In the waterside pavilion of the back hall in Summer Palace, Empress Jiang looked sulky, “You really didn’t do it?”

Jiang Yadan felt wronged, “My aunt, although I never have a good reputation outside, I’ve never lied to you!”

“Then where were you last night?” Empress Jiang felt tight in her chest, “You were in Summer Palace all night last night! Tell me what you did!”

“There was a so pretty maid in Huanyue Palace, and I couldn’t help…” Before Jiang Yadan finished his speaking, the furious Empress Jiang had already picked up the horsetail whisk next to her hand to hit him, “You couldn’t help it? You couldn’t help it? Can’t you just tell me when you have a thing for a maid? To be fair, for so many years, I will give anything or anybody you want in and out of the Imperial Palace to you. I’ve told you so many times that the maids belong to your uncle-in-law and before they are given to you, you can’t do anything to them. You always have girls around you, so why do you have to break the rules and make trouble? You just wanna piss me off, right?”

Although Jiang Yadan was stubborn and obstreperous, he was still a little afraid of her aunt, the empress. He was beaten up by her, but he didn’t dare to run away. Since the Empress didn’t intend to stop seemingly, he couldn’t help shouting at his younger brother who was not far away, “Jiang Yashuang! You just wanna look at it?”

“Aunt, please give him a few more hits to vent your anger, lest you get angry!” Jiang Yashuang, who always spoke for him in front of the elders before, not only watched him being beaten coldly, but also said indifferently this time, “Although brother has been womanizing over the years, he is still in the prime of life. Aunt, you just hit him with the horsetail whisk, so he will be fine even if you hit him for one or two hours.”

Jiang Yadan was speechless, thinking that he hadn’t offended this younger brother recently! He wanted to scold Jiang Yashuang, but he was afraid that he would say, “Aunt, don’t hit him with the horsetail whisk. Let me get you a cane!” So he had to hold his head angrily to bear her lash.

The Empress was very angry this time obviously. She didn’t throw the whisk under her feet until her arm turned sore. Then she shouted sternly, “Go back and ground yourself! You are not allowed to step out of your yard until the summer vacation is over! Otherwise, I will break your leg by myself!”

Jiang Yadan lowered his arm and said in frustration, “I’ll obey your command, aunt!” He didn’t believe that Empress Jiang would really break his leg, but she would lash him like this time! Jiang Yadan had been accustomed to enjoyment since he was a child, and he couldn’t endure hardship. So, he was still a little afraid of the Empress’ threat.

So he had to leave in dismay.

Watching him out of the waterside pavilion, Empress Jiang collapsed on the chair and sighed, “Why I have such a nephew?”

Jiang Yashuang said expressionlessly, “Aunt, it’s not the right time to talk about this.”

“You’re wronged this time.” After hearing his words, Empress Jiang held the back of the chair to sit up slowly and said with emotion, “Yesterday you reminded me that Jiang Yadan didn’t always stay in the Palace some time ago, it might not be him who did it. And maybe the old woman Gu did that deliberately. But I was still worried and insisted on your taking the blame! I was so useless that you had to suffer this loss.”

“Aunt, you’re so serious.” There was still no expression on Jiang Yashuang’s face after he heard this, but his tone eased, “The matter about the fifteenth sister was just over. My eighth brother has always been like that, and we just couldn’t find him last night. So you had to act cautiously, aunt.”

Actually, the Empress was schemed against by Empress Dowager Gu this time. The cause of the incident was similar to Qiu Yelan’s guess. The maid of Princess Lexin took a sachet to Empress Dowager Gu and insisted that it was Jiang Yadan who was rude to the princess.

While Empress Dowager Gu was still checking and looking for more evidence, Empress Jiang had got the news.

Naturally, the Empress couldn’t just wait for her nephew to be convicted. The problem was that Jiang Yadan had ever molested Fair Concubine. So after hearing the report of the servant, even the Empress immediately believed that it was he who did it, let alone others!

Therefore, under the emergency, Empress Jiang called Jiang Yashuang, who was the only one owning a great reputation in Jiang Family, into the Palace. She asked him to put away the sachet and pretend that the sachet was his! In this way, when Empress Jiang came to Empress Dowager Gu, she could say, “It is true that many of my nephews are ignorant and incompetent, but Jiang Yashuang is an exception! Since he got married, he hasn’t even got a mistress-maid, which shows that he is not concupiscent at all! What’s more, his wife is so beautiful. Although Lexin is pretty, she can’t compare with his wife! So how could Jiang Yashuang have a thing for Lexin?”

Even outsiders thought so. Jiang Yashuang had never had many love affairs!

So he must have been involved because of the fight between the Empress and Empress Dowager Gu.

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While Jiang Yashuang, who was called to the Palace in a hurry, asked about what happened, he did not agree with the Empress because he felt that the Empress just got the news at such a coincidental time, “Even if Empress Dowager Gu doesn’t know that you already know she is questioning Princess Lexin, you can’t hide the truth that you call me here from her. She will be suspicious certainly and then try to stop it. Empress Dowager Gu always took actions in haste when she got something on us before.”

But Jiang Yadan just couldn’t be found everywhere, who was dating a maid of Huanyue Palace in a silent place at that time. Out of her serious distrust of his morality, Empress Jiang didn’t dare to take any risks. And she thought that with Jiang Yashuang’s good reputation, he could get a whitewashing quickly even if he took the blame for Jiang Yadan. So, she asked him to admit that the sachet was his.

Jiang Yashuang couldn’t convince his aunt, so he had to follow her orders. He was asked to come to Empress Dowager Gu, who just let him go easily after giving him a hard time… It was then that Empress Jiang suddenly took a tumble, “We are really schemed against by that old woman!”

No wonder that the news was so timely this time!

But she had already let Jiang Yashuang take the blame, so it was too late to regret it.

Even though she had lashed Jiang Yadan, the culprit who caused her to be deceived, with Jiang Yashuang present, she was still a little guilty, “Jiang Yadan can no longer be a guard in the Palace anymore. The thing is not over, and it may cause rumors among people. After returning to Jing City, let him change his job as soon as possible.”

He simply regarded the beauties in the Imperial Harem as his! Sooner or later, he would spell disaster!

“I just heard from Maid Lin that Princess Lexin’s birth mother, Qu Baolin, was not promoted by Empress Dowager Gu or you, but uncle himself picked her out of the maids.” Jiang Yashuang didn’t digress but got down to business, “For this reason, Qu Baolin has always been cautious. She never argued with others, and she never got close to either the Empress Dowager or you. She just lived her life with her children. Princess Lexin and the tenth prince have the same temperament as their mother. I think that there must be something hidden for Princess Lexin’s slandering brother this time.”

“How could there be something hidden?” Empress Jiang sighed. “The old woman Gu was happy that I agreed to end this thing quickly. Obviously, it was done by her junior. And it must be Gu Yan who did that.”

Although Gu Yan, the Young Prince of Duke of Guangyang, didn’t have a job in the Palace like Jiang Yadan, which could make it convenient for him to hook up with the women in the Imperial Harem. He could enter the Palace so easily just like the Jiang Family. Therefore, there were many opportunities for him to have an affair with the women in the Imperial Harem. This person was as concupiscent as Jiang Yadan, and he was bisexual.

In this regard, after confirming that Jiang Yadan did not have an affair with Princess Lexin, Empress Jiang and Jiang Yashuang thought of him almost at the same time.

“Aunt, have you sent someone to check whether Princess Lexin…” Jiang Yashuang paused before saying, “Is she still a virgin?”

Empress Jiang said, “Yes. Otherwise, even if the old woman Gu schemed against me deliberately, she wouldn’t end this thing so quickly. If it weren’t for that she changed her attitude so quickly, I would have really thought it was Jiang Yadan who did that and Lexin made a scene just because she worried she would suffer a big loss.”

Of course, Empress Dowager Gu had to agree quickly. Empress Jiang insisted on Jiang Yashuang’s claiming that sachet simply because Jiang Yadan was not found. If they had found him, they would have known that Jiang Yadan had nothing to do with that. At that time, the Empress would insist on a thorough investigation seriously to prove that her nephew was innocent.

“I remember that the tenth prince has a handsome appearance.” Jiang Yashuang kept silent for a while, and then said lightly.

The Empress was startled. Thinking of Deng Yi, she showed a touch of disgust on her face knowingly, and said suspiciously, “If Gu Yan had been on the catch of Weiyong, since Lexin always loved her younger brother, how could she have slandered Jiang Yadan? She should have turned to me!”

“Aunt, now the matter of Princess Lexin has calmed down. It is announced that Princess Lexin’s maid stole my sachet and she feared that the princess would punish her, so she told a lie that I broke into Empress Lexin’s room when she was not there and lost my sachet which was found by others then.” Jiang Yashuang said calmly, “So that the princess believed it, and took the maid and the sachet to Empress Dowager Gu then. But now we’ve known that this matter has nothing to do with us. So, what do you plan to do next?”

Empress Jiang said, “The matter has been a foregone conclusion, and the old woman Gu must have eliminated the evidence of Gu Yan’s whereabouts. I got you involved in it as well. It won’t do us any good to bring the matter out again, and it might even do harm to you. We can only accept it. However, this kind of thing can’t happen again. And in the future, when getting into and out of the Palace, all the men have to…”

Empress Jiang frowned slightly and stopped speaking when speaking of this.

Jiang Yashuang said, “So, you will forbid Gu Yan from coming into and going out of the Palace as you are angry about our taking the blame for him. At the same time, if it weren’t for the usual behavior of brother, you wouldn’t have been cheated. So after this thing, you won’t allow brother to work in the Palace anymore. And you just said that you want to change brother’s job. Aunt, to be honest, for Princess Lexin, for the tenth prince, and for many people in the Palace, it’s a good thing that brother and Gu Yan cannot see them at will.”

“If Lexin exposed Gu Yan directly and turned to me, although I would drive Gu Yan away for her, I might not drive Jiang Yadan away for her.” Empress Jiang narrowed her eyes and sneered, “So she slandered Jiang Yadan then. Although it might offend me, Gu would be satisfied… It seems that I have paid too much attention to the affairs in the court in the past few years, so I have not found that the little children have become so talented!”

If Maid Lin, who took care of the Imperial Harem for her, was here, she would definitely kneel down and apologize immediately after hearing this.

But Maid Lin was not here at this time. Jiang Yashuang said lightly, “Aunt, how you plan to deal with Princess Lexin?”