Si Hou was furious, but Concubine Meng was well-prepared. With a wave of her hand, she summoned several witnesses – physicians, and attendants – who unanimously stated that Si Hou never allowed anyone near Ming Xian’s body.
Si Hou adamantly denied everything, and the entire hall erupted into chaos.
“Enough!” Ming Li slammed his golden chair, the loud noise instantly silencing the hall.
Breathing heavily, he pointed at Ming Yi with a trembling hand. “You, speak. What’s going on?”
Ming Yi nodded: “I was raised as a boy from childhood. Even if I am truly a woman, I have genuinely won the championship for Chaoyang City for seven years. Without me, Chaoyang City wouldn’t be where it is today.”
Her words immediately drew dissatisfaction from Wei Changsheng and others nearby, who sneered, “Without you? You’re just a bit stronger in Yuan Power. But did you win the championship alone? Are we all nothing?”
Glancing at them, Ming Yi chuckled lightly: “I could still win the championship in other cities, but without me, you’re all useless. How dare you speak?”
Wei Changsheng flew into a rage, immediately slamming the table: “Who are you calling useless?!”
“Whoever needs to be rescued every year at the Six Cities Conference is useless,” she said contemptuously. “You don’t think you entered the Yuan Shi Academy on your merit, do you?”
The Wei family had good relations with the Yan family, so Si Hou forced him into the Yuan Shi Academy and asked her to support him. For so many years, she had grown accustomed to leading four mediocre fighters to win the championship. She never expected these four mediocre people to think they were responsible for winning.
Wei Changsheng’s face turned red with anger, but their defeat in Feihua City had been so embarrassing that he lacked the courage to retort.
Turning her gaze back to the Grand Minister, Ming Yi continued: “If it weren’t for Concubine Meng, this secret might have been kept for a lifetime, and I would have been Chaoyang City’s tool for winning championships forever. Unfortunately, Concubine Meng was too eager to bring down Si Hou. She investigated for four years and finally found some flaws, discovering my identity.”
“Originally, knowing was just knowing. Si Hou was skillful and wouldn’t have given her a chance to verify my gender. But unfortunately, I’m not Si Hou’s biological child and was born with red veins. She was too eager to control me, so from the age of ten, she started feeding me ‘Li Hen Tian’ and gave me the antidote monthly to hold my life in her hands.”
“‘Li Hen Tian’ is a poison she specifically commissioned to control fighters.” Turning her gaze to Si Hou, Ming Yi suddenly narrowed her eyes. “I now want to ask Si Hou a question: Do you know where this poison was developed?”
Si Hou’s face turned ashen: “You vixen, spouting nonsense…”
“It was developed in a slave camp in Muxing City,” she continued calmly. “It was developed using human lives, a large group of slaves. In the end, only one child survived.”
Ji Bozai’s fingers twitched at his side as he frowned, looking at Si Hou on the seat.
Si Hou didn’t pay any attention to this minor matter, only anxiously trying to exculpate herself: “Grand Minister, I knew nothing of this.”
“Let her finish speaking,” Ming Li said coldly.
Ming Yi nodded and continued, looking at Concubine Meng: “Concubine Meng must have also learned where Si Hou hid the antidote, so she took the opportunity to burn the entire courtyard to the ground. Without the antidote, my poison flared up and damaged my meridians. Si Hou then unhesitatingly ordered her people to kill me, to prevent Concubine Meng from using the opportunity to verify my gender and catch her in the act.”
The court officials were in an uproar: “How… how could they just kill someone like that?”
“Ming Xian was the hope of our Chaoyang City. Even if she’s a woman… alas.”
“Didn’t you hear? Her meridians were damaged by the poison. She wasn’t as powerful as before, so Si Hou abandoned her.”
“But after raising her for so many years, even if she’s not her biological child, shouldn’t there be some affection? How could she be so heartless?”
“Indeed…”
Amidst the discussions, Ming Li grabbed Si Hou’s wrist, asking angrily: “Ming Xian is not your biological child?”
Si Hou was extremely flustered: “She… she is also a child from my clan. The bloodline of our clan is naturally powerful.”
“Then why did you abandon your child?” Ming Li was furious. “If you can discard your flesh and blood, aren’t others even more insignificant to you?”
“No, no, Grand Minister, I love and respect you. I never intended to deceive you!” Si Hou knelt, tears falling instantly. “You were so determined to have a child with a pure red bloodline to revitalize Chaoyang City. Of course, I wanted to help ease your burden. But the child I carried for ten months… wasn’t red-veined. Everyone was expecting it, how could I bear to disappoint you? So I brought in a naturally red-veined child who had just been born in our clan.”
“She is still a child from my clan, and she has brought glory to Chaoyang City. Grand Minister…”
“Then where is our real child?” Ming Li stared at her with reddened eyes. “Did you kill them?”
“No, no, I didn’t intentionally kill him,” Si Hou shook her head repeatedly. “I was just too panicked and busy at the time and didn’t look after him. By the time I remembered, he had already been sent away by an attendant in the chaos. I don’t know where he went.”
“You don’t know?” Ming Li laughed bitterly in extreme anger. “Your attendant, the person you sent away, and you say you don’t know where he is?”
Si Hou wept profusely: “I truly don’t know.”
She couldn’t have intentionally harmed her child. It was just that with the naturally red-veined child and the busy work of concealing her gender, she had no time to care for him. Later, when she had time, whether out of guilt or something else, she didn’t ask further. After all, knowing would only give others leverage against her, with no benefit to herself.
That child must be dead by now, she thought.
The people in the hall were listening intently, even the surrounding guards had relaxed. Ji Bozai saw it was time and quietly slipped out through a side door under the pretext of changing clothes.
Ming Yi was not the biological child of Chaoyang City’s Si Hou, which explains Si Hou’s cruelty towards her. Now, Ji Bozai was very curious about what role Ming An played in all of this.
…
“Ming An was the attendant I trusted most. Grand Minister, it was because you trusted in him that you bestowed upon him the great surname of Ming,” Si Hou was still weeping. “But I never expected him to betray me, letting this vixen escape, bringing shame to our Chaoyang today.”
Shen Tianlin couldn’t listen anymore and laughed coldly: “According to Si Hou, you did nothing wrong in switching the children. The fault lies with the attendant who didn’t kill Ming Yi, with Concubine Meng who uncovered the truth, and with Ming Yi who returned here?”
Si Hou gritted her teeth: “I was only trying to protect our family’s honor and ease the Grand Minister’s burden. What did I do wrong?”
“Confusing the bloodlines of the inner court is a great crime!” Ming Li stood up, slamming the table. “You poisonous woman! If I had known you were so audacious and vicious, even if your bloodline could bring glory to our Chaoyang, I should never have welcomed you into the inner court!”
“A Li, we’ve been husband and wife for many years, sharing the same bed, sharing glory and shame. Are you going to abandon me just for this one mistake?!” She sobbed tearfully.