“Go and get someone to pass the news to Ling Rui’er,” Mo Xuetong ordered with cold eyes.
The King Yan’s Manor had a person going there, and she went there on behalf of the King Xuan’s Manor. How could no one of the King Chu’s Manor go there? No one could put himself out of it. Since it was a fight for the throne, the livelier, the better. She wanted to give the Empress more room to exert.
Since the Empress wanted to make things big, it was of course better to make things as big and chaos as possible.
Mo Xuetong didn’t stay long. When Mo Ye contacted Mo Feng and explained what was going on, Mo Xuetong took Mo Yu and Mo Ye to the palace, to prevent the Empress taking it as an excuse to scold her. She asked Mo Lan to be in charge of the manor for the time being. If Feng Yuran came back, she could get in touch with Feng Yue around him.
In the spacious, grand hall of the Tianfeng Palace, the Empress was expressionless, sitting high above. You Yue’e had arrived and was kneeling in front of the Empress, sobbing, while telling something in a sad voice. She should be sad, but when Mo Xuetong came in, she looked up at her with hatred. The Empress ordered a maid to take You Yue’e aside and to sit down.
Mo Xuetong stepped forward and knelt down to salute the Empress.
The Empress did not immediately ask her to get up, from the top down to look at her lightly. After a while, she quietly asked, “Consort Xuan, I hear you’re not feeling well these days. What’s wrong with you? If you need any medicine, just let me know. You are young, but you must take good care of yourself, or it will do harm to your child in the future. That would be bad.”
What she said was very polite, but she didn’t mean to let Mo Xuetong up.
The Empress meant to humiliate her.
With King Yan in a series of events, the noble Empress finally could not sit idly by. Even though she was trying not to lose her temper, her seemingly calm eyes were burning with anger.
Mo Xuetong smiled, without revealing any emotion on her face. She said to the Empress in a soft, grateful voice, “I am quite well, thank you, Your Majesty, for your kindness. I just feel a little weak sometimes. Nothing serious. I just need to recuperate. I don’t need precious medicine. Ordinary medicines are okay, and they are prepared in the manor.”
Was she kidding? How dared she use the Empress’ medicine?
“It’s hard for you. I heard that all the women in King Xuan’s Manor’s back yard were released recently. So many women are difficult to manage. It’s a good thing King Xuan hasn’t been fooling around these days and ordering people to take women into your manor,” uttered the Empress, with a contemptuous smile on her lips.
On the one hand, she was saying that King Xuan’s Manor’s back yard was a mess, and Mo Xuetong, King Xuan’s wife, lacked management skills! On the other hand, she was saying that Feng Yuran didn’t act like a prince, and he hadn’t done anything serious.
Even now, the Empress had not forgotten to vilify her and Feng Yuran. Mo Xuetong laughed in her heart, but she looked more respectful on the surface. “Your Majesty, you are right. Looking at this yard full of women, I felt tired for a moment. Fortunately, I only have to manage a manor, unlike you, who had to manage all the women in the palace. That must be more exhausting.”
The edge in her words stiffened the Empress’s smile and made her eyes seethe with anger.
Yan Miao, who was beside her, immediately reached out and pulled at her sleeve. She took deep breaths to control her anger.
“I heard that the people who went to King Yan’s Manor to make trouble were from the Mo Manor, right?” The topic changed. She stared at Mo Xuetong, and the smile on her face suddenly turned cold.
Sitting beside, You Yue’e was wearing a sad look, but a proud smile appeared on the half face that was covered with her handkerchief. She was relieved to learn that the Empress would handle the matter. The Empress was firmly on Feng Yulei’s side. It seemed that she would be fine today. She was nervous for nothing.
The Empress wanted to blame Mo Xuetong for the trouble at the King Yan’s Manor. Her partiality was too direct. Apparently, the Empress thought Mo Xuetong was a weak girl and tried to bully her. She raised her eyes slightly and looked sideways at You Yue’e. Then she lifted the corner of her mouth, and smiled blankly. “Your Majesty, I don’t know what you mean.”
“How dare you, Consort Xuan! For the sake of your personal resentment, you deliberately let the people of the Mo Manor make a scene. Not only did they beat Consort Yan, but they also startled King Yan. Do you know the penalty?” Under the instruction of the Empress, a nanny standing beside her stepped forward and shouted at Mo Xuetong.
She blamed it all on Mo Xuetong.
As the Empress looked at Mo Xuetong kneeling on the ground, a trace of malicious look flashed in her eyes. She did not believe that she could not suppress a girl under 15 years old. She was the master of the harem. The harem and even all the women of Great Qin were under her. Wouldn’t a consort whose parents’ family could not help her give in to her?
If Mo Xuetong gave in a little, it could all be put on her. If she said Mo Xuetong was doing something in it, and would not care about the honor of the royal family, even if the Emperor was protecting King Xuan, he would not be able to protect Mo Xuetong.
“Your Majesty, I don’t know what you mean. Are you satisfied if I am wronged by King Yan’s Manor? I know that you brought up King Yan. He is more like your own son, and King Xuan can’t be compared with him in your heart,” Mo Xuetong said with a sneer, her eyes sharp, with a mocking smile on her lips.
In order to protect King Yan, the Empress spoke such words in front of the people in the hall, regardless of her dignity. Mo Xuetong was not a person who could stand being bullied. She couldn’t confess. If she confessed, the Empress would have reason to beat her to death here.
She spoke in a very direct manner and the Empress’ face turned red. She did not expect that Mo Xuetong, who always looked delicate and gentle, would say such a thing against her. For a moment anger spread across her face. Before the nanny spoke, she snapped, “Is that how you talk to me, Consort Xuan?”
“Your Majesty, how do you think I ought to speak to you? King Yan has wronged me, so I can only bear it and be wronged to death, right? My sister died for no reason at all. Can’t her mother go to ask Consort Yan and cry? Can the Emperor’s son disregard human life? In the palace, those who have done harm to others are forgiven; but I, who have lost a relative, have been falsely accused and made to kneel on the ground. Your Majesty, I will go to His Majesty to defend myself. If His Majesty also thinks I am guilty, I am willing to hang myself in the palace.”
Mo Xuetong was nothing like her usual submissive look. She said decidedly, with a slight sneer. She was still on her knees, but her upper body was straight.
At this point, she knelt on the ground, and You Yue’e sat beside, which was very inappropriate.
As for the guilty person, You Yue’e should kneel to plead guilty, but she, an irrelevant person, was sentenced to kneel.
The Empress had no shame in helping Feng Yulei.
If the Emperor saw this scene, how should the Empress defend!
“You… you…” The Empress didn’t expect Mo Xuetong to be so stubborn. She was so angry that she pointed at Mo Xuetong and her fingers trembled, but she could not speak. To ask the Emperor to reason? Of course she did not dare to go. Even if she had a point now, she was out of it. The Emperor asked her to deal with this matter, she did not deal with Consort Yan, but drag Consort Xuan down. The Emperor would be furious.
“Consort Xuan, how could you say that? Mother is the Empress. How can she favor King Yan? The fact is that Mo Manor’s people came to make trouble, and someone even tried to break into King Yan’s Manor and kill King Yan. If it hadn’t been for the guards there, this time the King Yan’s Manor would have been doomed.”
Finding that the Empress could not resist Mo Xuetong, You Yue’e hurriedly said.
Her words were tactful, as if she were frightened. She brought the topic to the level where someone was killing Feng Yulei. If someone else had said that, it would have been somewhat persuasive, but on Consort Yan’s part, it just made her look suspiciously like she was hiding something.
“Someone tried to kill King Yan?” Mo Xuetong caught the point of You Yue’e’s words and asked.
“Yes; if it hadn’t been for the guards sent by His Majesty, the King Yan’s Manor would have been in danger this time.” You Yue’e replied hurriedly.
“Does it have anything to do with the Mo Manor?”
“Of course. How could this have happened if those people hadn’t come to make trouble? King Yan was so frightened that he still lay in bed and could not get up. So many things happened all at once, I…” You Yue’e looked worried and panicky, as if King Yan really met the assassination. “I don’t know who deliberately brought people to assassinate King Yan on the day the Mo Manor came to make trouble.”
What she said was misleading, making people think that the people who incited the Mo Manor to make trouble must be the people who killed Feng Yulei!
It was scheming and malicious!
As long as Mo Xuetong admitted one thing, the second was naturally her fault.
“Consort Yan, apart from the fact that my fourth sister died unjustly. Even if a common second consort dies, shouldn’t the King Yan’s Manor return justice to her family and make the matter known to the public? Why are all the people involved dead? Consort Yan, you, too, come from a great family. You must have seen how the wives of great families killed the concubines, right? Which of the reasons they used was not false? Can such an excuse really be used as a reason?”
Mo Xuetong coldly smiled and did not excuse, but on the other hand, gave You Yue’e a hard blow.
You Yue’e was born in the Mingguo Manor, so she could be regarded as a daughter of a great family. She had seen back yard fight, of course, many times. How could she not understand it was an excuse when all the people involved were dead? Anyway, Mo Xueqiong was a second consort of the royal family. Why did she die without any explanation?
“As far as I know, in addition to a few old maids who went to your manor this time, they are only young maids and a concubine of the highest status. How did a couple of women get to be the ones who tried to kill King Yan? Could King Yan have been frightened and sick because of some women?” Mo Xuetong did not give You Yue’e a chance to react. She looked at her in the eye and coldly pressed.
King Yan was scared to lie on the bed by a concubine and some maids. Even ordinary men would feel ashamed, not to mention the noble prince. If this got out, Feng Yulei was going be a jerk. Everyone would despise him and wouldn’t support his bid to the throne in the least.
Through a few words, Mo Xuetong refuted You Yue’e until she couldn’t say a word. Her legs seemed to be numb, and she forced herself to stand up, holding on to the step beside her. Then she turned to the Empress up above, and said sadly, “Your Majesty, since you are protecting Consort Yan, I have nothing to say. Now that you want me to kneel, I am willing to kneel in the Qianqing Palace to face His Majesty, asking him to give me and King Xuan justice, so that he will not be implicated by me and become other’s target.”
Now that they were willing to make a fuss, she was not afraid. Just making it as big as possible. Rebellion? Then adding a charge of trying to kill his brother in the struggle for the throne!
At her words, the fury on the Empress’ face miraculously disappeared. There was a flicker of confusion in her eyes. She knew better than anyone that if they did come to the Emperor, she would get nothing out of it.
The Emperor had always had a problem with her because of King Yan. This time he had asked her to deal with the matter of Consort Yan, which was a warning to her. If she really stimulated Mo Xuetong to go to the Qianqing Palace, the Emperor would never spare her, not to mention the arrogant and eccentric King Xuan Feng Yuran.
She had thought that Mo Xuetong could only swallow her pride and obey her orders when she entered her Tianfeng Palace. As long as she suppressed her with her status and pushed everything on her, she could torture Mo Xuetong and even kill her. She would call the shots. Then King Yan could get away with it, and his wife could push it all on Mo Xuetong.
However, the Empress did not expect that Mo Xuetong, who had always been a delicate girl, would suddenly become so rebellious, as if she were someone else. She dared to speak up to the Empress and asked to see the Emperor. She really grasped the Empress’s weakness. The Empress could hardly believe her ears.
