Chapter 3.3 The Calamity of Witchcraft

A witchcraft incident occurred in the palace.

The Empress had eyes and ears throughout the palace and learned of the news immediately. Before the Emperor could issue an edict to punish the culprit, she went to the palace of Consort Li to question her.

After closing the palace gates and dismissing the palace servants, the Empress slapped Consort Li hard across the face.

"Have you lost your mind after falling out of favor, or have you become so stupid that you've lost your brain? How could you think of using witchcraft against the Imperial Concubine? Now that the evidence has been presented to the Emperor, I can no longer protect you."

Consort Li turned her face away after being struck, and sneered, "When has Her Majesty the Empress ever protected me?"

The Empress was surprised that she would talk back and looked at Consort Li in disbelief, as if she were meeting this cousin for the first time.

“I was only fifteen when I entered the palace. The Empress had just given birth to the Crown Prince. The Changsun family sent me to the palace to help the Empress secure her favor. I was really stupid back then. I really thought that the Empress’s wealth and honor were my wealth and honor. I stood up for you in everything and competed with the Consort for your favor.”

"But what have you done for me? Now I am childless and out of favor, and I am always overshadowed by the Imperial Concubine. Yet you make me suffer and try to keep the peace."

“Yesterday, the Imperial Concubine urged the Emperor to take my heart’s blood as a medicinal ingredient. I cried and begged you, but you were busy arranging a Crown Princess for your son and refused to see me at all… Your Majesty, how cruel you are.”

Consort Li made a desperate accusation, then laughed twice in a self-deprecating manner.

"You think I wanted to curse the Imperial Concubine? No, I want you to pay the price for the nine years I was imprisoned and for deceiving me!"

The Empress grew angrier as she listened, and raised her hand to hit her again, but Consort Li pushed her away and ran towards a pillar in the palace, crashing into it headfirst.

When the palace servants came in to check, the person had already died.

Consort Li died by striking her head against a pillar. The Empress was helped away, her expression dazed. She couldn't even remember how she got back to Fengqi Palace. Consort Li's last words before her suicide still echoed in her mind, leaving her feeling uneasy.

Half an hour later, the imperial eunuch came in person to deliver an imperial decree: Fengqi Palace was locked, and none of the people were allowed to leave.

Inside the East Palace, the palace maids and eunuchs looked at each other, wondering what had happened outside. As the gate was closed, a few of the bolder guards went forward to ask, only to be turned away by the Imperial Guards outside.

Yuezhi glanced back at the food that had gone cold in the main hall, then glanced in the direction of the east wing hall—

Xiuyu and Caiying had just gone back to their room. When the imperial eunuch came to deliver the decree, the two of them did not come out. They were probably sleeping soundly in their room.

While everyone was still confused and no one was paying attention to her, she secretly ran back to the West Annex Hall.

Since her godmother was driven away, Yuezhi has become more cunning. She has sewed all the hidden gold and silver into her clothes. Now that it is late autumn, the time to add more clothes, the gold and silver will not be noticed when they are hidden in the layers of her clothes.

She had been in the palace for more than five years and had never seen the Imperial Guards deployed in such a large formation. Her intuition told her that the Crown Prince's Palace was probably in trouble.

She couldn't let the money she had painstakingly saved go to waste, so she quickly put all her belongings on her body.

Back in the main hall, she was still dressed as a palace maid, and no one noticed that she had changed her clothes.

The gates remained closed for half an hour, and everyone began to grow anxious. The two people who had been slacking off in the East Annex were brought out by the maids and asked to find a way to plead with the Empress, since ninety percent of the people here were personally selected by the Empress.

Xiuyu and Caiying were completely bewildered. After figuring out what had happened, they walked together to the gate and pleaded with the Imperial Guards guarding outside through the crack in the door.

"We are Her Majesty the Empress's confidants. Could you please help us send a message to Phoenix Palace?"

The Imperial Guards didn't even glance at them. "Hmph, Empress Zhangsun can barely protect herself, how could she possibly care about two palace maids like you?"

Upon hearing this, the two men panicked and wanted to ask a few more questions, but were frightened back by the glint of a knife flashing through the crack in the door.

A crowd gathered around the two, asking for news. The two had dull eyes and blank faces, muttering, "Empress herself is in dire straits," showing none of their usual wit.

Upon learning of the Empress's accident, chaos erupted in the courtyard.

Suddenly the gate was pushed open from the outside. Imperial guards drew their swords and placed them on both sides to prevent anyone from escaping. Then two eunuchs carried a person in on a stretcher, put him on the ground in the courtyard, and left.

Yuezhi hurriedly ran down the steps and was shocked to see that the unconscious person lying on the stretcher was none other than the Crown Prince.

Everyone else in the Eastern Palace also saw the Crown Prince, but he was sent back to the Eastern Palace in such a disheveled state, and the eunuch who escorted him did not give him any dignity whatsoever. The meaning of this was self-evident.

No one cared about the disgraced crown prince or the fallen empress; they all took out their valuables and tried to sneak out before the gate was completely closed.

People crowded to the gate, but Yuezhi squatted down next to the stretcher and reached out to lift the prince from it.

After holding him in her arms, she was surprised by the prince's weakness. All his pride and spirit had dissipated, leaving him as an empty shell, utterly exhausted and powerless.

Yuezhi felt a lump in her throat, as if she could see a broken bamboo shoot, and felt an indescribable sadness in her heart.

She carried him into the bedroom and laid him on the bed.

After a brief examination, she found bruises on the prince's knees from kneeling for a long time, and her face turned extremely cold.

Yuezhi took out typhoid medicine from the medicine box and fed it to him, and then applied medicine to his knee.

I always thought only servants were punished by their masters by being forced to kneel and beaten. I never imagined that someone as noble as the crown prince would be tormented to this extent by his own father. It's truly heartbreaking...

The autumn wind rustled outside the window, and Yuezhi, though inside, felt a chill that went straight to her heart.

*

"I chose you as my crown prince because you are my only legitimate son. I don't want you to be as greedy as your mother, thinking of colluding with your maternal relatives at such a young age!"

"Your Changsun family is truly insatiable. If it weren't for the Imperial Concubine finding evidence of your crimes and giving it to me, I wouldn't have known that you instigated Consort Li to curse me to die early so that your uncle could help you become the emperor and ensure the Changsun family's prosperity for a hundred years."

The emperor was furious. The young crown prince was forced to kneel in the wind as punishment. When the prince tried to explain himself, the emperor became even angrier and ordered his close eunuch to be dragged out and beaten to death.

Pei Heng cried and begged his father to calm down, but was kicked in the chest instead, the pain rendering him unable to utter a sound.

I knelt in the wind for more than an hour. At first, the cold wind made my head ache, but then even my tears got cold. Finally, I lost consciousness and collapsed.

The Emperor's authority is inviolable, and the Empress Dowager is willful and only seeks profit for the Changsun family.

Pei Heng felt like a puppet to be manipulated, molded into whatever his father and mother liked and needed. No one cared whether he liked it or not, or whether he would be sad or upset. They didn't even give him a chance to explain or beg for mercy.

He opened his eyes groggily, and the tears at the corners of his eyes were gently wiped away by the person next to him.

Upon seeing the person serving him, Pei Heng's eyes reddened, and he could no longer suppress his grievances, crying until his chest ached.

Yuezhi sat by the bed, watching him cry so sadly, and her heart ached for him too.

She didn't know what had happened and couldn't comfort him, so she could only wipe away his tears again and again.

After an unknown amount of time, the chaos outside the palace gradually subsided, and the Crown Prince's weeping subsided. Yuezhi then brought him food and ate some herself.

During the meal, Pei Heng told her that Consort Li had been using witchcraft to curse the Emperor and Consort Gui's two sons in the palace. The matter involved the Changsun family and him, and the Emperor was furious. It seemed that this matter would not end well.

Hearing this, Yuezhi felt a pang of guilt. "Your typhoid fever hasn't healed yet, so you should eat more."

While urging him on, she also ate more heartily, thinking that she probably wouldn't be able to eat such good food again in the future.

Seeing her eating so enthusiastically, Pei Heng smiled and said slowly, "Father is angry with people who are associated with the Changsun family, but you were not planted by Mother. As long as you don't stay in front of me, you can be taken away and reassigned to do something elsewhere."

As he said, people had already arrived outside, and the palace servants quieted down, waiting to be chosen instead of staying here to die with the disfavored crown prince.

Yuezhi glanced out the window but remained silent.

Just a few hours ago, she had prepared to resign from Pei Heng's service. Now, the opportunity to leave the East Palace was right outside the door, but she hesitated.

"What will you do if I leave?"

Now that he has lost the emperor and empress's favor, and is also feared by the emperor because he has the blood of the Changsun family, he has no one he can trust by his side, and is imprisoned until his death, with no hope for the rest of his life. How miserable he must be...

Yuezhi lowered her head, not daring to look at him. She used to be afraid of the Empress, but now she was even more afraid of the Emperor. She wanted to stay and take care of him, but in the end, she didn't have the courage.

She betrayed the Crown Prince's trust.

Pei Heng comforted her, "I am the Emperor's son. Even if he is angry with me, he will not let me starve or freeze to death. On the contrary, if you continue to stay by my side, you will only be bullied and you may not even get your monthly allowance."

Upon hearing that her monthly allowance would be deducted, Yuezhi panicked.

Pei Heng took in her fear, silently took off his longevity gold lock, and put it into her hand.

"At least you can send me a message after you leave. There's no need for you to get stuck here with me."

Seeing his firm attitude and the logic in what he said, Yuezhi had no choice but to accept the gold lock. After having dinner with him, she hurried out of the bedchamber, not daring to look back at his expression.

The outer gate opened, and the palace servants split into two groups. Only those selected by the head eunuch were allowed to leave the East Palace.

Yuezhi quietly stood at the end of the line, and after a short while, the head eunuch came over to question her.

"What's your name?"

"Yuege".

"Where did you work before coming to the Eastern Palace?"

“I have been in the embroidery room for five years, and I only came to the East Palace on the fifteenth of last month.”

The junior eunuch beside the head eunuch flipped through the record and handed it to him: clean background, short time in the Eastern Palace, and no contact with the Empress.

"Alright, go stand over there." The head eunuch nodded in satisfaction, gesturing for Yuezhi to go to another group of people.

This means she can leave the Eastern Palace, and with Su Jingyun's help, she can be transferred to a good place and live peacefully until she leaves the palace.

The joy was fleeting, but then a sense of worry and reluctance arose in my heart.

The Crown Prince said that it would be better for both of them if she left, but he was still sick and had even given her his personal gold lock. If the person who stayed had nothing to gain, would they still take good care of him?

They only spent a month together, but the Crown Prince did not look down on her because she was a palace maid. He invited her to dine at the same table, taught her to recite poems and essays, and carefully kept every cloth doll she sewed, treasuring it greatly.

As she thought about it, Yuezhi became sad.

She was sold by her parents when she was young and sent to the palace to become a maid. Over the years, apart from her godmother and Su Jingyun, only the Crown Prince has ever been truly kind to her.

Leaving the Eastern Palace was simply moving from a small cage to a larger one. It was still about serving people and watching their expressions, but at least the Crown Prince treated her like a human being, not an object to be driven around.

In a moment of weakness, Yuezhi suddenly didn't want to leave.

She paused, when a sarcastic accusation suddenly rang out behind her.

Xiu Yu's face was full of jealousy. "She is also a close maidservant of the Crown Prince. Why can she leave, but we can't?"

Caiying echoed, pleading in a low voice, "Father-in-law, please have mercy and give us a way out. Let us out too."

The head eunuch glared at them unhappily, and immediately a junior eunuch stepped forward and slapped each of them to stop the noise.

"According to His Majesty's will, none of the Crown Prince's confidants are allowed to leave the Eastern Palace." The head eunuch emphasized again, specifically pointing to Yuezhi, "Since you are the Crown Prince's close attendant, you should stay here as well."

Upon hearing this, Yuezhi felt no fear; the sadness that had been weighing on her chest since earlier dissipated.