Chapter 6

Chapter 6

Lady Chen died only a few days after the Fourth Prince was born. When the report came in, His Majesty happened to be present. He merely said, “How inauspicious.”

Lady Chen was one of those people whose misery had its own hateful causes. Lady Xue disliked her, His Majesty was sick of her, her family background was humble, and neither her looks nor her character were outstanding. Naturally, I had no reason to treat her with special favor. I simply gave her the allowance due to a Promised Attendant.

On the surface, she was not mistreated. Whatever a Promised Attendant ought to have, she had. But in truth, the people below had always been excellent at trimming their sails to the wind. The same bolt of fabric might be divided out, but the favored ones received the most fashionable patterns of the season, while someone like Lady Chen would get old stock-perhaps even cloth that had begun to mildew. I knew all these little tricks, but I had no intention of standing up for her. There was nothing in it for me.

Now that she was gone, in a sense, she had finally been released. Even idling away one’s days in the rear palace required some ability. For those with no one to rely on, simply staying alive was hard.

What I had not expected was for Noble Lady Rou to start quarreling with Attendant Lin again, this time over a single dish. How tiresome.

Ever since Noble Lady Rou became pregnant, she had grown full of herself. I was too lazy to deal with her, so I let her be. But from the looks of it, His Majesty seemed to be growing tired of her antics as well. I imagined it would only last for a while longer. Once the child was born, she would likely fall out of favor too.

I sent people to soothe things over. Fortunately, Attendant Lin still had some sense. As for Noble Lady Rou, she was the same as ever.

Forget it. Once a woman had a child, her ambitions grew. It was just that with her rank, she could not raise her own child. Originally, I had thought that if she behaved herself, I might speak to His Majesty and let her have what she wanted. But seeing her now, I decided against it.

In the tenth month, Attendant Bai gave birth to a princess and was promoted to Talented Lady. There were not many high-ranking consorts in the palace at present, so the child was given to Consort Wen to raise. Consort Wen and Attendant Bai lived in the same palace, and their relationship had always been fairly good.

That left only Noble Lady Rou’s child. This year, there were more children in the palace again. That was a good thing.

Only, I had not expected something to go wrong after all. Noble Lady Rou went into labor at night, but the child she delivered was stillborn, and she herself died from obstructed labor.

Perhaps because the consorts’ deliveries had always gone relatively smoothly, Noble Lady Rou’s case caught me completely off guard. The child had been perfectly fine-how could it simply be gone? His Majesty did not even look, only ordered them to bury the child quickly.

But I felt something was wrong. Earlier, the Imperial Physician had even said Noble Lady Rou’s pregnancy was in good condition.

I ordered my people to investigate carefully. I refused to believe that a perfectly healthy child could just die like that. This was practically a slap in my face.