It was clearly noon, yet the sky outside suddenly grew dark inch by inch.
Dark clouds covered the bright sun, taking away the starlight flickering in Zhao Hua's eyes.
'Rumble'
Thunder roared,
Soon, the sound of scattered raindrops entered the ears.
Xiao Jingheng looked out at the rain hitting the windowsill, then saw the person lying on the couch as usual. In a daze, he recalled the night when Zhao Hua first attended to him.
At that time, she was still an innocent young girl.
Upon hearing the sudden thunder, she would be afraid, timid, and tremble as she crawled into his embrace.
The young girl was so bright and so beautiful that one could not help but want to possess and protect her.
But now,
When the thunder roared again,
Zhao Hua could sit calmly by his side, with no trace of fear on her face, and even a faint, cryptic smile at the corners of her lips.
Xiao Jingheng pondered and shook his head with a bitter smile after a moment:
"I remember when you first entered the palace, you were most afraid of thunderstorms. Now it seems everything has changed."
Zhao Hua gently stroked her cloudy hair and said softly and obediently:
"Your servant still fears thunder and rain, but your servant also often remembers that Xiao Lang once told your servant that with you by your servant's side, your servant need not fear anything."
She pressed the partially opened quilt on Xiao Jingheng's body tighter, and took his cold hand in hers.
"Now that Xiao Lang is here, your servant is naturally not afraid of anything."
But this time, Xiao Jingheng stiffly withdrew his hand from her palm.
"You knew long ago that Jing Yan and you share a blood relation, didn't you?"
Zhao Hua smiled calmly and nodded without evasion.
"Jing Yan is your servant's brother, and the Tianji Office acts only on your servant's orders in secret, merely putting on an act for Xiao Lang. Does Xiao Lang want to ask your servant anything else?"
"The Tianji Office... the Tianji Office... Hahahahaha!"
Xiao Jingheng's gaze grew colder inch by inch, like the burnt-out ashes in a censer.
And when it reached the extreme of coldness, he laughed madly,
"The Empress Dowager... she was scheming against me even until her death."
"The Empress Dowager schemed against you? Then between Xiao Lang and the Empress Dowager, the mother and son, there was no scheming at all?"
Hearing this, Xiao Jingheng fell into a long silence.
Outside, the rain grew heavier.
Zhao Hua got up and closed the lattice window, then extinguished the candles except for one lit on a yellowish pear wood stand.
"The Empress Dowager raised Xiao Lang and treated him and the Fourth Master equally, never mistreating him. But how did Xiao Lang repay the Empress Dowager? You took advantage of the Fourth Master's grave illness under the guise of caring for him, and 'cared for him to death'. Your servant is foolish and does not know if this counts as Xiao Lang's scheming against the Empress Dowager?"
Xiao Jingheng gasped, "In their struggle for power and profit, which prince did not scheme? Even if I schemed against the fourth brother, I was sincere in my dealings with the Empress Dowager!"
"Sincere?" Zhao Hua covered her lips and smiled mockingly, gazing at Xiao Jingheng with taunting eyes.
Xiao Jingheng angrily demanded, "What do you mean by looking at me like that?"
He struggled to get up from the sickbed and grabbed Zhao Hua's wrist, intending to hit her, but was surprised to find his whole body soft and weak, unable to exert any force.
So much so that Zhao Hua only needed a light flick of her sleeve to knock him down, causing him to fall clumsily to the floor.
And next to him was the medicine bowl he had just shattered.
He stared at the deep brown stain of the medicine and finally realized, "This medicine... did Consort Yin tamper with it? Or was it you!?"
He glared fiercely at Zhao Hua.
Zhao Hua did not answer, only smiling at him, raising her delicate brows in a provocative manner.
Enraged, protruding veins appeared on Xiao Jingheng's forehead, and his temples throbbed uncontrollably.
His voice, as if ground by sand and gravel, came out in a rasping roar,
"Tell me, what do you want? I have already given you the most honored position for a woman in this world, and I have also granted you the position of Crown Prince Cheng Yu. What more do you want? Zhao Hua, I have not been lacking in my treatment of you, and you have truly disappointed me!"
The smile on Zhao Hua's face froze for a moment. She lowered her eyelids, looking down at Xiao Jingheng from a high position.
This was also the first time she had looked down on him from the position of a superior,
Seeing him more lowly, more sickening.
"Xiao Lang has not been lacking in his treatment of your servant, so he ordered Cheng Yu to be buried alive and had your servant sent to the Cold Palace. He was not lacking in his treatment of the Imperial Noble Consort, so he killed her entire family, causing all her children to die by unnatural causes. He was not lacking in his treatment of Consort Yin, so he allowed her maternal clan to be completely erased from history's dust, forcibly changing her from a Hu person to a Han person..."
"But when have they ever been sincere towards me?" Xiao Jingheng was caught with his false mask, and instead cried thief first.
"Among the consorts in the harem, which one dare say that she approached me and flattered me without any ulterior motive? Which one was not after my power, which one did not seek to gain benefits from me?
If I were not the emperor today, but merely an ordinary farmer tilling the fields, do you think anyone would still greet me with smiles? Do you think anyone would follow me wholeheartedly? Would you?"
Zhao Hua shook her head firmly, "To be honest, of course your servant would not. But in the past, the Imperial Noble Consort, I can affirm that she would agree without hesitation, whether it be living in luxury or wandering in hardship, as long as you nodded, she would follow you regardless of the future path. Because what she loved was not your imperial power, but you as a person."
"Her?" Xiao Jingheng scoffed coldly. "The former Imperial Noble Consort was close to me, but now that I am ill, how many times has she come to see me?"
Zhao Hua said indifferently, "Why is she unwilling to see you? Don't you know the reason in your heart? To gain something in the end, one must first give. Is this simple principle not understood by Xiao Lang?"
