Chapter 194 - Obscured Identity

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As soon as Lei Xing walked through the doors of the royal study, she saw the Emperor smiling at her. Some of her irritation ebbed as her heart jumped. She returned an awkward smile before lowering her head as she stopped and bowed.

{...As expected, this is still kind of awkward! (⁄⁄>⁄ω⁄ {...Much better...}

The Emperor held her hand and pulled her along back to his throne chair, sat down with her and then hugged her to him and asked, "Did something happen?" It was clear she was not regretting their night together. so he reasoned that something else must have upset her in their time apart.

Lei Xing immediately knit her brows and then sighed, "I met my father..."

"I see..." He now understood the cause of her bad mood, "He asked you to plead on Chen You's behalf..."

Lei Xing nodded with a frown, then she sighed again and looked up at the Emperor and asked, "I know I said to do as you see fit...but...What do you plan to do with her?"

"What would you prefer?" The Emperor asked with a raised eyebrow.

Lei Xing knit her brows and then said, "Well, I honestly don't care about Chen You...But death...I think would be too much...And there are those maids as well, in the end..." She frowned and then said, "They spoke the truth s-"

"When the head makes a mistake, the body suffers. When one meddles in a failed venture, one has to take whatever consequences come with it." The Emperor interjected with a frown.

Lei Xing pursed her lips, "I understand that but...I am not comfortable with someone being punished for the sake of stating true facts on my account...There's also the fact that Chen You could have easily manipulated or even threatened them into aligning with her. They wouldn't have had much of a choice..." Lei Xing said resolutely looking at the Emperor. 

While she did not feel sorry for Chen You, she did feel sorry for the maids. They were simply pawns being used by Chen You. She may not have much of a conscience in the matters of others, she definitely had one where the matters concerned her.  

The Emperor silently scrutinized Lei Xing for a bit and then said, "If they had succeeded, it could have cost you, not only your life, but that of your family's as well...Yet you want to advocate for them?"

Lei Xing frowned, then she lowered her head and quietly said, "...It would weigh on me..."

{...I could probably live with it though, I can...I'm not going get on my knees or anything. I'm not that into sparing contributory factors to my demise -_-)...So if you still want to go ahead and kill them, that's your choice...At least I tried, guess Karma just wasn't on their side today. Not my problem anymore ( ￣^￣)...}

"Do you have some sort of connection with Chen You's personal maid?" The Emperor suddenly asked.

Lei Xing looked up at him with a confused expression, so he expounded, "According to her, she owes you her life...and apparently sought to help you by going to Noble consort Li."

"Oh, her..." Lei Xing unenthusiastically said, "Li Ru did mention that..." She had forgotten about that.

"How do you two know each other?" 

"We don't actually know each other...She was part of that slave group I released before entering the palace, remember the one with Prince Rui...I guess she was trying to repay that favor." Lei Xing explained. 

The Emperor narrowed his eyes. Chun Hua had already mentioned her connection with Lei Xing, but he still wanted to hear it directly from Lei Xing to see if there was more to the story. 

The Emperor did have men following that slave group back then to ensure his plans regarding Prince Rui proceeded smoothly. Unfortunately, according to those men Chun Hua was already part of the group when they commissioned the slave trader. So finding out where and how she joined the group was a complicated matter now.

The Emperor sighed in irritation. He never thought he would come to regret having that slave trader killed. 

Her identity and origins were really too unclear, and her actions incredibly suspicious.

According to the account of the other two maids, it was Chun Hua who led them as they searched that day. Therefore, she led them to that scene. Furthermore, it was this Chun Hua who was the first to mention the incident to Chen You.

If she were truly trying to repay the favor, then she would have kept this secret no matter what. Her behavior was suspicious regardless of how one looked at it. 

But Chun Hua claimed it was simply coincidence that she led them to that scene. She vowed that if she had known that was what awaited them there, then she would have chosen to go the other way. It was all unfortunate coincidence.

As for Chen You's accusations of her being the instigator for the rumors about Lei Xing and Prince Yi's affair. She agreed that she reported to Chen You about the truth regarding their outing and consequent illness. But she had only told Chen You believing that she was only curious and concerned for her cousin. It was only later that she realized that Chen You had twisted and embellished the story and had the rumors spread amongst the maids.

As for the current situation, she claimed that Chen You was too astute and noticed from their tense and quiet demeanor that they were withholding some information. She threatened them and she crumbled out of fear for her life but she immediately regretted it. And so she privately pleaded with Chen You to keep it a secret, but Chen You only got angry and refused till the end. 

And so in her desperation, she ran to Li Ru, who was Lei Xing's close friend to ask her to help. And Li Ru confirmed that. The rest of her statement was also mostly confirmed by the others as true facts.

The other two maids and even others in Chen You's palace confirmed that they heard Chen You angrily shout at Chun Hua, right before she stormed off towards the Empress dowager's palace that night. But none of them were sure of what they were discussing.

Luckily, Chen You was around and willing to shed light on the issue. And she claimed that Chun Hua had wanted her to pass the information to Zhao Lan instead. Chen You then let out a short laugh in self-mockery and then started crying, muttering about how stupid she was and rambling on about how Chun Hua had warned her that this could go wrong and that she should have listened. 

Therefore, there were two different accounts about the topic of their disagreement, and the Emperor felt more inclined to believe Chen You's version. But that was the only thing that was not corroborated in Chun Hua's statement.

And when Chun Hua was confronted with Chen You's version, she confessed but claimed to have only Chen You to do that out of worry for her. She said that even though Chen You insisted on bringing harm to Lei Xing, she still made a promise to Chen You's mother to look out for her. And so she advised Chen You to do that to stay out of the trouble. She then broke out in a cry lamenting about how she had failed in her endeavors and that this was all her fault and pleaded for the Emperor to spare Chen You. 

From that angle, it appeared as if she were simply split between two loyalties. Gratitude to lei Xing and her obligation to Chen You. The Emperor frowned, deep in thought.

{...It's either that or her resolve is much stronger than any pain she could feel and that makes it even more worrisome...}

No matter what torture Chun Hua was faced with, she admitted to nothing more and simply kept pleading for Lei Xing's forgiveness for repaying her good deed with trouble and leniency for Chen You.

Getting rid of Chun Hua was easy, but her allies still remained in the dark and their motivations unclear...Not knowing was most concerning.