Chapter 77 [77] My Good Brother. [First Update]...

【77】/First release

Late at night, Zichen Palace.

Although it is spring, the evening breeze still carries a chill. The flat-angled white gauze palace lanterns under the corridor emit a faint light. The wind chimes on the eaves are occasionally blown by the evening breeze, making a few tiny sounds, which further highlights the silence of the night.

Queen Zheng was wearing a brocade robe embroidered with dark peony patterns and a plain cloak draped over her shoulders. She walked slowly to the palace gate carrying a food box.

Ever since the rumor in the Imperial Examination Hall seven days ago, she had been both shocked and angry. On the one hand, she was worried about the emperor, and on the other hand, she was worried that the rumor would reach the ears of the little prince and affect the child. She was in a panic all day long and could not sleep or eat.

Even though she had applied a layer of pearl powder on her face, it still couldn't hide the faint dark circles under her eyes, and the deep fatigue and sadness between her brows.

"Empress..."

The eunuch guarding the door saw the queen and was about to pay his respects, but Queen Zheng raised her hand to stop him: "No need."

She looked into the hall and asked softly, "How much did Your Majesty eat tonight?"

The head eunuch lowered his eyes and said, "It's still just half a bowl."

Upon hearing this, Queen Zheng's eyes became even more worried.

All people knew was that the "rebel" had died by hitting his head against the wall a few days ago, and Emperor Wenxuan was so angry about this that he almost fainted.

Only she knew that His Majesty was so angry that he coughed up blood.

Although there was only a small bloodstain on the handkerchief, it stung Queen Zheng's eyes.

She was always gentle and cautious, but at that moment she had the urge to cut the person behind the scenes into pieces.

Killing is not the right thing to do, but to come up with such a vicious and heart-breaking plan is extremely despicable.

"I have cooked ginseng and chicken soup for Your Majesty. I just hope he can drink some." Queen Zheng sighed.

"Your Majesty has always doted on the Empress. He will certainly not let down the soup you sent."

As the chief eunuch spoke, he also made way and invited Queen Zheng in.

Inside the magnificent palace, candlelight flickered and bright yellow curtains hung down, casting a half-light and half-darkness inside the palace.

Queen Zheng entered with the chief eunuch.

Just as she walked around the screen, Queen Zheng suddenly stopped and almost dropped the food box in her hand.

Emperor Wenxuan was seen sitting in front of a low table beside the dragon couch, with a brocade box in front of him. Inside the box were dozens of vermilion pills, the color of which was dazzlingly bright.

He was raising his hand to pick up a pill and pretending to put it into his mouth.

"Your Majesty! No!"

Queen Zheng's heart tightened, she cried out in surprise and quickly stepped forward.

Emperor Wenxuan paused, frowning. When he saw who it was, the stern look in his eyes faded a little, and a gentle smile appeared on his slightly pale face. "Why is the Queen here?"

"I know Your Majesty has lost his appetite recently, so I specially cooked chicken soup."

Empress Zheng placed the food box beside the table. Seeing that Emperor Wenxuan had no intention of putting down the pills, her voice trembled slightly: "Your Majesty..."

Emperor Wenxuan seemed to have guessed what she wanted and only glanced at the eunuch beside the screen.

The chief eunuch understood and immediately lowered his head and retreated.

For a moment, only the couple were left in the dimly lit hall.

"The Queen has worked hard. Sit down and rest for a while." Emperor Wenxuan said softly.

Empress Zheng did not move, but stared at the box of pills, biting her red lips tightly, "Your Majesty."

Emperor Wenxuan: “…”

Their eyes met, one had a look as deep as the abyss, and the other had eyes filled with tears.

After a while, Empress Zheng fell to her knees on the cold golden brick floor with a plop, her hands tightly grasping Emperor Wenxuan's sleeves, "Your Majesty, consider this as a request from me."

"The ingredients of the elixir are complex. Throughout history, there have been many precedents of alchemists suffering sudden deaths from the elixirs they offered. Your Majesty must not take any risks with the dragon's body!"

As soon as he finished speaking, the hall became so quiet that you could hear a pin drop.

Queen Zheng looked up and could feel the emperor's slightly cold gaze, and her heart couldn't help but tremble.

The person in front of me is the emperor.

She respected and feared him.

But he is also her husband and the father of her child.

Love made it impossible for her to remain silent, even though these words might cause the emperor to be furious and cause her eternal damnation.

After a long time, the gloomy gaze that had been lingering on his face finally moved away.

Emperor Wenxuan said, "Get up."

Empress Zheng remained motionless, her beautiful and gentle face slightly tilted upwards, tears welling in her eyes. "Unless Your Majesty promises me that I will not take the elixir again in the future."

Emperor Wenxuan frowned: "Is the Queen threatening me?"

Queen Zheng's shoulders trembled: "I dare not."

She bit her lip, her eyes filled with worry and earnestness. "The doctors at the Imperial Hospital treat your majesty every day, and they have countless effective remedies. Why trust these unorthodox methods? You are the ruler of all people. Your health is the blessing of the world. If there is even the slightest mistake, how can I... how can I survive!"

As she spoke, she kowtowed heavily, resting her forehead on the cold ground. "Your Majesty, I beg you to reconsider, even for your sake and for the sake of our child..."

"Yanniang can't live without Jilang, and Yu'er can't live without his father."

“…”

The hall fell silent for a moment, with only the sound of flickering candlelight.

Emperor Wenxuan looked at the empress who was kneeling on the ground with her head bowed and her voice choked with tears, then glanced at the pills on the low table with a complicated look in his eyes.

After a long while, he slowly put down the pill in his hand and sighed: "Forget it."

After closing the medicine box, he bent down and helped the Queen to her feet with both hands. "If anyone else had said this, I would have dragged them out. But I know Yan'er is devoted to me."

Queen Zheng let him help her up. She glanced at the box of pills out of the corner of her eye, but the worry in her eyes had not completely disappeared.

She knew that even though he had been stopped today, it would not be so easy to stop Emperor Wenxuan's dependence on elixirs.

"Your Majesty, a person of integrity has nothing to fear. As long as we know that Yu'er is our child, why should we be angry about the slander of a madman?"

Empress Zheng clutched Emperor Wenxuan's sleeve, tears welling in her eyes. "That was clearly orchestrated by the traitors. If we lose our composure, we'll fall into their trap."

Emperor Wenxuan remained silent.

Seeing this, Queen Zheng stopped talking and just leaned silently in his arms: "Your Majesty, let's select the concubines."

She closed her eyes, trying hard to hold back her tears, and said in a hoarse voice, "After the audition, the rumors will be dispelled."

"If you favor them and they can get pregnant, that would be the best. If not, I, your concubine, am willing to bear the name of the jealous queen and give them contraceptive soup."

What that madman said is not true.

But it’s not entirely untrue—

Emperor Wenxuan did have a hidden illness.

It wasn’t that he was impotent, but he had contracted mumps after falling into water when he was young. [1]

Although the disease was cured that year, the wind-heat evil toxins affected the liver and kidneys, causing stagnation of Qi and blood flow, which led to weak sperm and low sperm count, making it difficult to have children.

Back then, when Empress Zheng first married Emperor Wenxuan, they were a young couple, deeply in love and inseparable, but there was no good news.

In the first year, it could be said that the time was not right.

The next year, Queen Zheng started taking tonics and pregnancy-maintaining medicines, but she still couldn't get pregnant.

The imperial physicians all said that she was in good health, with sufficient Qi and blood, and that her mother's family had many offspring. Her mother, the wife of the Duke of Huguo, had given birth to three children, and her aunt, Zheng, had four sons and one daughter. This showed that the women of the Zheng family had no problem with offspring.

But in this world, if a woman cannot get pregnant, she is considered incompetent, not to mention that her husband is the emperor.

No one dared to question the emperor.

So when the emperor refused to take a concubine for her sake, the queen was moved to tears of gratitude. In order to repay this special favor, she secretly searched for famous doctors and secret recipes for conceiving a child.

Finally, in the third year, they found a traveling doctor from the northwest who specialized in treating miscellaneous diseases of hepatitis.

The itinerant doctor secretly entered the palace and took her pulse. His conclusion was the same as the imperial physicians': "The Empress is in good health, with abundant Qi and blood, and no deficiency."

Just when the emperor and empress thought their efforts were in vain, the itinerant doctor looked at Emperor Wenxuan and said, "Your Majesty, could you please allow me to take a look?"

The traveling doctor was indeed a capable man. After checking the emperor's pulse, he asked if the emperor had ever suffered from mumps.

Emperor Wenxuan did not know that the "cold" that nearly killed him on the way to escape was actually mumps.

He was only nine years old at the time.

While escaping, he suffered from fever, cheek pain, dizziness and vomiting. Queen Mother Zhao and the Duke of Huguo thought it was just a "cold" caused by falling into the water and being frightened.

Later, he recovered from the illness and regained his vitality, and no one cared to investigate this "cold" anymore.

It was not until many years later that I learned from this traveling doctor from the northwest that one of the sequelae of mumps in children is kidney yang deficiency, low sperm count, or even azoospermia.

It was not the empress but the emperor who had trouble having offspring.

This is a secret that must be kept strictly confidential.

So the traveling doctor from the northwest did not leave the palace alive.

This year, the emperor and empress tried almost every possible method, but still failed.

It was also in this year that Queen Dowager Zhao arranged a marriage for King Jing, who was about to come of age.

Empress Zheng still dares not recall that period of time when Emperor Wenxuan was so depressed and terrifying.

It was like a torrential rainstorm that was about to swallow everything, making her tremble with fear.

She even wanted to give up her dignity and agree to his implicit proposal of "borrowing seed".

Fortunately, God was merciful. When the emperor was looking for members of the Sima clan, he found a Taoist recipe for nourishing yin and replenishing yang in ancient books, and invited Pengqiuzi to make the elixir.

It was not known whether the elixir had taken effect or God had finally shown favor to them, but the queen became pregnant and gave birth to a boy.

At this point, I feel relieved.

On the day the prince was born, the couple hugged the baby and cried.

"I won't do a talent show."

Emperor Wenxuan's hoarse voice brought Empress Zheng back to her ethereal thoughts. He put his arm around his wife's shoulders and looked into her tearful eyes: "I have said that you are the only one in my life and I will never let you down."

On the day the prince was born, he rushed into the delivery room regardless of the blood and said exactly the same words.

At that time, Queen Zheng looked at her husband's handsome and worried face, and thought that just for this sentence, she would be willing to die immediately.

She loved him so much.

He was so dependent on her.

Young couples will be companions in old age, and they will stay together for a lifetime.

"Your Majesty knows that for you, I am willing to do anything."

Empress Zheng held Emperor Wenxuan's hand, tears welling in her eyes: "As long as those rumors outside can be stopped, as long as you and Yu'er can be well, it's just a selection, I can endure it."

Emperor Wenxuan frowned and raised his hand to wipe away the tears from the corners of her eyes: "I can't bear it."

Empress Zheng: "But those rumors outside, and the ministers' advice..."

"Don't worry about them."

Emperor Wenxuan said, "I have been on the throne for many years. Do I still have to be led by the nose by them?"

"The most urgent task is to find out who is behind this."

The image of that tall, jade-like and bamboo-like figure popped up in Emperor Wenxuan's mind almost immediately.

The late emperor’s sons were only him and Sima Jing.

If rumors spread that the emperor was ill and the prince's bloodline was in doubt, the young, strong and increasingly famous King Jing would undoubtedly be the most suitable heir.

What's more, there were rumors in the past that the late emperor valued King Jing and wanted to make him the crown prince.

Sima Jing.

A Jing.

My good brother, could it be you?

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The author has something to say: [1] Mumps: mumps.

There is one more chapter before 10 o'clock [Food]