The Command to Pamper the Husband - Chapter 173

He was just one son. The Emperor had many sons.

The Emperor summoned the Chief Eunuch and whispered a few words. The Chief Eunuch, despite feeling a storm of emotions, remained expressionless. After the Emperor finished speaking, the Chief Eunuch bowed his head. “Yes, Your Majesty, I will take care of it.”

The Emperor acknowledged with a sound and walked away as if he had not just given an order.

The Third Prince was temporarily detained in the Supreme Court. The Three Judicial Offices decided to transfer the Third Prince from the Supreme Court to the Ministry of Justice prison. Nearly twenty guards were dispatched to ensure his safe transfer, fearing any mishaps along the way.

Despite being under investigation, the Third Prince was still a prince and was not paraded through the streets in a prison cart. Instead, he was carried in a discreet green sedan chair, lifted by four men, and slowly made his way to the Ministry of Justice.

As the sedan chair reached Drum Tower Street, a sharp scream erupted from the crowd.

“Ah~”

At the sound of the scream, the four carriers turned to see what was happening. The guards behind them instinctively placed their hands on their swords and looked around. They saw a man riding a tall horse, charging through the crowd at great speed, as if the bustling street were an endless expanse.

“Mother, Mother!”

“Get out of the way, Sister Zhang!”

“My roast chicken!”

“Damn it, my cart of tofu!”

As the rider galloped, chaos ensued. People screamed and cursed. From a distance, the capital’s garrison had received the news and was rushing to apprehend the rider.

“Move, move, quickly leave this place,” urged the prison warden escorting the Third Prince, casting a nervous glance at the crowd. He prayed nothing would go wrong. He had a family to support.

Just as the warden finished speaking, the rider reached them. In a sudden motion, the rider hurled something at the sedan chair. The guards instantly drew their swords.

As the guards unsheathed their swords, several others in the crowd did the same—these were the Third Prince’s personal guards. However, the rider, after throwing the object, didn’t stay to fight and swiftly left. Amid the chaos, someone else threw another object at the sedan chair.

Boom!

The sedan chair instantly turned into a fireball. With the explosion, a shout echoed, “Not good, he threw an oilcloth! Be careful!”

But the warning came too late. Despite the quick reaction, the flames had already surged. The Third Prince, who had been contemplating whether to leave the sedan chair, found himself trapped. If he left, he risked being shot by hidden assassins. If he stayed, he felt uneasy.

Reality gave him no time to decide. As the flames engulfed the sedan chair, he realized he couldn’t escape. The oilcloth weighed down on the top, and the wooden structure quickly caught fire. In an instant, the entire sedan chair was ablaze.

Amid the inferno, the Third Prince cursed. If the sedan chair hadn’t been tampered with beforehand, it wouldn’t have burned so fast, even if it were made of paper. Damn it! Who sabotaged the sedan chair? Other than the Second Prince, he couldn’t think of anyone else. After years of open and covert battles, he couldn’t believe he was defeated this way.

Furious and unwilling to accept his fate, the Third Prince thought that if vengeful spirits existed, he would become one.

The sudden fire frightened the guards, who immediately tried to extinguish it. Fortunately, the capital’s garrison arrived, and nearby, there were water tanks for emergencies. By chance, they were next to a large tank.

Someone ran into a nearby shop, grabbed a container, and started dousing the flames. One of the Third Prince’s guards, seeing the sedan chair ablaze, didn’t hesitate. He jumped into the water tank, drenched himself, and charged into the fire.

The Third Prince’s body was already aflame. He couldn’t even struggle. Just as he thought his life was over, a figure rushed in, grabbed him, and pressed his head into their soaked cotton clothes, pulling him out of the fireball. Once out, the rescuer threw the Third Prince into the water tank.

It was the dead of winter. The freezing water instantly extinguished the flames on the Third Prince. As the icy cold enveloped him, he breathed a sigh of relief and slowly lost consciousness.

After such an incident, there was no way to transfer him to the Ministry of Justice prison. The Third Prince’s men seized the opportunity to take him from the tank and bring him back to his residence. His personal physicians surrounded him, devising treatment plans.

Meanwhile, the Minister of Justice and the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court rushed to the palace, accompanied by the newly appointed Commander of the capital’s garrison. The previous commander was dismissed and investigated after failing to handle a fire at the Fourth Prince’s residence. The new commander, on his first day, encountered another fire.

The position of Commander of the capital’s garrison seemed cursed this year.

In the Imperial Study, the Emperor sat with a dark expression. The Chief Eunuch stood trembling at one side.

“Your Majesty, the people I sent didn’t have time to act before this happened.”

To save face, the Emperor had planned to bribe the prison guards to drug the Third Prince, keeping him unconscious so the case couldn’t proceed. He intended to delay matters until Master Deqing revealed the whereabouts of the child from years ago. Once the child was found, he planned to blame everything on them, sparing the Third Prince and preserving his own dignity.

In the end, it would be the late Emperor who lost face, as the criminal would be his bloodline. The Emperor had planned to publicly reveal the child’s identity, exposing the late Emperor’s shame.

But now, an unexpected incident had occurred.

Burning a prince alive in broad daylight! Who had the audacity?

And to act so brazenly, galloping through the busiest street in the capital, was this to show disdain for royal authority?