Chapter 81
Chapter 81
At first, Su Yiwan was terrified.
She knew better than anyone how powerful the spirit-spring realm was. She had always acted cautiously and never dared let anyone learn of it because she feared she could not protect it.
Yet despite every precaution, her secret had still been exposed.
As she knelt before the emperor and empress, she had already imagined the rest of her life: locked away in some Cold Palace or private estate known only to the emperor, tortured, and used as nothing more than a tool to extract spirit-spring water.
Fortunately, His Majesty and the empress were benevolent. They neither intended to kill her nor treated her harshly.
Trembling with anxiety, she became a newly favored consort–Noble Lady Su, the target of everyone’s jealousy.
Every time she went out, someone approached her, either to flatter and befriend her or to make barbed remarks. The feeling was… actually rather satisfying. Hehe!
After living nervously for several months, she confirmed that her life truly was not in danger. All she had to do was periodically produce spirit-spring water for the people sent by the emperor. Her courage gradually returned.
Then she began to want more.
Because Radiant Consort Yu still outranked her!
She was a Radiant Consort, while Su Yiwan was only a Noble Lady.
Whenever something good entered the palace, Radiant Consort Yu received everything Su Yiwan did, only in greater quantity and of finer quality. Her provisions were essentially modeled on those of the empress dowager at Bixiao Palace and the empress at Qingzheng Hall.
Su Yiwan refused to accept it!
She had contributed the spirit spring to Great Yong and cured the empress’s chronic illness. Why should Lady Yu, who had ranked above her in her previous life, still be allowed to suppress her now?
She cautiously expressed her wishes.
The emperor came to Liuzhu Hall that very day and spoke with her for a while. Before leaving, he bestowed a great heap of rewards.
But there was no promotion, let alone one that placed her above Radiant Consort Yu.
Later, she heard about the floods in Liang and Jin Prefectures.
The chief eunuch at His Majesty’s side personally brought people to deliver rewards, along with a private oral message from the emperor thanking her for warning him of the floods. Because the proper precautions had been taken, casualties were almost negligible.
Su Yiwan’s heart pounded. She had never concerned herself with such matters before. For the first time, she went to the palace library and found records related to past disasters.
Over the past decade and more, floods in the southeast had killed tens of thousands in the single city of Huai’an.
I-I actually saved that many people!
For the next several nights, she even smiled in her sleep.
Less than half a month later, Eunuch Zhao arrived with more rewards.
The official pretext for the rewards was different, but the emperor’s true message was once again delivered in private.
She learned that after the Imperial Medical Bureau studied the spirit spring she had offered, it had used the water to produce health-preserving pills for many elderly officials at court.
Among them was an upright grand tutor who had once received a ceremonial Umbrella of Ten Thousand People, presented by grateful commoners in tribute to a beloved official.
There was also an old general who had commanded armies for thirty years and suffered constantly from old wounds.
His Majesty offered her his most solemn thanks.
In the spring of the fourth year of Shenyou, His Majesty promoted consorts throughout the six palaces.
She advanced from Noble Lady Su to Elegant Consort Su, one of the nine consorts.
But the hateful Radiant Consort Yu advanced too, becoming Noble Consort Yu.
Her rank now stood first beneath the empress, and the empress even had the eldest princess formally take the noble consort as her teacher.
Su Yiwan grumbled inwardly. A teacher for the eldest princess? What could a palace consort like her possibly know?
By now, however, Su Yiwan was not nearly as jealous as before.
She had found a different source of happiness. What did the number of high-ranking consorts in the harem, or who was favored and who was not, have to do with her?
In public, the emperor had always valued her. Who would dare offend her?
She now took the initiative whenever it was time to draw out spirit-spring water.
Back when she alone knew of the spirit spring, there was little she could accomplish while confined deep within the palace. Aside from drinking it to preserve her youth and beauty, this immortal treasure had almost no other use.
But now, her spirit-spring water could be made into all kinds of medicine, used to cultivate superior crops, and save countless people.
In the autumn of Shenyou’s fourth year, a plague erupted in You Prefecture.
The Imperial Medical Bureau urgently dispatched physicians to You Prefecture, and they took some spirit-spring water with them.
News later arrived from You Prefecture that adding spirit-spring water to the medicinal decoction produced exceptional results. Patients who drank it twice a day could stand under their own strength by the next morning.
Spirit-spring water had to be drawn from the realm through thought alone. This time, Su Yiwan nearly worked herself to death.
She slept without waking for three full days.
When she opened her eyes, she found the emperor, empress, and Noble Consort Yu all beside her bed.
Upon seeing her wake, the emperor bowed deeply. “On behalf of the hundreds of thousands of people in You Prefecture, We thank you for saving their lives.”
Su Yiwan stared blankly for a long while. Then she abruptly turned her head and flashed the noble consort a smug, challenging smile.
Hmph. My rank may still be lower than yours, but what I have accomplished in this life is far greater than anything you have done!
Zhu Yin: ?
She blinked and, for once, used her ability to hear every trace of the female lead’s subtle smugness and competitive spirit.
A mischievous thought arose. She patted the female lead’s little head and drawled, “Good. As expected of my excellent junior descendant’s wife.”
Su Yiwan: ???
How could she understand every individual word but not the sentence they formed together?
Bewildered, she looked toward the emperor and empress. The empress smiled gracefully. “Sister Su has only just awakened. Please do not frighten her.”
The empress had addressed Zhu Yin as one would a revered elder!
Then she heard the emperor speak. “I heard Sheng’an painted a picture for you. Even I, her father, have never received one.”
His tone actually sounded jealous.
The emperor had used the same reverential form of address.
Elegant Consort Su, newly awakened from three days of sleep, felt utterly muddled. Perhaps she had opened her eyes the wrong way and was hallucinating.
She simply closed them again and fainted.
.
Nearly two years passed before Zhu Yin realized what the emperor intended.
According to the plot, the empress should have conceived their second child around this time. The plot said it was a boy whose body had already taken shape by the time she miscarried.
For the past two years, the emperor had barely visited the harem. He was either handling state affairs in his own palace or accompanying the empress at Qingzheng Hall.
There had been some gossip at court at first, but as the emperor tightened his command over the government and his authority grew, no minister dared discuss such matters in His Majesty’s presence.
The only person qualified to interfere in her son’s bedchamber affairs was the empress dowager, but she had become ever more obsessed with cultivating the Dao and achieving immortality. She paid no attention whatsoever to such mundane concerns.
Forget the emperor avoiding his harem–if he wanted to cultivate immortality alongside her, she would probably be delighted. In short, she was no help at all.
Su Yiwan secretly came to Zhu Yin, puzzled that the empress had not yet conceived the young prince she was supposed to bear.
When she first learned Zhu Yin’s “true identity,” the thought that she had shown such disrespect to their ancestor Empress Wu frightened her so badly that she dared not leave her residence for days.
Later, when she saw that Zhu Yin was “kind” and put on no airs, she eagerly drew close again.
In her mind, she and Empress Wu were the same kind of person. Both had unusual identities and were consorts in name while having no intimate relationship with the emperor whatsoever.
Whenever the other palace consorts met, they talked about the emperor, his favor, their grievances, and petty incidents in one palace or another. Su Yiwan simply had nothing to say to them.
Zhu Yin had long known that the emperor was deliberately preventing another pregnancy.
Otherwise, given the loving relationship between the emperor and empress, their healthy bodies, and their prime age, another little prince or princess–perhaps two–should have appeared in the palace long ago.
He had probably been frightened by the female lead’s story that “the empress miscarried in her previous life and died of grief.”
If they did not want another child, so be it. Zhu Yin found soft, sweet-smelling human youngsters amusing, but she would never force someone to give birth merely because she wanted a child to play with.
Then the eldest princess reached the age to begin her studies.
On the grounds that “all Our children, male or female, must receive the finest education,” the emperor selected several important ministers to teach the eldest princess.
He also came to Zhu Yin with a separate request: allow the eldest princess to attend her at Ruyi Hall and receive some instruction from her.
His phrasing was tactful, but his meaning was clear. The empress was naturally excellent in every respect, but her nature was a little too gentle. The road Sheng’an would walk was destined to be filled with swords and thorns. He asked Zhu Yin to take the trouble to teach her.