Chapter 13

Chapter 13

After Little Lady Xue was sent away, Lady Xue recovered very quickly.

I thought her poor health might well have been from anger.

“She was caught between two impossible choices. Of course she was furious,” Wanyi Xiang said.

“In the end, the Noble Consort could not bear to make His Majesty suffer a dilemma,” Jieyu Kang said.

“She could not bear it, perhaps, but did His Majesty not put her in a dilemma all the same?”

“Enough. Both of you, say a little less,” I said.

“Her Majesty the Empress, you truly are a softhearted saint. I told you long ago that we should have taken her life while she was sick, but you just couldn’t bear to do it,” Wanyi Xiang said.

“Some things should not be said carelessly.”

“I’m only saying it in front of us few, not to outsiders. Oh, right-the Second Prince and Third Prince should be starting their studies next year, shouldn’t they?”

Once the conversation turned to children, Jieyu Kang had much more to say. She had never been especially favored, so naturally she treasured her two children like jewels. Wanyi Xiang was the same. Back when she had no child of her own, I had urged her to have one while she was still young. At the time, she had not cared at all, feeling children were things best enjoyed by teasing other people’s. Now that she had given birth herself, all her thoughts were on her own child. Once she began speaking of children, she could talk at great length.

Thinking about it, women were probably all like this. Even Lady Xue, for the sake of the Fourth Prince, had read no small number of medical books. They said a prolonged illness could make one a doctor; for her child, she had worked hard as well.

“Come to think of it, there hasn’t been a single new child born in the palace this year,” Wanyi Xiang said.

“His Majesty is busy and rarely has time.” We were husband and wife, after all. I could hardly say I suspected His Majesty had been slacking off this year and not doing his proper work.

Wanyi Xiang curled her lip. “Your Highness hasn’t seen it. His Majesty’s whole heart is with the Noble Consort. It’s only recently, because of Little Lady Xue, that he no longer even wants to visit the Noble Consort’s palace.”

“The Xue family is rather amusing. Did they really think His Majesty would fall for just anyone they tossed his way?” Jieyu Kang said.

“Exactly. What beauty does the palace not have? It isn’t as if we’re lacking her,” Wanyi Xiang said with some disdain. “She could have been a proper wife, yet insisted on becoming a concubine.”

“You are not to say that again.” I gave Wanyi Xiang a glance. The way she put it-when it came down to it, were not all women of the harem concubines? If someone else heard, she would offend people again.

“Your Highness,” she said, her tone wheedling, “I just can’t stand her. She clearly had a choice, so why become a concubine? The family already has one Noble Consort. Why would she need to?”

“You are mistaken, younger sister. I fear the Xue family feels the Noble Consort is not of one mind with them,” Jieyu Kang said, seeing the matter clearly.

Wanyi Xiang froze. “How could that be? They share the same Xue name, don’t they?”

“Even so, they would still want someone obedient. Mingjia, your family dotes on you, so naturally you do not know that some families are not like that. To them, sons and daughters are merely ladders for climbing higher,” I explained.

Wanyi Xiang was fortunate. She came from a good family, and her household was united. Precisely because of that, she was somewhat naive, and in the beginning, she had dared to oppose Lady Xue head-on. Later, after she learned her lesson, she kept her distance from Lady Xue and avoided His Majesty, and her days became easier. Because her family had never once thought of using someone else to replace her.

But in the harem, girls as fortunate as Wanyi Xiang were very, very few. At the very least, I was not one of them. Every day, I worked hard to survive, holding the Empress’s authority in my hands alone and exhausting my mind over the future of myself and Tun’er. I knew that as long as I remained Empress, I would forever be the person most favored by the elders of my family. But if I made one mistake, there would be no coming back from it, and I would be the quickest to be abandoned.

I did not feel disappointed. It had always been a relationship of mutual benefit. That was why I placed all my hopes and expectations on Tun’er. He was the child bound to me by blood, the child I had risked my life to bear, the child who would never forsake me.

He was my one and only, and I was his one and only.