The atmosphere in the room was so oppressive it was unbearable. The Crown Prince stood up and paced a few steps somewhat irritably. Turning back to look at the haggard Empress Dowager Lu lying on the bed, he couldn’t help but cough a few times himself. He felt the scenery before his eyes blur somewhat. Gripping the armrest of the chair beside him for quite a while before recovering his senses, he asked impatiently, “You summoned me just to ask about this matter?” He let out a cold laugh, his tone containing indifferent sharpness. “Wasn’t I doing this to make you happy? Isn’t what you most love to do support your maternal family? Now having Weizhao marry Chonghua would make the relationship even closer. Wouldn’t that be good?”
Empress Dowager Lu looked at him, looked at this son she had endured for a lifetime, and slowly broke into a smile. “Where is your intention to strengthen family ties? You want to bind together all these people you detest, so when the time comes to raise the butcher’s knife, it won’t be too much trouble, right?” She waved her hand, no longer continuing this hackneyed topic that had already become tiresome, and asked him in a calm tone, “I heard you want to take another woman from the Fan family as a concubine? You like Fan family girls so much—one dying wasn’t enough, you have to take another?”
Empress Dowager Lu somewhat didn’t understand what kind of love potion the Fan family had poured into the Crown Prince to bewitch him to such a degree that he obeyed the Fan family in everything. Even when Fan Liangdi committed such a grave error, the Crown Prince could still indulge her—in the past, she too had thought like others that this was because her son was deeply infatuated with Fan Liangdi. But as time developed to the present, no matter how foolish she was, she could see something was wrong. The words “just liking her” simply couldn’t cover up the Crown Prince’s excessive indulgence of the Fan family.
She waited for the Crown Prince to confess, harboring in her heart the last faint hope for the Crown Prince, hoping he could be honest for once, could straightforwardly explain the Fan family matter to her clearly. Even if he only came to regret it now, Empress Dowager Lu also thought of wiping away all past matters with one stroke, so that from now on the mother and son would have no more rifts between them. Naturally, there would also be no need to worry about what the Crown Princess and those others feared—that if the Crown Prince continued using any means necessary, he would scatter the Eastern Palace.
But the Crown Prince fundamentally didn’t think his behavior had anything wrong with it. On the contrary, he not only didn’t think there was anything wrong with what he did, he also felt that Empress Dowager Lu’s questioning made him extremely embarrassed. He glanced at Empress Dowager Lu, his heart carrying vindictive amusement. “Yes, this is also for Liangdi’s sake. Before she died, what she worried about most was Dongping. Dongping being alone in the Eastern Palace, isolated and helpless, will inevitably suffer losses. I have so few sons, of course each one must be planned for well. Weizhao has you and the Crown Princess protecting him—what use could he have for me? Naturally I must be better to Dongping, who has no one looking after him.”
Empress Dowager Lu was truly so angered by these words of the Crown Prince’s that her blood surged, her throat both itchy and painful. After coughing a few times, she suddenly coughed up a mouthful of blood. In the Crown Prince’s eyes, everyone had wronged him, everyone owed him something. Blood relatives and maternal clan, mother and wife—these people in his eyes were not sources of support, were not helping him, but all harbored ill intentions toward him. He would rather trust a concubine’s natal family than spare even a bit of trust for the Lu family. Such a Crown Prince…
Empress Dowager Lu stopped coughing. When she raised her eyes again, even her gaze had finally become calm and still as water. Her tone not particularly good, she asked him, “Is it truly because of Dongping, and not because of some other reason?”
Having asked this question, she was also too lazy to continue sparring with the Crown Prince. Reaching out to receive from Xie Siyi’s hand a thick stack of letters, she threw them down with a slap at the Crown Prince’s feet. This time her tone suddenly changed direction as she asked him with utmost fury, “Isn’t it because the Fan clan is your tool for amassing wealth—you’re reluctant to part with them and can’t discard them, moreover you don’t dare fall out with them, so you have no choice but to bind yourself even more closely with the Fan family?!”
The Crown Prince’s expression finally changed. He frowned and glanced at the Empress, ultimately still bending down to pick up the letters scattered all over the ground at his feet. He had only looked once when his face flooded with the shame and embarrassment of having secrets exposed. Reaching out to crumple the letter papers until they were all deformed, his voice even higher than Empress Dowager Lu’s, he asked with laughter born of extreme anger, “You investigated me?! You sent people to investigate me?!”
No, this wasn’t something that could be investigated overnight by sending people. Wave after wave of coldness surged through the Crown Prince’s heart. He only felt all the blood throughout his body freeze. The look he gave Empress Dowager Lu could practically be called venomous—as soon as he thought of his own mother planting a spy beside him, monitoring his every move at all times, he felt chilled to the bone.
But immediately after, he overturned this idea of his—he had been doing business in Xibei not for just a day or two, and his connections with the Fan family were also not for just a day or two. If Empress Dowager Lu knew about these matters, she would have long been unable to sit still and wouldn’t have waited until today to turn against him… He looked into Empress Dowager Lu’s eyes, still having the mood to sneer coldly. “It was Lu Shi, right?” When his mood was poor, he even omitted the three words “Crown Princess,” directly using “Lu Shi” as a substitute.
Seeing that Empress Dowager Lu didn’t answer, he plopped down on the goose-neck chair beside him, carrying some smugness and unrestrained recklessness, as well as resentment at having secrets discovered. “Lu Shi has plenty of capable people under her command. Even though I’ve always favored the Fan family all this time, I haven’t seen her truly suffer any real losses. That’s right—with you, a reigning Empress and her aunt protecting her, what losses could she suffer? Of course she has time to send people to carefully watch me. Let me think, this time she brought the matter before you—what is she planning to have you do to me? What, change the Crown Prince? Kill me and let your younger son take the position?”
He paused. Seeing Empress Dowager Lu again so angered she bent over coughing, the smile on his face deepened. “No, that’s not right. If you kill me, then when younger brother takes the position, wouldn’t Weizhao’s status become awkward? How could she do such a foolish thing…” Harboring the greatest malice, he again negated his previous statement. “But then again, matters in this world can’t be said for certain. Originally back then, she and younger brother were mutually in love—it was you who insisted on tearing them apart, forcibly stuffing her into my place. Perhaps younger brother is magnanimous as the sea, and when he truly replaces me, he’ll still be able to let Weizhao continue being his Grand Prince?”
Even though Xie Siyi was experienced and knowledgeable, and thought she had long grown accustomed to seeing many scenes in the palace, she was still shocked speechless by the Crown Prince’s appearance and these words, unable to react—what kind of mad ravings were these? The Crown Prince had simply gone mad!
The Crown Prince never thought himself wrong. He could not be wrong—it was always others who were wrong. Everything he did was because others were forcing him. Empress Dowager Lu raised her eyes to glance at him once, her body going soft as she collapsed on the bed, gasping for breath for quite a while.