Empress: “Consort Chen specifically sent word instructing everyone in the palace not to visit her. She is ill, and if anyone catches her sickness and then passes it on to one of the princes or young masters, that would be troublesome.”
Consort Yin hurriedly said, “Her Majesty is right. It won’t be too late for us to visit Consort Chen once she has recovered.”
After chatting for a while, the Empress dismissed them all.
Cui Huaiyin had no choice but to return to Lanyue Pavilion.
The doubts in her heart only grew stronger.
The more things were like this, the more suspicious she became.
Perhaps Consort Chen was avoiding her.
After returning to her residence, Cui Huaiyin sat quietly before the table.
When she saw Juxiang come in to serve tea, she asked, “Is Consort Chen’s residence far from Lanyue Pavilion?”
Juxiang was eighteen years old and timid by nature. Cui Huaiyin’s question startled her badly, and she hurriedly replied, “Consort Chen lives in Radiant Glow Palace. It takes at least half an hour to walk there from Lanyue Pavilion.”
Then, in a very soft voice, she asked, “Does Your Ladyship wish to visit Consort Chen?”
Cui Huaiyin gently shook her head and asked, “Have you ever seen Consort Chen?”
Juxiang froze for a moment before answering, “I—I have.”
Cui Huaiyin tightened her grip around the teacup and asked, “Then tell me, is Consort Chen beautiful?”
There was no one else in the room, only Cui Huaiyin and Juxiang. The moment Juxiang heard the question, her body trembled. Clearly frightened, she did not dare answer.
“Don’t be afraid. Everyone in this palace is one of our own,” Cui Huaiyin reassured her.
Only then did Juxiang hesitate before saying, “Consort Chen is… is not as beautiful as Your Ladyship.”
Cui Huaiyin probed, “What about compared to Lady Ma?”
Juxiang answered again, “She cannot compare with Lady Ma either.”
From what she had seen today, among the palace consorts, Lady Ma was the least striking in appearance. Clearly, Consort Chen was no beauty.
The Chen Yunxiang she knew had not been beautiful either.
“Does Consort Chen have a long face or a round one? Are her eyes large? Is her nose straight or flat? Are her lips thin or full?” After asking all these questions, Cui Huaiyin explained, “I’m asking about Consort Chen’s appearance so that if I happen to meet her in the future, I won’t fail to recognize her and offend her.”
After hearing the explanation, Juxiang visibly relaxed. She thought for a moment before answering, “Consort Chen has a long face. Her eyes are narrow and long, like a phoenix’s. Her nose is neither particularly straight nor flat. Her mouth isn’t full, but it isn’t small either.”
Each time Juxiang described another feature of Consort Chen’s appearance, Cui Huaiyin was startled anew. The Consort Chen Juxiang described was no different from the Chen Yunxiang in her memories.
Unfortunately, Cui Huaiyin was a poor artist. If only she had been good at drawing, she could have sketched Chen Yunxiang’s appearance and had someone identify her.
She asked whether any of the palace maids or eunuchs in Lanyue Pavilion who had seen Consort Chen knew how to draw, but unfortunately, none of them did. The plan to identify her through a portrait could only be put aside for now.
Perhaps she needed to meet the Emperor first. Only after winning his favor would she have the power to protect herself in this palace.
From what the palace servants and the Empress had said, the Emperor rarely visited the inner palace. He might not come for the next several days, which meant she had to do something.
Radiant Glow Palace.
Consort Chen’s brows were tightly furrowed as she gazed out the window and said anxiously, “Yu’er, it’s dark now. Should we find some excuse to summon your father here?”
Princess Shengping, Tantai Yu, replied, “It’s already past the proper hour. Father is still handling state affairs and should not return to the inner palace. Even if he went to Lanyue Pavilion today, I can simply send someone to invite him over.”
Consort Chen let out a sigh of relief. “Very well.”
With that, Consort Chen took Princess Shengping’s hand and said gently, “It’s all thanks to you. If not for you back then, how could we have come to enjoy such good days?”
Princess Shengping gave Consort Chen a sweet smile. “You are Yu’er’s mother. Naturally, Yu’er will help you.”
Consort Chen smiled, but a trace of worry flashed through her eyes. After hesitating for a moment, she said, “Cui Huaiyin has entered the palace. If we ever meet, or if she causes your father to grow suspicious, what should we do? Could you use your magic again to…”
Before Consort Chen could finish, Princess Shengping interrupted her.
“Mother! I won’t let her meet Father. Tonight will be her last night alive.”
Consort Chen’s face turned pale. “Do we truly have to kill her?”
Princess Shengping replied, “If she doesn’t die, the three of us will.”
Consort Chen’s body trembled. “No! None of us can afford to die! Cui Huaiyin must die. If she had stayed obediently in Zhou County, none of this would have happened. She brought it upon herself!”
Princess Shengping, Tantai Yu, smiled, but the smile did not reach her eyes.
When had she ever wanted to kill anyone? She was merely being forced into it, with no other choice.
Seven years ago, after the system had exhausted all its energy to alter her father’s perception of her mother’s appearance, it had never appeared again. The system had told her to assist the Purple Star in establishing an imperial legacy, but now she was not even certain who the Purple Star was.
Was it the second prince? The third prince? Or the fourth prince?
She alone knew that this world was a novel, and that she had come here to complete a mission and save her life. She was supposed to assist the Purple Star in achieving great things, but she had not been granted permission to read the entire book and did not know which prince would become the future emperor.
Worse still, she had transmigrated into this world as a fetus. Thanks to the system, she learned that she had been reborn as the daughter of the maidservant serving Noble Consort Cui in the novel.
In the novel The Emperor’s Golden Branches, Noble Consort Cui had been Emperor Dantai Ji’s first woman and his most favored consort. Her mother had merely been a lowly maidservant at Noble Consort Cui’s side. Because her mother was one of Noble Consort Cui’s trusted attendants, the girl in the novel had lived a fairly comfortable life. When she grew up, she married an unambitious palace graduate and spent the rest of her life in an unremarkable fashion.
The system had told her to assist the Purple Star, but she was only a minor figure who could not even touch the hem of the truly powerful. She was also an unwanted woman, unable to sit for the imperial examinations. How could she possibly assist the future emperor?
The only solution she could think of was to impersonate a princess.
Her mother had been a capable and trusted maidservant of Noble Consort Cui in the novel, deeply valued by her mistress. She had served Noble Consort Cui even before the latter entered the palace.
Noble Consort Cui had entered the palace because, when the Emperor was still a prince, he had been ambushed and had shared a night of passion with her. He had fallen in love with her at first sight.
Afterward, the Emperor, who was still a prince at the time, found Noble Consort Cui and brought her to the capital. He even petitioned for her to be made his primary consort. Though the request was not approved and he had to settle for making her his secondary consort, he still doted on her immensely.
In The Emperor’s Golden Branches, Emperor Hong and Noble Consort Cui had a daughter together. She had been conceived the first time the two became intimate and was granted the title Grand Princess Fuxi.
The Emperor adored Princess Fuxi. Within the palace, she acted arrogantly and showed no respect for rank or seniority. Yet Emperor Hong loved her because he loved her mother, and no matter what she did, he continued to shower her with affection.
Unfortunately, she was not Princess Fuxi.
But she wanted to become Grand Princess Fuxi, the girl who possessed the love of everyone under heaven!
She had still been in her mother Chen Yunxiang’s womb at the time, so she exchanged points in the system shop for a cheat that allowed her to communicate with her mother. Step by step, she helped her mother defy fate and change her destiny.
Cui Huaiyin was not yet Noble Consort Cui. She was merely the daughter of a county magistrate, and she had not yet reunited with Emperor Hong. The novel had even mentioned that Cui Huaiyin did not know what Emperor Hong looked like at all.
To her, everything was an opportunity.
Cui Huaiyin did not recognize Emperor Hong, but Emperor Hong recognized the woman from that night. So she had the system alter the appearance of his mother in Emperor Hong’s eyes, making his mother look exactly like the woman who had been intimate with him that night. She then encouraged her mother to impersonate Cui Huaiyin.
Just as she had expected, when Emperor Hong saw her mother, he mistook her for Cui Huaiyin and brought her back to the capital.
Unfortunately, she was never made Princess Fuxi in the end, and when her mother entered the princely residence, she was not made a secondary consort either—only a concubine. Even after Emperor Hong ascended the throne, he never made her mother Noble Consort. But none of that mattered. She had already changed so much. She was Emperor Hong’s eldest princess, incomparably noble.
Naturally, she could assist the future emperor, help him usher in an age of prosperity, and help him become a wise ruler of his generation.
She was so certain that Noble Consort Cui would never give birth to the Purple Star because the novel had made it clear: Noble Consort Cui would never have another child in this lifetime. When Emperor Hong ascended the throne, Noble Consort Cui had once been pregnant, but the child had been stillborn. The illness that followed had left her body damaged, and she could never conceive again.
Given her mother’s beauty and her own identity as her daughter, replacing Noble Consort Cui and her daughter was her only choice.
She had never intended to wipe them out completely. She only wanted Cui Huaiyin and her mother to remain in Zhou County for the rest of their lives. So long as they did not enter the capital, she would spare their lives.
But they had insisted on coming to the capital!
To support the future emperor, she had no choice but to move against them.
The lives of the mother and daughter were as light as goose feathers compared with the peace and prosperity of the future realm.
Six-year-old Shengping looked out the window, her hands clenched into fists, her eyes filled with determination.
……
At the end of the Xu hour.
Many of the palace halls had already extinguished their lamps. Only the Wenyuan Pavilion, where the emperor was reviewing memorials, remained brightly lit.
Wang Zhong pinched himself to fight off his drowsiness, then raised his head and tactfully reminded the emperor, “Your Majesty, it is late. Should you retire for the night?”
Dantai Ji, who had been reviewing a memorial, suddenly paused. He set down his brush and lifted his head. “What time is it?”
Wang Zhong replied, “The Xu hour is nearly over.”
Dantai Ji leaned back and rubbed his aching brows.
Wang Zhong glanced at the exhausted emperor and, bracing himself, asked according to protocol, “Your Majesty, shall we proceed to the rear palace?”
After asking this, Wang Zhong had not expected a reply. He asked every day, but His Majesty always acted as though he had not heard him. If not for the Empress Dowager’s command, he would not have kept asking this question and making His Majesty unhappy.
He was just about to order someone to prepare the bedchamber when a voice suddenly reached his ears.
“If I go now, will I disturb her?”
Wang Zhong had been feeling rather sleepy, but the moment he heard this, all drowsiness vanished.
What had His Majesty just said?!
Who did he mean by “disturb”? Was he referring to the empress or Consort Chen?
Wang Zhong immediately straightened his neck and looked at the emperor, who seemed somewhat conflicted. He hurriedly said, “Of course not! The ladies are surely all waiting for Your Majesty.”
Dantai Ji asked, “Are you certain?”
