At the Jinyang courier station, Su E’huang had been residing in this elegant room for over half a month.
Though she was ostensibly recuperating, her clothing, food, and daily activities were all of the finest quality. Despite being a temporary lodging, the walls were even covered with rolls of fine silk from Qi Prefecture.
The station master was astounded. A few days ago, upon hearing that Lady Su was not only related to the Wei family but also had some unclear past with Wei Shao in their youth, the station master regarded her even more highly and served her with increased attentiveness.
Learning that Lady Su had complained yesterday about the dim candlelight in her room, which produced black smoke irritating her eyes, and that there was no fine wax in storage, the station master specially purchased and sent some today.
The newly replaced candles burned brightly without flaw. Nine were evenly placed in a copper candelabra, illuminating the room as bright as day when lit.
After bathing, Su E’huang was assisted out by her maids. She wore a vermilion inner robe with a floor-length outer robe embroidered with clouds and dancing phoenixes. Through the gossamer-thin fabric, one could faintly see a trace of snow-white skin on her bosom.
She sat before the dressing mirror, leaning close to examine the wound on her forehead.
The injury wasn’t deep, and the scab had come off smoothly, revealing a patch of pink new skin about the size of a small fingernail. In a few more days, it should fully heal.
Su E’huang used a jade applicator to apply a small amount of ointment to the scar on her forehead, carefully smoothing it with her little finger.
“My lady’s beauty is unparalleled. Fortunately, the bump that day wasn’t severe. Otherwise, if it had left a scar, wouldn’t that have been a lifelong regret?” A Su family elderly maid nearby flattered her.
Su E’huang gazed at her reflection in the mirror.
She was at the peak of her beauty, and fresh from her bath with new makeup, even she found herself alluring.
“Where’s Su Xin?” she suddenly asked, realizing she hadn’t seen him since early evening.
“I don’t know,” the old maid replied, secretly suspecting he had gone to a brothel.
Su E’huang made the same assumption. Her delicate brows furrowed slightly.
This nephew, whom she had originally thought might be useful, had already embarrassed her at their first visit to Yuyang during the Deer Festival. Even now, he has shown no significant improvement and requires her constant guidance.
During their stay here, Su E’huang had instructed him not to go out to avoid unnecessary trouble.
He had agreed. But a few days ago, Su E’huang caught him in a tryst with one of her maids.
A mere maid, as lowly as dirt. If he had asked, she would have given the girl to him.
What angered Su E’huang was that he had done it behind her back.
Wei’s family’s Lady Zhu had Maid Jiang, who was secretly working for Su E’huang.
Therefore, Su E’huang was extremely wary of anyone among her close servants acting secretly without her knowledge.
At the time, she had sternly rebuked Su Xin, forcing him to kill the maid who dared to liaise with him secretly.
Su Xin was initially reluctant, but under her pressure, he finally stabbed the maid to death.
The next day, they simply said she had died of sudden illness overnight and was buried in a pauper’s field outside the city.
Su Xin had finally behaved himself. But now, after just a few days, he had snuck out to carouse again.
“When he returns, tell him to come see me immediately!” Su E’huang’s eyes in the mirror flashed with anger.
The old maid acknowledged.
…
By late evening, Su Xin still hadn’t returned.
This was unusual.
Su Xin had always feared her. Even if he had gone out to carouse, he surely wouldn’t dare stay out this late.
Su E’huang’s initial anger at her nephew’s incompetence and disobedience gradually subsided.
In its place came a sense of unease.
She was lost in thought for a moment when suddenly her heart began to race, and she felt an ominous premonition as if something terrible had happened.
This sense of foreboding was not unfamiliar to Su E’huang.
The last time she had felt something similar was years ago, when her husband Liu Li’s elder brother, Emperor Xuan, had suddenly fallen ill and died.
That had been the closest she had ever come to achieving her life’s ambition. But with the successive appearances of Liu Ai and Xing Xun, the seven-year-old Liu Tong from the imperial clan was ultimately pushed onto the throne. Her husband, who had originally been the most likely to inherit the throne, was placed under house arrest at dawn and has lived under surveillance ever since.
During that interminably long night waiting for dawn, Su E’huang had experienced this same heart-pounding sense of impending doom.
She hated this feeling.
She gradually became restless. She stood up from the couch and paced around the room several times.
What could have happened? she wondered. Zhonglin had indeed changed from his resolute attitude when he came to see her that evening. She had tested him and found that he still harbored old feelings for her, still felt compassion.
As long as a man felt compassion for a woman, it was good news.
This reinforced her determination to stay by his side.
But the current sense of unease made her anxious.
Su E’huang couldn’t help but carefully review some of her past actions. Finally, she was certain that she hadn’t left any incriminating evidence that could be used against her.
All the people who couldn’t be allowed to live, those connected to that failed plot, were already dead.
Even if Lady Xu had ultimately suspected her, Su E’huang was confident no proof could incriminate her beyond redemption.
Without evidence, they couldn’t do anything to her.
Su E’huang gradually calmed herself down.
She sat back down in front of the mirror and suddenly thought of her nephew, Su Xin.
She stared blankly at the face in the mirror. In the reflection, she saw a hint of a sharp, gloomy expression creeping into the woman’s eyes.
Just then, the sound of footsteps came from outside the door.
These footsteps were abrupt and heavy. One could hear that a man was quickly approaching her room, his feet seeming to tread on surging waves of anger, each step striking Su E’huang’s eardrums.
Su E’huang’s heart, which had just calmed down, began to race again. Her expression changed, and she suddenly stood up from her dressing table, quickly walking towards the door.
Before she could reach it, the door was pushed open from the outside.
Wei Shao had arrived.
Su E’huang’s steps halted.
Wei Shao’s face was contorted with anger, his eyes filled with a tempest of fury. He strode in, and Su E’huang saw that in one hand, he was dragging her nephew who had been missing all night.
Su Xin, like a dead dog, was thrown at Su E’huang’s feet.
Su E’huang looked down to see Su Xin covered in blood as if he had just come from a slaughterhouse. He lay on the ground, twisting his body like a worm, struggling to reach out to Su E’huang with a blood-stained hand.
“…It was all her orders…” Broken, disjointed words came from his toothless mouth, almost unrecognizable as his voice.
“Spare me…” He fainted.
Su E’huang’s eyes widened to their limit, and her face suddenly drained of all color.
“You vile servant, how dare you plot to harm my grandmother with such a wicked heart?” Wei Shao snarled through gritted teeth.
Never having seen Wei Shao in such a lion-like rage before, Su E’huang looked at him in terror, her teeth chattering as she stepped back, back, until her back pressed against the wall covered with exquisite silk patterns. “Zhonglin, I truly don’t understand what you’re saying. How could I plot against Lady Grandmother? What did Su Xin tell you? I don’t know…”
“Wretched woman! Dare to call me Zhonglin one more time!” Wei Shao roared, his face ashen, terrifyingly furious.
Su E’huang abruptly stopped.
“Your nephew has just confessed! You colluded with Maid Jiang, obtained snake venom from the Countryside Marquis’s wife, and instructed Jiang to poison my grandmother at an opportune moment, framing my mother. Then you planned to kill the Marquis’s wife…”
Wei Shao spat out each word.
…
Initially, when Xiao Qiao told him that Su Xin had been in contact with the Countryside Marquis’s wife and that she suspected last year’s near-poisoning of his grandmother might be related to the Su family, Wei Shao’s first reaction was disbelief.
Although it was true, as he had told Xiao Qiao, that he had long since put behind him the innocent affair of his youth, and that Lady Su now bore little resemblance to the young woman he once called “Elder Sister” in his memories.
But deep in his heart, he still retained a warm and beautiful, albeit hazy, impression of the young woman who had accompanied him through the darkest days of his life when he was twelve years old.
He found it hard to believe that the gentle girl in his memory would now do such a thing. For a brief moment, he even wondered if his current wife might be grasping at straws, trying to completely drive out the shadow of his childhood friend from his heart.
Until he read his grandmother’s letter again.
He was stunned.
After he recovered, he was seized by a deep sense of shock and anger at being thoroughly fooled and deceived.
He no longer doubted!
It was Lady Su who had nearly killed his grandmother, the person he respected and loved most in this world!
How could he tolerate this?
…
After a brief, deathly silence in the room, Su E’huang suddenly cried out in anguish: “Zhonglin! You must not believe Su Xin’s words! This unconscionable, worse-than-animal creature! I kindly took him under my wing, not knowing he would hate me to this extent and falsely accuse me! I don’t know—”
As she was defending herself, two burly guards had already rushed in behind Wei Shao. They seized Su E’huang’s arms on both sides and began to drag her out.
Su E’huang struggled fiercely. Her previously immaculate hairstyle became disheveled, and her hairpins and ornaments fell to the ground. The gossamer-thin silk robe on her shoulders also slipped off as she fought. She desperately tried to plant her feet, and as she was being dragged past Wei Shao, her face streaked with tears, she cried out hoarsely: “Zhonglin, have you forgotten? When you had a high fever and were unconscious, it was I who tended to you all night. Have you forgotten that you once said you would protect me for life? Now you condemn me based solely on the words of others! Won’t you even give me a chance to defend myself?”