“You!”
“His Majesty the Emperor has arrived——”
The eunuch's announcement outside the door startled Consort De, and a sense of foreboding washed over her.
She crouched down, her hands tightly gripping the shoulders of the third prince, her eyes filled with panic: “Xuan'er, save your mother this once, just this once, and from today onwards, I will never neglect your feelings again, okay?”
The third prince was still unaware of what was happening when he saw his father, the Emperor, storming in with fury in his eyes.
Consort De's gesture of bowing was halfway through when a slap came flying at her. She was sent flying to the side, crashing into a stool, and the pain made her half-deaf for a moment, unable to hear anything.
But soon, the Emperor's thunderous voice echoed: “Consort De has harmed palace servants, been unjust as a mistress, and now seeks to harm the sixth prince. Her crimes are beyond measure. From today, her title is stripped, she will be subjected to punishment in the Brutal Chamber for sixty days, and then demoted to a commoner. She will be sent to the Ancestral Shrine to atone for her sins.”
So, the Emperor has already found out that the Empress's two children were harmed by Consort De, right?
Otherwise, why not the Criminal Servants' Prison? Why not the Palace of Exile? Why not the infamous Alleyway? Why the Ancestral Shrine, which houses the spirit tablets of the late Empress?
Consort De struggled to open her eyes. No! She didn't want to go to the Brutal Chamber. It was dark from morning till night, and a normal person couldn't endure three days in there, let alone sixty. She would go mad.
“Your Majesty, I don't know what you're talking about,” she knelt forward, raising her swollen face. “You know my character, I can't even bear to step on an ant, how could I do those heinous things? Someone must be framing me. Please, Your Majesty, investigate and clear my name.”
“The Empress left something with me before she died, Ning Feixiu. Consort De, you haven't forgotten, have you?”
Consort De's heart skipped a beat. How could she forget?
Ning Feixiu was the third prince's former personal maid, one of her most trusted servants. Even Luyin's position couldn't compare to Ning Feixiu's. That's why the responsibility of caring for the third prince fell on her shoulders.
But that time, in an attempt to frame Jiang Xinyue, she was exposed instead. To cover up the truth, Consort De had Ning Feixiu killed. Her body was found in the Empress's palace, leading everyone to believe that the Empress had poisoned the third prince.
“You… you…”
Consort De pointed at Jiang Xinyue, unable to speak for a moment.
Not just Consort De, but even the Emperor, who had come with her, was shocked. The Empress had left something with Jiang Xinyue before she died?
Why had he never heard of this?
“Your Majesty!”
Jiang Xinyue placed her hand on her forehead and knelt down directly, her voice firm and resolute: “I accuse Consort De and the Duke of Cheng's household of being the masterminds behind the deaths of the late Crown Prince and the second prince. The Empress entrusted me with Ning Feixiu's blood oath before she passed away. Since receiving this blood oath, I have been worried about the safety of the sixth prince every day. But I feared that revealing this blood oath would cause turmoil in both the court and the harem, so I have been hesitating.”
She took the blood oath from Xique's hands and held it above her head: “Your Majesty, I have come to understand today that a fundamentally evil person can never change. For the safety of the fourth prince, fifth prince, and sixth prince, I must expose her true nature. I only hope that Your Majesty's harem will no longer see princes dying unjustly.”
The blood oath detailed how Consort De had bribed those close to the Crown Prince and the second prince, gained their trust, and then led them to their deaths.
Moreover, over the years, the frequent miscarriages and the deaths of newborns in the harem were all the work of Consort De.
The Xuanwu Emperor read the blood oath at a glance, his fingers gripping the paper tightly. His anger was uncontrollable, and he gasped for breath, grabbing Consort De by the throat and lifting her off the ground.
All the curses he wanted to hurl turned into the strength in his hands, squeezing her throat until her face turned purple, her feet kicking wildly in the air.
“Father! Father! Father…”
The third prince finally snapped out of his daze and rushed to the Emperor's feet, kneeling and grabbing his robe: “Father, it's all my fault, it's all my fault. If I had never been born, Mother wouldn't have continued to make mistakes. I beg you, Father… I beg you to spare Mother's life. I am willing to go to the Ancestral Shrine. From today onwards, I will eat vegetarian food and pray, serving the spirit tablets of the Empress. I will atone for her sins. Please, Father, spare her life.”
His head pounded against the ground like a hammer, blood streaming from his forehead.
Consort De's throat made a choking sound, and she was on the verge of fainting.
“Bang!”
The Emperor waved his hand, and Consort De was thrown out, her body smashing into the table and then falling to the ground, where she lay groaning.
The third prince continued to kowtow: “Thank you, Father. Thank you, Imperial Noble Consort. Thank you, Father. Thank you, Imperial Noble Consort…”
"Think carefully," the Xuanwu Emperor's face was cold and stern. "If you choose to exhaust the father-son bond between us today, from now on, I will no longer consider you my child. You can stay with this venomous woman and never dare to dream of things that will never belong to you."
Tears fell from the third prince's eyes: “Father has Jiang Xinyue, the fourth brother, and the sixth brother. Father has many choices. Mother… she has nothing, she only has me. Father… I have never thought of becoming the Crown Prince or the Emperor. I only want to live a peaceful life as a free spirit. Please, Father… grant me this.”
He was already eight years old, no longer the naive child he was two years ago. He knew what he was giving up with these words.
But…
If leaving the palace's turmoil could make his mother let go of her obsession and simply be his mother, then giving up everything was worth it.
But if Consort De was only to be sent to the Ancestral Shrine, why did Jiang Xinyue bring out the blood oath?
Like wildfire that never dies, with the spring breeze, it grows again.
How can one live in peace without eliminating the calamity?
“The third prince has been studying in the princes' quarters for some time now. Have you learned the phrase 'princes who commit crimes are equal to commoners before the law'? Consort De is not only the mastermind behind the deaths of eighteen people in the palace, but she also killed the late Crown Prince and the second prince, as well as most of the pregnant consorts in the palace, causing them to be separated from their children. You plead for her, you atone for her, but what about those she killed? Did they have a chance to beg for mercy?”
“If everyone who killed so many people didn't have to pay with their lives, wouldn't the entire harem fall into chaos?”
If anyone you don't like can be killed without consequence, then the entire harem would be in chaos.
Consort Wen, Low Level Consort Yu, and Noble Consort Ye had already followed Jiang Xinyue's instructions and brought all the consorts who had experienced miscarriages or lost their children to Yanqing Palace.
Hearing the third prince plead for his mother, they all knelt outside the door, crying out their grievances.
