“Kill her.” The Empress’s voice came out hoarse and rasping.

Qing Ye immediately raised her palm and walked toward Noble Consort Jing where she lay on the ground.

Qing Yun, alerted by the commotion, hastily turned and came back. Zhan Yuheng called out urgently: “No one is to harm Noble Consort Jing!”

Qing Ye’s palm was already descending toward the crown of Noble Consort Jing’s head. This palace maid who had made so little impression before — no one had imagined she was also a highly capable fighter.

But Qing Yun had returned, and with the Crown Prince’s command, he naturally would not permit her to harm Noble Consort Jing.

The Empress was so furious she was nearly on the verge of losing consciousness. Noble Consort Jing, for her part, showed not an ounce of gratitude for the intervention. Having come this far, she saw no reason to hold herself in check any longer.

She pushed herself up from the ground and lunged at the Empress once more. Qing Yun seized both her arms from behind, pressing her to the ground.

“Noble Consort Jing — behaving so recklessly and without restraint, do you truly not care at all for the Seventh Princess’s safety?”

With a mother who had attempted to assassinate both the Crown Prince and the Empress — how was the Seventh Princess ever to go on living within the palace? This crime was grave beyond measure, punishable by death.

Noble Consort Jing was agitated — so agitated that she had nearly lost all reason. The one thing still keeping even the smallest spark of clarity alive within her was her child.

“Ha. That child of mine — she is too foolish. For a girl she has known for less than a month, she was willing to take the blame — ha, is she foolish? Is she foolish?”

In the moment Zhan Luo Ri had confessed, Noble Consort Jing had already known — she was truly left with nothing from that point forward.

She did not blame her child. But she had fallen into utterly complete despair.

The Empress wanted to say something more, yet all at once she was struck by a surging rush of stagnant blood to the heart, and both her eyes went dark as she fainted.

“Someone come — send for the imperial physician!” The Crown Prince grew frantic.

Qin Mama grew frantic. Qing Ye grew frantic. Everyone grew frantic.

The wounds the Empress had sustained this time were genuinely severe. And yet in spite of being wounded to such a degree, she had still been stubbornly unyielding and determined to press on.

The Empress was taken to the adjoining room to be treated. Zhan Yuheng could not get out of bed, and could only remain seated upon it.

Qing Yun held Noble Consort Jing in custody. The situation was somewhat chaotic — yet a chaos so utterly hopeless.

“Noble Consort Jing, this palace has no desire to harm the Seventh Imperial Sister. But if you truly wound Mother Empress, the people of the Nanmen clan will never let you or your daughter go. Have you truly given no thought to the consequences?”

“Has my Ri’er not already wounded that wicked woman?”

“Insolence!” However excessive his Mother Empress had been, she was still the mother of the nation, one way or another.

“Ha — as if you do not know she is truly a wicked woman? No — you know. Not just you. Your Imperial Father knows as well. Yet you have all indulged her!”

Noble Consort Jing sank to the ground. The proud bearing of moments ago had vanished. Now there was only the overwhelming aura of a person who had given up completely on life.

“Originally, I could have killed you — no matter what, I had the ability to kill you.”

“You…”

“Once you were dead, that wicked woman would have had nothing left to lean on. She would have had no hope left for the rest of her life.”

Noble Consort Jing let out a cold laugh. “Ha. I also wanted her to taste the bitterness of having her own child murdered — to make that wicked woman repay the evil she has owed over all these years.”

Zhan Yuheng did not speak. Because of certain things — he had had his doubts.

“You yourself also know what your Mother Empress has done, do you not?” Noble Consort Jing laughed more wildly, yet with a desolate edge.

“My child — my first child — simply because he was a prince, was poisoned to death by your Mother Empress while still in swaddling clothes.”

“Mother Empress would not…”

“Is that so? You truly believe your Mother Empress would not? My child — after he was born, His Majesty the Emperor departed on a campaign. That child never even laid eyes on his own father. He had not even been given the title of Imperial Prince. Yet he was Emperor Qiwen’s first son — his very first son!”

Zhan Yuheng’s large hands clenched tight. He had not known this. He had truly not known — that above him, there had also been another Imperial Elder Brother.

All these years, no one had ever mentioned it.

There had indeed been two princes who died within the palace. But they had been the Second Prince and the Third Prince, both of whom had died of illness in childhood.

Said to have died of illness — but as for how they had truly died, who could really know?

Yet Noble Consort Jing had borne His Imperial Father a prince as well? This was something he had never heard of before.

“After His Majesty returned, that wicked woman told him I had suffered an accidental miscarriage on my own — but His Majesty did not know: my child had already been born. He was already a living, breathing life!”

“How could that wicked woman be so cruel? At the time, she herself was already with child. As a woman who was about to become a mother herself — how could she harbor such a vicious heart? Was she not afraid that the sin she was committing would one day come back upon her own child?”

No one in the room spoke. Zhan Yuheng’s hands were clenched tight, his lips pressed together in silence.

Qing Yun let out a silent sigh. He had known the Empress was cruel. What he had not anticipated was that even as a pregnant woman, she had already been cruel to such a degree.

The most venomous heart belongs to a woman.

Deep within Zhan Yuheng’s heart, it was as though something had been forcibly carved out.

She was his birth mother, his Mother Empress…

“Perhaps — perhaps it was only a misunderstanding. Perhaps… it was not Mother Empress’s doing…”

“Ha ha ha — she came herself, with her own people, and poisoned my child to death before my very eyes, leaving me to weep and cry and beg for mercy, and she felt not a thing. Ha ha ha — Your Highness the Crown Prince, do you call that a misunderstanding?”

Zhan Yuheng seemed like a balloon from which all air had been completely let out.

At this point, Noble Consort Jing had absolutely no reason to deceive him any further. But his Mother Empress — why had she been so heartless? Why!

“So, Your Highness the Crown Prince — do you still not understand why I poisoned you?”

“The Jianghu assassination order — that was also issued by you, was it not?” Zhan Yuheng leaned against the headboard, his eyes fixed upon some indeterminate corner of the room, the light in them extinguished like cold ash.

“And what of it?” She was going to die today regardless. Since death was certain, she might as well die cleanly.

She struggled — yet she could not break free of Qing Yun’s iron grip. And so she could only give a cold snort, her gaze of hatred falling upon Zhan Yuheng.

“The assassination order has been issued, and the payment has been given to those who can be trusted. Even after my death, countless people will come to assassinate you — until your very last breath!”

Until the very last breath — what a declaration. An assassination order like this was truly terrifying.

Yet what had plunged Zhan Yuheng into despair at this moment was not an assassination order that would draw innumerable jianghu fighters against him in an endless pursuit. It was — his Mother Empress, with her ruthless and calculating heart.

“Take her away.” He lifted his hand in a dismissive wave.

“Your Highness…” Qing Yun did not understand. What did “take her away” mean, exactly? Was she to be confined in the dungeons?

“Return her to her own chambers. Station guards to watch over her. No one is permitted to enter or leave.”

Qing Yun understood at once. No one was to permit Noble Consort Jing to leave — yet neither was anyone to be permitted to come and cause harm to her. His Highness… had begun to guard against the Empress.

Although Her Majesty had fainted in the adjoining room, she would recover eventually.

And once she recovered, she would in all likelihood not let Noble Consort Jing go.

“Yes, this subordinate understands.” Qing Yun inclined his upper body slightly and took Noble Consort Jing — still struggling to break free — into custody, and escorted her out of Yuyang Hall.

Once everyone had left, the room fell utterly silent — a silence with a faint, desolate edge of hopelessness.

How long passed, no one could say. Then, from the bed, the voice of Zhan Yuheng was heard at last: “Everyone is gone. Come down.”