A price to pay? When Lady Fan did anything, she never thought about paying a price. From childhood, she had learned to plan for the worst in everything, then scheme with the most vicious intent. Once she’d destroyed someone and cleaned up all traces, what price was there to pay? Those things others constantly chanted about—karmic cycles, retribution for good and evil—none of that existed in her world. Whoever she detested, whoever blocked her path, deserved to die. This had always been her lifelong creed, without exception for anyone.

Zhou Weizhao was both legitimate and the eldest son. He clearly wasn’t favored by the Crown Prince, yet just because he had a grandmother and mother surnamed Lu, his position was stable as Mount Tai, blocking her son’s path. Didn’t such a person deserve to die?!

She stared blankly up at the Empress. Somehow, as if possessed by ghosts, a sentence escaped her lips: “Even if it weren’t me, someone else would have done it…” Her eyes fixed intently on Empress Lu, gleaming with inexplicable light: “Given His Highness’s aversion to you and the Lu family, even if I hadn’t done it, he would have eventually…” She exhaled a long breath, seemingly oblivious to the suddenly chilling atmosphere, her voice ethereal as a ghost: “Look, I acted, yet I’m still alive. His Highness even quarreled with you for my sake… Isn’t that perfectly clear?”

For an instant, Empress Lu’s heart leaped sharply. She revealed not a trace of expression. Meeting Fan Liangdi’s gaze, she merely sneered coldly: “Then by all means try it, and see if that day ever comes.”

Having said this, she immediately waved at Xie Siyi beside her. Xie Siyi descended from the steps, holding a tray in both hands. Atop it sat something Fan Liangdi herself had once enjoyed bestowing upon others—white silk and a pot of wine.

Fan Liangdi took but one glance before averting her eyes, stumbling backward several steps and rising to her feet, seemingly incredulous—she feared the Empress, and what the Empress had just said, along with the Chen family matter, did indeed make her feel the situation was critical, but she hadn’t imagined the Empress would want her life—how did the Empress plan to account to the Crown Prince?

Thinking this, she naturally voiced it: “If you kill me, can Your Majesty explain this to His Highness? His Highness will not let this go. He’ll only detest you more, detest the Lu clan more, detest the Crown Prince’s heir more!”

This was fact. But the fact was that Empress Lu would rather the Crown Prince’s hatred deepen another layer than keep this venomous snake who might recklessly bite everyone to death at any moment. Her gaze cold, she looked down at Fan Liangdi from her elevated position, lifting her chin slightly: “Choose one yourself.”

At this moment, Fan Liangdi instead became calm. Her gaze venomous, she looked up at the Empress, reached out to knock over the tray in Xie Siyi’s hands, wiped the tears from her face with one hand, and raised her head in an inviolable, righteous manner: “I’ll wait for the Crown Prince. If His Highness orders me to die, I’ll die. Otherwise, if Your Majesty and His Highness sever your mother-son bond, wouldn’t this daughter-in-law become a criminal?”

Empress Lu did not fly into a rage. She stood up, the phoenix crown atop her head gleaming brilliantly, complementing her features and making her appear especially dignified. She descended several steps until she stood before Fan Liangdi, her gaze contemptuous: “You? You think you’re worthy of being this Palace’s daughter-in-law? This Palace’s daughter-in-law entered properly through Chong’an Gate. What are you?”

Fan Liangdi retreated two steps. Before she knew it, her back pressed against a pillar in the great hall. She watched the Empress warily, her heavy heart nearly unable to bear its own beating.

Empress Lu’s patience exhausted, she advanced several steps and looked at her with extreme indifference: “This Palace has always been benevolent. You must truly take this Palace for benevolent… Do you think this Palace fears His Majesty learning about your hiring of assassins and collusion with Huangjue Temple?”

Fan Liangdi turned her head to look at her, tears and fear mingling faintly in her eyes.

“You must understand—there are four characters in this world: severing the tail to survive.” Empress Lu’s voice dropped lower and lower until finally it was so low only Fan Liangdi could hear. Looking at Fan Liangdi, who was clearly losing her composure, her voice grew softer but her tone increasingly severe: “Keep you around to continue driving wedges between him and the Crown Princess and the Crown Prince’s heir? Keep you so you can continue putting the Eastern Palace in constant danger because of your greed? Do you think yourself too omnipotent and this Palace too stupid?”

Fan Liangdi’s throat choked. Before her pleas for mercy could escape her lips, the Empress’s threat already echoed in her ears.

“Try it and see—if you don’t die today, whether this Palace will push the entire Fan clan and your son forward as scapegoats.”

Light flashed in the Empress’s eyes as she looked at Fan Liangdi with infinite mockery: “This Palace cares about the Crown Prince, but… just as you said, if he continues hating this Palace and doesn’t know what’s good for him, what use is such a Crown Prince whom this Palace bore and raised? After a hundred years, can this Palace count on him to care for me in old age and handle my funeral? You must know—besides him, this Palace still has legitimate sons and legitimate grandsons.”

Fan Liangdi was stunned speechless by Empress Lu’s utterly unvarnished words. Over these years, she had watched how the Empress tolerated the Crown Prince, how she indulged his every wish. She had always thought Empress Lu would never refuse any of the Crown Prince’s demands, had always thought the Empress’s forbearance had no limits. But now Empress Lu was stating plainly that she had other options…

No… She panicked somewhat, her mind extremely muddled yet simultaneously extraordinarily clear. Empress Lu was right—if she could be ruthless enough, Prince Gong and Zhou Weizhao were both viable alternatives… She might not care about the fate of her maternal Fan clan, but what about her son? Fan Liangdi wondered blankly—what about her son?

Her only possession in this life, something completely and utterly hers, belonging to her, that would never betray her, never neglect her—her son? She couldn’t watch helplessly as her son’s prospects were utterly destroyed…

“Have you thought it through?” Empress Lu’s voice rose like a ghost beside her ear: “Between your son, your clan, and your own life, choose one. If by this time tomorrow this Palace hasn’t heard news of your death, you’ll first witness your son’s fate—perhaps you don’t yet know, but among those sent to assassinate that grandmother and grandson, there are survivors, now in this Palace’s hands.”

Fan Liangdi didn’t dare gamble on how much truth lay in Empress Lu’s words—compared to Zhou Weizhao who carried Lu family blood, Zhou Weiqi, equally a grandson, had never measured up in her heart. Though in the past she had shown Zhou Weiqi considerable favor, perhaps this time, out of disgust for her, the Empress truly would come to despise even her son…