After the Crown Prince left without saying anything, Fan Liangdi’s entire body went limp, collapsing on the ground like a frame that had fallen apart. She couldn’t get up for a long while. Finally Nanny Fang and Mushao came forward to support her from left and right, then frantically searched everywhere for medicine to invigorate blood circulation and disperse bruising. Fan Liangdi had kowtowed extremely sincerely—her forehead was bruised over a large area, looking rather gruesome.
While gently and carefully applying medicinal ointment for her, Nanny Fang couldn’t help asking worriedly: “Your Ladyship, did His Highness say anything?” Nanny Fang couldn’t help sighing inwardly. Before, she had thought Prince Dongping was different from her young lady, always more clever and rational. Who knew Prince Dongping would actually join the young lady in her recklessness—how could he even do something like assassinating the Crown Prince’s eldest son?! The Eastern Palace hasn’t even taken charge yet. To fight and scramble now—wasn’t it too early?! Alas, they say clever people think too much, and sure enough they also have many complicated schemes. For someone like her who was just a servant, she felt that even if they must cause trouble, they couldn’t do it at this juncture—as she kept saying, the Eastern Palace hadn’t taken charge yet. This was only because the Crown Prince didn’t take the Crown Prince’s eldest son seriously. If he truly took the Crown Prince’s eldest son seriously, when this news came in, with the Crown Prince’s health, wouldn’t he be angered to death? Below there were still Prince Gong and Prince Su eyeing them covetously like tigers. Even Prince Lu—though he used to be honest and well-behaved, now that Consort Xian had died, his sister had married far away, and his brother had died, who knew if he had changed too?
Fan Liangdi opened her eyes, blinked, then covered the deep resentment in her eyes and laughed coldly: “What could he say? In any case, as long as he won’t kill me, that’s enough.”
Nanny Fang’s heart couldn’t help but jump in alarm, truly feeling frightened. Her young lady really couldn’t keep her composure. Thinking this way, she felt they still needed to have the Marquis return. With her young lady’s temper, only the Marquis could control her. Only what the Marquis said could she barely listen to a few words. But when Nanny Fang thought of Han Zhengqing, she couldn’t help sighing again. Now the Marquis was no longer the Marquis of before—his son and wife both died at Fan Liangdi’s hands. Who knew whether he held a grudge in his heart? Speaking of which, if he didn’t hold a grudge, that truly wouldn’t make him human. Nanny Fang felt her head ache.
Before long, Prince Dongping entered. Seeing his mother’s forehead bruised over a large area, the resentment in his heart couldn’t help dissipating quite a bit—Qian Ying was right, he couldn’t continue doing everything according to his mother’s wishes in the future. This time, if not for worrying that his mother acting on her own authority would cause even greater trouble, he wouldn’t have been forced to have Qian Ying contact Huangjue Temple, nor would things have gotten to the point of making his father so angry and placing him in such a difficult position. He looked at his mother and sighed: “Mother, did Father make things difficult for you?”
Fan Liangdi shook her head, feeling her mind somewhat chaotic. After slightly recovering from this bout of dizziness, she grasped her son’s hand, glanced around, dismissed all the servants, and said softly to her son: “Rest assured, this matter will pass just like that.”
Though Qian Ying had already assured him before that this matter would most likely be glossed over just like that, Prince Dongping had never deeply believed it—he had witnessed his father’s rage that day with his own eyes. Moreover, there was pressure from Imperial Grandmother in the palace and the Crown Princess of the Eastern Palace. Even the strategists and others all advised his father to distinguish clearly between legitimate and secondary lines, to maintain proper rules. Now hearing Fan Liangdi say this, he couldn’t help asking again: “Truly?” Had his father’s affection for his mother truly already reached such depths?
Fan Liangdi stroked her son’s head, her eyes revealing a ghostly light, the corners of her mouth holding a mocking smile that was neither quite a smile nor not: “Naturally it’s true. I know about the movements from Mingcui Palace—they wanted to use the Empress’s hand to force His Highness to deal with me. But they don’t think about who has been by His Highness’s side all these years, who has helped His Highness raise silver to support so many advisors and strategists, and support that whole group in the northwest who need to eat.” She looked at Zhou Weiqi, her voice gradually lowering: “You’re grown now too, you need to understand this in your heart. Don’t be afraid. Regardless of what that group says about legitimate or secondary lines, in your father’s heart, he has no place at all for that mother and son. No matter how glorious or fine they are, in your father’s eyes, it has nothing to do with him, no relation to him. But you and I are different.”
We’ve tied everything to your father. What’s ours is your father’s. Killing me would be severing your father’s own flesh and blood—he can’t bear to.
Zhou Weiqi quietly listened to his mother speak, and that fire in his heart that had been nearly doused was burning fiercely again.
On the other end, the Empress felt thoroughly and completely as if cold water had been poured over her. She looked at her eldest son and asked in disbelief: “What did you say?”
The Crown Prince kept his eyes on his nose and his nose on his heart, looking at his own feet, simply refusing to look at his mother. After a long while he finally said: “Your son’s meaning is, let this matter drop. It wasn’t anything glorious to begin with anyway. If the Crown Prince’s eldest son has an incident and immediately after, the greatly favored Fan Liangdi dies, wouldn’t that equally invite people’s suspicion and speculation? Such things won’t happen again in the future.”
These words were said so lightly, as if just because he said it wouldn’t happen again meant it wouldn’t happen. The Empress simply couldn’t imagine why her own son could be stupid to this degree. She laughed coldly, filled with immense disappointment and fury: “Bastard! Do you want to become King Zhou or King You?! For the sake of a woman, do you still know any sense of propriety?!”
To think she had even had Princess Rongcheng and Prince Zhennan personally go advise him once. After all their counsel, the Crown Prince hadn’t listened to a single word, treating it all as wind past the ears?! The Empress truly couldn’t care about being distant or not, about affection or not anymore. She almost pointed at the Crown Prince’s nose and scolded: “Weizhao is your son! He’s considerate of you, filial to you, helps you think, plans for you—that’s why he suppressed this matter and swallowed the bitter fruit himself. This is his filial heart as a son, his utter sincerity for your sake! But as a father, is this how you treat his filial devotion? What exactly is wrong with him? Your own legitimate and only two sons’ lives are actually not as important as a concubine by your side?! Where has your brain gone?!”
The Crown Prince then remembered again the gentleness when she held Prince Gong as a youth, softly and tenderly coaxing him not to cry, not to cry, and the stern severity when facing his own studies. How could a person’s heart grow so biased?! He suddenly stood up, his complexion turning from white to livid then from livid back to white, feeling he couldn’t catch his breath. Covering his chest, he calmed his emotions for quite a while before laughing coldly and snorting: “Even ten fingers are of different lengths. Mother Empress, you treat me and my brother this way, unable to treat us equally. How is it that when it comes to me, your demands are so unreasonable?! Before you rebuke me, why don’t you first look back at what you’ve done yourself?! That year when fleeing for our lives, you held your other son, not me! I haven’t yet done anything as excessive as you, yet you keep saying I’m biased—then why don’t you look at yourself?!”