Chapter 1055: The Tables Turn

Huh?

Chen Chen Guanlou hadn't expected this matter to take such a sudden turn.

"Are you the King of Chu's stand-in? Are you really the King of Chu?"

The King of Chu let out a heh-heh-heh laugh. "You're a fool."

Chen Chen Guanlou was furious!

Call him a petty man, call him a hypocrite, call him less than human—anything would do. How could anyone call him a fool? Just look at that face—where on it is there any trace of a fool?

He very much wanted to hurl the insult back.

On second thought, squabbling with a man who had taken the medicine and was about to wait for death—his bearing was too small for that.

He simply went along with the other's words and asked, "How does that make me a fool?"

"A stand-in? Ha! A stand-in! You really came up with that one. Your brain really is sharp! You, oh you—always focusing on the things that don't matter."

"Real or fake King of Chu, and that doesn't matter?" Chen Chen Guanlou laughed in spite of his anger.

"Real or fake, so what?" The King of Chu still wore that fool's look, grinning happily.

Chen Chen Guanlou began to suspect Physician Mu's medicine had gone bad—somehow the man seemed dazed.

He glanced toward Physician Mu, questioning him with his eyes.

Physician Mu was utterly speechless. "He's just feeling the drug's effect kick in. Not quite lucid."

"This direction your drug's effect is taking... doesn't seem quite right! Old Mu, you haven't slipped up, have you?" Chen Chen Guanlou asked worriedly.

Physician Mu was so angry his eyes rolled back. "Though this old man is advanced in years, his mind is not yet gone to mush. I could not have used the wrong medicine."

"Best be so! Your Highness, is there anything else you wish to say?"

"A stand-in! Ha! Who's the stand-in for whom. You, oh you—too clever for your own good." The King of Chu chuckled away; once the laughter passed, he drifted off again, groggy and dead to the world, impossible to rouse no matter how they called.

Chen Chen Guanlou's face was a picture of bewilderment.

Out of the great prison and back in the duty office, he asked Physician Mu, "What on earth did the King of Chu's last few lines mean? Why did he say I was too clever for my own good?"

Physician Mu hesitated a moment, then said, "This old man ventures a guess—could it be that he is the real King of Chu, not a counterfeit?"

"Impossible!" Chen Chen Guanlou was certain his own judgment could not be wrong.

Physician Mu ventured another guess. "Is it possible that the real King of Chu was too weak, so he found a stand-in to fight his battles for him?"

"What the—?"

Chen Chen Guanlou was stunned!

It completely overturned his earlier wild theory, amounting to starting the speculation all over again—and this one seemed more reasonable, better able to explain every implausible point.

He asked excitedly, "You mean...?"

"That is exactly what this old man means. If there truly is a stand-in, the stand-in is not necessarily the weaker one."

"You can play it like that?" Chen Chen Guanlou was so shocked his jaw wouldn't close—too unexpected; this theory was the truly earth-shattering one. "Following your line of thought, the King of Chu in the cell is the real one—the real King of Chu is exactly this kind of craven, fickle little man. And the one out there fighting battles is the stand-in?"

Physician Mu nodded. That was precisely what he thought.

He was a man of several decades, long inured to the arenas of fame and fortune; he had seen every demon and monster under the sun. Nothing was too outlandish for him—he had seen it all. This kind of trick with a real-and-fake stand-in, he had run into it before.

It was only that people fell into conventional thinking, assuming the stand-in must be the weak one and the principal must be the strong one.

And yet, reality was more fantastical than any novel.

Reality could not possibly unfold exactly as imagined.

Nowhere was it written that the stand-in must be the weak one.

He said slowly, "That is also possible. Otherwise, how to explain all those implausible points? The King of Chu in the cell, judging by this old man's many years of experience, was absolutely raised in comfort and plenty, living in silks and feasting on delicacies.

If you don't believe it, look at his teeth, look at his hands, look at his words and bearing. He himself said he'd never known hardship, never suffered. However, my lord's guess was not wrong either—a temperament like his could never set foot on the battlefield, could never fight a war.

But the Wang Fu did indeed fight the court for all those years, and at first the fighting went smoothly, with every air of a famed general.

Moreover, all sides of evidence prove that the King of Chu entered and left the battlefield many times, personally commanding the troops. So why not flip the guess on its head—the real one has been living in comfort at the Wang Fu all along, and the one on the battlefield is the fake."

Chen Chen Guanlou dropped into the chair in a heap.

It was his own vision that was too small, trapped in a fixed pattern of thought, led astray. He had only thought about how to prove the one in the cell was the fake, forgetting there was one possibility—that he was the real one. The principal was exactly this useless!

Ha ha ha!

In an instant, everything clicked into place!

"Only—why would the real King of Chu be thrown into prison, and where has the fake gone?"

"The fake may still be fighting, may already have been killed, may be hiding somewhere... The greatest likelihood is that he has already taken on a new identity."

Chen Chen Guanlou rubbed his face. "No wonder! Once you explain it that way, everything falls into place. No wonder the Wang Fei laughed at me. No wonder when I tried to trick the King of Chu, he didn't give himself away at all. The real one is the real one—of course he couldn't give himself away. Old Mu, you're something else—even this you managed to think of."

Physician Mu waved a hand. "This old man was inspired by the King of Chu's line about being too clever for one's own good, and from there connected all the dots. I'm old, I've seen much, I've witnessed every kind of bizarre affair. Playing the stand-in game isn't something I've seen for the first time. There are even cases of hiring stand-ins to sit the examinations and become officials."

"You can play it like that? A stand-in even became an official—why not just kill the principal and replace him outright?"

"If things were really that simple, would the Heaven Prison still have any reason to exist?"

Chen Chen Guanlou gave a thumbs-up. At the critical moment, one had to rely on Old Mu to step up.

"No wonder the Wang Fei looked so smug and unafraid, no wonder the King of Chu in the cell looked the way he did. That husband-and-wife pair had people spinning in circles. The old saying is right—you don't get two different kinds of people sleeping under the same quilt."

With the doubts in his heart resolved, he felt a lightness all over his body.

From that day on, the King of Chu fell ill!

His condition grew more serious day by day.

He reported the situation up to the Ministry of Justice, making clear that the Heaven Prison's physician had already done his utmost; if the Ministry did not want the man to die in his cell, they had better send a Physician to take a look, and quickly.

The Heaven Prison would not take the blame, in any case.

The report went up—and to his surprise, it alarmed Sun Sun Daoning.

Minister of Justice Sun Sun Daoning personally brought several Imperial Physicians to the Heaven Prison to treat the King of Chu.

"The man absolutely cannot die! That is an order from the palace!"

"The King of Chu entered the palace and received a fright. The day after he came back, he started talking nonsense. Whether he lives or dies, no one can guarantee. In any case, Mu Yiguan Mu has already done his best."

The moment Chen Chen Guanlou opened his mouth, he made the responsibility clear.

It wasn't that the Heaven Prison had failed to look after him properly — it was that the imperial palace was too dark. A perfectly fine person went there for one trip, came back, and that was it!

If the man couldn't be saved and really died, this pot the Heaven Prison would not carry.

Sun Sun Daoning gave a cold snort, very displeased. "Why didn't you report this situation earlier?"

Chen Chen Guanlou immediately cried out in grievance. "How was I to know he couldn't take a scare that well, that the situation was that serious? The moment I saw things going south, I didn't delay even a moment — rushed straight to report to the Ministry of Justice. Everything was done by the book. Old Sun, you can't make me take the fall, I've got no responsibility in this. Swap in anyone else, they couldn't have done better than me!"