"Your Majesty, won't this old servant say it? This old servant will say it!"

"It's Consort Zheng! It's Consort Zheng!"

"Yes, yes, it was Consort Zheng. She's the one who asked us to find an assassin to kill the Empress!"

Upon hearing this, Li Qiji realized he didn't recognize Zheng Cairen and asked, "How did she find you?"

The eunuch said, "On the morning we were expelled from the palace, she came to us in person and asked us to find someone for her."

"Oh, so how did you get in touch with them?" Li Qiji asked.

A palace maid said, "Yes, this old servant, this old servant waits at the place where the swill is dumped every day, and the servant who collects the swill will pass the things to us. We also pass them to Consort Zheng in this way."

"Consort Zheng, why do you treat the Empress this way?" Li Qiji asked.

The four of them shook their heads in unison, indicating that they really didn't know!

"Where did you get the money to hire the assassin? And how did she manage to get you involved?"

The eunuch said, "We are just angry. We have worked hard in the palace for most of our lives, and in the end we are driven out of the palace and our families are ruined. We have no family to begin with, and now we don't even have a place to live out our old age. Of course we are resentful."

"So when Consort Zheng came to us, we agreed without a second thought. Your Majesty, we didn't hire assassins. We just hired some thugs and hooligans who only wanted to tarnish the Empress's reputation."

"Those assassins were hired by Consort Zheng, who paid us to find them. We didn't know anything about them, Your Majesty! Please spare our lives!"

"Your Majesty, we were wrong! We are so sorry!"

"Your Majesty, we were wrong!"

"This was all Zheng Cairen's idea; it has nothing to do with us!"

"Your Majesty, please spare us!"

The four of them shouted loudly in unison. Upon hearing their words, Li Qiji's lips curled into a mocking smile.

"You're really getting more and more out of touch with reality. Do you think you can get away with it by blaming Zheng Cairen for everything?"

"Alright, let's go! We know what we need to know. Let's go see who's implicated this Consort Zheng this time!" Li Qiji stood up from his chair and coughed lightly.

"Jishang, take care of them!"

Ji Shang clasped his hands in a fist and said, "Yes."

When Li Qiji, along with Ji Wu and Hua Quan, came out of the Jing Palace, the sun was already high in the sky. This was the first time Li Qiji had been so relaxed since he ascended the throne. There was no chattering of the ministers in the court, nor endless memorials to be reviewed day and night.

"Ah, this is the first time I've ever experienced such leisure! This injury was truly worth it!" Li Qiji said.

Hua Quan quickly replied, "Your Majesty, what are you saying? You are diligent in governing and care for the people, so you don't have time to come out for a stroll."

“Let’s postpone our official duties a bit and come to the Imperial Garden to experience it. This will give you a different perspective on handling official matters.”

"Hua Quan, I've noticed you're getting better and better at talking, buddy. Not bad, not bad!"

"Consort Zheng, is it? Come on! Let's go to Consort Zheng's palace today!" Li Qiji said with a smile.

****

Lanyu Palace.

"His Majesty has arrived!" Hua Quan's voice rang out at the palace gate.

Everyone inside was stunned. How could the Emperor have come to their palace without any prior notice? This left them all in a panic.

"Your Majesty, why have you come? No one informed us at all. This is..." said Consort Li.

There were nine concubines in total, but Li Qiji only had five, so they were all arranged in one palace. Now that they heard the emperor was coming, the five concubines were very excited and ran outside.

Inside the main hall.

"Your Majesty, may Your Majesty enjoy boundless blessings and peace!" The five beautiful concubines knelt down in unison before Li Qiji.

Li Qiji glanced down and exclaimed, "My goodness! The clothes are all sorts of colors, it's so outrageous! And why are they dressed so indecently? It's simply indecent!"

Good heavens, when were all these brought into the palace? And why are there so many?!

"Your Majesty~~" Consort Zhang's coquettish and affected voice rang out. Li Qiji opened the fan in his hand with a whoosh and fanned himself vigorously.

Holy crap, that's absolutely disgusting!

"Alright, all of you, rise! I came today to see Consort Zheng. Which one of you is Consort Zheng?"

When Consort Zheng heard the first sentence, she was overjoyed, thinking that the Emperor had finally remembered her. It had been three years since she married into the palace, and this was the first time she had seen the Emperor's face so closely.

But when I heard the next sentence, "Which one of you is Consort Zheng?", my heart broke. Was I really that despicable?

Why treat yourself this way?

They don't even know who they are, yet they say they've come to see me.

"Which one is Consort Zheng?" Hua Quan repeated.

There stood a woman dressed in a blue gauze dress, about 1.72 meters tall, slender and tall, with an oval face, fair and translucent skin, willow-leaf eyebrows, and large, beautiful double-lidded eyes that seemed to sparkle like starlight.

Her eyelashes were long, black, and thick, like a palm-leaf fan, and she looked at Li Qiji with a pitiful expression.

When Li Qiji first saw the woman, a flash of amazement crossed his eyes, but the thought that his chest was still aching because of her made him feel uncomfortable.

What is this? A femme fatale? The deadly kind, no less?

"You are Consort Zheng?"

"Yes, I am Zheng Bihan, a concubine whom Your Majesty brought into the palace three years ago," Concubine Zheng replied pitifully.

Li Qiji looked up at the woman before him, a mocking smile playing on his lips. "I heard you hired an assassin to kill the Empress? Is that true?"

Upon hearing this, everyone present was shocked. The remaining four talented women immediately knelt on the ground and kowtowed repeatedly.

"Your Majesty, please investigate! We dare not!"

Li Qiji looked at the other four and coldly rebuked them, "Did I say anything to you? Or are you also involved in this matter?"

"Your Majesty, I dare not! How could I possibly hire someone to assassinate the Empress?" the four said.

Li Qiji ignored them, turned his head to look at Zheng Cairen, and spoke in a cold tone as if he had fallen into a frigid glacier.

"What, Consort Zheng, aren't you going to give me a proper explanation?"

Zheng Bihan laughed as she stood up from the ground, seemingly out of her mind, and burst into loud laughter in front of Li Qiji: "Explain? Heh~"

“I entered the palace at the age of fifteen and was given the title of Consort by you. It has been three years since then, but I have never seen you. Today is the first time I have seen you. People say that you do not like women and only want to do your best for the people and the country!”

"But ever since the Empress entered the palace, although you treated her the same way at the beginning, you later went to the Cold Palace every day, treating us women in the harem as nothing and not seeing our existence."

"You've already acted this way, and I've heard the Empress still ignores you. What should we do? What should we do?"

"I hate it! I hate her, I hate that she takes advantage of your favor, I hate that she can have you all to herself, but what do I have? What do we have?"

After hearing Zheng Cairen's words, Li Qiji shook his head and sighed softly, "What you hope for is what she doesn't want!"

"Alright, I understand!"

"Guards! Imprison Consort Zheng in the Magnolia Palace for life, forbidding her from ever stepping outside the palace gates!"

With a heavy heart, Li Qiji left the Magnolia Palace with Hua Quan and Ji Wu, and wandered around the palace grounds.