.

Opening the lid, he found a miniature wooden toy sword, a writing brush, and a tiny abacus inside.

All of them standard accessories for the scions of wealthy households.

His hand groped along the bottom of the box.

It brushed against an object that was cool and smooth to the touch.

It was a piece of jade.

It warmed the instant it met his skin.

Carved upon the jade was a single character: An.

His own "An."

He flipped the jade over.

The reverse side, however, was covered in blurred, jagged scratches, as if someone had viciously gouged it with a sharp blade.

What were they hiding?

His heart hammered violently.

"What kind of treasure did you find that has you staring so intensely?"

Ye Qingyan appeared behind him out of nowhere, her voice crisp and clear.

Her eyes immediately landed on the jade in his hand and the ghost-like expression frozen on his face.

Before she could even utter a word.

The voice in her head blared like a passing fire engine.

[Warning! A rebellious subject and traitor is right before your eyes!]

[Dragon vein instability detected! The aura of a traitor is leaking!]

[Such rebellious scum deserves to be executed by all! This Emperor shall unleash divine punishment!]

Ye Qingyan gave a violent start.

"Big Brother, calm down! Don't get so excited!" she yelled frantically inside her mind.

"System, my dear good son, pipe down for a moment! He's just feeling a bit nostalgic and sentimental; there's no need to strike him down with lightning!"

Outwardly maintaining her composure, she flashed a stiff, polite smile at the utterly bewildered Chen Huai'an.

"Eldest Miss, who are you talking to?"

"Ah... nothing at all. Just rehearsing a new play, you know how it is. When no one is around to play with me, I amuse myself by directing and acting in my own little dramas."

She swiftly glanced over the system logs in her mind.

"Traitor," "Rebellion," "Ulterior motives"...

What was wrong with this system? Why was its hostility toward her cousin always so deeply rooted? As if it were built straight into its genetic code.

Wait.

A traitor?

The founding emperor... the entire Chen family...

That long-buried historical case had been a lifelong heartache for the late emperor, as well as an indelible stain upon the annals of history.

And the system residing inside her mind happened to be the consciousness of that very same late emperor...

Oh, good grief.

No way.

Could it really be this melodramatic?

She reached out, took the jade from Chen Huai'an's hand, and began turning it over in her fingers with feigned casualness.

"The quality of this jade is rather fine, Huai'an."

She tapped her fingernail lightly against the surface of the jade, producing a crisp, resonant chime.

"Speaking of which, the texture of this piece is warm and translucent."

"I've heard that back in the day, General Chen's household possessed a peerless piece just like this, bestowed upon them by the late emperor."

The moment her words fell.

Chen Huai'an's complexion shifted at a pace visible to the naked eye, transforming from bewilderment into a deathly pallor.

The hands hanging at his sides instantly clenched into tight fists.

Ye Qingyan's heart skipped a beat with a heavy *thud*.

Well, well.

Look at that.

It was practically a certainty.

This cousin of hers was likely the sole survivor of that annihilation massacre back then.

That explained everything.

Her mother's letter had also made mention of this very matter.

Which meant she was carrying a walking political time bomb around with her.

Accompanied by a cranky old emperor system eager to detonate that bomb at any second.

"Fine then, I'm taking this matter under my wing," Ye Qingyan calculated internally.

Not for any other reason, purely to preserve her own precious life, and to keep this brain of hers from being fried into popcorn by the irascible system.

...

A few days later.

The Eldest Miss of the Ye family made a fresh move.

She triumphantly announced throughout the Ye estate, "This young lady has recently developed a profound interest in commerce!"

The servants crowding the room trembled, bracing themselves for a fresh round of chaos.

"I have already decided! I am going to open a gambling house! Two of them, in fact!"

"The largest, most luxurious, highest-grade gambling dens in the entire capital!"

"We are in urgent need of talent right now. Anyone willing to come work for me, line up to sign up with me later."

She was determined to carry the persona of a hedonistic wastrel through to the very end.

This was the finest disguise possible.

Who would ever suspect a spendthrift woman obsessed with gambling of harboring any vicious intentions?

In reality, this was purely a business venture.

A gambling house was, after all, the ancient version of an intelligence distribution center.

People from all walks of life gathered there—what gossip couldn't be heard?

She needed information.

Specifically, a midwife who had delivered babies in the capital twenty years ago.

And by the way, she needed to gather some scandalous dirt on the capital's powerful elite.

It was time to expand her network of connections and lay the groundwork for her next commercial layout.

Her ultimate objective was to completely cut off the official and financial paths of that old fox, Ye Chengzong.

Ye Chengzong's informants relayed the news back to him in no time.

"Master, the Eldest Miss... she says she wants to open a gambling house."

Ye Chengzong was practicing his calligraphy when he heard this. His brush paused, leaving a blot of ink to bloom upon the rice paper.

A surge of unease welled up in his heart.

Yet he quickly forced it back down.

"Let her be. It's merely the whims of a child."

"The events of back then were executed flawlessly. What waves could a mere yellow-haired girl possibly stir up?"

The old fox's face was plastered with absolute confidence.

...

That night.

The moon was dark and the wind was high.

A solitary shadow darted swiftly across the tiled rooftops of the Ye estate.

It was Chen Huai'an.

He could not sleep.

Ye Qingyan's casual remark kept looping through his mind like a curse.

"General Chen's household..."

He had to uncover more details and the raw truth.

He descended silently onto the eaves just outside Ye Chengzong's study.

A crack had been left open in the window.

From within came Ye Chengzong's lowered voice, seemingly issuing instructions to a trusted aide.

"That little bastard hasn't been very well-behaved lately."

Chen Huai'an's body instantly stiffened.

"Have people keep a close eye on him. Not a single moment out of the twelve hours of the day can be slacked off."

"Under no circumstances must he ever discover where his true 'roots' lie."

"Who's up there?" shouted a courtyard guard.