In the great hall, the Emperor lay upon a long couch. The Empress Dowager was seated at his side. Sixth Brother stood to the Emperor’s left, while the remaining princes all stood to the right.

The imperial consorts were led in through a side door by Yuxiang, and at the sight before them, each one hardly dared to breathe.

The Empress Dowager opened her half-closed eyes and swept them with a glance. The look that fell upon Hao Yue was particularly cold. Hao Yue’s heart clenched — instinct told her this was not good.

“Physician Yu, please wake the Emperor.”

Physician Yu accepted the order and stepped forward, inclining his head. “This old physician will be so bold.”

As he spoke, Physician Yu pulled open the Emperor’s upper garments to expose his chest, spread out his case of golden needles, and drove several into position with swift, practiced hands. The movements looked effortless, but the effort behind them was evident — in just that short while, beads of sweat had already appeared on Physician Yu’s brow.

“He will have approximately one quarter-hour.”

The Empress Dowager pressed her lips into a thin line. She watched the Emperor stir and slowly return to awareness, her expression a mix of fury at his failings and pain she could not conceal. He was her eldest son — the one she had given birth to after evading countless schemes and hardships. Through the most difficult years, she and her son had clung to each other in the depths of this palace. To protect him, she had not hesitated to stain her own hands with blood, forcing herself to become ruthless and hard-hearted. She had always known their bond as mother and son could never be as deep as that of an ordinary family, and she knew an emperor’s nature was to be suspicious. But no matter how she had prepared herself, she had never imagined that the son she had fought so desperately to protect would come to this — and would now precede her in death.

“Imperial Mother.” The Emperor murmured the words, disoriented. The golden needles had awakened the last of his life’s energy; at this moment he felt a clarity unlike anything he had known before.

Supported by palace attendants into a sitting position, the Emperor looked out at the crowd kneeling below and smiled. “I was merely overtaken by a fit of temper. It is nothing. Everyone may withdraw. Yuepin, you may rise — in your condition you must not strain yourself.”

Everyone at court knew of Hao Yue’s current favor. With the Emperor’s own words, a palace attendant had already moved forward to help her up — but at that moment the Empress Dowager spoke: “Yuepin. You will kneel properly before me. The Emperor may care about the child in your belly, but I do not. The imperial bloodline has no shortage of heirs.”

“Imperial Mother, she is nearly at term…”

The Empress Dowager was utterly without hope for him. She closed her eyes for a moment, unwilling to waste another second. Even if he was dying, she would make her son die knowing the truth.

“Physician Yu.”

Physician Yu gave a slight bow and took out the cup and vessel that Yuxiang had previously brought him, turning to face the Emperor with a grave expression. “Is this the beverage Your Majesty has been consuming daily?”

The Emperor’s gaze flickered. “Is something wrong with it?”

Physician Yu was a physician — he needed no one to tell him what that red liquid was. The sharp, cloying smell of blood reached him from across the room. To him, this was deviant and corrupt, and as a physician he could not accept it. His voice took on a harder edge. “Your Majesty, are you aware that this drink has been laced with musk?”

The Emperor nodded. “I am aware. What of it?”

“Does Your Majesty enjoy garlic?”

The Emperor’s brow furrowed. “Speak plainly.”

“Then this old physician will speak without reservation.” Physician Yu dropped all pretense. “Musk invigorates the mind and spirit. However, if consumed together with garlic for more than three months, it will cause the five organs and six viscera to deteriorate. After four months of consumption, collapse can come at any moment…”

“Preposterous!” The Emperor sat upright, his face blazing with anger. “My health has been greatly improving — what deterioration are you speaking of? Come, someone remove this incompetent physician from the palace!”

“Then will my son believe the words of his own mother?”

“Imperial Mother!”

The Empress Dowager held his gaze steadily, her eyes full of desolation. “You refuse to believe even me, yet you trusted a woman of unknown origin, allowed her to play you like a puppet in her hands. Emperor — you have wasted these fifty-some years.”

The Emperor looked toward Hao Yue. Hao Yue raised her head to meet his gaze. There was no panic on her face, only a cool, quiet defiance — the very expression the Emperor had always loved most about her. The faint suspicion he had just begun to feel evaporated immediately.

“Imperial Mother, Hao Yue is simply not good at getting along with people. I know you are displeased with her, but she would truly never do something like this…”

“Then let me show my son what she is and is not capable of. Bring them in.”

The four senior palace maids from Ruyue Palace were marched in, bound hand and foot. Their faces were spotless, not a hair out of place — yet from the way they walked, it was plain they had not escaped unharmed.

“Your Majesty ought to recognize them.”

The Emperor knew them well indeed — two of them had even shared his bed.

The Empress Dowager glanced at him, then said coldly, “Repeat what you said before.”

All four maids had gone deathly pale. Hao Yue’s face was whiter still. She immediately stiffened her neck and cut them off: “If the Empress Dowager dislikes me, you need only sentence me to death directly. Why must you torture my maids into false confessions to frame me?”

Standing in the corner, Hua Zhi lowered her gaze. Hao Yue had lost. The Emperor had only one quarter-hour in total. If she had kept her composure and drawn it out, there might still have been a chance for her to turn things around. She needed only a single deathbed command from the Emperor to shield herself — even a verbal one — and neither the new sovereign nor the Empress Dowager would have been able to do anything to her. But she had moved too hastily.

The Empress Dowager had spent a lifetime in this palace. Now that she knew what Hao Yue had done, how could she not know exactly where to begin? Hao Yue, no matter how prescient she was, still lacked the Empress Dowager’s decades of experience within these walls — and it showed.

Sure enough, the moment those words left Hao Yue’s mouth, the Emperor’s expression shifted. The Empress Dowager gave a cold smile, and lowered her eyes, tucking her hands into her sleeves — unwilling to let anyone see how much self-control it was taking to stop herself from leaping forward and strangling Hao Yue with her own hands.

Yuxiang stepped forward, eyes fierce, and said in a sharp, commanding voice, “Tell what you know — every last detail!”

The four women shuddered. One of them nearly crumpled to the ground outright. Not until this day had they truly understood what the palace was capable of. They had learned at last what it meant to neither find rest in life nor find release in death. No one could hold out against what had been done to them.

The leftmost woman stole a glance at the Fourth Prince and, seeing him staring forward with a blank expression without so much as looking her way — let alone reaching out to help — she gritted her teeth and spoke: “This servant deserves ten thousand deaths. Every day, following Her Ladyship’s instructions, this servant went to the kitchen to ensure extra garlic was added to the Emperor’s food. This servant also heard Her Ladyship say that the more garlic was added, the better the effect.”

With someone taking the lead, the pressure on the others eased somewhat. The next words came quickly: “This servant deserves ten thousand deaths. This servant followed Her Ladyship to secret meetings with Noble Consort Xu.”

“This servant deserves ten thousand deaths. This servant was never actually graced by Your Majesty’s favor — it was Her Ladyship’s instruction to pretend otherwise, so that Your Majesty would believe yourself to be vigorous and strong.”

“This servant deserves ten thousand deaths. Every few days this servant would see the Fourth Prince come to Ruyue Palace. The longest time he remained there was two full hours before departing, alone together with Her Ladyship…”

“Hold your lying tongue!” The Fourth Prince’s face drained of color. He cut the words off immediately, stepped forward, and dropped to his knees before the couch, his expression furious. “Father, Your Majesty, your son would never — never have a secret meeting with Her Ladyship!”

The Emperor looked at him with an expression that was impossible to read. He did not respond, but instead turned to the palace maids. “If there is more to say, say it all.”