On September 4th, nine days after the Xuzhou governor was imprisoned, the case of human trafficking in Xuzhou was successfully concluded.

The main officials such as the Xuzhou governor and the human traffickers were all sentenced to be executed after autumn, while the remaining involved personnel were dealt with accordingly - those who should be imprisoned were imprisoned, those who should have their families punished had their families punished, and those who should be exiled were exiled. A large number of people were dealt with without mercy.

This case involved quite a few officials. In addition to the Xuzhou governor who had the highest rank, several capital officials were also executed. Emperor Wen Xiao's move had a hint of killing the chicken to warn the monkey, so the capital was quite solemn for a period of time.

On September 12th, the Fourth Prince suddenly contracted a strange illness that could not be cured even after numerous famous doctors were invited. Emperor Wen Xiao cherished his son and specially allowed the Fourth Prince, who had already left the palace to establish his own residence, to enter the palace to recuperate, so that the imperial physicians could take care of his body at all times.

As for the Second Prince who had narrowly escaped death this time, because he had no power, he was completely unaware of the inside story. After being summoned to the palace and reprimanded by Emperor Wen Xiao, he was punished by having his salary suspended for two years, leaving him completely baffled.

Emperor Wen Xiao scolded him, "You don't do proper things all day, sooner or later you will get yourself killed!"

The Second Prince felt very aggrieved in his heart. Although he was indeed not very promising, he had never caused any major trouble, so why did he have to open his mouth and punish him by suspending his salary for two whole years?

The princes of the Wen Dynasty had considerable salaries. Suddenly losing two full years' worth of salary for no reason, the Second Prince inevitably felt very distressed.

However, no matter how depressed he was, he only dared to secretly complain a few times in his heart. The decision made by Emperor Wen Xiao was impossible to change.

The content of the conversation between Prince Su and Emperor Wen Xiao that day did not leak out in the slightest, so the officials in the capital could not understand why the person under house arrest changed from the Second Prince to the Fourth Prince from the beginning. They could only speculate based on the results. Perhaps the one who really committed the offense was actually the Fourth Prince?

If that was really the case, then the Fourth Prince was too muddled. According to Emperor Wen Xiao's regard for him, as long as he could maintain his previous performance, he would have had a great chance to ascend to the position of Crown Prince in the future. Why did he have to participate in such a scheme?

Now it's done. Even if he had enjoyed great favor from the emperor before, offending Emperor Wen Xiao's reverse scale, he was still despised all the same.

They guessed half of it correctly.

The Fourth Prince was indeed muddled, but not muddled in participating in the Xuzhou human trafficking case, but in cruelly harming his brothers.

Emperor Wen Xiao had always known that his sons were secretly competing for the position of Crown Prince. He originally intended to let them compete to test their abilities.

It's just that the Fourth Prince's methods were really too much. Now that he hasn't even become the Crown Prince yet, he could use such sinister means to frame the Second Prince who didn't have any deep hatred towards him. In the future, if he really becomes the Crown Prince and ascends to the throne, wouldn't he deal with all his brothers?

Emperor Wen Xiao was the eldest legitimate son of the Empress back then, and was conferred as the Crown Prince as soon as he was born, with a solid position. So his relationship with the other princes was not very good, but barely harmonious. Now, he naturally despised the Fourth Prince's behavior of having no brotherly affection at all.

Even if the Fourth Prince's abilities were even more outstanding, considering his cruel nature, he would never let the Fourth Prince become the Crown Prince.

However, Emperor Wen Xiao did not intend to imprison the Fourth Prince in the cold palace forever.

As long as the new emperor took the throne, the Fourth Prince, whose wings had been clipped by him, would be able to "recover from his illness" and leave the palace to become a leisurely prince with no real power.

After all, he also had a part of the responsibility in this matter. It was because he was too greedy for power and waited until his body could not hold on before he started to establish the Crown Prince, which led to the current situation of his sons fighting to the death.

However, these matters had nothing to do with He Yan. Except for when the news of the Fourth Prince being taken into the palace to "recuperate" was released, Mu Yuanwen pulled him aside and sighed for a while. He never heard any news related to the Fourth Prince again.

He found new things to busy himself with.

Prince Su actually had many shops under his name.

During the years when Prince Su was at the border, these shops were always managed by Emperor Wen Xiao's people. After he returned to the capital, Emperor Wen Xiao's people transferred the management rights, accounts, and other matters of these shops to his residence. However, Prince Su had no interest in these affairs at all, so he casually ordered the housekeeper in his residence to handle these matters by themselves.

However, the housekeeper of Prince Su Mansion was specifically in charge of internal affairs and had never been involved in the management of commercial shops. But since the master had already given the order, he could not refuse, so he could only bite the bullet and cram some knowledge, and finally cautiously hired a few professional shopkeepers to maintain these shops.

But in the end, it could not compare to before.

Moreover, due to the master's indifference, it was inevitable that some slippery people in many shops would take advantage of the lack of supervision and make some small moves from time to time.

Although the losses caused by one or two times may not be significant, in the long run, these parasites may hollow out the entire shop.

After He Yan sorted out the internal affairs of Prince Su Mansion, he was very idle for a period of time, and slowly felt that his bones were almost rusting. Although he was not a person who loved to work hard, he also found such days with nothing to do except eating, drinking and playing very boring. Eating and sleeping all day, his whole person began to become lazy mentally.

It wasn't until he noticed the situation of these shops that he became energized again and invested his energy into the rectification of the shops.

In his previous life, he and Adrian also held shares in some companies, so he had some understanding of corporate operations. Although the times were different, the management concepts were interlinked. His learning ability was extremely strong, so he quickly got started.

After a month of hard work, the shops under Prince Su's name were all tidied up by him. Not only were the parasites almost all found out and dealt with, but also because He Yan applied some of the later business practices to the shops, it brought some unexpected effects.

The income of these shops increased by one-third in the current month, and even doubled directly the next month, and there was still a trend of continuous increase.

Seeing this, the housekeeper of the Prince Su Mansion was ashamed that he had not managed the shops well and had failed Prince Su's orders. At the same time, he was also very surprised by the ability of this princess consort.

Managing shops was not an easy task. If one did not have enough brains, even if they had the backing of overwhelming power, they would not be able to fully control those seemingly insignificant small characters in the shops.

When he first took over these shops with the order from Prince Su, the people in the shops all appeared to be respectful to him on the surface, but behind his back they were still secretly making small moves to seek private gains for themselves.

And the Princess Consort, having been pampered since childhood and never having dealt with such matters before, managed to bring several shops onto the right track in less than a month, truly deserving of the phrase "extremely talented".

Even the manager, who was Prince Su's man, couldn't help but sigh inwardly when he saw Xie Ming's way of handling matters: a person as intelligent as the Princess Consort, even without the status of the legitimate son of the Xinyuan Marquis Mansion, would surely not be unknown and wasted in the rear courtyard.

A few shops were far from enough to bring out his talents.

He Yan was keen to experiment with those advanced business concepts from later generations in these shops, and went to these shops almost every day, spending much less time in the mansion all of a sudden.

Prince Su, who could no longer monopolize his Princess Consort all the time, was very unhappy about this.

Actually, in his view, his Ah Ming only needed to eat, drink and have fun all day without worries like before, and there was really no need to spend energy on these trivial matters, making himself so tired all day long. After a month, the little bit of flesh that had been painstakingly nourished before was all gone!

Prince Su's favorite activity on weekdays was to knead the soft flesh on He Yan's waist. That part of his Princess Consort was extremely sensitive. A few light touches would make him pant and try to push him away. If he bit and tormented him, he could even force out tears and make him soften his voice to beg for mercy.

Their family's Princess Consort had always been domineering, so he especially cherished these moments when he could completely control him.

But now that bit of soft flesh was completely gone. When he reached behind his back, he could easily feel the slender protruding shoulder blades. The young man's whole body only had a bit of flesh remaining on his buttocks, but the feeling in his hands was far inferior to before.

Of course, that aspect was only secondary. Prince Su was mainly worried that if his Princess Consort continued to be so busy and thin, it would be bad for his health.

Moreover, due to some secret speculations in his heart, he had been feeling a bit restless these days and didn't want to be separated from his Princess Consort for too long.

But seeing He Yan looking so excited, Prince Su didn't want to disturb his interest, so he could only keep these thoughts to himself and silently follow behind him whenever he had time.

After the Fourth Prince incident, under the strong coercion of Emperor Wen Xiao, he finally began to attend the morning court sessions reluctantly.

The time of the morning court was not fixed. When it was idle, it could be dismissed in the time it took to burn an incense stick. But if the ministers started arguing about something, it could drag on for three hours. So many times when he finished the court session, the Princess Consort was often no longer in the mansion.

Fortunately, there were spies reporting the Princess Consort's movements to him from time to time. So after the morning court ended, Prince Su would not return to the mansion, but directly go to a certain shop to catch his Princess Consort.

On this day, He Yan had just arrived at the most prosperous restaurant under the Prince Su Mansion, and had not even spoken a few words with the shopkeeper when Prince Su lifted the curtain and entered.

Seeing Prince Su coming, the shopkeeper consciously bowed and retreated from the private room.

This master had never cared about these miscellaneous matters and only came here to look for the Princess Consort.

Winter had arrived a few days ago, and the weather had turned completely cold. At Prince Su's urging, He Yan had already put on thick winter clothes. The stove in the private room had not yet heated up at this time. He hugged his small hand warmer, tucked his hands in and curled up on the seat. His slightly pointed chin sank into the snow-white fox fur scarf, making his already small face look even smaller, reminding Prince Su of the two round and chubby little rabbits He Yan kept, making him want to hold him in his arms.

It's just that those two rabbits were truly fat, while their family's Princess Consort was only wrapped in many clothes. Once stripped of his clothes, he would be so thin that it would make one's heart ache.

Prince Su had just come in from outside, and the cold air on his body had not dissipated. Although he really wanted to hold the Princess Consort who was curled up into a ball, he still restrained his desire. He went to wait by the stove for a while to dispel the cold air on his body before stepping forward and hugging the person in his arms.

He Yan was already dressed in a bulky manner, and when he was hugged, he felt a little suffocated. So he struggled to stretch out a hand and pushed on Prince Su's chest, frowning, "Loosen up a bit."

This person was different from him and wasn't afraid of the cold at all. He was still wearing the thin clothes from autumn. When he put his hand on Prince Su's chest, he could feel the heat on his chest even through the clothes.

Hearing this, Prince Su directly lifted him up by his buttocks, took over the chair He Yan had been sitting on before, and then placed him on his lap, loosely hugging his waist.

Well, this was indeed a bit looser.

He Yan originally wanted to struggle in a perfunctory manner, but he was dressed too clumsily and was held in his arms, making it a bit inconvenient to even move. In the end, he was too lazy to move and tugged at his collar, asking, "You finished the court session so early today?"

Prince Su grabbed that hand and kissed it, mumbling, "Mm, I can accompany you today."

He Yan tried to retract his hand, but it was grasped tightly and couldn't be pulled back. He frowned and said, "I don't need your company. You'll only scare people from talking and hinder me from doing things."

Prince Su's eyes darkened, and he clenched his face without speaking. The force on his hands also loosened.

He Yan's hand was released and slid onto Prince Su's shoulder. He hesitated for a moment, didn't retract his hand, but raised it and placed his palm on Prince Su's slightly rough face.

Although in the eyes of ordinary people, Prince Su had a gloomy and fierce look on his face at this time, when He Yan met those eyes, he clearly saw a hint of indistinct loss in them.

He Yan ran his thumb over the corner of his lips and said in a light voice, "If you have something to say, just say it directly. Do you always keep it in your heart and wait for me to guess?"

Actually, since Prince Su had entered the palace because of the Second Prince's matter, he had been a bit off, especially in terms of wanting to stick to him all the time.

This person had always been very possessive, and in the past month, he had been so nervous that he almost wanted to tuck him into his pocket. Except for attending the court sessions, he had to keep an eye on him all the time.

Even during the court sessions, there were spies watching his every move and then reporting these to Prince Su in great detail.

He had actually guessed some of it.

It was nothing more than the Fourth Prince incident.

He was a man with no connections, yet while living in the deep palace, he could inexplicably know things that even the spies of Prince Su couldn't find out. This suspicion was so huge that it was hard to ignore even if one wanted to.

So when He Yan chose to reveal the Fourth Prince's plot to Prince Su, he had no intention of concealing the unreasonable aspects about himself from the very beginning.

Objectively speaking, his own forces were not enough to bring down the Fourth Prince. Of course, considering his huge advantage in spiritual power, it was very promising if he took the trouble to plan carefully.

But since he could easily and naturally solve the problem of the Fourth Prince by borrowing the power of Prince Su, why would he have to be so careful himself?

He absolutely believed that Prince Su would not be wary of him because of this. He had this bit of confidence in his beloved, and the fact that the Fourth Prince's case was concluded perfectly without involving him also verified his idea.

So since then, he had been waiting, waiting for this person to take the initiative to ask.

It was just that although he knew his fierce prince had always been a bit timid towards him, he didn't expect him to be so timid that he would rather be on his toes all day, staring at him like an eyeball, than poke through the window paper and ask him a question.

It was as if he was afraid that if he made those things clear, he would disappear.

Prince Su held his hand again, stared at him for a long time, and then said in a low voice, "I won't ask how you knew those things, I only know that you married me, and you can never leave from now on."