A Femme Fatale!
This phrase, used to describe women, couldn't be more fitting for Painter Xie.
"Lord Xie..."
One of the bolder ladies quietly inquired, "It seems there was some commotion inside just now. Do you know what happened?"
Xie Chenghui kept his head down, focused on painting, and didn't respond.
You couldn't say he was deliberately ignoring them - he appeared serene and gentlemanly. And you couldn't say he hadn't heard - they were too close for that to be possible.
The lady who had asked the question was left embarrassed, forced to close her mouth in frustration. Yet she couldn't bring herself to dislike Xie Chenghui.
When the Empress Dowager woke up, she found herself locked in pitch darkness. It was terrifyingly quiet around her, without a single sound.
Fear of the unknown enveloped the Empress Dowager's entire body. She groped in the dark to sit up from the ground, fumbling forward in the darkness: "Is anyone there? Come quickly! Who has locked me in here? I am the Empress Dowager of Great Yan, you cannot treat me like this!"
In the vast emptiness of the darkness, even the Empress Dowager's voice echoed, but there was no response.
Finally, she managed to feel something that seemed like a wooden door. Grasping it like a lifeline, she began frantically knocking: "Open the door, Emperor! I know you're there! I am your birth mother, you cannot believe Consort Rong's one-sided words. She hates me for not saving her and is deliberately slandering me. I..."
A light appeared, gradually brightening from behind the Empress Dowager, eventually illuminating the entire dark space.
This place... it was... the punishment room.
When the Emperor was young and disobedient, or when the Empress Dowager thought he was naughty, she often threw him in here to be punished.
The Empress Dowager seemed to have guessed who was behind her. Her fingers, gripping the door crack, turned white from the force. She took a deep breath, holding back tears of fear, and turned to face the Xuanwu Emperor.
However, when she saw the Xuanwu Emperor sitting in the middle of the punishment room, she also saw the person behind him.
A wave of fury at being betrayed and sold out instantly swept over her. She rushed forward: "Pei Wu, you treacherous wretch, how dare you betray me! I'll..."
Before she could finish, guards pinned her to the ground.
The Emperor chuckled softly: "Back then, Noble Consort Jing's most trusted personal maid was bought by you, and you switched your dead infant with me. How did you not consider how heartbroken Noble Consort Jing would be when betrayed by the person she trusted most? Noble Consort Jing trusted you so much, yet you still schemed to take her life, didn't you?"
Those who harm others will be harmed in return. Those who betray others will ultimately face betrayal themselves.
The biggest mistake Noble Consort Jing made in her life was treating the Empress Dowager as a close friend and trusting her palace maids too easily.
"Don't mention her!"
The Empress Dowager reacted like a cat whose tail had been stepped on, her whole body bristling. As if trapped in a certain memory, her face twisted with jealousy as she said, "What do you know? Noble Consort Jing was born into a noble family, entered the palace as a Noble Consort, and was even childhood sweethearts with the late Emperor. From birth, she had everything I could never obtain in my entire life. I couldn't accept it. That fool was too well-protected, she didn't understand how treacherous people could be. So I decided to help her learn."
So after Noble Consort Jing became pregnant, she deliberately seduced the Emperor to sleep with her, trying everything to become pregnant around the same time as Noble Consort Jing.
Later, she found out Noble Consort Jing's due date and took labor-inducing medicine on the same day to force her own child's birth.
Her original plan was that if they both gave birth to princes, she would switch her child with Noble Consort Jing's, letting her own child receive all the love and blessings from the court officials. Then she would keep Noble Consort Jing's child with her, subjecting him to endless suffering and torment.
But she ended up giving birth to a princess.
What use was a princess?
If it wouldn't bring her any benefits, there was no need for the child to exist.
Drowning the little princess was also to avoid future troubles. If the truth ever came to light, having the princess alive would lead to endless problems. It was better to kill her and be done with it.
She could also use the princess's corpse to deal a heavy blow to Noble Consort Jing.
The Empress Dowager herself hadn't expected that Noble Consort Jing would be unable to bear the shock, become emotionally distraught, hemorrhage heavily, and die.
Suddenly responsible for two lives, especially having killed her own daughter with her own hands, made her feel somewhat afraid. So she secretly built a small Buddhist shrine in her chambers.
Recalling this, the Empress Dowager's eyes, full of hatred, glared at Pei Wu: "Consort Shu and Consort Rong never discovered my secret all these years. Pei Wu... it was you who told Consort Rong, wasn't it?"
Pei Wu bowed to the Empress Dowager: "Please calm your anger, Empress Dowager. From the beginning, I was a spy planted by His Majesty at your side. His Majesty never favored me; it was all an act for you to see. My purpose for staying in Cining Palace was to catch you in the act."
After a long period of careful observation, she finally discovered the secret of the small Buddhist shrine.
So Pei Wu reported to the Emperor, and together they set a trap, luring the Empress Dowager in, then using Consort Rong to drive her to a dead end.
"Hahahahaha..."
The Empress Dowager suddenly burst into laughter: "So you all know now, but so what? I am still nominally the Emperor's mother. Would His Majesty want such a royal scandal to spread among the common people?"
The Emperor, having learned the whole story, no longer wasted words with her. He stood up and walked towards the door: "The court officials have decided to send you to a detached palace to live out your days."
A smug smile appeared on the Empress Dowager's lips, thinking the Emperor truly had no way to deal with her.
However, the next moment, she heard the Emperor's cruel voice: "So I've already sent an escort for the 'Empress Dowager' to the detached palace in Qin Province. As for you... you will repent here, paying the price for everything you've done. I will keep you here..."
He slowly emphasized the last three words: "Until. You. Die!"
"No! No! No!"
"Bang!"
The door of the punishment room slammed shut, and the room that had been bright moments ago plunged back into complete darkness.
"Shen Ye!"
"You ungrateful wolf cub, even if I didn't give birth to you, I raised you. Without me, do you think you could have grown up alive? Let me out now!"
Her only response was the endless darkness of the punishment room and the echo of her own shrill voice.
All the suffering she had inflicted on the Xuanwu Emperor as a child was now coming back to haunt her.
The person who became the "Empress Dowager" sent to live out her days in the detached palace was actually Consort Rong.
She couldn't be called Consort Rong anymore. For aiding evil, she was demoted to a commoner. However, the Emperor, considering that she had written down all of the Empress Dowager's crimes and made them public, agreed to let her leave the palace. From now on, there would be no more Consort Rong in the palace.
Compared to her sister, her fate was much better.
On the first day of the sixth month, the day the Empress's coffin was to be transported to the Eastern Mountain Imperial Mausoleum.
Before dawn, Fen Yun led the Fifth Prince to kowtow outside Jiang Xinyue's chambers to express gratitude. Without disturbing her rest, he then led the Fifth Prince to accompany the procession out of the palace.
It was only on this day that Consort De, who had been claiming illness, dared to come out and move about.
