This time Ning Xueyan accompanied Ao Chenyi to the emperor’s study, where there were many people. Not only the emperor but also the empress, Honored Consort Ya, and Honored Consort Shu were there.
Ning Xueyan went in after Ao Chenyi. The latter didn’t kowtow to the emperor, and she didn’t do it, either, because her hand had been in Ao Chenyi’s hand. Fortunately, the emperor didn’t seem to have the mood to care about it. On his right side, the empress, Honored Consort Ya, and Honored Consort Shu sat according to their status.
Ao Chenyi sat down at his left side, and Ning Xueyan took the seat at the right side of Ao Chenyi. She sat there quietly with her eyelids slightly lowered, looking like a tamed newly married wife.
“Emperor, Prince Yi is already here. Please let Prince Yi help us with the trial. This case can’t be delayed like this. A normal person died, and we should give an explanation to the others in the palace.”
Now, the empress, Honored Consort Ya, and Honored Consort Shu were in charge of the affairs in the inner palace, so it was normal for the three of them to appear here after this incident happened.
Honored Consort Ya looked a little pale. In comparison, Honored Consort Shu looked quite fresh and energetic. What happened in the palace didn’t affect her at all. As for Honored Consort Ya, she was like this probably because what happened outside the palace had something to do with Prince Xiang.
Ning Xueyan glanced at the crowd quietly and then kept drooping her eyelids, but her ears were still working.
“Nonsense! How can we leave it all to Prince Yi? Anyway, this is the affair of the inner palace, and the empress should be the chief judge.” The emperor shook his head and vetoed the proposal directly.
“I’m the chief judge? Your Majesty, the problem is that I haven’t seen Honored Consort Xia yet, so I don’t know how to inquire about it. And I even don’t know whether the maid came out with the order of Honored Consort Xia or not? How can I deal with this matter, Your Majesty?” The empress looked a little aggrieved as if she was really helpless.
“Right, Your Majesty. Sister Xia has not come forward to clarify, and this is really hard to explain. Now all the other sisters in the palace are saying that there’s no need to investigate because there’s no way to do it!”
Honored Consort Shu supported her with an explanation.
“Your Majesty, no matter who comes to investigate this case, the empress or Prince Yi, the most important thing is that Sister Xia can come out to testify and say a few words, making everyone know where the maid was going and what she wanted to do. Only in this way can we continue the investigation. Many people know about the matter that happened that day, and they all say that those who will come to live in the palace in the future should be really careful.”
Honored Consort Ya looked up, frowned, and spoke worriedly. Rarely, the three of them had one voice: they wanted Honored Consort Xia to come forward and make it clear. These words were not offensive. Anyway, the speaker was not saying that Honored Consort Xia was the murderer, but that she should be summoned and asked. However, Honored Consort Xia was mysterious. Then, the small matter had become the focus of the entire imperial palace and made the three women in the palace stand on the same side.
“Your Majesty, your attitude is…” Finally, the case came back to the empress’s hands.
“I’ll ask someone to go to Honored Consort Xia’s palace in a while and bring her senior maid. If you have anything to ask, just ask her. As the senior maid of Honored Consort Xia, she knows everything about Honored Consort Xia’s affairs. It should be her who sent the maid, so it’s better to ask her.”
The emperor frowned. He didn’t want to do the investigation according to this proposal, so he denied it directly.
“Your Majesty, but…” The empress still wanted to say something, but she was interrupted impatiently by the Emperor. “Let’s handle it like this. Empress, you don’t have to be so anxious. It’s just the murder of a palace maid. Maybe it’s an assassin from the outside who accidentally met her and killed her when he came in. From now on, people in all the palaces should be more careful.”
The emperor’s look showed that he didn’t want the empress and her two companions to continue demanding it.
“Yes, Your Majesty.” Although her expression was stiff, the empress nodded. As for Honored Consort Ya and Honored Consort Shu, they lowered their heads at the same time. The atmosphere in the room was a little still. The emperor’s downplaying of Honored Consort Xia’s matter had made these ladies in power unhappy.
“Your Majesty, in fact, this is not difficult. Although Honored Consort Xia doesn’t want to see others, it should be fine for the empress to summon and ask her alone. No matter how you dote on Honored Consort Xia, it’s understandable. But now something has happened, and she has to make an explanation in front of the empress. Otherwise, how could you let the empress convince the public?” Ao Chenyi smiled and said.
Surely, it was the emperor’s business no matter how he doted on Honored Consort Xia. Since she was unwell, she could choose not to attend any palace banquet. That was no problem. But now the problem was that something had happened, and she had to come out. With the empress being the investigator, Honored Consort Xia had to give her face no matter how unwilling to come out she was. Anyway, it was the empress who ruled the imperial harem and was the official wife of the emperor.
Ao Chenyi’s words were reasonable, and things that happened in the palace were never trivial matters. More importantly, if a palace maid could be assassinated now, an imperial concubine or the empress could be assassinated in the future. After that, the assassin might go straight to the bed of the emperor. No matter how the matter was viewed, it was not trivial, and it was not so unimportant as the emperor hinted.
“But Honored Consort Xia is timid by nature…” The emperor frowned. But this was what Ao Chenyi said, so he had to make a reply.
“So what, brother? Are you afraid that the empress will be unfair to Honored Consort Xia?” Ao Chenyi said lazily as he looked at the emperor.
“Don’t worry, Your Majesty. I’ll be a fair judge. If you don’t think I’ll be just if I handle it alone, you can let Sister Honored Consort Ya and Sister Honored Consort Shu be the jury,” the empress said resolutely. This was a big issue about her justice as the head of the imperial harem, so she should never be careless.
Since she had no son, she had a more urgent need to set up a just image in front of the public.
“We are willing to do it with the empress,” Honored Consort Ya and Honored Consort Shu said in unison. Now they stood on the side of the empress unhesitatingly, completely different from their usual style of competing with one another, both openly and secretly. It was not that they had given up their competition, but that they had sensed the threat from Honored Consort Xia. At this time, the emperor was still protecting her. Then, it was clear how much Honored Consort Xia was favored.
If Honored Consort Xia spoke something to the emperor on the bed during their sleep, it was sure to cause a great disturbance.
They both had sons. Previously, they didn’t care whether Honored Consort Xia was favored or not. Anyway, they had sons and didn’t believe a favored consort without a son could do anything. At most, the emperor would care more about her. The so-called care was that he visited her two or three times a month only, but people in the palace thought that she had been a favored consort. The main reason was that it had been so every month since her coming to the palace.
The duration of each stay was not the point, and the point was that the emperor had been visiting there all these years. In a certain period, a few consorts had enjoyed more favor than Honored Consort Xia had, but the latter had been treated like that all these years. This was the real enduring favor.
The empress and the consorts could bear all these things. Now, the most unbearable thing was that for Honored Consort Xia’s good, the emperor even understated the seriousness of such an assassination, which made the three of them feel dangerous. Did it mean that the emperor would not deal with Honored Consort Xia if she assassinated them but failed?
Therefore, they spoke with one voice to deal with Honored Consort Xia first.
After hearing these words, the emperor couldn’t say anything else. He shook his sleeve and said, “Then I agree. Since you all want to ask Honored Consort Xia directly, I’ll let her go to the empress’s palace shortly, but fewer other people should be allowed to stay in the empress’s palace. Honored Consort Xia is timid and has poor health!” After all, this was a matter of the inner palace. In theory, the empress could handle such a thing directly, and there was no need to report to him.
“Honored Consort Xia is timid, but why is she in poor health?” Ning Xueyan’s bright eyes moved under her long eyelashes. She didn’t think that Honored Consort Xia was timid. “How could she be timid? Although Honored Consort Xia talks gently, she doesn’t seem to be in poor health. At least, she looks much healthier than me. The emperor really favors her so much that he has almost confronted the empress, Honored Consort Ya, and Honored Consort Shu!”
Inexplicably, she seemed to feel that something was wrong, and she flapped her long eyelashes twice. “Anyway, I feel this is so strange, but I can’t figure it out at the moment. The emperor seems to be too nice to Honored Consort Xia. Has it reached the degree that he can even ignore his safety?”
Now that the matter was settled, the empress, Honored Consort Ya, and Honored Consort Shu stood up and said, “We’re leaving!”
“You can leave!” the emperor said indifferently.
“Prince Yi’s princess, come with us to my palace, will you?” the empress said politely to Ning Xueyan.
“Empress, you just go yourself. You still have something to do in your place. What does Prince Yi’s princess go there for?” The emperor became stern and glanced at her coldly. “Empress, you don’t have to worry about Prince Yi’s princess!”
He said these words even with a little anger. The empress was puzzled. She looked at the emperor first and then at Ao Chenyi sitting nearby. Seeing his treacherous, cold, and unfathomable eyes, she lowered her head involuntarily and didn’t dare to say anything anymore, but left respectfully.
The empress still remembered that the imperial concubine, who was to be executed by Ao Chenyi back then, begged her and the emperor, but Ao Chenyi ordered people to beat her in front of the emperor and her. She saw the twisted smile on the emperor’s face, but the emperor couldn’t do anything about him. Then, he even had to shout, “Good beating! Good killing!”
That was a show for all the concubines: anyone who dared to disrespect Prince Yi would end up that way.
So, everyone in the palace, including the empress, was quite afraid of Ao Chenyi. No one dared to put on airs in front of him. This could be proven by one thing. Previously, Ning Xueyan was poisoned in the palace of the empress, but when the one who poisoned her heard that Ao Chenyi was coming, she rescued her hurriedly.
When the empress and the two consorts had left, Ao Chenyi said with a small smile, “Emperor, it’s boring for Yan’er to sit here. She likes quietness by nature, so let her go to the Small Jing’an Temple and worship the Buddha. I’ll tell you about the case of Xia Manor further.” The emperor didn’t want Ning Xueyan to go to the hearing with the empress and her companions, and he didn’t want her to get involved in this matter.
“Okay. Someone, take Princess Yi to the Small Jing’an Temple.” As long as Ning Xueyan didn’t go with the empress, the emperor didn’t think there was anything wrong to go to the Small Jing’an Temple. He looked at Ning Xueyan, but he couldn’t see anything dangerous in her, because she had been sitting there quietly in a tamed manner and at first sight, he could conclude that she knew how to behave herself.
The emperor thought, “Maybe she will make me more relieved than Xianyun in serving as Princess Yi! It is much easier to deal with such a weak Princess Yi than handling the ambitious Xianyun.”
