Chapter 5

Chapter 5

My mother brought me into the palace, and we often went to visit the Empress.

She and the Empress had been intimate friends since girlhood. To avoid suspicion, she had previously kept her palace visits infrequent, but now she went quite often.

Mother told me that a person’s health could not collapse all at once.

The Empress likely had some hidden ailment.

Mother found several female physicians among the common people, vetted each of them herself, and then brought one of them to see the Empress.

I sometimes encountered Song Xiuying.

Her marriage to the Crown Prince had not progressed.

Everyone said the Empress did not like Song Xiuying, and even if the Crown Prince liked her, it would not matter. After all, marriage was still a matter of parental command and a matchmaker’s word.

Song Xiuying often had the Crown Prince bring her into the palace to attend to the Empress, hoping to win the Empress over.

When I entered the palace, I sometimes ran into her.

Usually, we would simply nod to each other, and that would be that.

But once, while the Empress and my mother were seeing the female physician, I stepped out for some fresh air, and Song Xiuying followed me.

She called out to me. The expression on her face shifted several times before she finally mustered the courage to say, “Miss Zheng, since you intend to help me and the Crown Prince be together, why are you doing this?”

I said, “What have I done?”

I was not familiar with Song Xiuying.

In my previous life, Li Lin was afraid I would use my status as Crown Princess to pressure her, so he kept her by his side, always accompanying him. Even if I had wanted to make trouble for her, I would not have had the chance, not to mention that I had never had such intentions.

It was only when I was young that I truly disliked her. I kept thinking, why wasn’t the person Li Lin loved me? Why couldn’t it be me? What was so good about her?

But after she died, all of that faded away.

Love was an illusion.

Being alive was what was real.

In this life, I thought I ought to get to know her properly, so I waited for her to voice the doubts in her heart.

If there was something to say, it was better for us to say it face to face.

Song Xiuying said, “The Empress already dislikes me. If you keep appearing before the Empress, she will compare the two of us. She will only like you more and dislike me more, and then the chances of me being with His Highness the Crown Prince will become even slimmer. You speak of helping us, but what you do is another matter entirely. Isn’t that rather hypocritical?”

I felt a little odd.

“You think I’m good?”

A look of resentment rose in her eyes.

She hated me!

I said again, “You… resent me out of envy?”

She flushed with anger and embarrassment.

Then, as if throwing caution to the wind, she said, “So what if I do? I do resent you out of envy.”

“You have power and status. You’re beautiful and talented. Everyone likes you, and everyone thinks I’m beneath you. But so what?”

“His Highness the Crown Prince likes me, and I like His Highness the Crown Prince too. Our feelings are mutual.”

“It isn’t only the most outstanding person who deserves to be liked, nor only the most beautiful person who deserves the Crown Prince’s love.”

“Love doesn’t care about who came first or who came later, nor does it care about wealth or power. It is simply about two people wanting each other.”

“If you want to help me and the Crown Prince, then please do it sincerely. Don’t act under the banner of helping us while doing the opposite. That would only make people look down on you!”