Cui Huaiyin’s words not only enraged Consort Chen, but also made everyone in the hall sit up straight and widen their eyes.
All eyes turned toward Consort Chen, filled with surprise, delight, and suspicion.
The Empress Dowager clearly had not expected this either. She cast Consort Chen a doubtful glance before fixing her gaze on Cui Huaiyin. “Lady Cui, framing an imperial consort is punishable by death!”
Cui Huaiyin replied, “Every word I have said is true.”
“What evidence do you have?” the Empress Dowager demanded.
“I heard that Consort Chen’s name is Chen Ruyun, while my missing maid was named Chen Yunxiang. Names can be changed, and a person’s features can be disguised, but time cannot lie.”
“Seven years ago, the maid who had grown up alongside me, Chen Yunxiang, disappeared. Some said she had fallen off a cliff and died. The day she vanished was the eighth day of the seventh month, seven years ago.”
“The eighth day of the seventh month!” Dantai Ji suddenly spoke, his voice carrying a hint of bewilderment.
“Your Majesty! She is talking nonsense! She is slandering me!” Consort Chen hurriedly rose to her feet, attempting to interrupt what Cui Huaiyin was about to say.
But when the Emperor wanted answers, no one could stop him.
Dantai Ji gave Consort Chen a deep look, then stared intently at Cui Huaiyin. “Why did your maid disappear on the eighth day of the seventh month?”
Cui Huaiyin raised her eyes toward Dantai Ji, then turned to the Empress Dowager seated on the high platform. “That day, I sent her to find someone for me, carrying a token as proof of identity.”
“Who were you looking for?” Dantai Ji asked urgently once more. His entire body leaned forward as he stared fixedly at Cui Huaiyin.
Cui Huaiyin did not meet his eyes. Instead, she calmly began, “Presumably, before I entered the palace, Your Majesty and the Empress Dowager investigated me thoroughly. Not only was I once married, but when I was young, I was defiled by a lecherous man and lost my chastity. That man left me a jade pendant bearing a cloud design as a token and promised that he would come to marry me. But he never appeared, so I had my most trusted maid, Yunxiang, take the token to Qingcui Mountain to look for him. I never expected that Yunxiang would never return. Some said she had fallen from a cliff and been reduced to bones. I went down the mountain to search for her, but I found nothing.”
“But yesterday, I saw Consort Chen.” Cui Huaiyin’s gaze shifted to Consort Chen. Her reddened eyes fixed coldly on her as she continued mockingly, “The moment I first saw Consort Chen, I thought I must have gone blind. How could there be two people in this world who looked so alike? Not only were her appearance and mannerisms identical, even her voice was exactly the same!”
Consort Chen’s trembling hand pointed at Cui Huaiyin as she cried out sharply, “You’re lying! You’re lying!”
“I am certain that you are Yunxiang,” Cui Huaiyin said. “But I do not understand. Why did you fake your death? You won the Emperor’s favor, became his beloved, and were bestowed the title of Consort. Naturally, I would have been happy for you. Happy that you had found someone to spend your life with. I would even have prepared a dowry for you. But I do not understand why you faked your death to escape, and why, now that we have met again, you still want to frame me and have me killed! What happened back then?”
“I ask myself constantly: when you served me at the Cui residence, I never punished or hurt you. I treated you as my sister, called you Sister Yunxiang every day, and told you all my secrets. Why do you insist on sending me to my death now?”
Consort Chen staggered backward several steps. As though she had thought of something, she looked toward the Emperor, then hurriedly ran over and fell to her knees.
“Your Majesty! She is lying! She is lying! I do not know her at all. I have never seen her. She must have learned something somewhere and is saying these things now.”
Yet the Emperor did not spare her even a glance. His usually calm, cold eyes seemed bewitched, fixed intently on Cui Huaiyin as she knelt before him. He leaned forward and asked urgently, “On what day were you violated by that… man? And where did it happen? Answer me!”
He was frantic and flustered, desperate to know the answer.
Cui Huaiyin glanced at him, then respectfully bowed her head. In an unhurried voice, she replied, “To answer Your Majesty, it happened on the second day of the sixth month, seven years ago, in the rear courtyard of Sifang Temple on Qingcui Mountain.”
“It was you, wasn’t it?” Dantai Ji demanded.
Cui Huaiyin lowered her eyes. “I do not know what Your Majesty means. I beg Your Majesty to restore my innocence. I do not wish to die, and I have never committed adultery with Niu Sheng. I truly do not know who Niu Sheng is, nor have I ever deceived Your Majesty.”
A tearing pain spread through Dantai Ji’s chest. He stared at her, nearly unable to speak.
Consort Chen hurriedly cried out from the side, “Your Majesty! It wasn’t her! It was me, Your Majesty! Do not listen to her. How can anything she says be believed? Not a single word she has spoken is true! She was married before, and after being with so many men—”
“Silence!”
Dantai Ji, his entire body radiating fury, raised his hand and slapped Consort Chen across the face.
The blow left Consort Chen dazed. Clutching her cheek, she fell to the floor.
Dantai Ji looked at her with a frosty expression. There was not the slightest trace of affection in his eyes.
“Guards! Go to the Cui residence and find the elders who once saw Chen Yunxiang. Bring them to the palace at once!”
Wang Zhong pressed a hand to his pounding heart and hurriedly answered, “Yes! This servant will go immediately!”
The hall fell into an eerie silence.
Those who understood what was happening held their breath, not daring to make a sound. Those who did not were left utterly bewildered, unable to understand why the Emperor had become so furious after hearing a single statement from Lady Cui, or why he had even struck Consort Chen in public.
After all, Consort Chen had been the Emperor’s most favored consort for years, to the extent that even the Empress had been overshadowed by her.
And now, the Emperor had publicly reprimanded and slapped Consort Chen!
Very few people were capable of seeing through the situation. The Empress Dowager was one of them.
The moment the Emperor heard Lady Cui mention Sifang Temple on Qingcui Mountain, his expression had changed.
The Sifang Temple on Qingcui Mountain… She had heard of that place years ago. It had happened seven years in the past, when the Emperor was still a prince. He had traveled to Huangzhou on behalf of the late Emperor to investigate the local situation and had suppressed the bandits along the way. That was also the year he brought a woman back with him—the very same woman who was now Consort Chen.
She had once investigated the matter. Chen Ruyun had saved her son’s life on Qingcui Mountain in Zhou County, and the two had privately pledged themselves to each other and consummated their relationship.
But since she was her son’s first woman, it would not do to bring her hastily into the prince’s residence. She had therefore sent people to investigate Chen Ruyun’s family background, but they had found nothing.
From her son, she learned that Chen Ruyun had been orphaned from childhood. She was the daughter of a hunter who lived in the mountains. The hunter had already died, leaving her to live alone in the wilderness. Because she rarely ventured down the mountain, she had never even been registered in the household records.
The Empress Dowager had not believed it at the time. However, her son had protected Chen Ruyun fiercely, and the woman herself had seemed honest, so she had not ordered any further investigation.
But today, the doubts that had plagued her for years finally had answers after Lady Cui spoke those words.
No wonder Consort Chen had insisted on targeting Lady Cui and had been so desperate to have her killed.
Chen Ruyun was clearly not some orphaned girl without a household registration. She was a lowborn maid bought by the Cui family to serve them. It was even possible that she had betrayed her former mistress and impersonated Lady Cui!
If that was truly the case, then Consort Chen deserved death a thousand times over!
“Boohoo… Grandmother, what happened to Father? Why did he hit Mother?”
The sudden sound of her eldest granddaughter’s sobbing reached the Empress Dowager’s ears.
She lowered her head and looked at the granddaughter tugging at her sleeve. A flicker of suspicion crossed her eyes.
Then, as though she had remembered something, the displeasure in her eyes was quickly suppressed.
Shengping was indeed the Emperor’s first child. However, she had not been conceived by Consort Chen in Zhou County. Her pregnancy had only been discovered more than a month after they returned to the capital and she entered the prince’s residence.
Shengping was certainly her true granddaughter.
As for her accusation against Lady Cui just now, if it was false, then Consort Chen must have coached the child to say it. Children so young are easily manipulated. She was still little and understood nothing; everything she said must have been taught to her by an adult.
The Empress Dowager took Shengping’s hand and asked her patiently and solemnly, “Grandmother asks you this: You said you saw Lady Cui with Eunuch Niu. Did you truly see it with your own eyes, or did someone force you to say it?”
Shengping lowered her head. She did not answer, but merely sniffled and began to cry.
The Empress Dowager became even more certain of what she had suspected.
It must have been Consort Chen who instigated her!
Before the old servant from the Cui family was summoned, the Emperor questioned Chenxiang, the maid who had entered the palace alongside Lady Cui.
Chenxiang was clearly terrified. The moment she knelt in the hall, she began pleading for mercy. “Your Majesty, Empress Dowager, Empress, please judge this fairly! My mistress could never have consorted with a eunuch! She has been falsely accused. She had only just entered the palace—how could she possibly know Eunuch Niu? I beg Your Majesty and the Empress Dowager to investigate the truth and clear my mistress’s name!”
The Emperor asked, “When did you enter the Cui household?”
Terrified, Chenxiang answered every question he asked. Her forehead remained pressed to the floor as she replied in a trembling voice, “Your Majesty, this servant entered the Cui household in the twenty-third year of Yongwu. I was only ten at the time. My family had fallen on hard times, and I ended up wandering the streets. Fortunately, Miss took a liking to me and brought me into the Cui household. I served her, and only then did my life begin to improve.”
The Emperor asked, “Have you ever seen Chen Yunxiang?”
Chenxiang replied, “Yes! Of course I have! All the maids who serve my mistress were named by Sister Yunxiang, and each of us was given a name containing the character ‘xiang.’ I am Chenxiang, and there is also my younger sister Daoxiang, who remains outside the palace. The two palace maids bestowed upon us by Lanyue Pavilion were also given the names Hexiang and Juxiang by Her Ladyship. Only Sister Yunxiang had a tragic fate—she died at Qingcui Mountain seven years ago. My mistress fell gravely ill after Sister Yunxiang’s death and did not recover for two whole months.”
“Raise your head,” the Emperor ordered.
Only then did Chenxiang tremblingly lift her head and look fearfully at the Emperor.
The Emperor pointed toward someone and said, “Look at this person. Does she seem familiar to you?”
Chenxiang followed the direction of his finger. The woman was dressed in astonishingly fine clothes, but that face…
Chenxiang’s complexion changed drastically. Her shoulders drew taut, and she stared wide-eyed at Consort Chen. Trembling, she raised a hand and stammered, “A ghost… A ghost!”
