Concubine Xu slowly woke up. She sat in the empty Zhaoxiang Palace, and many memories emerged in her mind. When she was a child, when she was young, when she was named a concubine by His Majesty and moved into Zhaoxiang Palace.
Many memories have become dim and blurred, except for the moment when I put on the palace dress, the pink hem of the skirt was gorgeous and eye-catching.
She had given so much and endured so many years just to become the emperor's mother one day. But all of this has become nothing today.
The afterglow of the setting sun lengthened the shadows on the window. Concubine Xu looked at the light and shadow shining on herself, chuckled a few times, and then the laughter stopped abruptly.
Someone walked in, and Concubine Xu raised her head and glanced at him.
"Empress Xu, I obey His Majesty's order to strip you of your title and remove you from your position as the head of Zhaoxiang Palace." Liu Zhongbao bowed to her and said, "Please forgive me for asking you to follow me first."
Concubine Xu sneered and asked, "Does this palace have the right to refuse?"
Liu Zhongbao smiled but said nothing.
He turned his head and looked outside the door. The Empress and Princess Chen were standing there, the afterglow of the setting sun casting a layer of golden light on them.
"Concubine Xu is patient and scheming, while my eldest brother is straightforward and seldom calculating. The personalities of mother and son are really very different."
"Southern and northern..."
Jiuzhu suddenly remembered the letter that Concubine Zhao left for her, and had an absurd guess in her mind.
"Su Meidai, I didn't expect that you, a merchant girl, would win in the end." Concubine Xu walked out of the palace with hatred in her eyes: "You hurt me so much today, Liu An will definitely remember this day and avenge me!"
When these words came out, everyone was stunned.
Concubine Xu was clearly telling the Empress that it was not enough for me to fall from power, you had to kill my son, otherwise he would cause trouble for you.
What a loving mother! She never forgets to take her son with her even when she is in trouble.
Jiuzhu, who thought she had some understanding of the people in the capital, was once again stunned by Concubine Xu's behavior.
The capital city is indeed a complicated place.
This mother really "loves" her son.
After Prince Huai sobered up, he found out what had happened in Zhaoxiang Palace.
"You said that my mother said in front of the Queen that I would avenge her?" Prince Huai's smile was uglier than crying. Did his mother think that his current situation was too good, or did she think that she, as a son, was dispensable?
"What did she do again?" Prince Huai wiped his face with cold water and his expression calmed down.
"My mother sent people to the Dali Temple to inquire about the secret case, preparing to spread rumors in the palace to sow discord between my fifth brother and his wife, and to alienate the Ming family and the royal family." Princess Huai looked at Prince Huai with pity: "Now my mother is imprisoned in the Dragon Guard Prison, and my father has not ordered you to visit."
"She's crazy!" Prince Huai could hardly believe that his mother would do such a thing: "The Ming family is full of loyal and good people who have brought countless benefits to the people of the world. If they are alienated from the royal family, the people of the world will suffer!"
His fifth brother and his wife came to rescue him yesterday, but his mother plotted against him and his wife, and even wanted to create grudge between the couple. How could he face them?
"Get yourself ready." Princess Huai stuffed the gift list into Prince Huai's hands and said, "Now go give gifts to your fifth brother and his wife."
"Thank you, Princess, for arranging this for me." Prince Huai saw the items listed on the gift list, as well as Princess Huai's dowry. He thought back to the years when the princess was married to him. She was always kind and obedient in front of his mother, but his mother always found fault with her and was always dissatisfied with her. He felt sorry for her for all these years.
"These are all the things you like. Keep them all and use other things to fill in the gaps." Prince Huai eliminated Princess Huai's dowry and planned to replace it with other things.
"Your Highness has spent a lot of money on supporting scholars and students over the years. After we moved into the palace, the original tributes were cut off, and your salary was also stopped. Other items are not as sincere as these." Princess Huai looked at her husband who was ruthlessly framed by her mother and was hanging his head in grief. She softened her heart a little: "If you feel sorry, please give me a few more good things after we move back to the palace."
Prince Huai reached out and held Princess Huai's hand, and was silent for a long time: "I'm sorry for you all these years."
Princess Huai pulled her hand away and said sarcastically, "Your Highness is joking again."
Looking at his empty hands, Prince Huai was too embarrassed to say anything to the princess, but he felt even more guilty.
Qilin Palace.
Prince Chen sat up, holding his head. Jiuzhu saw that he woke up and walked to the edge of the bed and sat down: "Headache?"
"Yeah." He leaned his head against Jiuzhu, feeling lazy and not wanting to move.
Jiuzhu's fingers gently pressed on his head, which soon relieved his headache: "Empress Xu was taken away by the Dragon Guards."
"She does have a problem." Prince Chen forced himself to stay awake and finished washing up, then sat down next to Jiuzhu again.
"Your Highness, is the relationship between Concubine Xu and Prince Huai good?"
Prince Chen shook his head and said, "In the past, when other princes and their mothers would send people to deliver gifts to their archery lessons, but Concubine Xu was in poor health and did not want to worry or work hard, so she rarely sent people to deliver gifts to my eldest brother. After my mother found out, she sent two gifts to the archery range every day in my father's name."
"I rarely see my elder brother and Concubine Xu alone together, and I have never seen Concubine Xu punish my elder brother, so the true relationship between them is only known to them." Prince Chen held Jiuzhu in his arms: "Why do you think of asking this?"
"Your Highness, do you think it is possible that my eldest brother is not Concubine Xu's child?"
"Tsk." Prince Chen put his hand on Jiuzhu's mouth and whispered, "Don't say that. Father doesn't like green hats."
"I didn't say that Big Brother is not our father's child. The color of our father's hat is still so bright. Don't let your imagination run wild."
Jiuzhu pulled down the Prince's hand and said, "Look at the storybooks. There are stories about cats replacing princes and daughters replacing sons. Concubine Xu is in trouble, but she doesn't forget to drag my eldest brother down with her. They are not mother and son, but clearly have a grudge against each other. Her actions seem to be waiting for my father to be dissatisfied with my eldest brother."
If the eldest brother is not Concubine Xu's biological son, then the eldest brother's position in her heart is to use a tool. When she can no longer use this tool, she will choose to destroy the tool to retaliate against those who care about the tool.
Prince Chen originally thought Jiuzhu's words were absurd, but after hearing what Jiuzhu said when Concubine Xu was taken away, he straightened his back.
"This is definitely not something my mother would do." He thought for a moment and said, "How about asking the Dragon Guard to check it out?"
"Check!" Jiuzhu nodded: "What if it really isn't true?"
If it's really not the case, it would actually be a good thing for Big Brother.
If they were biological mother and son, then the eldest brother would be too pitiful.
Prince Huai went to Qilin Palace to apologize. As soon as he sat down and had no time to say a word, he was warmly received by his fifth brother and his wife.
Prince Huai: “…”
This was a little different from what he expected.
When he finally left, not only did he not give out the compensation gift, but his fifth brother and his wife stuffed a lot of things into his pockets and took them away.
Do they believe him and know that what his mother did has nothing to do with him?
The more he thought about it, the more guilty he felt. He was sorry for the princess, his fifth brother and his wife, and his father.
Helping his mother conceal her feigned illness was out of his own selfish desire as a son. But if he knew that his mother would use a loyal minister as a pawn, he would stop it no matter what.
Thinking of his mother, Prince Huai wiped his face and found the commander of the Dragon Guard, wanting to meet Concubine Xu.
"Your Highness, please follow me." Commander Wang did not reject Prince Huai, but was afraid that Prince Huai would cause trouble after arriving at the Huolongwei Prison, so he told him about what Concubine Xu had done over the years.
"You said that when we were in the Qian Mansion, my mother colluded with Du Qingke and wanted to work with him from inside and outside to use my father as a bargaining chip in exchange for freedom and wealth?" Prince Huai knew that the Dragon Guards would not lie to him. He stood outside the gate of the Sky Prison, looking at the darkness behind the door, and suddenly he lost the courage to step in.
Behind the dark door was like the bloody mouth of a giant beast, swallowing up all his courage.
The moment he stepped through the door, a chill instantly spread throughout his body and he shivered.
He soon saw Concubine Xu, who was still wearing her complicated palace dress and even hadn't taken off her hairpins.
Seeing her son appear, Concubine Xu glanced at him indifferently and did not expect him to rescue her.
The mother and son looked at each other in silence.
Prince Huai spoke first: "When mother was in Qiandi, did you ever think of taking me with you?"
"Take you away?" Concubine Xu sneered, "You are your father's child. If I take you away, do you know how much trouble I will have? I didn't expect that those people would fail, allowing your father to ascend the throne. All the things he did have become a burden to me."
"So, even if you found a way out at that time, you never thought of taking me with you?" Prince Huai was extremely disappointed. Commander Wang, who was standing behind him, looked at him with a bit of pity in his eyes.
Concubine Xu smiled and said nothing, but her meaning was self-evident.
"Sometimes I really doubt whether I am my mother's child." Prince Huai took a step back and said indifferently: "A son shouldn't ask such questions."
"You shouldn't ask. Sometimes I also wish you were not my son." Concubine Xu's smile faded. "You are stupid and inflexible. If you had a good brain, you, as the eldest son, would have already sat on the throne of the crown prince. I planned so much for you, but in the end you ended up like this..."
"Are you doing this for me?!" Prince Huai interrupted her and said, "You are doing this for yourself!"
"Get lost, you useless piece of shit!" Concubine Xu looked at him with disgust. "Even if I raise a pig, it's more useful than you. Go and be your good fifth brother's pawn. I don't want a useless son like you."
Prince Huai's heart was chilled as ice. He endured it again and again, lifted up his robe, knelt outside the prison door, and kowtowed to Concubine Xu.
But Concubine Xu turned around and stopped looking at him.
Again and again.
"Mother, you have endowed me with flesh and blood and life. I am incompetent and have disappointed you. Please take care of yourself." He kowtowed nine times sincerely and vigorously, blood dripping from his forehead to his chin. Prince Huai stood up and bowed to the bottom: "Your son takes his leave."
Concubine Xu still didn't look at him.
Not until Prince Huai walked away did she slowly turn her head and look towards the empty prison corridor. Her eyes were extremely calm and no one could see through her thoughts.
Commander Wang felt more and more sympathetic towards Prince Huai. How blind must he have been when he was reborn to have such a mother?
That night, Concubine Xu died.
Committed suicide by taking poison.
She lay on the stone bed in the sky prison, her elaborate palace dress clean and tidy, her makeup neatly done, and she died in a dignified and elegant way.
"Prince Huai is so pitiful."
"Yes, I was schemed against and treated coldly by my own mother, and I was scolded to death."
The person who cursed committed suicide with a clear conscience. It was a pity for the unlucky Prince Huai, who was not only not loved by his own mother, but also was abandoned and hated.
I'm afraid I'll never be able to let it go in this lifetime.
Emperor Longfeng also knew what Concubine Xu had said to his eldest son. He sighed several times and not only gave many gifts to Prince Huai, but also restored the salaries of several princes.
But he still didn't mention letting them return to the palace.
"The Dragon Guards have already found out that my eldest brother is indeed Concubine Xu's biological child." Prince Chen put the information the Dragon Guards had found in front of Jiuzhu and said, "Perhaps some mothers are born not to love their own children."
"No." Jiuzhu shook her head. She didn't look at the information, but there were still stars twinkling in her bright eyes: "Maybe I'm wrong."
"Maybe she's a loving mother."
After Concubine Xu committed suicide, Emperor Longfeng did not pursue her past actions any further and buried her in the Concubine Mausoleum with due courtesy to a concubine.
Her funeral was not grand, and two days later, she was crowned the crown prince.
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