The Purple Imperial Palace Hall in the Northern Yan Imperial Palace.
On the imperial desk in the hall lay a dagger and a note retrieved from the White Horse Temple.
Murong Min sat on the dragon throne, his eyes filled with sorrow. He said to the queen, who resembled yet also didn't quite resemble Lu Wanyin,
"I still can't believe that Huo Wei is my son.
Back then, Lu Wanyin hated the child she had with me so much that she did everything in her power to get rid of it. By the time I rushed from the palace, I didn't even get to see the child's remains."
Dugu Luanyue was dressed in a blue robe embroidered with silver-threaded flying phoenix butterflies. Her hair was coiled in a low bun.
She had studied the portrait given by Shen Guilan and made her eyebrows and eyes more similar to Lu Wanyin's.
She had subdued the sharpness that came with being the queen. These days, she had been accompanying Murong Min every day, enduring the torment he inflicted on her under the influence of the hallucinogenic golden pills.
Murong Min wanted to win Lu Wanyin's heart, but he couldn't deceive himself. He knew that Lu Wanyin hated him.
She stood beside the dragon throne, carefully speculating on Lu Wanyin's mental state at that time as a woman.
Lu Wanyin was the wife of a courtier whom Murong Min had forcefully taken. Moreover, the couple had a deep affection for each other. While her husband was fighting on the front lines, she waited for him eagerly in the imperial capital.
On one hand, Lu Wanyin didn't dare to defy Murong Min for fear of her husband's safety. On the other hand, she couldn't bring herself to be completely obedient.
After she gave birth to Murong Min's child, she was filled with shame and indignation.
She couldn't bring herself to love the child, but she also couldn't bear to kill it with her own hands. So she entrusted the child to someone else and secretly sent him away.
She would never keep the child by her side for fear of developing a deeper mother-child bond. She was afraid that she would be tied to Murong Min for the rest of her life.
This was all that Dugu Luanyue could speculate as a woman. While she was lost in thought, Murong Min reached out and grabbed her by the neck, pinning her to the dragon throne.
"Tell me, did you kill my child back then or send him away!"
Dugu Luanyue followed his words and said, "I sent him away."
Murong Min: "Why didn't you just kill him? Why send him away? Didn't you keep saying back then that he was a bastard and that you would strangle him with your own hands!"
Dugu Luanyue knew that Murong Min was getting out of control again due to the stimulation. Under the influence of the golden pills, his thoughts had started to become chaotic.
Dugu Luanyue lowered her head and shed tears, her eyes filled with sorrow.
"Because I couldn't bring myself to kill my own child with my own hands. Although I didn't love him, I knew very well that as long as the child wasn't by my side, the entanglement between you and me wouldn't deepen.
As long as the bloodline exists, we will be entangled with each other for all eternity. If the bloodline is gone, you will have a harem full of concubines. One day, when you get tired of me, I will be free.
Murong Min, you remember the child's birth date. He was one and a half years younger than the son I had with Xie Jinyang. You know all this."
The Dugu Luanyue in front of Murong Min had Lu Wanyin's appearance. He quickly let go of his hand and looked at the amulet retrieved from the White Horse Temple again.
This amulet was given to Huo Wei by Murong Min when he went on a military expedition. Murong Min had hypocritically accompanied Huo Wei to the imperial temple to pray for his safety.
He had asked Huo Wei to write down his birth date and put it in the amulet, which was then placed under the Buddha statue to bless him with a victorious return.
Shen Guilan remembered this clearly. During the few days when Shen Guilan disappeared, she had gone to great lengths to contact Dugu Luanyue.
Dugu Luanyue had then sent her most trusted Fengling Guards to sneak into the White Horse Temple and secretly replace Huo Wei's birth date.
And this birth date was obtained by Shen Guilan from He Zhizhou's mouth.
It was because when Huo Wei had suspected his own identity with his dagger that day, Shen Guilan had been afraid that He Zhizhou was hiding something important, so she had gone to question him.
Murong Min pressed his head and felt dizzy. Memories of some absurd events from more than twenty years ago flashed before his eyes. He smiled bitterly.
"Lu Wanyin. I gave her the best things in the world, but she didn't even look at them.
She didn't even want to breastfeed the child she had with me.
There were no wet nurses in the temple, so she cruelly starved the child for several days. She really hated me so much, so much."
Dugu Luanyue gasped for breath and slowly got up from the dragon throne. Looking at Murong Min, who was already in middle age with a few strands of gray hair at his temples, but was still deeply trapped in the love debts of his youth.
She thought that the most difficult hurdle in a person's life was still the hurdle of love.
If it weren't for the great stimulation Lu Wanyin had given him, Murong Min probably wouldn't have been so absent-minded.
Every day, he relied on the hallucinations brought on by the golden pills to call out Wanyin's name in his dreams, begging her to look at him.
"Your Majesty, as a woman, I know very well that Lu Wanyin would never have killed her own child with her own hands back then. But she couldn't face the child either, so she would have secretly sent him away.
The birth date in the White Horse Temple was written by Huo Wei inadvertently. There can be no fake about this. Besides this, there is also this dagger.
Your Majesty once told me that Lu Wanyin carried two daggers with her. They were the tokens of love between her and Xie Jinyang.
One of the daggers was engraved with the surname Liu and was given to the child she had with Xie Jinyang. That child was sent away with your permission;
The other dagger was engraved with the surname Lu. This dagger disappeared after Lu Wanyin's death. In my opinion, Lu Wanyin must have given this dagger to her younger brother.
Although she didn't want this child, as a mother, she didn't have much hatred for the child after all.
So when she left, she still gave the child one of her personal belongings as a protective weapon."
Murong Min supported his forehead. His clothes were soaked with cold sweat. His deep and unfathomable pupils suddenly looked back at the things on the imperial desk, unable to calm down.
"Lu Wanyin is just a nightmare for me."
Dugu Luanyue said, "Your Majesty, Lu Wanyin never wanted to kill the child she had with you.
But if Your Majesty were to mistakenly identify the orphan of Jinyang in a fit of anger and accidentally kill this child, wouldn't Your Majesty feel even more regretful in this life?
After all, this child is the only entanglement between Your Majesty and Lu Wanyin.
Doesn't Your Majesty think that all this is the will of heaven?
Huo Wei is a prodigy. He has expanded the territory for Your Majesty and obtained the territory of the Western Liao. At the age of only twenty, he has made remarkable achievements. It is this child who has been serving his father all along."
Murong Min picked up the birth date and looked at it repeatedly.
"Since he knew that he was Lu Wanyin's son, why didn't he come to recognize me? Why did he wait for someone else to expose it?"
Dugu Luanyue lowered her eyebrows slightly. Her voice was clear and calm. She suppressed the panic in her heart, although she knew that time was running out.
"Your Majesty, Your Majesty should know better than I do what kind of person the Prince of Yuzhang is. He doesn't care about anything. He only cares about whether he can serve his biological father.
He knows that he is an illegitimate child. His birth is not honorable. He was born out of an affair. Naturally, he doesn't want to uncover the past."
Eunuch Yingxi suddenly said from the side, "Your Majesty, I have to say that the Prince of Yuzhang does look a bit like Your Majesty between his eyebrows."
Dugu Luanyue glanced at Eunuch Yingxi in surprise but didn't say anything. However, she was already getting anxious.
A few days ago, she had also bribed the people investigating the case for Murong Min and ordered them to send the evidence to Murong Min. But Murong Min was too suspicious and didn't believe it at all.
Today was the day when Huo Wei was to be executed. Once noon arrived, it would be too late.
But she didn't dare to be too impatient. She just stared intently at Murong Min. Her clothes were already soaked with sweat.
Murong Min turned around and looked at Yingxi. "Come forward and speak."