Zhang Desheng couldn't help but shudder when he recalled the murderous look in the eyes of the Ninth Prince of Daliang that he saw at the palace gate half an hour ago.
"My Lord, please follow me in."
Li Shuangwan glanced at him. Eunuch Zhang still had an official smile on his face. He half bent over and invited her into the door of the emperor's bedroom.
Li Shuangwan nodded and walked inside.
Inside the palace, Ling Heng was personally helping Emperor Jingzhang put on his shoes and socks: "Father, it's great that you woke up. Today is your birthday. I asked all the civil and military officials to bring their families to the palace to celebrate your birthday."
"At this moment, most people have arrived. I will wait for you to go over."
Emperor Jingzhang smiled twice and said, "The Crown Prince is filial and knows how to ask everyone to see me off."
Ling Heng's expression froze. "Father, what are you talking about? I asked Doctor Fang this morning. He said that although the poison in your body cannot be completely eliminated, it is much better than before."
"As long as you take care of yourself slowly, you will definitely recover. Father, you are a body that will live forever."
Emperor Jingzhang glanced and saw that Li Shuangwan had come in. He sneered: "If I live forever, how can I make room for you?"
Ling Hengzi also saw Li Shuangwan coming in. He slowly stood up and put away the fake smile on his face.
"Father, do you know everything?"
"How could I not know? The pill was clearly poisonous, yet you still forced me to take five pills a day. Not only that, you even had Doctor Fang coat the pill with another layer of poison, hoping to turn me into a living dead, at your mercy."
Emperor Jingzhang looked at him coldly: "Ling Heng, I never thought that you would hate me so much!"
"Hate? Ha, ha ha." Ling Heng seemed to find this word ridiculous, and his laughter grew louder and louder.
"Father, shouldn't I hate you? In order to seize the throne, you tricked my mother into your prince's palace, and after you ascended the throne and gave birth to a son, you just ignored her."
Emperor Jingzhang looked at him and said, "You said that I tricked your mother into entering the Prince's Palace? Oh, your mother said the same thing?"
"My mother has never complained. She regards you as her husband. Unfortunately, you are not her husband alone."
Emperor Jingzhang's expression changed slightly. It seemed that he had not seen that woman for a long, long time.
It seemed like he had even forgotten what she looked like.
I vaguely remember that she was a very gentle woman from the south of the Yangtze River, very quiet and gave people a very comfortable feeling.
However, for a woman like this, who came from a merchant family, her status was ultimately a bit low.
Emperor Jingzhang's thoughts were brought back by Ling Heng's words.
"Father, do you know how it feels to take food from a dog's mouth and stuff it into your own mouth? Do you know that rat meat can actually be used to fill your stomach?"
Emperor Jingzhang moved his lips but said nothing.
During those years, he never asked a single question about the mother and son.
Ling Heng wanted to laugh, but he also wanted to cry because he had lived like a dog during those years.
"You don't know! With just one word from you, my mother was moved to Qiyun Palace. From then on, Qiyun Palace became synonymous with the cold palace. I barked like a dog and crawled on the ground like an animal, and then those palace people would give me and my mother a little bit of food."
Zhang Desheng thought of the palace maids who were cooked by Ling Heng, and cold sweat broke out on his back.
Li Shuangwan looked over and saw Ling Heng seemed to be trapped in painful memories of his childhood.
She also wanted to hear what Ling Heng experienced in his childhood that made him so twisted.
Ling Heng's face was grim, and he waved his hands, venting the anger that had been pent up in his heart for more than 20 years, and shouted: "Let my mother and I live a life worse than death!"
Emperor Jingzhang looked at him with a somewhat stiff expression on his face: "I never thought that you would live this kind of life."
"You don't know? Oh, father, we are father and son, and I wanted you to die of old age. But you are too cruel, too cruel."
"My fifth brother has exposed the Heavenly Master's conspiracy, but instead of rewarding him, you suddenly appointed me, your son who has never been in your eyes and was already a prince, as the crown prince. Everyone in the world knows what you are planning!"
Emperor Jingzhang did not refute: "I also want to check and balance you and Lao Wu. This is the way of being a king. You are now the crown prince, you should understand."
"If Ling Yan becomes the crown prince, I will become a puppet. With you as the crown prince, I thought that at least I could live a few more years."
"I just didn't know you hid it so well."
Ling Heng suddenly burst into tears, and big tears rolled down his face: "I never thought that my father and I would end up like this. In fact, Father, if you don't appoint me as the crown prince, I can also take it from my fifth brother."
"In this case, you could have achieved perfection."
Emperor Jingzhang sneered: "Since the day I ascended the throne, I have never thought about perfection. The previous emperor died suddenly, how can I have a good end?"
Zhang Desheng wished he could dig a hole on the spot and bury himself rather than hearing these words.
Li Shuangwan's hand holding the sword tightened slightly. Emperor Jingzhang actually let her hear such a secret matter.
Does this mean that he was responsible for the death of the late emperor?
Father kills son, son kills father. It turns out that the cycle of cause and effect is played out so bloodily among the royal family of the Ling family.
Ling Heng laughed loudly: "Father kills son, son kills father, Father, our Ling family is rotten to the core, rotten to the core, do you know that?"
"The national treasury can't even take out half a tael of silver, natural disasters and man-made disasters continue, countless people have starved to death or frozen to death, and countless bandits have taken over the mountains and become kings. The Northern Jin Dynasty is about to fall!"
"Two hundred years of Northern Jin, you and I are both kings of a lost nation!"
Emperor Jingzhang suddenly flew into a rage, shaking with anger, and pointed his finger at Ling Heng's nose.
"Rebellious son! Rebellious son! I have only been away from government affairs for half a year, and you have turned Northern Jin into this state! If Northern Jin is destroyed, you will be the biggest executioner of Northern Jin. I wonder how you can face the ancestors of the Ling family!"
Ling Heng thought what Emperor Jingzhang said was ridiculous: "Father, you have so many rebellious sons, are you short of one?"
He suddenly laughed out loud: "Ling Ji thinks that the Crown Prince has been doing this for too long, so he personally offers the Poison Master to kill you."
"Ling Yun, for his own selfish reasons, destroyed tens of thousands of He's troops, causing the death of all the members of the He family."
"Ling Yao was forced to death by you and the Queen. What's ridiculous is that you raised the Eighth Prince's son for more than ten years."
"Aren't they all your rebellious sons?" Ling Heng pointed at Emperor Jingzhang angrily, "If the Northern Jin Dynasty is to fall, it will be in your hands! What does this have to do with you, your son?"
Emperor Jingzhang suddenly calmed down. He thought, how similar these two father and son were.
He looked at Ling Heng calmly: "Have Zheng Xinjiang and Su Yueming always been yours?"
"There is one more." Ling Heng shook his head and added, "Father, you have missed one person."
"Who?"