Chapter 4

Chapter 4

Shen Chengyun hated me with a burning passion.

But there was nothing she could do to me.

I stood in her room, looking at her calmly.

“Sister, I know you really want to kill me.”

“But you should also know that I am now capable enough to drag you down to the grave with me.” Shen Chengyun’s chest heaved for a long time before she waved her hand in annoyance. “Get out.”

She sounded tough, but in reality, she had already lost.

Thinking back, the Crown Prince and I truly had a period of wonderful days.

He would read while I practiced calligraphy; he would set riddles and I would solve them. The study was our happiest place. There were many moments when I truly felt…

That we were husband and wife.

For a long time, the Crown Prince did not visit Shen Chengyun, staying every night at my courtyard instead.

Things began to change suddenly.

One day, war broke out at the border.

The warlike and valiant Northern Qiang began to invade our Southern Chen.

Our dynasty had favored civil officials over military ones for a long time. It seemed the generals only needed to show up for morning court and spend their afternoons drinking and boasting; their existence had become almost negligible.

But when war arrived, those neglected generals suddenly became incredibly important.

If not for this, I would have almost forgotten that First Madam’s brother… was our dynasty’s Town-Pacifying General, Peng Liang.

General Peng fought the Northern Qiang at the border for over three months. He lost two cities, but he managed to stabilize the situation, preventing the Northern Qiang’s hooves from trampling the capital. For Southern Chen, this was already an unexpected blessing.

When General Peng returned to the capital to report on his duties, the Old Emperor did not dare treat him lightly, receiving him with full state honors. After some wine, General Peng pointedly asked-

How was his niece, the Crown Princess, faring in the palace?

The Crown Prince was also present at that palace banquet.

After he returned, he never came to my courtyard again. Instead, he went to the Crown Princess’s room.

That was Shen Chengyun’s uncle, not mine.

I looked at the sky, which was so gloomy it looked like it could be wrung for water, and realized that the weather was about to change for my life as well.

Shen Chengyun was pregnant.

Perhaps the fortune teller was right; she was someone born with a blessed countenance. Despite the Crown Prince staying with me for so long, nothing had happened, yet after barely a month with her, such a momentous joy had occurred.

I began to claim illness to avoid visiting Shen Chengyun in person, only sending gifts through others.

It wasn’t that I couldn’t stand to see Shen Chengyun doing well; from beginning to end, I only wanted my own share and never dreamed of monopolizing anything.

It was simply that I knew Shen Chengyun’s character. Now that things were going her way, she would not let me off.

I tried every possible way to avoid meeting her, but in the end, I still couldn’t escape it.

That day, after Shen Chengyun took her fetal-soothing medicine, she started crying out about abdominal pain. Halfway through her cries, she fainted.

Upon hearing the news, the Crown Prince rushed to her room. After a thorough investigation, a small maidservant said timidly:

“I brewed the medicine… No one else was there while I was brewing it, except for the Secondary Consort, who came to lift the lid and ask what was inside.”

I was brought to Shen Chengyun’s room.

As soon as I entered, two strong, sturdy older maids seized me and forced me to my knees.

I looked up at Shen Chengyun. she was reclining on the couch, clutching the Crown Prince’s sleeve piteously as she looked at me with tearful eyes.

“Ruoruo, I have always treated you like my own sister. Why would you want to harm my child?”

What a cliché line.

What terrible acting.

In my heart, I only felt it was ridiculous. Everything was so ridiculous.

I studied Shen Chengyun. She was doing her best to look frail, but she couldn’t hide the healthy glow on her blessed face.

“Sister’s complexion looks quite good,” I said flatly. “How about I take your pulse? Then we’ll know if this abdominal pain is real or fake.”

I stood up to walk toward Shen Chengyun. Her eyes widened-

I was violently shoved to the ground. The back of my head slammed into the corner of a table with a dull thud.

Enduring the pain, I looked up, staring ahead in disbelief.

The person who pushed me was the Crown Prince.

He looked at me with a complex expression, but the words leaving his mouth were incredibly cold.

“How dare a lowly wench speculate about the Crown Princess.”

I froze. In this moment, the Crown Prince was someone I didn’t recognize at all. He was so strange-so foreign that it made my heart ache.

Suddenly, it dawned on me.

Even if Shen Chengyun’s scheme had been ten thousand times more clumsy than it was, it still would have worked.

Because the truth didn’t matter. Only the Crown Prince’s attitude mattered.

To the Crown Prince, the squabbles between his wives were a trivial matter. What he had to hold onto was Shen Chengyun-or rather, the support of Shen Chengyun’s uncle, General Peng. Otherwise, he might not be able to hold onto his position as Crown Prince.

He had spent twelve years in the Laundry Bureau. That was the reason he and I were kindred spirits, but it was also the past that tortured him. He could never go back; he could never return to that state of being neglected and suffering endless grievances.

By comparison, I… was merely a small sacrifice.

“Your Highness, how should we punish her?” Shen Chengyun asked.

The Crown Prince’s voice echoed clearly in the room: “Whatever the Crown Princess says, goes.”

I heard Shen Chengyun laugh with satisfaction.

“Force-feed her the medicine,” she said softly. “Make it so she can never bear children.”

I began to tremble. I looked at the Crown Prince, looking toward my final life-saving straw.

Don’t agree to it. Please, I beg you, don’t agree…

“Listen, Your Highness, the little one is moving.” Shen Chengyun looked at the silent Crown Prince and pulled his hand over, placing it on her bulging abdomen.

“When my uncle came to see me last time, he said this little one is definitely healthy. If it’s a boy, he can follow him into battle in the future to defend our Southern Chen.”

The Crown Prince’s hand rested on Shen Chengyun’s belly. He fell silent for a moment-only a very brief moment.

It was the final struggle of his conscience.

That brief moment passed quickly.

He looked toward the nearby attendants.

“What are you standing around for? Do as the Crown Princess says.”

I didn’t make a sound. The attendants covered my mouth and dragged me out.

I tried to struggle, but I was no match for them. They forced my mouth open and gripped my neck. Scalding medicine was poured down my throat. I coughed and gagged repeatedly, nearly vomiting blood, yet no matter how I tried, I couldn’t spit out the medicine they had forced into me.

Finally, I lost consciousness.

When I woke up, I was in a pitch-black little room. I pried open the window and discovered that I was already out of the Eastern Palace. Judging by the location of the distant shops, this should be an alley in the southwest of the capital, a place where only the lowest dregs of society lived.

An old woman was responsible for watching me. She said the Crown Prince had sent me here to reflect on my mistakes behind closed doors.

I didn’t try to run. I was too weak; my legs felt like they were filled with lead, and I lost all my strength after only a dozen steps.

Besides, even if I did run out, where could I go?

The old woman went to sleep. I sat in the dark, dilapidated courtyard, looking at the moon in the sky.

The Crown Prince wanted me to reflect on my mistakes here, and I truly was reflecting-on whether I had been wrong.

Perhaps I really was wrong. I should have been content with my lowly life. I shouldn’t have hated, I shouldn’t have fought, and I certainly shouldn’t have fantasized about ethereal love or longed for a stable and happy future.

I thought becoming the Crown Prince’s Secondary Consort was revenge against Shen Chengyun, but I hadn’t realized her hidden cards were so strong. My flimsy maneuvers were simply no match for her.

I was the one who had maneuvered myself into this hopeless situation.

It was my fault.

I watched the moon quietly until a dark shadow crashed down in front of me with a thud.

I stood up, dragging my body with great effort. I walked over and looked down at the shadow.

It was a man, tall and sturdy, with a feathered arrow protruding from his chest. Carved into the shaft of the arrow were the markings of the Southern Chen military camp.

Hmm.

Hunted by an elite archer of my Southern Chen.

It seemed he was quite a formidable villain.