Chapter 437: Tell the Truth
When the Queen Mother heard Taoist Zhang say "it's not witchcraft", a look of disappointment could not help but appear on her face.
Whenever "witchcraft" was involved, the Queen Mother was sure that she would drag the entire Li family into it, instead of tolerating them half-dead as she is now.
"Madame Sun, please accompany Taoist Zhang to Guanju Palace. I am impatient to see Li." said the Queen Mother.
Old Nanny Sun agreed immediately.
Just at this moment, Niu Niu came in skipping and jumped into the empress dowager's arms. When the empress dowager saw the little girl, all her worries disappeared immediately and she called her her darling.
Taoist Zhang, who was about to leave, stopped and looked fixedly at Niu Niu in the empress dowager's arms.
"Empress Dowager, may I take a look at this little girl's face first?" Taoist Master Zhang asked.
The Queen Mother had originally had such an idea, and when she heard this, she nodded.
Niuniu stood up from the Queen Mother's arms, turned to look at Taoist Zhang, frowned slightly, and said, "I think I have seen this Taoist before."
Taoist Priest Zhang didn't expect that Niuniu still remembered him, so he smiled and said, "Little girl, we met at the dock when you came to Beijing, and I wanted to see your face then."
At that time, Gu Mingda felt that this man was superstitious, and the Gu family had always been wary of Taoist priests, so they naturally stopped him from reading fortunes.
Now that the Queen Mother did not stop him, Taoist Zhang saw it all. After looking at it carefully for a long time, he kept saying, "How strange..."
"Master, what's so strange? Please tell me clearly." The Queen Mother said anxiously.
Taoist Zhang did not answer immediately. Instead, he calculated with his left hand, twirled his beard frantically with his right hand, and muttered to himself.
After breaking off several strands of his beard, the doubt on his face was not resolved. Instead, he said, "Empress Dowager, I will finish looking at Madam Li's face first. We can talk about other things later."
The Queen Mother nodded helplessly.
After Taoist Priest Zhang left, Niuniu said, "Grandma Queen Mother, you seem to trust this old Taoist priest very much."
The Queen Mother said, "When I was still a married woman, I met him once. He predicted that I would be extremely wealthy in the future. He is a divine man who can predict the future. I am old now, and I don't know if I can see you get married in the future. Let him look at your fate. If you have no worries in your life, I can close my eyes in peace in the future."
The Queen Mother not only planned to let Taoist Zhang see Niu Niu, but also wanted him to see Concubine Shun, to find out whether the baby in her belly was the future emperor.
Concubine Shun's belly was so big that the Imperial Hospital was able to determine the gender of the fetus, but the result was not what the Empress Dowager wanted.
Niuniu snuggled into the Queen Mother's arms and whispered, "Grandma Queen Mother, your ideas are really different from my father's."
The queen became interested and asked, "What did your father say?"
Niuniu said: "It took me a long time to understand what my father said. He said there is no need to tell fortunes, because if you start to tell fortunes, it means you are interfering with the future."
The Queen Mother asked, "What does this mean?"
"If the result is good, then I will be worry-free, but I will also lose the surprise of the future. If the result is bad, maybe fortune-telling is also a part of fate, and it will lead me to a bad result."
After thinking carefully for a moment, the empress dowager understood the meaning of these words and was stunned for a moment. She thought of Taoist Zhang's frowning and thoughtful look just now, and she didn't even dare to let Niu Niu listen to Taoist Zhang's face-reading results.
"Your father has profound insights. You should learn more from him," said the Queen Mother.
Niuniu raised her little head proudly. She was as happy as herself to be praised by Gu Mingda, and said, "I must learn more from Daddy!"
Taoist Zhang watched in Guanju Palace for a full half an hour, and fear appeared on Li's face.
"You took something you shouldn't have taken." Taoist Zhang said.
She knew better than anyone else in the world where the Li family's prosperity over the past decade had come from. Upon hearing this, an expression of panic immediately appeared on her face.
"Once it's in my possession, it naturally belongs to me. There are so many cases of plundering and robbery in this world, why can't I do the same? This is mine!" she shouted to Taoist Zhang.
Taoist Zhang looked at her without any sympathy or pity. He just said, "You deserve what you have become now. You should accept it."
How could Li stand such words and wanted to rush up and attack, but Chunying was surprisingly strong and knew some basic martial arts. Even though Li was now bloated, Chunying could kick her to the ground with one kick.
"Master Zhang, do you want to take another look in Guanju Palace? Is there anything inappropriate?" asked Old Nanny Sun.
Taoist Priest Zhang shook his head and said, "Just seeing her is enough."
When we returned to Shoukang Palace, Niu Niu was nestling in the Queen Mother's arms eating snacks.
"Empress Dowager, I already know the whole story." Taoist Priest Zhang said.
The Queen Mother thought of what Niu Niu had just said. Once she knew the result, it would be equivalent to her personal participation. She was afraid that it would be a bad result, and a bad result created by herself.
She first asked someone to take Niu Niu away. Niu Niu didn't like fortune-telling and left obediently.
After hesitating for a long time, the Queen Mother first told Gu Mingda about his views on fortune-telling.
Taoist Zhang smiled and said, "This Lord Gu is a very insightful person, but predicting the future has always been a very basic technique."
When the Queen Mother heard this, she was immediately shocked and asked, "Master, what do you mean?"
"For an ordinary Taoist priest, it is already a great achievement if he can predict with 70% accuracy. But there is another type of people who can interfere with fate, or even... swap the fates of two people, causing those who should have been in a high position to fall into a trough, and allowing those who should have fallen into the quagmire to enjoy all the wealth in the world." Taoist Priest Zhang said.
When the Queen Mother heard this, her heart began to beat wildly, and she felt as if she had grasped something.
"Li...what did Li do behind the scenes?" asked the Queen Mother.
"Your Majesty should have had a queen, but her fate was stolen by Li." Taoist Zhang did not keep the secret.
The empress dowager did not know that the emperor had a wife who appeared in his dreams. She thought that over the years, no matter how the court officials requested or how Li's pestering went, the emperor had only thought of establishing a queen once eight years ago. Since he ascended the throne, although he had enriched his harem, the position of queen had always been vacant.
The emperor has always told the outside world that he is waiting for someone who is qualified to rule the country.
Eight years ago, when the emperor had the idea, he consulted with the empress dowager about making Li his empress. However, later the Imperial Astronomical Observatory reported the matter to heaven and earth and lit incense several times, but the incense died out before any wind could blow.
In such an unlucky situation, the emperor was too embarrassed to mention the matter again. Even though Li became favored again, he never thought of making her his empress.
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