Chapter 183: Stay the Blade
The officials from the Ministry of Justice sitting next to Vice Minister Wen noticed him wiping sweat from his brow frequently and curiously asked, “Vice Minister Wen, are you alright? You don’t look well, are you sick?”
Vice Minister Wen quickly shook his head, forcing himself to remain calm, “I don’t know what I ate this morning, but my stomach feels a bit uncomfortable. It’s nothing, once the prisoner is executed, I’ll just go back and take some medicine.”
As soon as he finished speaking, the sound of hooves echoed from the official road not far away, and a team of soldiers escorted the prison cart over.
Vice Minister Wen watched the approaching prison cart and let out a big sigh of relief.
With the prison cart arriving, once the person is beheaded, there will be no more problems.
People surrounding the execution ground looked at the approaching cart with a mix of regret and awe.
Although Han Ziyan poisoned Prince Yong with a Poisonous Gu, thinking that such a young beauty is about to die by the sword, the commoners still felt pity, and the men in the crowd even more so.
“Such a pity, she never even got to experience a man’s touch, what a wasted life.”
Someone said, and another immediately added, “What do you mean by that?”
“Prince Yong has been hit by misfortune after misfortune recently, and his health is failing. Can he still do that? So, this first beauty of Dayan dies still a maiden.”
Upon hearing this, many nearby people clicked their tongues in regret.
The prison cart moved closer, with soldiers escorting the prisoner down from the cart.
The female prisoner was dragged up to the execution platform, and everyone below looked at her with eyes filled with pity.
However, Han Ziyan seemed seriously injured, keeping her head lowered the entire time. Her long hair covered most of her face, but some scars were faintly visible on the exposed part.
It appeared that the former first beauty of Dayan had suffered significantly.
The crowd started discussing again, while on the platform, Vice Minister Wen looked up at the sky, seeing the appointed hour was approaching, he didn’t want to wait any longer, so he immediately turned to the other officials and said, “It’s almost time, execute.”
The others nodded in agreement, and Vice Minister Wen quickly pulled out the execution order and threw it to the ground.
“The hour has arrived, execute the prisoner.”
At the edge of the execution platform, the executioner raised the large knife high, but before it could fall, a loud shout came from afar, “Stay the execution!”
A deep voice carried over, and everyone instinctively turned their heads to see a grand procession of carriages approaching.
Inside and outside the execution platform, people immediately recognized that these were people from the Prince Yong Mansion, and leading them was the carriage of Prince Yong himself. Why has the Prince come?
“Is Prince Yong here?”
“What is he here for?”
“Could it be that he can’t bear for his concubine to die and has come to save her life?”
“It’s said that this time Han Concubine poisoned the Prince with a Poisonous Gu, but it didn’t harm the Prince, only poisoned the Princess Consort. Perhaps the Prince still feels heartache for Han Concubine and came to save her life.”
Compared to the excitement of the commoners, Vice Minister Wen began to sweat nervously. The last thing he wanted was to see people from Prince Yong Mansion appear; if they discovered that the real Han was replaced, he would lose his head.
The more Vice Minister Wen thought about it, the more frightened he became, his face turning pale. At the same time, he quickly signaled the executioner nearby to execute the prisoner. Once executed, even if Prince Yong was furious, he couldn’t do anything about it.
The executioner, who was one of Vice Minister Wen’s men, after receiving his signal, swiftly swung the large knife down.