"The Western Rong envoy has arrived—"
Following this announcement, a woman dressed in ethnic clothing walked in.
Her veil was half-covered, revealing only a pair of eyes as sharp as an eagle.
"Your humble servant Ashina Yun pays homage to Your Majesty." The woman bowed gracefully, her voice as clear and cold as an icy spring.
Li Longze nodded slightly: "Princess, you have come from afar..."
Before he finished speaking, his expression suddenly changed, and he clenched the armrests of the throne tightly. Xue Jiyan keenly noticed that the veins on the emperor's forehead bulged, as if he was enduring great pain.
Eunuch Xia stepped forward at the right moment and said, "Your Majesty, it's time to administer the medicine."
The court meeting ended hastily. Returning to his bedroom, Li Longze could no longer hold on, spitting a mouthful of black blood onto the brocade quilt. Trembling, he pulled a small jade bottle from beneath his pillow, poured out a few blood-red pills, and swallowed them.
When Empress Dowager Lu Fengqing stepped into the Palace of Heavenly Purity holding the hand of a nanny, the palace was filled with a strong smell of medicine.
She looked at the haggard emperor lying on the dragon couch, and a complex emotion flashed in her phoenix eyes.
"Mother..." Li Longze struggled to stand and salute, but was interrupted by a violent cough. The dark red bloodstains on the handkerchief were particularly glaring on the bright yellow brocade.
Lu Fengqing raised her hand to stop the palace maids' calls and slowly walked to the bedside. Her well-maintained fingers gently stroked her son's sunken cheeks. "I remember the late emperor looked like this before his death."
Li Longze's pupils suddenly contracted. On that rainy night fifteen years ago, he had personally mixed a chronic poison into his father's medicine.
"Retribution..." The Queen Mother sighed and pulled out a faded sachet from her sleeve. "This was left to me by the late Emperor. Your Majesty, do you want to know what's inside?"
Lu Fengqing slowly opened the sachet and poured out a handful of the blackened medicinal residue. "Before his death, the late emperor said that the residue in this sachet smells exactly like the medicine you bring me every day."
Thunder roared outside the palace, illuminating Li Longze's pale face. He suddenly remembered that every time his father gave him medicine, he would look at him with indescribable sadness.
"The Queen Mother has known this for a long time..." His voice was hoarse.
Lu Fengqing placed the sachet beside the dragon couch. When she stood up, the pearls and jade on the phoenix crown remained motionless. "I came here today to tell Your Majesty something." She turned and looked out the window at the heavy rain. "Xue Yonghuai is not dead."
Li Longze sat up straight, then bent over again in pain. "Impossible! Back then, it was clear..."
"The person you sent to perform the autopsy was appointed by me." The Empress Dowager gently smoothed the wrinkles on her sleeves. "Just like the late emperor, who knew the medicine was poisonous but still drank it."
She walked slowly toward the palace gate, pausing briefly at the threshold. "Your Majesty, do you know why your health has deteriorated over the past six months?" Without waiting for a response, she spoke, "Because I've been adding the same medicine to my daily ginseng tea as the late emperor did."
Li Longze was struck by lightning, and pointed a trembling finger at Eunuch Xia: "It's you...!"
Eunuch Xia bowed, the wrinkles on his face smoothing out. "I have served two emperors." A gleam gleamed in his cloudy eyes. "Before the late emperor passed away, he bestowed upon me a secret decree."
The empress dowager took one last look at her son, whose face looked as pale as death, and said, "You won't be able to rule this country for much longer." After saying that, she turned away, leaving only the palace door creaking in the wind.
As the torrential rain pounded against the glazed tiles, Li Longze suddenly burst into laughter, his voice mingled with the sound of coughing up blood. He ripped open his shirt, revealing a spiderweb of dark blue lines across his chest, identical to the one the late emperor had left before his death.
"Good... very good..." He grabbed the imperial seal on the desk and smashed it at Eunuch Xia with his last bit of strength.
The old eunuch did not dodge or evade, and blood immediately gushed from his forehead, but he still maintained a respectful posture.
Outside the hall, the sound of orderly footsteps could be faintly heard in the rain - that was the unique sound of iron boots stepping on the ground of the northern border troops.
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
