Princess Changping, who had been crying and making a scene the entire journey, did not calm down after entering the Pepper Room Palace — if anything, she made an even greater commotion.
“Your Majesty! Your Majesty!”
Princess Changping sat on the edge of the bed, clutching Empress Xu’s hand as she wept. “Father Emperor is so heartless and cruel! He actually wants to confine me to the Ciyun Convent. Your Majesty, I refuse to go to that Ciyun Convent. Please hurry and plead with Father Emperor on my behalf — otherwise, after today, you will never see your daughter again…”
Over the span of just a few short days, Empress Xu had grown gaunt, her face waxy and yellow, her eyes vacant and lifeless. She lay on the bed without even the strength to sit up.
Anyone could see at a glance that she was gravely ill.
Princess Changping clung to her arm, sobbing and lamenting for a long while, but Empress Xu showed almost no reaction.
It was not until Princess Changping cried out, demanding that she go and plead before the Emperor, that Empress Xu’s eyes stirred slightly.
“Changping…”
Her voice was hoarse and faint, as though she had spent the last of her strength just to force out those two syllables.
Princess Changping carelessly wiped her tears with her sleeve. Her makeup had long since been ruined by weeping, leaving her looking thoroughly wretched. Yet the normally appearance-conscious princess had no mind for such things now, and her eyes were filled with desperate hope. “Your Majesty, I know you are ill and cannot leave your bed. Could you send someone to summon Father Emperor here? If you only weep and plead with him for a while, Father Emperor will surely soften his heart!”
Soften his heart?
The Emperor had no desire to even look at her anymore. And who knew what medicine had been forced down her throat — it had reduced her to this pitiable state. Her entire body was without strength; she could do nothing but lie collapsed on the bed. To say nothing of getting up and walking about — she did not even have the energy to speak.
The corner of Empress Xu’s mouth twitched. Her expression hovered somewhere between weeping and laughing, her voice still hoarse and feeble. “Changping, what have you done wrong?”
Princess Changping felt a twinge of guilt, her gaze drifting and unsteady.
A mother knows her child best.
Empress Xu saw this in her eyes, and her heart went suddenly cold. A thread of sternness crept into her voice. “What exactly happened?”
Princess Changping steeled herself and said reluctantly, “The Prince Consort was riding his horse this morning when he accidentally fell and died. Duke Xu found the stable hand and the guards and laid the blame squarely at my feet. He went before Father Emperor to file a formal accusation, and Father Emperor flew into a rage — he berated me harshly and even struck me. He said that tomorrow he would send me to the Ciyun Convent to fast and pray.”
As she spoke, her voice grew ever more aggrieved. “Your Majesty, I am still so young — if the Prince Consort is dead, I can simply take another one. Why must I be sent to the Ciyun Convent? I don’t want to go, Your Majesty…”
Empress Xu’s entire body began to tremble, and an unnatural flush rose across her ashen face.
If her body were not so utterly weak and powerless, she would have already sat up and hurled curses at Princess Changping!
What a fool!
She herself had already fallen in the palace. If Changping had cared at all for her as a mother, she could not possibly have been ignorant of what was happening within the palace walls. And yet now, of all times, she had brought about a scandal involving the murder of her own husband — and still expected her mother to stand up for her and plead her case. She had completely lost her mind.
How on earth had she given birth to such a thoughtless creature!
“You are not to make any more trouble!” Empress Xu choked back the waves of metallic bile rising in her throat and forced herself to glare in warning. “Go to the Ciyun Convent and stay there without causing any disturbance — do not bring any more trouble upon your sixth brother!”
Princess Changping stared at Empress Xu in disbelief. “Your Majesty, are you washing your hands of me? And still telling me not to bring trouble upon Sixth Brother — is it that in Your Majesty’s eyes, there is only Sixth Brother and no daughter? Your Majesty, how can you be so partial!”
Accused of partiality, Empress Xu felt her blood surge within her, yet she had no strength to argue.
A sweetness rose in Empress Xu’s throat, and she spat out a mouthful of fresh blood.
Seeing Empress Xu cough up blood, Princess Changping panicked at once, crying out, “Someone come — come quickly! The Empress is coughing up blood!”
Strangely, after she called out, the Pepper Room Palace remained utterly silent inside and out. No one came to look in, and no Imperial Physician appeared.
Princess Changping shook with fury, her face a stormy shade, and she erupted in a torrent of abuse: “Rui Lian! Qiu Shuang! Luo Yan! Where have all of you run off to? The Empress is this ill, and not a single one of you is here to attend to her — what use are you!”
“Elder Sister, when are you going to stop making a scene!”
A familiar voice rang out from the doorway.
Princess Changping’s distress turned to relief, and she rushed to Prince Yan’s side. “Sixth Brother, you’ve come at just the right time. Hurry and summon an Imperial Physician — the Empress just coughed up blood!”
Prince Yan’s expression was dark and grim. He shook off Princess Changping’s hand and walked to the bedside.
Empress Xu’s face was deathly pale, her features haggard and emaciated beyond recognition. The collar of her garments and the bedding were spotted with flecks of blood. There was no telling how many days had passed since her clothing or bedding had last been changed — drawing close, a foul and metallic odor struck him full in the face.
A flash of deep grief and anguish passed through Prince Yan’s eyes, and he clenched his fist with force.
Princess Changping was still chattering incessantly beside him. “The Empress is this gravely ill — how can there be no Imperial Physician attending to her at all times? And those female officials too, who knows where they’ve all gone — not a single one is to be found. Sixth Brother, we absolutely cannot ignore this matter. Let’s go to the Purple Morning Palace to see Father Emperor and tell him all of this…”
“Yang Qi!”
Prince Yan suddenly called Princess Changping by her full name. His voice was filled with suppressed fury, and his gaze was heavy with the disappointment of someone who could not bear to see potential wasted.
Princess Changping startled, and all her words caught in her throat.
“Yang Qi, what have you been doing with yourself all this time?” Prince Yan glared at Princess Changping, grinding out each word through clenched teeth. “Something this significant has happened right here in the Pepper Room Palace, and you knew absolutely nothing of it? Come and look at the state the Empress is in right now!”
Princess Changping was compelled to step forward.
When she looked properly, she finally saw the true extent of Empress Xu’s wretched condition, and the longer she looked, the more alarmed she became.
How had the nation’s Empress come to such a state?
“Didn’t the Empress fall ill?” Princess Changping’s voice was full of bewilderment. “How did things come to this?”
Prince Yan said coldly, “Falling ill is merely the story put out for the outside world. In truth, the Empress was caught in an intimate act with a palace eunuch, caught in the very act by the Emperor himself. The Emperor’s fury was immense — he had half the attendants of the Pepper Room Palace put to death, and the female officials have all been locked in the imperial prison. The rest have been demoted to the laundry quarters.”
“For now, the Emperor has not yet deposed her. He simply has no wish to expose this scandal and become the laughingstock of the entire realm.”
“At a time like this, rather than keeping your head down, you dared to have the Prince Consort killed, and in doing so, you have made a complete and irrevocable break with the Xu family as well. Yang Qi, what exactly is going on inside your head?”
“And now look at the result! The Emperor is sending you to the Ciyun Convent. From here on out, he has every reason he could ever want to depose the Empress. Failing to raise a daughter properly — allowing a daughter to murder her own husband! Once the Empress is deposed, what support could you or I possibly rely on?”
By the end, Prince Yan was pressing out each word one by one from between his teeth.
Princess Changping had long since been left in a daze, her eyes filled with a shock she could not bring herself to believe.
Her rigid gaze fell upon Empress Xu’s face.
Unable to face her two children, Empress Xu shut her eyes in shame. Tears of bitter remorse slid from the corners of her eyes.