"I don't want to get married. I want to stay with my mother forever." Liu Yunzhao said to her mother like a child. This was something she had always dreamed of doing since she was a child. The feeling of her dream coming true made her very attached to it.

But at that moment, an unusual sound came from outside:

"What...uh!"

The girl's exclamation was abruptly cut off.

Empress Dowager Xiao and Consort Liu Yunzhao sat up alertly.

The two clearly heard hurried footsteps approaching the bedroom.

"Why would someone come at this time?" Liu Yunzhao wondered anxiously. She reached for her clothes, wanting to put them on and return to the bedside.

She was a maid.

If she were discovered to be sharing a bed with Consort Xiao, it would be difficult to explain.

Empress Dowager Xiao grabbed her tightly and said in a low, urgent voice, "Zhao'er, listen to your mother. I have long ago left you a large sum of money, enough for your children and grandchildren to live a life of wealth. Take that money and never come back. Don't seek revenge for your mother!"

"Mother, what are you saying?" Before Liu Yunzhao could ask clearly, she was pushed to the far end of the bed by Consort Xiao.

After that.

In a sudden, disorienting motion, Liu Yunzhao, wrapped in a quilt from a hidden compartment, slid into a long passageway and rolled into a pitch-black room.

"Mother...Mother!" Liu Yunzhao came to her senses and, relying on her memory of the way she came, rushed to the entrance of the passageway, screaming and trying to crawl back.

However, the passageway was a steep downward slope, and it seemed to be covered with a layer of oily substance, making it very slippery and impossible to climb up from below.

Liu Yunzhao then realized:

Something must have happened up there!

Her visit to the Ninth Prince's residence must have been exposed.

That old hag, the Empress Dowager, has come to kill them, mother and daughter!

The passageway was narrow and long, and quite far from Consort Xiao's bedroom;

The partitions of the hidden compartment are also thick enough.

Despite Liu Yunzhao's desperate cries in the dark room, Empress Dowager Xiao remained completely silent.

After pushing Liu Yunzhao away, Consort Xiao casually threw all of Liu's clothes into the secret passage, then quickly lay down and pretended to be fast asleep.

It wasn't until four masked men in black burst into the inner room, brandishing gleaming longswords, and came to her bedside that she was startled awake from her sleep, crying out, "Who...who are you?!"

“The one who’s going to kill you!” one of them said.

"Don't waste your breath on her. This is the Ninth Prince's residence. If we're any slower, we'll be the ones who lose our lives." Another man chimed in menacingly, pressing his sword against Consort Xiao's neck and asking fiercely, "Old hag, there's another woman here! If you tell the truth, we might leave you with a whole corpse. If you don't, we'll burn this place down and leave you without a complete body, a headless, faceless charcoal ghost!"

Empress Dowager Xiao, her eyes brimming with tears, looked terrified: "Have you mistaken me for someone else? This Ningxi Hall has always been inhabited only by this old woman, myself, and a group of maids and servants who have served me for many years..."

"Stop talking nonsense, I'm asking about the new maid." The man pushed the sword in his hand closer to Consort Xiao's neck.

Scalding hot blood immediately gushed from Consort Xiao's delicate skin.

Empress Xiao was also human, and she was also afraid of death.

But when she heard these people clearly state the time when Liu Yunzhao arrived;

When she felt the scalding temperature of the blood flowing from her neck and the stinging pain in her neck, she calmed down instead.

She made many mistakes in her life;

But the only thing I don't regret is...

She gave birth to her daughter, Liu Yunzhao.