When Shen Rong revealed her plan to Lady Shen, Lady Shen was so shocked she couldn’t utter a single word. After a good while, she finally trembled and said, “Rong’er, have you gone mad?”
“I’m not mad,” Shen Rong said. “Once Mingyuezhu is dead, we can frame Empress Zheng. Aunt firmly believes that Empress Zheng wants to harm her and Mingyuezhu. When that happens, Aunt will certainly demand that His Majesty depose the Empress. His Majesty adores Mingyuezhu so much; he will agree.”
Lady Shen simply shook her head in fear. “Rong’er, we can think of other ways. Why must we take Mingyuezhu’s life? Mingyuezhu is your cousin! How can you be so cruel?”
“Mother, what woman who climbs to the ninth heaven isn’t cruel? Empress Xue killed Emperor Taichang’s mother but spared him. When His Majesty’s birth mother, Consort Liu, was buried, her face was covered with her hair, and her mouth was filled with rice husks. Empress Xue wanted to ensure that Consort Liu couldn’t speak even in the underworld. Wasn’t that cruel? That’s a recent example. For an older one, consider Empress Hu from the previous dynasty, who, to secure her position as Empress, sent her three beautiful daughters to marry Tujue princes. Wasn’t she cruel? And Aunt, to enter the palace, she emptied all of your savings. Did she ever consider what would happen to you if she failed? Wasn’t she also cruel?”
“Enough!” Lady Shen still refused to agree. “Mingyuezhu is so kind and sensible. How can you target her? I see it now—you want to bring down Empress Zheng not for your aunt’s sake, but so you can enter the palace yourself! Rong’er, our family already has more than enough wealth and status. This life is beyond what I could have ever imagined. Why must you persist in this delusion?”
“Mother, it’s not that I’m deluded. It’s that prosperity gained through others can never be as secure as prosperity gained through one’s efforts. Aunt may be the most favored in the palace now, but she’s getting older and has no son to rely on. In five years or ten years, will His Majesty still favor her as he does now? Mother, we can’t compare to those great noble families. We have no retreat. I don’t want to return to our previous hardships. Aunt could fight for her future; why can’t I fight for mine?”
Lady Shen looked at her daughter in disbelief, as if she no longer recognized the girl she had raised. “Rong’er, when did you become like this? So ambitious that I don’t even recognize you anymore?”
Shen Rong smiled. “Mother, I’ve never changed. In my body flows the same Jiang family blood as Aunt. I am her, and she is me. What she can achieve, I can achieve too.”
Perhaps, as Shen Rong said, the blood of Jiang women naturally carried extraordinary ambition. Noble Consort Jiang’s success had inspired a succession of Jiang women. Shen Rong was just the beginning, not the end.
In Shen Rong’s plan, Li Ying’s death would kill two birds with one stone: it would lead to Empress Zheng’s removal and cause Noble Consort Jiang such heartbreak that she would have no energy to oppose Shen Rong’s entry into the palace. And that exalted Emperor in Daming Palace—he was both the Son of Heaven and a father. He, too, would grieve for his beloved daughter. During his time of sorrow, she could use her position as Li Ying’s cousin to comfort him frequently. The boudoir of tenderness is also a hero’s grave; he would fall in love with her.
Shen Rong was confident in her plan. She found a witch to secretly curse Li Ying with black magic, and she instructed Wan Xiang to plant a voodoo doll in Empress Zheng’s chambers to frame her. Once Li Ying died, she could enter the palace as a consort. By then, Empress Zheng would be ruined, and her aunt would be old. No one in the palace would be her match. She believed the phoenix throne of Daming Palace would soon be hers for the taking.
In Penglai Hall, the Longxing Emperor was dumbfounded. “Shen Rong was so audacious—did Aunt just allow her to act so recklessly?”
The Empress Dowager sighed. “When a woman becomes a mother, her identity as a mother far surpasses her other identities. My sister was indeed sincere to me, but if forced to choose between me and Shen Rong, she would unhesitatingly choose her daughter.”
Lady Shen was like this, but wasn’t the Empress Dowager the same? Lady Shen chose Shen Rong, and hadn’t the Empress Dowager killed her sister and niece for Li Ying’s sake? Protecting one’s child is a mother’s instinct.
In her plan, Shen Rong correctly predicted that Empress Zheng would be deposed, that Noble Consort Jiang would be devastated with grief, and that Noble Consort Jiang would be too preoccupied to oppose her entry into the palace. But she overlooked one person.
Emperor Taichang.
Half a year had passed since Li Ying’s death. During this time, Empress Zheng had been deposed, Zheng Yun had been executed, but Emperor Taichang still could not forget his beloved daughter. He often visited her former residence, Fengyang Pavilion, and would sit there for most of the day. Shen Rong would always appear at the right moment. Since Li Ying’s death, she had been staying in the palace under the pretext of accompanying Noble Consort Jiang. She would come to Fengyang Pavilion to keep Emperor Taichang company and tell him amusing stories about her past with Li Ying. Emperor Taichang enjoyed hearing about Li Ying, so Shen Rong would continue talking. Eventually, she would offer words of comfort: “The dead cannot be brought back to life. If Mingyuezhu knows from the underworld, she surely wouldn’t want to see Your Majesty grieving so deeply for her.”
Emperor Taichang stroked Li Ying’s jade zither, his eyes reddening. Shen Rong shed tears at just the right moment: “Sometimes, I truly wish it had been me who fell into the Lotus Pond. Then I wouldn’t cause Your Majesty such sorrow.”
The corners of her eyes reddened, tears falling like pearls one by one, her body trembling slightly like a delicate willow branch in the wind. Emperor Taichang predictably said, “Rong’er, don’t think that way. Mingyuezhu’s life was precious, but your life is precious too.”
Shen Rong wiped her tears. Looking at Emperor Taichang’s heroic countenance, she bit her lip and nodded pitifully.
Emperor Taichang, due to his longing for Li Ying, had caught a cold that lingered. His cough sounded intermittent. Shen Rong’s eyes revealed concern. She knelt on the ground and timidly extended her hand to gently stroke Emperor Taichang’s chest, trying to help ease his breathing. Her upturned face was young and beautiful, her eyes filled with admiration and tenderness. Her delicate fingertips, caressing Emperor Taichang’s chest, subtly teased his skin through his clothes.
Few men could resist such a stunning beauty who was also so understanding.
But Shen Rong forgot that the emperor before her, though a man, was also a man of profound schemes. Even someone as shrewd as Empress Xue, who had once outmaneuvered all the consorts in the palace, ultimately met her end by starvation at the hands of this emperor. When buried, her face was covered with her hair, her mouth filled with rice husks, replicating the tragic end of Emperor Taichang’s birth mother, Consort Liu.
Shen Rong came to Fengyang Pavilion repeatedly to comfort Emperor Taichang, each time with increasingly ambiguous gestures. When she thought Emperor Taichang had developed feelings for her, he instead went to Noble Consort Jiang, who had been tearfully ill in bed every day.
He said, “Your niece is problematic.”
He also said, “If she truly grieved for Mingyuezhu, she wouldn’t try to seduce her father in front of Mingyuezhu’s jade zither. Jiang Lingye, it’s time for you to rise from your sickbed and investigate thoroughly.”
This investigation completely shattered Shen Rong’s dreams.
Shen Que was stunned. He angrily said, “You’re lying! This is all one-sided. My sister couldn’t have been such a person!”
The Empress Dowager sneered and tossed several bamboo slips to Shen Que. “These are Shen Rong’s confession, the confession of the witch she hired, and Wan Xiang’s confession. Look carefully and see if it’s just my one-sided account!”
Shen Que was momentarily dumbfounded before tremblingly picking up the bamboo slips. He opened them and began reading. The more he read, the paler his face became. What was written on the bamboo slips was supported by both testimonial and physical evidence—irrefutable proof that couldn’t be denied.
The Empress Dowager slowly said, “After Shen Rong did such things, I naturally couldn’t let her live. But out of consideration for my sister, I was willing to give her an intact body. So I granted her a cup of poisoned wine to drink and atone for her crimes.”
But the Empress Dowager hadn’t anticipated that Lady Shen would desperately try to save Shen Rong.
In the prison cell of the Court of Judicial Review, Lady Shen, who had just given birth to Shen Que, kowtowed until her head was covered in blood. “Lingye, Rong’er was temporarily bewitched. She won’t dare do it again. Please spare her!”
The face of the then-Noble Consort Jiang, now the Empress Dowager, was filled with desolation. “Sister, you love your daughter dearly, but don’t I love my daughter just as much? Shen Rong is the flesh of your heart, but Mingyuezhu is the flesh of mine!”
Lady Shen begged through tears, “I know Rong’er was wrong. You can beat her, scold her, exile her—anything. But please don’t kill her. Please let her live!”
Noble Consort Jiang looked painfully at her most respected sister and shook her head. “Whoever harmed Mingyuezhu, I will take their life. Even if it’s Shen Rong, I won’t spare her.”
“No, Lingye, please consider the kindness of my giving you shoes back then. I’m begging you.”
“Sister, it’s precisely because I remember your kindness in giving me shoes that you’re still alive. Otherwise, do you think you would still have your life?” Noble Consort Jiang said tearfully. “Everyone cherishes their daughter, but your daughter tried to kill mine! She did something wrong! How could you not stop her and instead help her? Are you still my sister? No, you’re not! I no longer wish to see you again!”
Lady Shen felt a mix of shame and humiliation. She looked at the poisoned wine held by the jailer, then suddenly staggered to her feet, rushed forward, and drank it all in one gulp.
Noble Consort Jiang was shocked. “Sister, what are you doing? I didn’t intend to kill you!”
The poison took effect quickly. Lady Shen collapsed on the ground, blood flowing from her mouth and nose. She struggled to crawl toward the Noble Consort and grabbed the hem of her dress. “Lingye, these past days, I’ve been thinking: if I hadn’t given you those clothes and shoes, would today’s tragedy have happened? But you are a phoenix of the nine heavens; I couldn’t hold you back… I’ll pay for Mingyuezhu’s life with my own. Please spare my Rong’er. Consider this your sister’s last request…”
Tears streamed down Noble Consort Jiang’s face as memories of Lady Shen’s past care for her flashed before her eyes. She looked at Lady Shen, but the word “yes” refused to leave her lips. By the time Lady Shen died with her eyes wide open, she still hadn’t said that word.
In the prison cell, Shen Rong’s hair was disheveled, and she had cried until her whole body trembled. Whether her tears were from grief or fear, no one knew.
Noble Consort Jiang closed her eyes, suppressing her chaotic emotions. She slowly opened them again, her expression increasingly resembling Emperor Taichang’s. Word by word, she said, “Shen Rong, your mother is dead.”
Shen Rong frantically crawled toward Noble Consort Jiang. “Aunt, Aunt, I know I was wrong. For my mother’s sake, please spare me, please spare me…”
Noble Consort Jiang looked at her as if watching an ant struggling in vain. “Your mother died for you. She loved you most dearly. Today, your aunt will send you to fulfill your filial duty to her.”
Shen Rong froze. Clutching the hem of Noble Consort Jiang’s garment, she said in panic, “No, Aunt! Mother has already paid for Mingyuezhu’s life with her own. You can’t kill me. You can’t kill me!”
But Noble Consort Jiang just pulled her garment from Shen Rong’s hands in disgust. She turned and said to the jailer, “Give her a cup of poisoned wine. Let her… depart.”