Chapter 296 - Consort Cui Died

When Emperor Xianjia woke up, the crown prince had stayed beside his bed for a whole day, so Empress Su persuaded him to have a rest in the warm chamber in the east. She was physically and mentally exhausted, but she gently walked her husband’s eldest son to the gate and then returned to the bedroom. In only ten minutes, coughs came from the half-hung bed-curtain suddenly…

“Your Majesty?” After Empress Su heard her nephew Su Shaoge’s analysis, she chose to believe him on the spot, yet she still thought that she might be lucky and wouldn’t be exposed as he thought too much.

Fortunately, she was not influenced by sentiment in handling things. These two days, she had practiced more than once what she would look like when Emperor Xianjia woke up, so she wouldn’t be exposed. As she heard the coughs, her heart sank because she wouldn’t be lucky to get away with it, but she showed an overjoyed expression on her face without hesitation. She rushed into the bed-curtain and almost dashed to the bedside, calling repeatedly, “Your Majesty! Your Majesty, are you all right?”

“Water…” Emperor Xianjia had just woken up and looked weak, yet when he opened his eyes and looked at the empress, she still felt indescribable pressure, which made her overjoyed expression almost stiffen.

She hurriedly poured a cup of warm water on the table and served Emperor Xianjia personally when he drank water to moisten his throat. Then she finally thought of calling the servants to come in and take care of the emperor.

Beyond her expectation, after a long time, all people who served the emperor in the Palace of Xuanming had arrived, but Emperor Xianjia didn’t plan to reckon with her at once after he was washed up and ate more than half a bowl of cubilose porridge. He didn’t even show how much he loved the crown prince. He just talked to his children for a while and then stated, “I am tired. It’s fine that the empress is left alone to take care of me. All of you, go back. If there is something, let’s talk about it tomorrow.”

However, after hearing that, Empress Su didn’t feel joyful or honored. After all, it was said that the man rebuked his sons in public and taught his wife in private. Who knew if it was something good after the emperor told her to stay alone with him?

Perhaps Emperor Xianjia planned to privately persuade her to have a “sudden death” in order to protect the dignity of the royal family and remove the impediment for the crown prince.

So after all people left, Empress Su controlled herself and poured a cup of ginseng tea for Emperor Xianjia. Then she rubbed her handkerchief and waited for him to speak.

“I was sick and in danger this time. Thanks for taking care of me, Nianzhen.” Unexpectedly, the emperor received the ginseng tea and then blew it. He took a sip and expressed in a gentle voice, “There must be many things inside and outside these days…Are you tired?”

The empress was uncertain about what he was going to say next, so she replied cautiously, “It’s my job. As you said that, I feel embarrassed.”

“We are a couple. Why did you say something distant?” The emperor shook his head and put the tea on the small table beside the bed. He still stated gently while his eyes became sharp, “Since I took the throne, twenty-one years have passed. I thought that what happened in the past has gone, but unexpectedly, the subterranean flow is turbulent.”

Empress Su thought that he was going to get down to business, so she prepared to cheer up and face the emperor’s rage, yet as she was about to speak, she suddenly felt something wrong, and she was stunned.

When the emperor and empress talked alone at night, in the Xifu Palace, Consort Cui was open-mouthed. “What…what did you say?”

The young eunuch who knelt on the floor looked happy. “Congratulations, Your Highness. His Majesty has woken up. The director said that His Majesty is well now!”

All people knew that Emperor Xianjia favored his eldest son. The crown prince’s position was unstable earlier because the emperor kept silent and was critically ill later. He couldn’t take care of himself, so he naturally didn’t have time to stand up for the crown prince.

Now Emperor Xianjia had recovered, so anybody would think that the luck of Consort Cui and her son came after hardship. Wasn’t it happy news?

So even though all people in the imperial palace were demanded to be dignified and serious, not to show their joy or anger, the young eunuch still looked overjoyed and didn’t hide his plan to ask for rewards. Consort Cui was an old hand in the imperial palace, and she was generous to give rewards when something good happened to her.

“It’s happy news indeed.” However, how could the young eunuch know that if he came earlier, Consort Cui might dance with joy and wouldn’t be stingy to him, who reported the happy news to her. But now?

Consort Cui had just confirmed the plan with others to murder Emperor Xianjia.

However, he came at this hour to report that the emperor had woken up. Empress Su, the emperor’s official wife, was superior to Consort Cui in family background, methods, insight and love with the emperor, yet she feared him a lot, too, let alone Consort Cui.

Consort Cui dared to decide to murder the emperor mainly because he was in an extremely bad condition then and she thought that her ally was exceptionally adept in trickery.

Now the emperor had recovered. At the thought of her arrangements, Consort Cui was on thorns.

How would she remember to give rewards to the young eunuch? She almost struggled and temporized. Soon she found an excuse to tell him to go away and then dismissed the others. When she was left alone in the hall, she weakened and fell on the floor as if she had no bones.

No matter how much Emperor Xianjia favored the crown prince, once he knew that the crown prince’s biological mother had the plan to murder him, would he support this son in taking the throne? It was fine if he didn’t depose the crown prince.

No, he would surely depose the crown prince.

After all, how would Empress Su and Grand Princess Daiguo miss such a good chance?

While thinking, Consort Cui felt suffocated in her chest, and she almost spat blood.

She didn’t know why she was so miserable.

“Fortunately, those people want something from me, and in order to win my trust, they told me earlier about what they feared.” Consort Cui had to comfort herself in this way. “Even if they fail this time, they may not expose me. Perhaps they will frame the empress and Daiguo. Moreover, His Majesty has just woken up. All people inside and outside the Palace of Xuanming are alarmed, so it must be in a mess and nobody has noticed them.”

After the emperor woke up, his safety would be paid more attention to, and then those people might be unable to find a chance to take actions, but Consort Cui just prayed that her plot to murder the emperor wouldn’t be exposed, and it didn’t matter if he would die.

Especially Emperor Xianjia didn’t care about Consort Cui, yet he cared about the crown prince a lot. As long as the emperor didn’t know what she had done and he was fine, it would only benefit the crown prince.

As she reckoned, Consort Cui heaved a sigh of relief.

However, at night, when she turned over in panic, unable to fall asleep till 3’o clock, she suddenly found a figure standing outside the bed-curtain.

Consort Cui was so frightened that she almost screamed automatically, but next second, that person’s flat voice made her almost sink into a coma. “Your Highness, the maid Meilyu has confessed everything. I came to take your life as His Majesty ordered.”

Meilyu was the old maid who had colluded with Consort Cui.

“His…His Majesty…” Consort Cui curled up on the bed and trembled, trying to say something, yet the comer didn’t plan to listen to her begging for mercy or defending herself. After revealing the purpose of his arrival, he lifted the curtain and entered. Then he shook his sleeve and took out a pill with the size of a soybean. Later, he forcefully opened Consort Cui’s mouth and put it in.

As soon as she swallowed the pill, Consort Cui felt severe pain as if it penetrated her intestines and broke her stomach.

However, that person was experienced and instantly removed Consort Cui’s jaw, in case that her scream disturbed the servants guarding outside. Then he pressed Consort Cui’s arms and legs, so the victim wouldn’t make sounds while struggling.

After a long while, feeling that Consort Cui was still, that person loosened his hands and then observed carefully for a moment. As he confirmed that she wasn’t breathing, he put the dead person’s jawbone back. Then he cleaned up the scene of crime and showed that Consort Cui had an attack of her illness at midnight and died before she could cry for help. He checked carefully for a while and didn’t find any careless omission, so he turned around and left.

Although it was late autumn and winter was coming, it was not very cold in the capital city, so some of the windows in the bedroom were opened, and it was convenient for the intruder to come and go.

After he disappeared silently in the darkness at night, all people in the Xifu Palace were still sleeping quietly and calmly, and they even still felt joyful after knowing that Emperor Xianjia had woken up. Nobody knew that the mistress had passed away.

At the moment, in the bedroom of the Palace of Xuanming, the crown prince was kowtowing desperately. “Father, please show mercy! Please, Father!”

The crown prince had never been in such an awkward position. His clothes were messy, and his tears and the mucus of his nose flowed over. There were blood stains on his forehead as he kept kowtowing on the cold and hard floor, but Emperor Xianjia sitting in the master’s seat looked cold and didn’t show mercy. “Enough!”

The emperor coldly looked at his eldest son begging for a long time, and then he finally expressed, “Consort Cui is your biological mother. She tried to murder me. I believe that you are innocent, but do you think that others will believe it? If I don’t deal with her quickly and cover up this issue, do you know what it means to you and the whole Eastern Palace?”

As the emperor said the last words, he almost squeezed them between his teeth.

“I am willing to exchange my title of heir to the throne with my mother’s chance of survival…” Hearing that, the crown prince moved forward on his knees to hug Emperor Xianjia’s leg. Before he finished his words, his father kicked him away. “B**tard! I have made painstaking efforts to educate you for so many years, but because of your disappointing mother, you will…you…”

The emperor was really pretending to be ill in the past half a year, yet he was in poor health in the first place. After he woke up today, he did a lot till now. Moreover, he was irritated by the crown prince, so he felt dizzy and started to stutter. “You… Do you…want to…irritate me to death?”

Seeing that, the crown prince turned pale with fear. “Father!”

After all, he had been brought up by Emperor Xianjia. Even though he cared about his biological mother Consort Cui when his father looked fine, now since Emperor Xianjia was unwell, the crown prince ignored Consort Cui and hurriedly supported the emperor. He caressed his father’s chest and patted his back. After the emperor got better, the crown prince was about to send for the imperial doctors, but his father stopped him feebly. “Idiot! It’s something significant, and I don’t even dare to reveal it to the empress. After you summon the imperial doctors, although I have found excuses to tell the empress to have a rest, how would she not ask if she knows it later? Then if I don’t tell her the truth, she will surely suspect that you have irritated me after doing or saying something.”

Hearing that, the crown prince was stunned and had complex feelings. His biological mother tried every means to kill his father so he could take the throne, yet his father restrained his anger and only dealt with Consort Cui secretly, trying hard to cover it up although he was almost poisoned to death by her. He was an emperor, but he was unwilling to summon the imperial doctors when he was feeling unwell. Why? He did it just for the disappointing crown prince.

Although both of his parents wanted him to take the throne, the crown prince knew that only Emperor Xianjia spared no effort to consider for him. It was more proper to say that Consort Cui was more worried that if her first son failed, she would be implicated and her hope to be honorable depending on her son for many years would be shattered than to say that she loved this son.

After all, even though Consort Cui knew that the crown prince stayed in the Palace of Xuanming tonight, she still tried to murder Emperor Xianjia. Wouldn’t she force Empress Su to bet all on a single throw and kill the crown prince, making Gu Shao and the other officials at the imperial court unable to support the Eastern Palace in ascending the throne?

Although Emperor Xianjia ordered somebody to deal with Consort Cui as soon as Meilyu and the others confessed in order to prevent the news from spreading, without confronting at law court, a lot of evidence had proven that Meilyu and the others didn’t tell a lie. They tried to murder the emperor under Consort Cui’s order.

Moreover, Consort Cui strongly urged them to take actions tonight.

This mother had a plot to kill his father first and even ignored her biological son now?

While thinking, because of the standards of filial piety he had been taught since childhood, the crown prince still couldn’t bear to see his mother being sentenced to death, yet when he looked at Emperor Xianjia’s sick face, he couldn’t say anything to beg for mercy anymore.

He lowered his head deeply. “I am incapable, so you are tired as you worry so much, Father.”

The crown prince had never hated himself so much for his slow reaction to the fight for the title of heir to the throne. If he could be like Emperor Xianjia in youth, no, even as half shrewd as him, he wouldn’t be forced to act with confusion and have an uncertain future after his two younger brothers fought for the title of heir to the throne, and his biological mother wouldn’t become reckless in desperation and make a big mistake. As a result, his father still had to force himself to cheer up and plan for his future after bearing the blow that his concubine tried to kill him.

“It’s said that the father is like a tiger while the son is like a dog, and it must be about Father and me?” The crown prince who was guilty and sorrowful didn’t find the complicated and cruel expression flashing in Emperor Xianjia’s eyes when he patted the back of the young man’s hand to comfort him.