904 Secret (3)
Seeing that there was no one around, Madam Ji leaned closer to her and said in a low voice, “Princess Consort, you saw it too today. Fourth Miss Lu… wants to marry Prince Rui, but you don’t have to take it to heart. If it can work, Fourth Miss will have long become Princess Consort Rui. As for the royal hunt that Madam Ye mentioned today, you have to tell Prince Rui later. Don’t let them scheme against you.” Seeing that other madams had already come out one after another, Madam Ji said, “If you have time, you can come to my mansion. I don’t think you’re familiar with Long Ye, so I can show you around.” Only then did she say goodbye to Shen Miao and leave in a hurry.
On the way back, Shen Miao kept thinking about what happened today. She did not take what Lu Wan’er said to heart, but for some reason, she felt that Madam Ye was extremely strange.
Shen Miao asked Ba Jiao, “I don’t think I saw Madam Ye’s daughter at the banquet today. How many ladies are there in the Ye family? Why didn’t she bring them along?”
Ba Jiao was stunned for a moment before shaking her head. “There’s no young lady in the Ye family.”
“Why?” Shen Miao frowned.
“Everyone in Long Ye knows this.” Ba Jiao said, “Prime Minister Ye and Madam Ye married when they were young. They had a daughter, but unfortunately, she died prematurely. Later, Prime Minister Ye took in a concubine and the concubine gave birth to a son, the current Young Master Ye.”
Shen Miao frowned. “They don’t have any other children?”
Ba Jiao shook her head. “After Prime Minister Ye had Young Master Ye, he was harmed once and became infertile. It’s impossible for him to have any children in the future.”
Shen Miao was surprised. How could a high-ranking family like the Ye family only have one son? She asked, “Doesn’t that mean the Ye family only has one illegitimate son?”
“That’s not the case. The concubine passed away when Young Master Ye was born… However, there are also people who say that the Ye family strangled the concubine to death. After Young Master Ye was born, he was raised by Madam Ye as the legitimate son. However,” Ba Jiao paused for a moment,” Even if he’s the legitimate son, Young Master Ye is still not valued by Madam Ye.”
“Why is that?” Shen Miao found it strange. Although he was not her biological son, he was after all the only son in the Ye family.
“Young Master Ye was born with a congenital disease and can’t walk properly. Such a person won’t be able to enter the official path in the future, so some people say that the Ye family will decline in this generation,” Ba Jiao explained.
Only then did Shen Miao understand. It turned out that he was a cripple. No wonder Madam Ye looked down on him. At the thought of this, she was enlightened. The Lu family had sent Consort Jing to the palace. Why didn’t the Ye family send someone to the palace too? It turned out that it was not that the Ye family was not ambitious, but that the Ye family did not have any daughters to be sacrificed.
Then in this situation… Shen Miao could roughly guess Emperor Yong Le’s plan.
If the Ye family formed an alliance with the Lu family, the Lu family would benefit the most. They were both big families in the Daliang dynasty. Why should the Lu family reap all the benefits while the Ye family declined day by day?
Emperor Yong Le probably wanted to incite internal strife between the Lu family and the Ye family to subdue the Ye family before dealing with the Lu family, which had military power. This way, it would be much easier.
