Chapter 4

The empress shot Pei Ruoxue a look of disgust, but her expression and her words told two very different stories.

The moment she opened her mouth, she praised Pei Ruoxue to the skies: the capital’s greatest beauty in her day, accomplished in music, chess, calligraphy, and painting, a match made in heaven for Ran Ling…

Then she turned to me. “What do you think, Princess Consort?”

Ran Ling also looked at me, clearly waiting for the show.

Fine. If they insisted on provoking me, they could have what they wanted.

I rose. “Your Majesty is right. Miss Pei is truly exceptional.”

The empress’s brow relaxed and a smile touched her lips. “You are a sensible girl.”

“Of course, when villains persecuted the Prince of Jin and forced him to flee all the way from the capital to the southern border, he was no longer good enough for Miss Pei.”

The empress looked as if she’d swallowed excrement.

She wanted to strike me. I could tell. But she didn’t dare, because doing so would be as good as admitting she was one of the villains I had mentioned.

All she could do was scold me. “Your husband is a son of the imperial house! How can you speak of him that way?”

“Those aren’t my words. Pei Ruoxue said she couldn’t imagine spending the rest of her life in a savage land among barbarians and brutes, so she decisively abandoned the Prince of Jin.”

Pei Ruoxue looked horrified.

By then, however, I was just getting started.

“Your Majesty, you really can’t blame Miss Pei. You don’t understand how bitter life is in the southern borderlands. Our military funding has been cut year after year. My family stripped the green bricks from our princely estate, and my mother pulled the gold thread from her wedding gown to cover the army’s shortfall! If even we lived like that, what sort of life could Miss Pei have had?”

The empress sat in a silence so profound it seemed endless.

I looked at her expectantly. “Your Majesty, will you repay the missing military funds?”

The empress finally came back to herself. She looked at Ran Ling, then at me.

“We can discuss affairs of state later. We are speaking of a family matter now.”

I rolled my eyes. So all that effort had been for nothing.

It truly had. The empress calmly seized control of the conversation again and turned to Ran Ling.

“Ruoxue was a noble daughter of a distinguished house. You persuaded her to elope with you and ruined her reputation for life. How do you intend to answer for that?”

Ran Ling looked at me expectantly, almost as though the entertainment had ended too soon.

I sat down with a thump.

He stared at me.

“Her Majesty asked you a question,” I said coolly.

Ran Ling had no choice but to rise. “Since the princess consort mentioned the southern frontier’s military budget…”

The empress frowned.

“This son has also commanded troops there for many years.”

Her frown deepened.

“Perhaps Your Majesty could first give us a concrete answer on that matter.”

I looked at him in surprise.

So that was how people in the capital held conversations?

Everyone simply talked about whatever they pleased?