Feng Zhi Wei turned a street corner, where several people were waiting silently with horses. She mounted a horse and headed straight for the palace. She didn’t enter through the magnificent front gate used by the official, but instead, she went to the north gate, which was reserved for coffins and corpses. There, Grand Marshal Lu Rui was personally waiting for her.
“I have to head to the main gate to enter the palace right away. I cannot be absent at a moment like this, the Minister of Rites is still waiting for me.” Looking anxious, Lu Rui didn’t bother with pleasantries but went straight to the point, “I will take you into the palace now. You must bring Consort Mi and Her Highness (He is referring to Zhi Xiao here.) to the main hall. I have already sent someone within the palace to stall Empress Dowager Dong, but I am told that things don’t seem to be going smoothly. Everything depends on you, Marquis Wei. On the Regent side, how do you plan on handling him? Do you have the confidence to delay him for half an hour? Eh? Where is Official Gu?”
He fired off a string of questions in one breath. Feng Zhi Wei smiled and said, “Grand Marshal has too many questions, and now isn’t the time to answer them one by one. In any case, once the bow is drawn, the arrow cannot be turned back. Don’t worry.”
“Alright.” Lu Rui let it go decisively, “Marquis Wei, do according to your will. And rest assured, although I wasn’t able to kill the Regent, but give me half a year and I will definitely take his life. During this half year, I will use my own life to protect Her Highness.”
Feng Zhi Wei gave him a pointed look. This Lu Rui was indeed an intelligent man. He had instantly known her greatest concern. She stayed silent, nodded, and quickly entered the palace through the open gate. Behind the door, there were already two young eunuchs quietly waiting to receive her.
Watching her disappearing figure that exuded an air of calm, Lu Rui felt the nervousness inside him lessened by a few degrees. He glanced up at the sky and saw that it was a quarter past seven. The Regent has already departed from his manor. Due to the enormous size of his process, it would not move very quickly thus should arrive around seven forty-five. The ceremony starts at eight, and his plan is to reveal Gu Zhi Xiao’s identity right at the beginning and already had a group of senior ministers on the ready to immediately pledge allegiance to their new liege. All this would require the Regent to at least be delayed for an hour, but he can’t be the one to do it, and Wei Zhi is already in the palace, so who else could accomplish this? (I think I might have translated in the last post that the Regent was to be delayed for half an hour. Sorry, that was a mistake. In the old days, their half hour was equal to an hour of our modern time since their day was on 12 12-hour day instead of our 24-hour.)
But Wei Zhi had said it, once the bow is drawn, the arrow cannot be turned back, so he could only trust him.
He hastily mounted his horse, turned toward the main gate. Over there, the officials had already begun to gather.
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Feng Zhi Wei entered the palace and quickly put on a eunuch’s robe in a guardroom. All along the way, people arranged by Lu Rui covertly guided her, and handled the wave after wave of questioning. Recently, the Regent’s attention had all been focused on the outside. He suspected that someone might try to attack him, but he never imagined that the one who really could be a threat to him had already long been delivered by Feng Zhi Wei to the most dangerous but also the safest place— the palace.
Arriving at the emperor’s bedchamber, Feng Zhi Wei looked around and nodded with satisfaction —Zong Chen’s shadow guards are present. It seemed their concealment skills had improved. They had managed to stay hidden without being discovered after protecting Zhi Xiao for so many days.
But the imperial sedan parked outside the bedchamber made her narrow her eyes.
This seemed to be the Empress Dowager’s sedan.
The Empress Dowager Dong is here?
Logically speaking, it would be quite normal for her to accompany the emperor to court, but what’s more proper would be for the emperor to go to her palace to pay his respect, then escort the empress to court. Where did something go wrong?
Lowering her head and shrinking her shoulders, she silently followed an inner palace attendant to the emperor’s chambers. Before she even reached the inner hall, she heard the young emperor’s crying and shouting.
“No! No! I want to bring Zhi Xiao with me!”
There were faint sounds of palace maids trying to persuade him, nannies coaxing words, the sounds of the emperor knocking over teacups and papers, shrill voices of eunuchs trying to make sure he was not hurt. In short, it sounded chaotic.
But she did not hear Empress Doawger and Gu Zhi Xiao’s voice.
Feng Zhi Wei’s heart calmed slightly. So it was about not letting Gu Zhi Xiao accompany him to court. But then she immediately frowned— Zhi Xiao had been following the emperor to court lately, just symbolically carrying a small box to show her role as a young palace maid. Even the court official has become used to the sight of Zhi Xiao, so why suddenly forbid her from going on the emperor’s birthday?
She had originally come to check on Zhi Xiao. Ideally, it would be perfect if Zhi Xiao could just follow the emperor to court. Concubine Mi was the one she thought would be difficult to bring out, so she had planned to focus her energy there, but now, it looks like even getting Zhi Xiao out might not be easy.
Taking advantage of the commotion inside the hall, she silently slipped in and huddled crouched in a corner.
It was right around the time when the hall was the most chaotic, so no one noticed her entering. The young emperor was in the middle of running around, and viciously threw a teacup at the nanny who was trying to block him, promptly causing blood to flow from her head.
Zhi Xiao had been quietly holding her cage, playing with the little owl, ignoring everyone else until she suddenly raised her head and took a careful look at her.
Feng Zhi Wei was startled by the child’s sharp sense and quickly made a hand gesture to her. Gu Zhi Xiao gave her another glance and then turned her face away.
Empress Dowager Dong had not noticed any of the movement on this side. She stood in the middle of the hall, her expression dark with a full head of pearls and jade trembling despite there being no wind.
Inside her, a storm was raging in her heart, almost overwhelming her reason. If she hadn’t been trying so hard to control herself, she probably would have completely lost it.
A few days earlier, she had received a secret report from the palace maid watching over the mad Consort Mi that she had been behaving very strangely lately. She is no longer scribbling wildely but suddenly become quiet, yet in the middle of the night she would rise abruptly and pace excitedly.
The report raised her suspicion. Consort Mi had been insane for many years, so what is she up to now?
She ordered her people to increase Consort Mi’s surveillance— no one knew that she had ordered her people to keep a watch on this consort, a woman everyone thought was completely useless and crazy, but she had kept a watch on her for three years without missing a single day.
Without such patience and caution, how could she have survived the treacherous palace or reigned until today as the mother of this empire despite not having any children?
There are still no new developments on Consort Mi’s side, but early this morning, an attendant reported that they had caught a nanny sneaking around outside of Consort Mi’s place. It was one of the emperor’s personal nannies.
She immediately interrogated the woman herself. The old nanny refused to say anything until she ordered her people to fly the nanny’s skin, inch by inch, down to her chest. Only then, did the woman finally scream and confess.
She said there was something she wanted to ask Consort Mi. Back then, when Consort Mi gave birth, the midwife who delivered the baby was a good friend of hers. The friend had told her that Consort Mi’s baby was a daughter, and also said that the child’s eyebrows and eyes resembled Consort Mi. After the midwife disappeared, she kept that secret buried in her heart. Recently, when she saw Marquis Wei of Tiansheng’s adopted daughter, the more she looked, the more the girl reminded her of Consort Mi. That was why she wanted to sneak in and ask Concort Mi….
Cold sweat had instantly drenched her back.
Consort Mi’s daughter!
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