In the quiet bedroom, the emperor was half lying and half leaning on the bed, his face facing the wall, his eyes covered with a medicine belt prepared by the imperial physician for his eye disease.
The emperor's eye damage was kept strictly secret, and only the two doctors who were in charge of diagnosing the disease knew about it. As for the ministers, including the Ning Wang, most of them were still unaware.
The princess was sitting at the table beside the couch, sorting out the memorials sent by the officials of the Southern Court. Zhao Zhongfang and two palace supervisors stood beside her, ready to respond at any time.
As soon as they got up in the morning, the ministers came to pay their respects. In addition to the business, they also expressed their earnest hope that His Majesty would mourn and take care of his health. The princess met the ministers on behalf of the emperor and announced the emperor's intention to posthumously confer the title of Crown Prince Huihuai on King Kang, and to prepare all funeral ceremonies for the crown prince. The deceased daughter of Lu Lan, a scholar of Hongwen, was hired as the crown princess for the ghost marriage, and the two were buried together. The court officials immediately began to mourn, and the mourning was removed after the funeral. The former crown prince was demoted to a commoner and buried with commoner rites. The king of Ning was ordered to lead Wang Zhang and Cui Daosi to preside over all funeral ceremonies and ghost marriage matters.
After all the ministers left the court, Han Kerang was the only one who was allowed to meet the emperor.
He stood behind a curtain made of shark beads, reporting to the emperor inside about the confiscation of property and the pursuit of the remaining gang members, which he had presided over.
During the search and seizure of the homes of the Liu and Wei families, more than 300 houses and 10,000 acres of land were seized, as well as gold, silver, jewelry, silk, and copper coins, totaling no less than 10 million strings of cash, almost half of the treasury revenue of the holy dynasty in the previous year.
According to the princess's previous order, half of this money will be deposited into the Ministry of Revenue to be used as financial subsidies to the people in Henan and Huainan who suffered from disasters this year, and the other half will be deposited into the inner treasury to be used as military supplies.
All the ungrateful members of Liu Wei's family and relatives, totaling more than 200 people, have been executed. The rest are imprisoned and will be exiled to Nanyue and other places after being sentenced by the Dali Temple.
The many vacancies under each guard have been counted and submitted to the emperor for review and reappointment to fill the vacancies.
After reporting the usual matters, he hesitated for a moment, knelt on the ground, and kowtowed to the emperor on the couch through the curtain.
"I also want to apologize. Wei Juren escaped early that night and his whereabouts are unknown. I have searched everywhere in the city, but so far, I have not seen him confess his crime. Perhaps..."
He paused for a moment, raised his eyes slightly, and quickly glanced at the princess behind the curtain opposite.
"It is also possible that he has escaped from Chang'an during the chaos."
"However," he continued, "I will continue to search in all directions and will bring him to justice sooner or later."
The emperor seemed to be listening, and seemed to be in a trance. After a while, he suddenly asked in a low voice: "Where is the prince consort? Has he come?"
Xuyu turned and looked at the emperor.
"Before I was summoned to the palace, I met the prince consort who was on night patrol, and I came with him. He is outside."
The emperor moved, and bent over to support himself. Xuyu hurriedly supported him, put a pillow behind the emperor's back, and then put a thin blanket on his knees.
The emperor sat firmly.
"Everyone go down. Let's go see the Prince Consort."
Han Kerang agreed, bowed and left. Zhao Zhongfang and the palace eunuch also left.
The emperor groped for a while, held the back of Xuyu's hand, and patted it gently.
Although Xuyu didn't say anything, she understood. She followed the emperor's instructions and slowly withdrew.
In the corridor, she met Pei Xiaoyuan who was walking in.