Chapter 79 Chapter 79 [VIP]
"That doesn't sound sincere. I was already old at the time, so I wouldn't have thought about it."
Shen Youyi's heart moved slightly, and she raised her arms to put them around him and teased him, "What if Henglang gets angry enough to die?"
Emperor Yuan Shuo was not angry: "I can say it out loud, so I won't care. Those young men are just for your entertainment. Yi Niang plays with them to relieve her boredom. I won't be tempted."
For example, she likes the little gadgets that please her during her pregnancy, but she doesn't have much affection for them. When she gets tired of them, there are more newer gadgets waiting for her to look at.
Toys are things to be used, and can be obtained with money or power. No matter how many toys she has, he can compensate her if they are broken.
Instead of letting a man who deeply touched her heart live in the Queen Mother's palace and live with her all the time.
Shen Youyi glanced at him warily. Seeing that he was truly calm, she felt a little scared. She gently nudged Emperor Yuan Shuo and said, "I only like Your Majesty and don't want other men. How come you have such wild thoughts when you see the Crown Prince that you can even say such indecent words?"
Isn't it shameful? Emperor Yuan Shuo couldn't help but feel a little ironic. She wanted to see Xiao Che, so why did she have to go through Prince Zhao? Regardless of whether she could confirm the man's identity, she only needed to casually tell him a word. Could he be such a stingy man that he wouldn't even let her see him once?
However, he was determined not to let her know about this and would only treat her better and better. He removed the strands of hair that hung on her shoulders and kissed her sweet dimples: "Yi Niang is so good at coaxing people, I will take it seriously."
Shen Youyi immediately knew that he was stingy, and was glad that she didn't continue talking. Otherwise, Emperor Yuanshuo would be furious in the next few days. She continued to coax him, "Yi Niang is sincere to Heng Lang. When has she ever deceived Your Majesty..."
As soon as she said this, she felt a little guilty, so she hugged him even tighter and said softly, "My dear, why do you have to use this kind of thing to deceive me? Don't say that you don't have other women by your side. Even if you do, Yi Niang must remain a virgin for His Majesty for the rest of her life and never marry anyone else."
She liked him sincerely, and even when she knew that Xiao Che was still alive, she felt more at ease with such days.
She would try every possible way to help Xiao Che fulfill some of his wishes and try her best to make up for the injustice he suffered, but they had missed each other for too long. She was far from being as sincere and brave as him, and she did not have much love to support her, so she could not run away with her ex-husband regardless of everything.
By the time Xiao Che and the envoys left Chang'an, she might have reached the age of giving birth. By then, if she coaxed the old man a little more, Emperor Yuan Shuo would at most be angry for a while, but he would not care about anything.
However, Emperor Yuan Shuo showed no joy, nor was he annoyed by her sweet talk. He simply embraced her gently and whispered, "Okay, whether Yi Niang is lying or not, I will take every word you say seriously."
Shen Youyi could feel that he was holding her in a strange way, as if he wanted to wrap her up tightly, but was careful to avoid her abdomen. There was a sense of security with a little weight, like a cocoon that bound a colorful butterfly.
However, she only felt warmth at the moment. She thought in a daze, no wonder the emperor would be so greedy for the land of tenderness, who wouldn't like it?
But even when sharing a bed with a stunning beauty, Emperor Yuan Shuo still maintained the habit of getting up early.
When she turned around, she tried hard to stretch her body. In fact, only a slender little finger was sticking out from the corner of the bed curtain. It was pinched in someone's hand, kneaded and wrapped very lightly, and played with in a vague way.
Perhaps because he had seen her enthusiasm, Emperor Yuanshuo was already dressed neatly that day. He talked to her and reminded her to get up at a certain time for meals and not to sleep until he came back.
Shen Youyi was already used to this kind of almost nagging concern, so these words falling into her ears were like a ball of cotton that could not be stuffed into her brain. She could guess what he was saying, but she couldn't hear clearly. She vaguely agreed after each question, and finally said with her eyes closed: "Yi Niang wants a hug."
Emperor Yuan Shuo would not refuse such a request. He smiled and jokingly said, "If those envoys could smell the sweet fragrance on my body, I wonder how much pleasure I had at night."
Shen Youyi opened her eyes at once. She suspected that pregnant women would have a strange smell on their bodies, and was worried that her abdomen would rupture one day due to the fetal movement of the child, so she would apply some sweet-smelling ointment. However, what woke her up were those two words that were so ordinary that they couldn't be more ordinary.
"Who does Your Majesty want to see today?"
When she looked at Emperor Yuan Shuo, she actually felt a little guilty, but she did nothing. She just felt inexplicably afraid of what she imagined would happen.
The disguise skills that Xiao Che demonstrated were quite magical. He had spent a long time safely in Chang'an City, so there was no need for her to worry.
For a prime minister of Nanzhao, even a sneeze might be a big deal in a foreign country, but among the envoys that Emperor Yuanshuo had to receive every day, he was just a tiny figure.
The war on the Yuanshuo front is not going well. The soldiers are not acclimated to the climate of Luosha. I intend to recruit talents from the surrounding countries to lead the way.
Sandwiched between the two powerful countries, the small countries are also in trouble with each other. Once they stand on the wrong monarch, Shen Youyi sighed and said, "It's hard. It would be better to ask King Zhao to stay in Beijing and help you."
She didn't need to worry too much, as she just needed to give birth to the child safely.
Emperor Yuan Shuo smiled slightly and said: "If he gets the body, I will have someone beat him up."
Shen Youyi secretly thought that something was wrong and asked him coquettishly why. Emperor Yuan Shuo was slightly annoyed, but his tone was still calm: "He and Liu were having an affair in the palace, and this bastard came here to have some fun for no reason!"
It was one thing for Emperor Yuan Shuo to turn a blind eye to his brother, but he slept with a woman in the inner court... and he slept with Liu while she was still in the Empress Dowager's palace. 7 Being caught was indeed infuriating. Shen Youyi couldn't help laughing: "If the two of them were really in love, Your Majesty might as well sentence Liu to death openly and give her to Prince Zhao with a changed name. If the prince sleeps with a woman in the harem and the censor reports it, even beheading him would not be too much of a punishment."
When she returned to the inner court, Emperor Yuan Shuo did have this thought: everyone has their own destiny, so it is better to let them go.
However, now that Yi Niang wanted to contact that person, she needed Liu. He didn't want her to spend too much time on this, so he asked King Zhao and Liu to act as a go-between for them.
He could easily imprison Yi Niang or that man, but he wanted to know what Yi Niang was thinking in the end.
Is it to be the supreme queen, still appearing on the same page of history books with him thousands of years later, or to be unable to let go of her husband for a moment, and to go to the frontier with him even if she is crazy?
Emperor Yuan Shuo nodded. Shen Youyi didn't know whether he had listened to her or not. After he left and had dinner, she went to Jiade Hall to pay her respects to the empress dowager.
Liu stood at one side of the hall, her face pale. Her weak and charming posture made me feel pity for her. However, compared with the imperial concubine with peerless beauty, there was a world of difference between her and her.
But it's not her fault. Shen Youyi heard that the Queen Mother wanted to send Liu to the temple to shave her head and practice Buddhism. Which woman would not be afraid after being frightened?
The empress dowager was originally very displeased with the emperor's son for insisting on keeping the imperial concubine despite the criticism, but compared with Prince Zhao's Meng Lang, she was forced to like this beauty who had deceived the emperor and his son. At least Shen came from a family of officials, was very attentive in serving the emperor's daily life, and had a capable father and brother. Except for the little thing between Yang Shuren and the East Palace, there was nothing wrong with her being the queen.
But Liu was different. Copying Buddhist scriptures could not calm her mind. She seduced her Silang all day long and wanted to hold hands with King Zhao from time to time, like a pair of star-crossed mandarin ducks.
That would have been fine, she couldn't bear to see her son suffer for love, but who would have thought that the two of them would actually desecrate her Buddhist temple!
Shen Youyi smiled and listened to the Queen Mother's anger for a while, then said helplessly: "Your Majesty, please be merciful and forgive her this time. You know the temper of the King of Zhao. He can do anything. If he limps to the Buddhist temple, not to mention whether the abbot will let him in, the family will also lose face."
Even now, she still disliked this playboy uncle, even though she needed him at this moment, but she had no ill will towards Liu, who loved King Zhao.
Although people who love each other have more or less something in common, everyone has times when they are blinded by one thing. For Liu, who had a miserable life, King Zhao's shamelessness towards her was a rare act of care among men. She could not judge the love between them for others.
The Queen Mother was somewhat happy when she saw Shen Youyi. The Emperor was sometimes too busy and would not tell his mother about the sad things outside, but Shen Youyi had told the Queen Mother many stories. She followed the Queen Mother's story and talked about the Emperor's many unimportant dissatisfactions with Prince Zhao, but she concealed the various worries that the Emperor was currently thinking about. In the end, the mother-in-law and daughter-in-law came to the same conclusion that Prince Zhao was a useless person, but the royal family was rich enough to bear his mistakes.
Half an hour later, the empress dowager, feeling relieved, glanced at Liu casually and told her to go down, but she never mentioned asking people to go to the Buddhist temple again.
After Shen Youyi had lunch with the empress dowager, she invited Liu to sit for a while in Zhaoyang Palace. She dismissed the attendants, handed the sealed letter to her, and explained her meaning as calmly as possible.
The matter involved the King of Zhao. She thought a weak woman like Liu, forced into the relationship between the Emperor and his concubine, might be terrified. However, Liu lowered her head, her expression somewhat innocent. "My Lady, if that's the case, then this Young Master Xiao is deeply infatuated with you. Could you really bear to cause him such grief?"
The imperial concubine actually told him to go to the edge of the sky and never come back.
She had an imperial heir, witnessed the resurgence of the Shen family, and liked the affection that Emperor Yuan Shuo showed her.
She felt sorry for the affection he had given her, but she was such a vain and shallow woman that she was not even willing to make the excuse that she could not withstand the storm. She just said bluntly that they had missed each other for a long time and their fate was over, but if he needed her in the future, she would do her best to help him.
His ruthlessness reminded Liu of the cold expression on Prince Zhao's face when he treated his wives and concubines, except that the imperial concubine showed a hint of false pity towards Prince Zhao.
The imperial concubine hoped that Prince Zhao would deliver the letter for her, but he had to do it when he was sending the envoys out of the capital, and she did not want her and her husband to worry about it. Emperor Yuan Shuo would naturally know about this later, and Prince Zhao and she were just coerced by the imperial concubine.
The emperor's favor can indeed make people feel confident to the point of being blind. The imperial concubine has every confidence that she can coax the emperor to change his mind.
A smile appeared on her lips. This peerless beauty was too naive. Could it be that she thought that the almighty emperor would be so kind to her and would be satisfied if her demands were as low as not going with this man?
"It's funny, but if I could, I wouldn't want anyone to feel sad for me."
Shen Youyi sighed. It was also a case of a father taking his son’s concubine. Although Liu was young, she was more open-minded than her. She chose King Zhao early on, causing the Prince of Zhao to break his father’s head for her, but he was not nostalgic for the child: “A person only has one heart, and can only live up to one person.”
She thought a lot when she picked up the pen, and she rarely felt embarrassed about herself.
But there is no logic in matters of the heart. Among all the men who loved her, the one she let down the most and the one she was most reluctant to make sad were not the same person.
She could only be greedy and hope to maintain the current peaceful situation between the two sides, and she did not dare to take a gamble at this moment.
Fortunately, except for foreign envoys who stayed in the capital for a long time to study, most delegations would not stay in Chang'an for more than three months, so she would not have to worry about this for too long.
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