Pei Liang glanced at Su Yue, then at Consort Zhou.
She had no idea how the two of them had somehow arranged to show up here together.
She looked up at the sky. Well, it was about time for the evening meal.
Su Yue could tell from her expression what she was thinking and explained calmly, “My husband simmered some soup and sent me to call Your Highness to dinner.”
“Though the timing may not be ideal, Su Yue thinks it’s rather good. Everyone is here.”
Pei Liang thought to herself, You have quite the misunderstanding about “everyone.” If this were a three-player mahjong game, the mess I’ve made today would be enough to fill two tables.
Consort Zhou picked up where Su Yue left off. “I had dinner prepared, but then I heard that Brother-in-law had personally come to summon Imperial Sister and had been gone for quite some time. I was worried, so I followed him here.”
Consort Zhou was still wearing an apron suitable for cooking. It was one Pei Liang had given him, and it made him look even more like a domestic, capable spouse.
Yet his voice was firm as he continued, “I have been imposing on Imperial Sister’s residence for quite some time now.”
“During that time, I lost control and fell in love with Imperial Sister. My feelings have become impossible to suppress, so I ask Imperial Sister to give me an answer.”
Pei Liang had never imagined that Consort Zhou would say something like that.
Wait—did that mean General Liu’s behavior today was perfectly understandable after all? And Su Yue’s reaction had also caught her completely off guard.
Good things had come too quickly, crashing down on her all at once. Pei Liang even began to wonder whether this was some kind of trial the game had set for her.
The four of them stared at one another. For a moment, she had no idea what to say.
So she said, “Why don’t we eat first?”
The four of them had shared many meals before, but today’s was unusually quiet.
The servants nearby assumed that their masters were angry and became even more cautious.
Pei Liang couldn’t help mentally slapping herself. Was she really this useless?
How had she managed to react to such a wonderful situation as though she had been caught cheating?
She was hopeless. Even if she ate ten Jiang Xuns, she still wouldn’t inherit his talent. Back then, she shouldn’t have blamed Jiang Xun for failing to teach her anything, always making excuses to seduce her and distract her. She hadn’t learned a thing.
How could that have been his fault? What a pity that Jiang Xun had taken those beatings for nothing.
Su Yue glanced at Prince Liang, who looked rather dejected, and found that he had little appetite himself.
He could tell how troubled she was at that moment, but that was precisely one of her virtues.
Normally, she was a person who spoke without restraint. Yet when it came to actually taking action, she became exceedingly hesitant.
She always wanted to let the men benefit first. She pitied them endlessly because of their positions, without realizing that she had already given them more than enough.
Su Yue had never anticipated today’s competition for her, but he wasn’t surprised in the least.
If Fang Jiu had been here as well, there would have been more than three anxious men sitting at the table.
He broke the silence. “Is Your Highness still thinking about what happened earlier?”
“Let’s eat properly first. There’s no hurry. A major decision like this cannot be made overnight. We aren’t in a rush.”
Wonderful. Now it really did feel like a formal tribunal.
Pei Liang sensed that something was wrong. Why was she acting like a woman who had been caught cheating? If she kept hesitating and refusing to make a clean decision, the men would probably look down on her.
The shameless woman immediately found someone else to blame for her inability to remain composed.
It had to be because of those two lunatics, Chu Yebai and Gong Ran, in her previous life. The ease and confidence she had painstakingly developed in the martial-arts world had been completely derailed by their decades of uninterrupted nonsense.
With some difficulty, she asked Su Yue, “You—you’re not supposed to be devoted to your career?”
Su Yue replied calmly, “That doesn’t prevent me from finding a woman. Your Highness is exceptionally handsome, and ordinary women cannot compare. I have no reason to seek someone farther away when you are right here.”
“Besides, Your Highness holds a position of great power and possesses extraordinary bearing. Having you would give me a satisfaction I have never experienced before.”
As he spoke, he revealed a smile as though he had discovered an entirely new world.
“Come to think of it, it is rather strange. In the past, I bound myself to the identity of a man and placed myself in the passive position, feeling ashamed to acknowledge such desires.”
“But if I step outside the constraints of gender, the thought of possessing Your Highness makes me tremble with excitement.”
You’re not right in the head. What happened to that aloof beauty who had been so humiliated in their bridal chamber that he had to undress with his lips gone white from biting them?
Pei Liang stared at Su Yue. Was this the same Lord Su from the original novel, the one who would eventually rise to become a first-rank official despite being a widower?
Then again, people did not change for no reason. Su Yue had always been ambitious, but the people around him had suppressed him too harshly.
To keep his grandmother and mother from becoming wary of his aggressiveness and hunger for power, he had spent years forcing himself to suppress those qualities and learn to accept the values expected of an ordinary man from a respectable household.
But in truth, he had never been willing to live under such restrictions. All that repression had now transformed into the force of his backlash.
After hearing him, Pei Liang genuinely began to wonder whether she would have to rely on selling her looks to get her subordinates to work in the future.
Fang Jiu was like this, and now Su Yue was like this too. Why did every one of them develop improper intentions toward their superior while carrying out their duties?
She turned to Consort Zhou. His expression was calm and composed as well.
When he saw Imperial Sister looking at him, he began, “Recently, I’ve been running around for the sake of my business, and I’ve gained quite a bit of experience.”
Consort Zhou now had quite a few businesses. Pei Liang had given him a starting point and encouraged him to manage them himself.
His talents extended far beyond cooking. He was meticulous and organized, and he possessed a remarkable, almost instinctive gift for business management.
He had not spent this period hidden away in Prince Liang’s residence. Instead, he had been traveling all over the place, enjoying himself immensely.
He continued, “There are plenty of married couples among the common people who divorce for various reasons. I’ve never heard that it prevents a man from marrying again.”
“Am I supposed to spend the rest of my life preserving my chastity for someone like the Second Imperial Daughter, bearing the title of her husband? She isn’t worthy of that.”
“After death, I refuse to enter the underworld as her husband. While alive, I don’t want to have anything to do with her ever again.”
“They say that in a first marriage, one obeys one’s mother, but in a second marriage, one follows one’s own wishes. In this life, I will marry no one but Imperial Sister.”
After Consort Zhou finished speaking, General Liu looked over. He said only one sentence: “Everything I had to say was already said in the study earlier.”
Pei Liang had gone in a circle, yet not one bit of the turmoil in her heart had been resolved.
Thus, when she met with the Empress the following day, she was still worrying over the matter.
She sighed and said to the Empress, who was in unusually good spirits today, “That’s the situation.”
“General Liu aside, Su Yue is destined to become someone extraordinary. And as for my husband, I’m worried that the people of the realm will gossip about him in the future.”
“Why have they suddenly become so utterly reckless, every one of them?”
The Empress stared at her. If circumstances had allowed it, she would have struck Pei Liang on the spot.
“Is that what you came to tell Me? While I am nearing the end of My life, you want Me to listen to a pile of trivial problems concerning your harem?”
Pei Liang said, “I was worried you’d be bored on the road to the underworld, so I brought you some juicy gossip at the last minute. That way, you’ll have something interesting to digest along the way.”
“By the time you’ve finished thinking it over, you’ll have reached the gates of the Underworld. It won’t delay you at all.”
The Empress sneered. “I have never heard that human emperors must personally walk all the way to the gates of the Underworld.”
“But you needn’t concern yourself with that. I have made My own arrangements.”
Pei Liang waved a hand. “Don’t even think about being buried alive as a sacrifice. I’ll burn some extra paper servants for you. Maybe those will actually be useful.”
“And if they aren’t, you’ll have to make do. With all your accomplishments in life, you’ll naturally be a person of great standing once you reach the underworld.”
“Now that you’re on your deathbed, stop committing such sins.”
Yes, the Empress was experiencing a final rally before death. She knew it herself, and so did Pei Liang.
According to the original novel, the Empress would have lived for another two years. But by then, she would only just have dealt with Prince Liang, while the Crown Princess would still be far from meeting her standards for a successor.
The threat of Xianluo Mountain would still have hung over her head, and the Empress would have relied on those concerns to keep herself going.
Now that the Boss was here, the Crown Princess was improving by leaps and bounds every day. Prince Liang’s governing experience and methods were no less impressive than the Empress’s, and she showed none of the greenness of a ruler newly come to power.
Xianluo Mountain had also suffered a grievous blow from Fu Xin’s death. Moreover, for the first time, it had provided warnings about the major natural disasters and wars that would occur over the coming years.
With all that, the Great Liang dynasty could remain stable for at least another century.
Everything she had done in this life was worthy of the people and of her ancestors. She had no regrets left.
When the Empress realized that her time was nearly up, she had her attendant summon Prince Liang. She had intended to give her some instructions in advance.
Instead, she—a dying woman—had been forced to listen to an earful of scandalous tales about men offering themselves to Pei Liang. It made her wish she could wring the girl’s head off.
By then, the Crown Princess, the Second Imperial Daughter, and Consort Yan had all hurried over as well.
The Crown Princess’s face was streaked with tears. The moment she arrived, she knelt by the Empress’s bedside. “Mother Empress—”
The Second Imperial Daughter was even more devastated, looking as though she had been struck by lightning. “Mother Empress, you can’t let anything happen to you!”
The Empress looked at these two miserable creatures who had started mourning the moment they arrived.
Fine. She would rather listen to the Boss prattle on about men offering themselves to her than hear this.
Despite being gravely ill, the Empress’s voice was unusually strong today. The Second Imperial Daughter’s heart sank when she heard it.
The power base she had spent years building had been dismantled almost completely by the Boss. And Fu Jue, with whom she had reached an agreement, was now in charge of Xianluo Mountain—and was entangled with the Boss in a way that was anything but proper.
Once her mother was gone, she would truly have no choice but to live at the Boss’s mercy.
Thus, the Second Imperial Daughter’s tears at that moment were utterly sincere. Anyone who did not know the truth might even have mistaken her for a devoted daughter.
The Empress grew irritated by the sound and snapped, “I’m not dead yet.”
The Second Imperial Daughter and the Crown Princess immediately fell silent, as if someone had sewn their mouths shut.
The Empress’s gaze then settled on Consort Yan.
Consort Yan was unusually quiet today. He was still dressed in flamboyant, eye-catching colors; even with the Emperor gravely ill, he had not given up his vivid crimson attire.
But since entering the hall, he had not said a word. Now, when he saw the Empress looking at him, a mocking expression appeared on his face.
“I know that old ghost has already arranged everything,” he said. “But so be it. I’ve enjoyed everything I wanted to enjoy and done everything I wanted to do in this life. I have no regrets now.”
The Second Imperial Daughter rebuked him. “Father Consort, Mother Empress is in this condition. Why would you say such cruel things?”
Consort Yan let out a cold laugh. “You useless fool. All your life, you’ve been best at licking your mother’s boots. And what good did all that licking get you in the end?”
“Do you think she’s going to add a few extra lines for you to her imperial decree? Move aside. Kneel farther away.”
The Second Imperial Daughter nearly choked on her humiliation. Consort Yan had struck precisely where it hurt.
The Empress sighed and looked at Consort Yan. “I wronged you.”
Consort Yan sneered. “Enough. Where’s the poisoned wine or the silk cord? I’ll wait for you to breathe your last and then be on my way. I’ll have no regrets once I see you dead.”
As he spoke, he seemed unable to contain his anger any longer. He pointed at the Empress and cursed her.
“You’ve done everything you could do, you old relic. So stop putting on that disgusting expression. It makes me sick.”
“Yes, I did have an affair with Prince Liang. Since you already know, there’s no way you’ll forgive me—and I don’t need your magnanimity.”
“But what excuse are you going to give the world after I’m gone? You don’t need to tell me. I can guess it already. ‘The Emperor has passed away. Overcome with grief, the Imperial Consort bravely followed her into death.’ What a touching tale of imperial devotion.”
Consort Yan was genuinely disgusted. He said bluntly, “If you want any peace after death, don’t let me enter your imperial mausoleum with you. You and the former Imperial Consort can bury yourselves together.”
“Even if my ashes are scattered outside and I become a wandering ghost, that would still be better than looking at your old face for all eternity.”
The royal family members in the hall did not dare make a sound.
After hearing Consort Yan’s near-manic outburst, the Empress’s expression did not change in the slightest.
She swept her gaze over the surrounding dutiful sons and granddaughters. Several imperial sons and consorts were waiting outside; they had not entered.
The Empress’s gaze fell on her attendant. The attendant understood at once and brought out a tray.
On it sat a bowl of medicine. The attendant respectfully said, “Consort, this medicine will allow you to pass away peacefully in your sleep, without the slightest pain.”
Consort Yan glanced at the Empress, gave a cold laugh, and lifted the bowl without hesitation, intending to drink it in one go.
But a hand suddenly reached across and stopped him.
He looked up and saw Prince Liang. A trace of warmth entered his heart.
This wandering soul from who-knew-where, who had taken over Prince Liang’s body, had no true affection for him if one looked at the matter closely.
He looked at Prince Liang and said, “Let go. It isn’t worth it. That old woman has always had things her way and cannot tolerate the slightest defiance.”
“She’s probably been enduring your recent actions for a long time. If you refuse to comply with her wishes over this, you may find your position unstable for quite some time.”
“Someone has to take responsibility for this in the end.”
Even he could tell that the soul inside Prince Liang had been replaced. There was no way the old woman had failed to notice.
Yet despite that, the old woman still intended to hand the throne to her. That meant she must truly be satisfied with her.
An imperial consort having an affair with a prince—an authoritarian ruler like the Empress could never simply forgive such a thing. And with the real Prince Liang’s whereabouts unknown, Consort Yan could not escape responsibility.
He did not want the current Prince Liang to be blamed for something that was not her fault, anger the Empress, and ruin her future.
But Prince Liang firmly took the bowl from his hand and poured the medicine into a nearby flowerpot.
She looked helplessly at the Empress. “Didn’t I just say that I won’t tolerate the vile custom of sacrificing people for the dead?”
“I know you care about appearances, Your Majesty. Fine. I’ll burn you plenty of ceremonial guards and attendants, as well as all kinds of beautiful men to serve you in the afterlife. Happy now?”
The Empress grew angry. “This has nothing to do with you. The affair is the greatest humiliation of my life. To die quietly like this is already the greatest dignity I can offer you.”
“Oh, give me a break.” Pei Liang exposed her without the slightest hesitation. “Why don’t you try spending every day and every night staring at the face of the person who slaughtered your entire family?”
“If members of the imperial family were allowed to divorce, this never would have happened. You brought this cuckold’s crown upon yourself.”
She continued, “It’s settled. The first decree I issue after taking the throne will be to allow men in the imperial family to request a divorce.”
As she spoke, she glanced at the Empress, then at the Second Imperial Daughter. It was obvious who she was referring to.
The Second Imperial Daughter was furious. She gave a cold laugh. “That slut of a Crown Princess certainly seems precious.”
Pei Liang immediately changed her mind. “Better yet, let your consort divorce you. Divorce is supposed to mean parting on amicable terms, and you’re not worthy of that.”
“You—”
Pei Liang ignored her and simply looked at the Empress.
The Empress’s gaze darkened as well. It seemed that Prince Liang’s repeated objections to her final wishes had thoroughly infuriated her.
But Pei Liang refused to yield. She continued, “And don’t feel so aggrieved. Your imperial uncle—the one whose husband you forcibly took back then—probably hasn’t even closed his eyes in peace, if we’re keeping such careful score.”
“Why bother keeping such a careful account of royal affairs?”
The Empress was so enraged by the shameless woman that she nearly spat blood.
She did not have much time left, and she did not want to waste her final moments quarreling with this woman.
So she asked, “After I’m gone, if Great Liang is handed over to you, what do you intend to do?”
The Second Imperial Daughter’s eyelid twitched. She stared at the Empress in disbelief.
Wasn’t the Crown Princess supposed to ascend automatically after the Emperor’s death? What was her mother talking about?
She knew the Boss had grown too powerful to control, but shouldn’t their mother take advantage of her lowered guard and wipe out every obstacle to the Crown Princess’s accession?
Yet no one answered her doubts.
Prince Liang had already begun calmly elaborating on her plans.
She first summarized the current level of productivity and technology, declaring that the conditions for industrial development were already ripe.
Next, she laid out a series of five-year and ten-year plans: increasing productivity, reforming the system, investing in education, providing men with employment opportunities to promote gender equality, and determining how the imperial family could gradually relinquish its power from within the new system that was bound to emerge amid the country’s rapid development, thereby avoiding the needless internal strife that would come with an explosion of class tensions.
Pei Liang was well versed in all of this. Her experience in the martial-arts world, as well as in rebuilding civilization after the apocalypse, had long since made such matters second nature to her as a ruler.
After listening to her, the Empress’s emotions went up and down like a roller coaster.
The woman’s vision was so vivid and detailed that it did not sound like the tentative groping of someone feeling her way across a river by stepping on stones. Rather, she seemed to be traveling down a road she had already walked before, with a clear understanding of the scenery along the way and every twist, turn, and obstacle she would encounter.
The Empress was utterly captivated. At one point, she could not help murmuring, “What a pity that I won’t live to see that day.”
A prosperous age of peace, with the people living in abundance—what seemed like a miracle in the present would one day become an ordinary future, woven into the fabric of everyday life.
But when the Boss went on to speak of relinquishing power, even mentioning a system in which someone outside the imperial family would serve as the head of state in any meaningful sense, the Empress frowned.
“You intend to make the imperial family give up its rule?”
How was that any different from the treasonous rebels who overturned dynasties? For a moment, the Empress even wondered whether she had made the wrong choice.
Pei Liang studied her for a while before asking, “What did the ancestors of the Pei family do?”
The Empress was just about to answer when Pei Liang cut her off. “And don’t try to palm off that shamelessly fabricated pedigree on me.”
Whenever a common-born emperor seized the throne, they always liked to invent a respectable ancestry for themselves. The ancestors of the Pei family claimed to be descendants of some renowned family from the previous dynasty who had become scattered and fallen into obscurity.
The Empress reluctantly replied, “They farmed.”
“Then tell me—before the founding ancestor, did any of those forebears, while working the fields, ever imagine ruling the whole world?”
Imagine it? They probably thought emperors used golden hoes to till the land.
Being able to eat their fill every day would already have made them a comfortable household.
The Empress fell silent in thought. She understood what the Boss meant.
For impoverished commoners, having enough to eat was satisfaction enough. But once food, survival, and other basic conditions were secured, new desires would naturally arise.
The wealthy sought to make more money; after making money, they sought to change their family’s status. The powerful and the officials were naturally honored and well provided for, so their ambitions reached even higher.
That was simply human nature. The present level of productivity sustained the present foundations of rule.
But in the future the Boss had described, food and clothing would no longer be people’s foremost concerns. Their spiritual aspirations would inevitably awaken.
The Empress was, after all, the ruler of the realm. She possessed a clear understanding of the essence of governance.
The more she thought about it, the more she realized that it was unavoidable.
Still, it did not matter. No dynasty could truly last for all eternity. If it ended in such a manner, the Pei dynasty would at least have achieved a rare and honorable conclusion in the annals of history.
The Empress shook her head. “Very well. By then, my bones will have long since turned to ash anyway.”
She then ordered that an imperial edict be proclaimed. “Convey my decree: after I am gone, the throne shall pass to Prince Liang.”
Having said that, she glanced at Consort Yan. Before she could finish, the Boss shot back, “Don’t even think about it.”
“He won’t go with you. And with so many young and lively consorts in the harem, I’ll take good care of them for you.”
“You—”
The Empress truly felt that she must have owed this woman something in a past life.
But there was no point dwelling on it now. Given the Boss’s forceful nature, even if she issued the decree by force, things would not end up as she wished.
Third was like a donkey with a rope around its neck, led wherever the Boss wanted. As for Second, if that idiot were capable of accomplishing anything, her husband would not still be living in Prince Liang’s residence.
The Boss did not hide her intentions from her. She said exactly what she meant, and perhaps that was fine too.
The Empress felt both exhausted and strangely relieved as she closed her eyes.
The people around her exchanged glances. For a moment, no one knew whether the Empress had been angered to death by the new emperor.
Even so, everyone followed the tide of events and knelt on the ground, crying out, “Long live Your Majesty! Ten thousand years!”
Hearing the commotion from inside, those outside knew that the Empress had passed away.
At once, cries of mourning rang throughout the hall and beyond. The Second Imperial Daughter was the most genuinely distraught of them all.
Seeing how grief-stricken she was, the Crown Princess revised her opinion of her somewhat.
Through her tears, she urged, “Second Imperial Sister, take care of yourself. Earlier, when I saw you attending on Mother every day, I even suspected that you were putting on an act. I was wrong. Please don’t harm yourself with grief. If Mother were still alive, she would not wish to see this.”
The Second Imperial Daughter began crying even louder.
She was not mourning the death of her mother. She was mourning her own fate.
Nearly driven to collapse by Third’s stupidity, she replied darkly, “Now that Eldest Imperial Sister has ascended the throne, Third’s position as Crown Princess is no longer appropriate.”
“The palace will certainly be in chaos these next few days. If you truly care about Eldest Imperial Sister, Third Sister, then don’t make her worry about you. Move out of the Eastern Palace on your own.”
Third’s eyes lit up at once. “There’s such a good thing as that? Does this mean I won’t have to see Grand Tutor Xu and the others anymore?”
Second Imperial Daughter: “……”
