The moon is bright, the stars are sparse, and under the beautiful night, the unpredictable waves of the world never cease.
When Gongsun Yan heard Mother Chen knocking on the door, she sent away the servants around her and led Mother Chen to the study room away from others.
Under the dim light of a lamp, Gongsun Yan opened the secret document with foreign symbols and quickly looked through it.
"No wonder! The prince has been in a bad mood these past two days, as if he has something on his mind but is unwilling to say it. It turns out that the Zhou kid's affair has been exposed."
Mother Chen was shocked. "Does the master mean that Zhou Zhiyuan is no longer useful? Then should we take action?"
Gongsun Yan thought for a moment and waved her hand at Mother Chen. "Although he has been exposed, the prince has not made any move. I guess the prince will not deal with it publicly for the sake of his own face. At least he needs to have a fig leaf. But Zhou will never have the same trust and opportunity as before. He is courting death and there is no way to stop him."
Mother Chen hesitated and stopped him, "So, what about Miss Zhou? Can she still get married?"
Suddenly hearing someone mention Zhou Lanqing, Gongsun Yan's eyelids twitched slightly, and she said softly, "Miss Zhou... It depends on fate. The prince usually doesn't care much about love, and I can't figure out what he's thinking."
After Mother Chen left, Gongsun Yan thought more, but Chen Xu and the others were not qualified to know these things.
He didn't hear anything about this incident in the East Palace or the government office. Based on his understanding of the prince, he must have sent people to find evidence against Zhou Zhiyuan.
But two days had passed since this happened, and the prince had not revealed a single word to his most trusted aide, let alone come to discuss things with him.
Did the prince no longer trust himself? Or was he just being cautious and wanting to minimize the number of people who knew about the incident
How can she find out what the prince thinks of her, sever her ties with Zhou Zhiyuan as soon as possible, and protect Zhou Lanqing and the prince's marriage? Gongsun Yan is destined to toss and turn and be unable to sleep that night.
Another person who couldn't sleep that night was the Prince of Daliang, Song Ruiyang.
It took two days for the secret guards sent by the emperor to assist in presenting sufficient evidence to the prince. These clumsy tricks of deceiving superiors and subordinates easily fooled Song Ruiyang, who claimed to be a rare talent.
The imperial court only wanted to break the monopoly of the Cao Gang on domestic water transport, but Zhou Zhiyuan, by using his different business houses and water transport operations, secretly swallowed up 70% to 80% of the Cao Gang's business into his own hands.
The monopoly of the river's water transport was transferred from the Cao Gang to Zhou Zhiyuan!
As for the docks along the river, not to mention those far away, just talk about this one in the capital. The imperial court's decree is to temporarily open a new dock, expand and renovate the old dock, and at the same time give reasonable compensation to the previous operators and merchants of the dock.
However, current evidence shows that Zhou Zhiyuan used the numerous businesses and canal operations in his hands to directly seize control of the management rights of the old wharf, and all the compensation that should have been paid to the canal gang fell into Zhou Zhiyuan's pocket.
Song Ruiyang's face turned pale and he couldn't calm down even after the secret guard left.
He didn't know much about the Cao Gang, and had never thought about really understanding it. He just believed the rumors he heard from others that the Cao Gang was arrogant and despised the imperial court.
What Song Ruiyang regretted even more was that the Cao Gang leader Liu Yue had repeatedly asked to see him several times before, but he arrogantly refused them every time.
What I heard from Zhou Zhiyuan before was completely different from what I actually saw now. Are all those statements about Liu Yue true?
Liu Yue! This name suddenly jumped in Song Ruiyang's heart, and he thought of those eyes, Liu Yun's eyes.
A person's face can be changed, but the eyes cannot be changed, especially such clear, lively and spirited eyes.
The chivalrous Liu Yun would definitely not be as despicable as Liu Yue described by Zhou Zhiyuan!
(End of this chapter)