Chapter 221: "Don’t Look at Me Like That, It Wasn’t Me!

Xie Liuzheng had been inspecting the farmlands in the outskirts recently.

Xiao Yang had placed Xie Liuzheng in the Research Institute so she could use her system to acquire knowledge of agriculture and animal husbandry, then have the people under her experiment with it.

But the girl had gotten addicted to it. Especially when she went out into the fields, it was said she completely let herself go, like an excited puppy, having the time of her life.

Even by express horse, it would take over half an hour to get Xie Liuzheng back. Before she could even arrive, someone had already finished their exam and handed in their paper.

Ji Xuanmo. Xiao Yang remembered seeing that name on the seating chart.

She looked at the young man before her. He appeared to be in his early twenties, not much different in age from Xiao Lv.

He was handsome, with a face like polished jade and perfect features. The strange thing was, even his brows and eyes seemed to bear some resemblance to Xiao Lv.

"Your Majesty."

Ji Xuanmo bowed properly, a suitably gentle, faint smile on his face.

That smile wasn’t just the polite deference of one meeting the Emperor. Instead, it held an indescribable calm, a confidence as if he had everything under control.

’He seems so confident. It doesn’t feel like it’s about his essay, but more about me as a person.’

Xiao Yang raised an eyebrow, gave a slight nod, and then turned her head. "Go summon Prince Jing and Xiao Lv."

Prince Jing was at the Ministry of Industry, and Xiao Lv probably wasn’t with Xie Liuzheng today.

Xiao Lv arrived first. Xiao Yang tapped the essay on her desk. "Brother, take a look at this."

Xiao Lv read it. Then, when Xiao Yang’s finger pointed to the seating chart, he looked up, and his expression changed slightly.

"Did Your Majesty inform my father?"

Right now, the people Xiao Lv understood best were his father and the Emperor.

"Yes."

Xiao Lv remained composed. Based on the trust he had in his own father, he didn’t panic.

Although Prince Jing wasn’t monogamous and had Consort Meng and a few concubines, he wasn’t a lecherous degenerate. He cherished and respected his Princess Consort and deeply cared for Xiao Lv, his eldest son.

Keeping a mistress and having a child with her behind his mother’s back—his father wasn’t capable of such a thing.

If he had even the slightest devious inclination, he wouldn’t have survived to this day.

Therefore, Xiao Lv leaned toward the possibility that this was the illegitimate offspring of one of his other royal uncles.

Prince Jing arrived quickly. He took one look, his eyes went wide as saucers, and he turned to the siblings, hastily explaining, "It wasn’t me!"

He hadn’t done anything like that.

The brother and sister wore identical, speechless expressions. It wasn’t like they suspected him. "Then who do you think did it?"

Obviously, the question stumped him.

None of his brothers, older or younger, had been easy to deal with. And now they were all dead. Who knew what romantic dalliances they had before they passed?

So, Rong Yin was brought over as well. Unfortunately, he hadn’t been very old fifteen years ago, and it was hard to tell anything just by looking at faces.

The funny thing was, the man didn’t resemble any of the princes. Instead, he looked quite a bit like Xiao Lv.

All eyes fell on Prince Jing, who felt like he was sitting on pins and needles.

"Don’t look at me like that! It wasn’t me!"

Xiao Yang had a thought. "Do you think it’s possible that Auntie was pregnant with twins back then, and a villain stole one of them?"

Prince Jing shook his head firmly. "I was there personally, keeping watch. I was holding Xiao Lv when he was still covered in blood—he even peed all over me. It was impossible for anyone to have taken a child then, and his mother didn’t have another baby in her belly."

Xiao Lv: "..." ’Why do I feel so embarrassed for some reason?’

Rong Yin watched the three of them huddled together, whispering publicly. "Every scholar has a registered identity. It should be on Your Majesty’s desk."

The three people surnamed Xiao, somehow, couldn’t manage to scrape together a complete brain among them.

At the Ministry of Industry, Prince Jing was thriving, full of princely authority.

When handling political affairs, Xiao Lv also held his own, in no way inferior to the Regent King.

And that wasn’t to mention Xiao Yang, who, as Emperor, commanded respect throughout the court, brilliant and powerful, and decisive in her methods.

But get the three of them together, and their gazes grew progressively more innocently stupid.

It really proved the saying: "Individually, they could conquer the world; together, they were a heap of loose sand."

’Ahem, this has nothing to do with Your Majesty. It must be these two idiots from the Prince Jing Mansion who are affecting Her Majesty’s judgment.’

Ji Xuanmo, a native of Luo Mountain City. Father unknown. Took his mother’s surname. Grew up in the home of his uncle, Ji Xun, the Governor of Luo Mountain City.

"Ji..."

Prince Jing frowned at the surname.

Everyone looked at him, thinking he had figured something out. But then he said, "That’s a rare surname."

"..."

’This is no time for such nonsense.’

Soon, most of the candidates had finished their exams. Grand Tutor Xu and the other officials had already reviewed them, assigned preliminary scores, written their comments, and finally sent them to the Emperor’s desk.

Xiao Yang needed to read them in front of everyone and then personally select the top three from the top ten.

Xiao Yang’s question wasn’t particularly sharp; it was about the duties of being an official.

Those who could become scholars were no ordinary people. As she read through the essays, the calligraphy was neat and the content substantive, but there were always those geniuses who stood out from the crowd.

Xie Shuze, the eldest son of Xie Wei. For Prince Jing to have seen Xie Wei as a love rival and remembered it for so many years, Xie Wei must have been quite something. His son was also a talent.

Xiao Yang had looked him over. He was a fine young talent, twenty-five years old, already married, and a very steady person.

Gu Sheng, who had previously distinguished himself at the Lantern Festival but had then, for some reason, disappeared without a trace.

By signing up for the imperial examination this time, he was proving himself once again.

And as for Ji Xuanmo...

It was no exaggeration to say the man seemed to glow with a golden light. Both his essay’s content and his calligraphy were so stunningly beautiful that they gave off an air that it would be wrong not to award him the top rank.

These three were not only favored by Xiao Yang, but also by Grand Tutor Xu and the others. All received high scores.

As everyone waited for the Emperor to decide the rankings, Xie Liuzheng arrived.

"Your Majesty!"

Xie Liuzheng was an official with rank and status, so she could enter through the main gate and pay her respects formally.

Xiao Yang beckoned to her. "Come here."

Xie Liuzheng immediately went over. Xiao Yang raised a hand and touched her shoulder, and no one saw her grab a transparent pufferfish in her hand.

"Check this person out for me."

Xie Liuzheng looked at the exam paper, then at the man.

She couldn’t see anything special, but her system could.

"A Son of Destiny."

Xiao Yang whispered, "Not a transmigrator?"

The pufferfish replied, "Do you suspect everyone you see of being a transmigrator? He’s a soul of this world. Moreover, he has a deep blood connection to you. He is a Son of Heavenly Fate, nourished by the Xiao Family’s dragon vein."

Xiao Yang raised an eyebrow. "A deep blood connection to me? Was he born from my father or the Empress Dowager?"

The pufferfish said, "You share the same father but have different mothers. In the Book of Fate, his birth mother is named Ji Xue, but she isn’t from the Ji Family. His birth mother’s surname was Chen. She was your maternal grandfather’s illegitimate daughter who lived outside the family. She entered the palace to serve as your father’s handmaiden, left after becoming pregnant, and was then adopted as a ’sister’ by Ji Xun."

Xiao Yang: ’...’ ’What a tangled web of relationships.’

In short, his father was her father, and his mother was, by blood, her aunt. ’So that’s why he looks like Xiao Lv?’

"Last question. Is he the male lead? Is he the future emperor?"

The pufferfish replied, "I can’t see. Someone with great destiny can change the world. Their fate cannot be spied upon."

Xiao Yang: "But you could see the previous male lead perfectly clearly, couldn’t you?"

The pufferfish: "His destiny wasn’t strong enough. Isn’t that why you snuffed him out?"

Xiao Yang: ’...’ ’That’s a very logical answer, but I suspect this thing is trying to fool me.’