Jiang Rao rested her head on Rong Ting's chest, breathing in and out following his heartbeat, her nose becoming more and more sore. Not long after, I fell asleep.

Rong Ting usually sleeps little, and he woke up after an hour and a quarter. If he was the only one on the couch, he would definitely get up at this time, glance at Jiang Rao who was sleeping soundly on his chest, and wait until dusk, when Jiang Rao blinked her eyelashes and looked like she was about to wake up, then he suddenly closed his eyes and his breathing slowed down.

In his mind, he remembered the image of the little girl sleeping on his chest.

Can't bear to.

He really couldn't bear to do it.

Even though he was disgusted that she had no one else in her heart but him, he was still concerned about her family and friends, and he couldn't bear to lock her up in a place where no one could see her except him, as he wished.

I can't bear to see a sad expression on this face.

Jiang Rao woke up, blinked twice in confusion, and realized that she had fallen asleep without knowing it. Her face turned red with shame. Seeing that Rong Ting seemed to be still asleep and his arm around her loosened, she hurriedly took this rare opportunity to get off the bed and walked to the rosewood table.

The medicine brought in by the maid was already cold. The bowl was placed on the table. Jiang Rao walked over and tested the bowl, blaming herself for her sleepiness. She had thought that Rong Ting was too tired, so she let him sleep for a while and woke him up after the medicine was ready. Who would have thought that she would fall asleep too.

Jiang Rao carefully carried the medicine bowl out, wanting to ask the kitchen to boil a new dose of medicine and send it over before Rong Ting woke up.

She went out and took a look at the bed, and saw that Rong Ting had not moved, as if he was still asleep. The pain in her heart reached its peak.

She had never seen him sleep for so long during the day. It seemed that he was really exhausted recently.

Jiang Rao tried to walk lightly. After leaving the house, she looked at the maids cleaning the yard and called one of them over. "Your Highness, did you have a good meal at noon?"

The maid was the one Jiang Rao asked to help leave a message for Rong Ting.

"Your Highness seems to have no appetite, and has barely touched the dishes. He seems to be in a bad mood and looks like he's about to lose his temper..."

Jiang Rao's eyebrows dimmed for a moment, and she stopped and asked seriously, "What dishes will be served for lunch today?"

The little maid thought Jiang Rao was going to blame the kitchen, and was a little frightened for the people in the kitchen, but she answered everything in detail.

After hearing this, Jiang Rao became even more suspicious.

The dishes the maid mentioned were not from the kitchen.

She had never made it before, so she couldn’t remember everything clearly. She couldn’t remember how Rong Ting reacted when she served these dishes before…

She pursed her lips and frowned slightly.

Just now the maid told him that he was going to lose his temper...

Now she could hardly connect her temper with Rong Ting.

Could it be that the maid made a mistake?

…

Ten days later, Shuxiang Palace sent a letter to Jiang Rao, and Concubine Yun summoned Jiang Rao to the palace to see her.

After Jiang Rao arrived at Shuxiang Palace, she saw that Concubine Yun was wearing an extremely plain bean green robe with almost no makeup on her body, completely different from her usual extravagant and ostentatious style.

Emperor Zhaowu was seriously ill, and Concubine Yun also began to like plain colors.

She went out with a plain face every day, dressed simply, never argued or fought with the concubines, and always had a frown on her face.

A Buddha statue was enshrined in the Shuxiang Palace, and Concubine Yun recited sutras and prayed for Emperor Zhaowu every day.

Jiang Rao burned three incense sticks in front of the Buddha statue, prayed for Emperor Zhaowu, and entered the inner room with Concubine Yun.

She took the teacup handed to her by Concubine Yun and asked, "When did my aunt enshrine the Buddha statue in the palace?"

Concubine Yun said tiredly, "Nowadays, many ladies in the palace have enshrined Buddha statues in their own palaces. I shouldn't lag behind them."

"How is the emperor's illness?"

Concubine Yun looked nonchalant and said, "Life and death are determined by fate."

She had a calm expression on her face and could still pretend to be a little heartbroken in public, but now that she was alone with Jiang Rao, she was unwilling to pretend even a bit of sadness.

She knew her own identity, but she wanted to serve the emperor with her beauty, so she didn't care whether Emperor Zhaowu's feelings for her were true or false. She didn't care much.

Even if Emperor Zhaowu handed the Phoenix Seal to her...she deserved it. He ignored her for half a year, and she shed many tears pretending to be sad. She also had a share of the credit for him being able to deceive the Queen.

She had been accustomed to hearing sweet words from men when she was in the boudoir, but she was not a girl of thirteen or fourteen years old, so how could she be easily deceived by sweet talk?

She was fed up with the fighting and strife for so many years. She used to worry that the Seventeenth Prince would succeed to the throne, but now looking at the situation, the throne would definitely not fall into the hands of the Seventeenth Prince. As long as the Seventeenth Prince was not the one who succeeded to the throne, her future life would not be too difficult.

If Emperor Zhaowu really passed away one day, she would finally be able to live a life of doing nothing and finally breathe a sigh of relief.

It was just that she couldn't say such outrageous words even if Jiang Rao was in front of her. If someone really heard it, it would not only bring disaster to herself, but also to Jiang Rao. At most, she could say "life and death are determined by fate".

The words "life and death are determined by fate" have made Jiang Rao understand Concubine Yun's attitude clearly.

She knew before that her aunt was not really concerned about the emperor, but even if an unrelated person died, her heart would inevitably be touched, let alone the person who had been by her side for so many years.

But my aunt is so cold and indifferent, which shows that she is really unhappy living in the palace.

Jiang Rao put down the teacup in her hand and held Concubine Yun's hand, "Auntie, it's lonely to recite the sutras alone. Why don't I go to the palace to accompany you these few days?"

Concubine Yun pulled her hand back, smiled faintly, and said, "You are newly married now. If you stay with me, won't your husband send people to look for you every day?"

She added, "Before you got married, it would have been fine for you to stay with me for a while, but now that you're married, it's totally inappropriate for me to keep you here any longer."

Jiang Rao lowered her head and took a sip of tea.

The rest days granted for the wedding were gone in the blink of an eye, and it had been several days since Rong Ting returned to the court.

She had wanted to go to the palace to see her aunt a few days ago, but her illness kept recurring, with fits of coughing and headaches, and she couldn't leave at all.

Seeing that he seemed to be better today, she got the opportunity to enter the palace today.

But she couldn't tell whether the disease would relapse in the future, so she thought about going back early.

Concubine Yun saw Jiang Rao lowering his head, wondering what he was thinking. She looked up and down at Jiang Rao several times, then suddenly leaned close to his ear and asked mysteriously, "Can you use the book I gave you earlier?"

Jiang Rao almost spit out all the tea she had drunk.

She remembered all the nonsense that the nanny assigned to her by Concubine Yun said, but she remembered everything in her booklet as if it were fresh in her memory.

She felt ashamed just thinking about the picture in the disaster avoidance map.

Her aunt had the nerve to hand such a hot thing to her.

Jiang Rao took a deep breath and said calmly, "Throw it away."

"Oh——" Concubine Yun said in a long tone, "It's useless?"

"It's no use."

Concubine Yun smiled when she heard this, her round fan covering her face, her smile half-revealed, "I thought the Ninth Prince had a leg injury, so I finally found that book. Since you said it was useless, it seems like he has recovered well?"

Jiang Rao was extremely ashamed and angry. Every picture in the booklet showed a woman on top... Her face became extremely hot. She pushed the steaming teacup on the table towards Concubine Yun again and again, otherwise she would find it difficult to breathe if the hot steam touched her face.

In the shadow of the teacup, you can see how red her face is.

Concubine Yun always liked to make Jiang Rao blush. Her eyes curved up and never lowered. "Since he is agile, I will find some other books for you another day."

Jiang Rao choked a few times. Even when she returned to the Ning'an Marquis's Mansion, her mother had never caught her and asked her this question.

She shook her head violently, "Aunt, please don't ask any more questions."

Concubine Yun didn't dare tease her too much. She fanned the round fan in her hand and said with peace of mind, "Looking at his appearance, he should be kind to me."

Although she herself was not very blessed, she had a good marriage. Seeing her niece, whom she treated like a daughter, having a happy marriage, she felt at peace.

When Rong Ting changed to sitting in a wheelchair before, although she had some concerns, she never tried to stop it. As long as it could make Jiang Rao happy and the man did not have any major problems with his character, it would be a good marriage that she approved of.

Jiang Rao lowered her head shyly and said nothing.

Probably her only dissatisfaction with him was about this kind of thing.

But she was willing to do so, so it wasn't that she was really dissatisfied.

As Concubine Yun was smiling, her expression suddenly turned cold.

"I was so happy to see you that I almost forgot."

She held the thin fan with her slender fingers, and the strength of her fingertips seemed to be able to pierce the paper-thin fan. "What happened to those villains you met when you came back from the Shangsi Festival?"

Jiang Rao knew that this matter would be brought up by Concubine Yun sooner or later, and she had already prepared an excuse in her mind.

The situation this time was somewhat different from when she returned to the Ning'an Marquis's Mansion. At that time, she was afraid that her parents would worry too much, so she did not mention the Seventeenth Prince in front of them.

Now that the Seventeenth Prince was being interrogated by Qiao Zhi, there was no need to hide the matter any longer. Jiang Rao told him everything. Concubine Yun said, "You should go look for Miss Hu. Given how proud she is of her kung fu, she must be a little angry that she didn't come with you."

Jiang Rao nodded.

"You are really lucky." Concubine Yun raised her hand and tapped Jiang Rao's forehead, "If you hadn't been accompanied by guards, wouldn't something have happened?"

Jiang Rao nodded.

She didn't mention those blue-clad secret guards at all.

Her intuition still remained unsolved.

After returning to the Ning'an Marquis' Mansion, she asked Jiang Jinxing who the black shadow he saw in Qiliu Town was. She had a guess in her mind.

But I never like to check it clearly.

If she had been around since earlier, she would have followed

So many people... After what happened at the foot of Raogu Mountain, she naturally wouldn't think this was a useless arrangement, but she didn't understand why Rong Ting had never mentioned it to her.

If she and he were just an ordinary acquaintance, she would not have had those dreams that predicted what would happen next. She had never dreamed of herself living under his airtight control, so she would not be so entangled.

Jiang Rao didn't want to think too much about this matter, so she deliberately changed the subject and asked Concubine Yun, "Is Jinxiu Palace doing well now?"

Concubine Yun laughed coldly, "How can the Queen be content?"

"The emperor took into consideration the reputation of the Xu family in Jinling, and although he had imprisoned her, he was reluctant to depose her. This time the seventeenth prince made a mistake, and the queen tried several times to come out of Jinxiu Palace and meet the emperor, but even if the emperor was not ill, I'm afraid he would not want to see her."

"I think that from the moment the emperor pretended to be affectionate and deceived the queen, he had already thought about deposing her."

"There must be a suitable excuse to stop the gossips inside and outside the court from being accused of being incompetent and unjust. Empress Jiahe has always had a good reputation praised by people since she was a boudoir girl. Even though she lost her manners when the Qiang envoys came to pay tribute last time, there were still people who supported her."

Concubine Yun pointed at herself and said casually, "As for me, I acted flamboyantly when I was still a boudoir student and was not liked by others. After entering the palace, I was only known as a troublemaker and a demon concubine. This time, the Empress gave the Phoenix Seal to me, and His Majesty fell ill not long after. I'm afraid many people are saying that this is a punishment from God for favoring a demon concubine like me."

Jiang Rao felt a little embarrassed. There was indeed such a rumor circulating on the street.

The rumor spread and tarnished her aunt's reputation to an extremely bad level.

Even if she asked someone to clarify, she could not restrain those who spread rumors.

Jiang Rao had a slightly annoyed look on her face, and her heart suddenly skipped a beat.

Her mood changed year by year. Knowing what Rong Ting had gone through over the years, and thinking back to when she first dreamed about the future, she had viewed him so badly, and suddenly she felt ashamed of herself.

To this day she still thinks he is wrong.

She just... began to understand why he was like this.

She had lived a smooth and comfortable life since she was born. Most of the people she met were kind and morally superior. They naturally despised his cruel and heartless behavior.

But if she really grew up in the same environment as him, how much better could she be than him in order to survive?