Chapter 958 Exchange Conditions
The Empress Dowager said lightly. It seemed that she had never been the sworn enemy of Shangguan Dongzhu, but a stranger.
There was no hatred or familiarity.
After experiencing all of this, there didn’t seem to be so many irreconcilable conflicts between the Empress Dowager and Shangguan Dongzhu.
Now, one was the most powerful woman in the world, and the other became a prisoner.
But in the end, all that was left was sadness for both of them.
After all, they were both merely weapons used by that man.
“That’s right. From the day I have conferred the title of the Empress, I had thought that I would take this position. However, it was all in vain in the end.”
There was regret in Shangguan Dongzhu’s tone, but Lin Mengya thought it sounded more like she was freed from a nightmare.
Perhaps the Shangguan family and the Imperial Palace were just a dream for Shangguan Dongzhu and the Empress Dowager.
A dream, in which they were doomed to go through all of this since they were born.
“You are Shuqing’s child, right?”
Shangguan Dongzhu turned around and looked at Lin Mengya.
Lin Mengya nodded slightly. However, she thought that Shangguan Dongzhu was asking while knowing the answer.
“Hahaha… What a big dream! Just a big dream!”
All of a sudden, Shangguan Dongzhu burst into laughter and started coughing. She did not calm down a little until her face flushed.
However, the light in her eyes was gloomier.
“You can leave now. I want to talk to the child alone.”
The Empress Dowager was worried. After all, she was crystal clear about the grudges between Shangguan Dongzhu and Lin Mengya.
But Lin Mengya had a hunch that the former Empress must know a lot of secrets.
Then she gave the Empress Dowager a reassuring look.
She asked Baisu to escort the Empress Dowager to leave with Jinyue. Soon, only she and Shangguan Dongzhu were left in the room.
Under the dim light in the room, Shangguan Dongzhu’s slightly flushed face looked morbid.
Lin Mengya knew that the medicine that Princess Tiancheng fed her had already done harm to her health.
The reason why Shangguan Dongzhu still looked like a normal person was maybe that the former Empress had remained some means for herself.
“I am envious of your mother.”
Shangguan Dongzhu’s voice was soft and gentle. She seemed to have been back to the memories of her youth.
“When she married your father, I just gave birth to my son. At that time, though I was the empress, I was very lonely. Those noblewomen knew nothing but to please me. Every one of the imperial concubines in the palace coveted my position, so I had to keep fighting and snatching to protect my child, keep my status, and defend my maternal family. It was not until I met your mother that I knew there was another way to live in the world.”
Lin Mengya once heard a saying that all bad people seemed to have their reasons.
However, those reasons were no excuse for them to do bad things.
Perhaps Shangguan Dongzhu was right. For those honors, she had to discard a woman’s timidity, tenderness, and compassion.
But she brought misfortune to others finally.
Thus, she had only herself to blame for becoming what she was now.
“At first, I thought she was beautiful and elegant, but it was a pity that she was not from a noble family. Later, I found that the noble ladies, who used to be proud of their appearance and bearing, were all overshadowed by her dazzling light. I didn’t realize how ridiculous I was until she told me who she was. It turned out that she was a princess. No wonder she was so outstanding that others felt ashamed of themselves in front of her.”
Shangguan Dongzhu seemed to want to pour out all the words she had held back over the years.
Lin Mengya had to listen quietly. Anyway, it was her mother who was being praised. Although she felt a little bored, she could not help but feel a little proud.
“I really want to befriend her. She is so beautiful, kind, and smart as if she could see through all the false in the world. I regarded her as my only best friend. You may not know that I was happier than anyone else when she gave birth to your elder brother. But in the end, she died in my hands.”
Looking at Shangguan Dongzhu laughing and crying from time to time, Lin Mengya could not help feeling a chill.
No matter how sincere Shangguan Dongzhu’s words sounded, Lin Mengya’s mother was murdered by her.
She did not expect that Shangguan Dongzhu would cry her heart out all of a sudden.
There was only deep sadness in her eyes when she looked at Lin Mengya.
“I really didn’t want to kill her, but your mother begged me in tears, saying that she must die. Child, I didn’t mean to hurt you. Before Qing married into our family, I had warned her not to treat you harshly. I even thought about taking your elder brother and you to the palace to raise. But I didn’t expect that Qing… She would be so ruthless. Child, after all, I failed to live up to you.”
Lin Mengya’s eyes were filled with coldness completely.
She curled up her lips into a sneer.
“Not exactly. What you failed to live up to was just my mother’s sincerity to take you as her best friend. Even if you had some kindness to me and my brother when Shangguan Qing married into the family, it had all gone with the ambition that you, your son, and your daughter had, right? You put me into Long Tianhao’s arms when my father was not around. We both know what you were up to. So now, you don’t have to say these hypocritical words for yourself. I just ask you one thing. What are you going to tell me?”
With tears in her eyes, Shangguan Dongzhu looked at the woman in front of her and felt a little strange.
Although they had very similar appearances, the character of the woman before her was much colder than that of her mother.
Shangguan Dongzhu slowly wiped away the tears at the corners of her eyes and thought, “She is right. My token behavior is really ridiculous.”
Slowly, the sadness on her face disappeared, replaced by the indifference and elegance that she had when she was the Empress.
After all, that mask had been maintained for decades, and it could not be taken off anymore.
“I hope you can spare my children. I know that what they did was as inexcusable as mine. But at the end of the day, please keep them alive. You can take away their status, even destroy their faces, but please, let them survive well.”
Lin Mengya knew that the former empress would not tell her of past feuds without cause.
She raised her eyebrows slightly, and the way she looked at Shangguan Dongzhu was with a little ruthlessly mockery.
“What are the conditions? I never wanted to let go of your son and your daughter. If you want them to survive, you should at least offer some worthy conditions for exchange, shouldn’t you?”
Lin Mengya looked very serious. She was not affected by the so-called “the pasts” told by the former empress.
Shangguan Dongzhu sighed and then said faintly.
“You don’t know who the leader of the Candle Dragon Cult is, do you?”
Lin Mengya raised her eyebrow and looked at her. She knew that Shangguan Dongzhu had a connection with Candle Dragon Cult, but even Qinghu didn’t know the leader’s secret, let alone Shangguan Dongzhu, who had been living in the palace all year round. How could she know it?
Shangguan Dongzhu took off an object from her neck and put it on the square table in front of her.
“You must have known that Ru’er forced me to take a lot of medicines. If it were an ordinary person, he or she would have gone crazy because of the medicine. I haven’t gone crazy yet because of this.”
Lin Mengya picked up the object with confusion, noticing that it was a cylinder similar to turquoise.
When she looked at it closer, a delicate fragrance wafted into her nose, immediately clearing her mind.
A name automatically popped up in the Shen Nung system.
“Immortal Pill. It can keep people sane under any circumstances.”
Lin Mengya scratched it lightly with her nails, and soon a scratch appeared on the bead. However, it disappeared very quickly.
According to the music score for the green stringed instruments, this object had an unknown origin and rarely existed in the world.
Even though it was only the size of a fingernail, it could be used for a few centuries without dissipating.
No wonder Shangguan Dongzhu was totally unaffected by the poison.
“This is the Shangguan family’s heirloom. When it was handed down from ancestors, it was slightly larger than this. Later, when I entered the palace, my family was afraid that someone would harm me, so they handed this heirloom to me secretly. Maybe it was for this reason that the Shangguan family members all went crazy. This was the reason why the leader came to me back then.”
Lin Mengya looked at the Immortal Wine in her hand in surprise and thought, “Why does the leader need it while he is fine?”
Following that, Shangguan Dongzhu looked a little hesitant and talked about the meeting between her and the leader.
“It dated back to when I just became the Empress. One day, a maid told me secretly that she had a way to help me retain the emperor’s favor forever. Back then, several imperial concubines attempted to replace me with His Majesty’s favor to them. I agreed because I was at a young age. As expected, half a month later, those women were either crazy or sick, and they could no longer sleep with the Emperor. I tried to find the maid and questioned her if she did it. But I was informed that the maid died a few months ago. I thought that I had met a ghost, so I didn’t tell anyone else. Until one night, the maid showed up in front of me again, and this time, she brought several people with her.”
Shangguan Dongzhu had not become hard-hearted back then.
When the rumored dead maid showed up again, she was freaking out.
However, the maid explained to Shangguan Dongzhu that she was just using this identity to do things, so she had to disguise her look. Shangguan Dongzhu’s fast-beating heart did not calm down a little until then.
Afterward, when Shangguan Dongzhu met the master behind the scenes under the maid’s threat and entice, she was startled.
“That person was wrapped in a black cloak. I didn’t see his face, but I saw his eyes. They were pure black, like the color of hell.”
