Chapter 331 White Jade with Spots
In the evening, the last rays of the setting sun shine on the densely packed roofs of Fengqi Palace, casting a dim glow.
Fengqi Palace was the residence of the Empress. Since the death of Empress Pei, Fengqi Palace has been empty. It was not until Emperor Ming of Qi ascended the throne that Fengqi Palace was granted to Empress Wen to live in.
Empress Wen, perhaps a woman with a mysophobia, had all the contents of Fengqi Palace burned before moving in. All the walls and buildings in the palace were repainted, with the craftsmen working day and night, and it took a full month to complete. If it weren't for Emperor Ming of Qi's persuasion, she would have almost replaced the stone slabs on the floor.
Entering from the main gate of Fengqi Palace, one crosses a rectangular square to the inner gate. Behind the inner gate are two rows of side rooms, specifically used for the concubines to wait for audiences with the empress. Exiting the side rooms and passing through another door leads to the main hall of Fengqi Palace. It was in this main hall that the empress would receive greetings from the concubines.
Emperor Ming of Qi had only one wife, Empress Wen, and he did not take any concubines after ascending the throne. These side rooms were usually deserted and no one paid attention to them.
Li Wan was now sitting in one of the side rooms, waiting for Madam Li bored.
After finding out Empress Wen was in the imperial city, mother and daughter rushed to Fengqi Palace early in the morning. Both wore expensive garments, hastily made overnight by tailors at Beijing's ready-made shops. Madam Li even adorned her entire body with every piece of jewelry she could muster, jingling as she walked. Madam Li, she declared, wanted to greet this auspicious occasion with her most glamorous attire.
When Empress Wen went to Shengjing to issue the decree, they were not there, and Empress Wen did not wait and left Shengjing that day. Lady Li was anxious and took her daughter to the capital to meet the Empress in person.
They happily arrived at Fengqi Palace, but were told by the palace maid that Empress Wen had caught a cold and would not see guests.
Li Wan had just married Qiang Lin and was in love when she was dragged to the capital by Lady Li. She was already unhappy, and when she saw that Empress Wen was evading them, she advised Lady Li:
"Mother, the Queen was fine yesterday, but she caught a cold today. She doesn't want to see us, so let's go back to Shengjing."
"My child, he's just thinking about your little thing!" Madam Li reached out and tapped Li Wan's forehead, then grinned with her missing front teeth, "I know you're thinking about going back and waiting for me to receive the imperial edict."
"But the Queen doesn't see guests."
"Where sincerity leads, even the golden neighing opens!" Madam Li straightened her clothes. "Wait here while I ask the maid on duty."
Emperor Ming of Qi issued an edict to restore the title of Marquis of Pingyang, and the Li family would return to its former glory, but this edict was missing. They couldn't go to Emperor Ming of Qi to ask for another order, so they could only come to Empress Wen.
Li Wan waited and waited, from morning till noon. She was hungry, but she didn't dare go to eat, fearing that the Queen would summon her and she would be absent, which would be a serious crime. During this time, Madam Li came back twice, each time vowing that it would be soon.
After all this trouble, it was already dinner time. Li Wan's stomach growled with hunger, and she stood up and paced around the room. There was no food in the wing room, only tea. She drank a bellyful of water, but she was still starving.
Just as she was looking forward to it, Mrs. Li opened the door and came in, her face flushed, took her hand and ran out.
"Wan'er, the Queen has agreed to see us, let's go."
Mother and daughter rushed out of the house. Li Wan could see the stars when she looked up. She couldn't help but complain in her heart. Queen Wen had been gone all day, saying she had a cold, and now she suddenly appeared again at night. This wasn't a cold, this was an illness. It felt inexplicable.
However, she only dared to say these words in her heart. She also knew how much her mother valued this matter, but she didn't dare to complain out loud, so as not to mess things up.
Led by a palace maid holding a lantern, the mother and daughter did not enter the main hall, but instead passed through a moon-shaped gate next to it and entered the back hall. They turned down two long corridors, passed through more than a dozen rooms, and finally stopped at a door at the end of the corridor.
The maid guarding the door said to Madam Li, "Madam Li, the Empress is waiting. Please come in. The Empress is unwell. Please talk to her in the outer room."
Mrs. Li nodded with a smile, looking down at her own clothes before adjusting her hair ornaments. Then she turned to help Li Wan with her clothes. Once everything was in order, the two of them entered the house.
The room was divided into inner and outer rooms, separated by a pearl curtain. Beside the curtain stood two palace maids, one of whom held a jade tray in her hands. The tray was covered with yellow silk, and on it lay the rolled-up imperial edict.
Madam Li caught a glimpse of the imperial edict and smiled so hard that she couldn't close her mouth. She saw a woman's figure faintly visible behind the beaded curtain and knew it was Empress Wen. She pulled Li Wan to kneel down and said:
"The guilty woman Pei Shaoya and her daughter Li Wan pay their respects to the Empress."
The figure behind the bead curtain showed no reaction, as if turning a deaf ear.
The maid holding the imperial edict said, "Madam Li, the Empress is unwell and unable to speak. Here is His Majesty's decree restoring the title of Marquis Pingyang. Madam Li, please come forward and receive the decree and leave immediately."
Madam Li's eyes shone brightly. Without rising, she knelt before the palace maid and raised her hands to receive the imperial edict: "Long live His Majesty."
After she finished speaking, she held the imperial edict to her chest with both hands, and her laughter turned to tears: "Your Majesty has finally vindicated us. It's a pity that our Pei family was exterminated by imperial decree, and I am the only one left..."
She spoke from her heart and blurted out her words.
Xiao Zhuo had been demoted and exiled to the northwestern border. Empress Pei's maternal family, the Duke of Pei's mansion, suffered greatly. Only she, because she married the Marquis of Pingyang, escaped slaughter, though her title was stripped and she became a commoner. Now that she had been found again, she wept with joy. Thinking of her own deceased parents and sister, and of herself as the only one left alive, she could not contain her emotions.
She cried twice, then suddenly woke up and covered her mouth with her hand.
This is the Queen's bedroom, not her own home. Although she was filled with emotion, how could she cry out loud here? It was really inappropriate.
She was about to kowtow and confess her guilt with trepidation, but she heard sobbing sounds coming from behind the pearl curtain. It seemed that Queen Wen was crying.
Madam Li was horrified and kowtowed repeatedly: "Your Majesty, I deserve death for my reckless words!"
"You two go down," Empress Wen said, trying to suppress her grief from behind the pearl curtain. "I want to speak to Madam Li and her daughter."
Madam Li was kowtowed and apologized like a chicken pecking at rice, but she was suddenly stunned when she heard Empress Wen's voice. Why did this voice sound so familiar?
After the palace maid left, the beaded curtain swayed and a woman in palace dress slowly walked out.
When Madam Li saw the other person's face, she was struck by lightning and sat down on the ground, almost dropping the imperial edict in her hand. Li Wan, who was behind her, rushed over to support her and said, "Mother, what's wrong with you?"
Madam Li opened her mouth wide and stared at Queen Wen in amazement.
Those eyebrows, those eyes, that nose, those lips—isn't that clearly her older sister, Pei Jingyun? Not only does she look alike, but even her voice is so similar. The only difference from her memory is that Empress Wen's hair is all snow-white, while her older sister's hair is jet black.
I must have seen it wrong. There are many people who look alike in the world. It is normal for Empress Wen to look similar to her sister.
After figuring it out, Madam Li turned over and knelt down again: "Your Majesty, I just said something hoarse, please..."
While she was still speaking, Queen Wen knelt before her, hugged her with both hands and cried, "Sister, look at me, it's me."
Madam Li was terrified, and even Li Wan was frightened. Pei Jingyun had clearly been sentenced to death by Emperor Yongde a long time ago, so why did Empress Wen say that she was Pei Jingyun?
While the two were still stunned, Empress Wen had already pulled up her sleeve, revealing a dark blue birthmark on her elbow. She said to Madam Li, "Look, sister, this is the proof. You always mocked me because of this birthmark, saying that others were flawless white jade, but I was white jade with spots. I was so angry at that time that I slapped you."
When Lady Li saw Empress Wen's birthmark and saw that Empress Wen had even recreated the scene in which she had teased her sister, she no longer had any doubts.
It's not hard to find people who look alike, but it's impossible for them to have the same birthmarks. The Empress Wen in front of him is his elder sister, Pei Jingyun.
She couldn't hold back the sadness and joy in her heart, and she stretched out her arms to hug Pei Jingyun. They both cried bitterly, and Li Wan also shed tears beside them.
After crying for a while, the two finally stopped.
"Sister, I didn't want to speak because I was afraid you would recognize it was me." Pei Jingyun stood up and helped Madam Li up. "Hearing you talk about what happened to our Pei family, I really couldn't help it..."
Madam Li asked in surprise, "Sister, how did you become the wife of Emperor Ming of Qi? Didn't you marry into the palace?"
Pei Jingyun asked them to sit down, then returned to the inner room and personally brought out three cups of tea. She said, "Drink some tea first, and I'll slowly explain the whole story to you."
Mrs. Li had been standing all day without a drink of water and was extremely thirsty. She took the tea bowl and drank it all in one gulp. Li Wan was too full to drink any more, but she didn't dare not to drink, so she just held the tea bowl and sipped it in small sips.
Pei Jingyun said, "Do you remember when we first arrived in the capital, I accidentally bumped into Prince Xiao's horse?"
Madam Li smiled and said, "Of course I remember. It was His Majesty who pulled you away at that time."
"I was so scared at the time, afraid that Xiao Man would come looking for me," Pei Jingyun stared at the roof in a trance, "but there was no way I could hide. My father had already arranged a marriage for me with someone, and I had to marry him. But the person I really like is..."
Madam Li asked, "Your Majesty?"
"I was still young at the time and didn't know what that feeling meant," Pei Jingyun smiled, seeming to be lost in memory. "I only know that I particularly liked the Dragon Huan jade pendant he gave me. I even held it in my arms when I slept."
Madam Li had already vaguely guessed what had happened, so she said, "Sister didn't want to marry Xiao Man, but she couldn't go against our father's wishes, so she found a woman who looked similar to you, Wen Yi, and asked her to enter the palace in your place."
These things were originally crimes of deceiving the emperor, and they should not even be mentioned. But Emperor Yongde was dead, so she didn't have to worry about it.
"Although I'm a woman, I won't let my parents dictate my fate," Pei Jingyun said. "But these things are easier said than done. You don't know how much effort I put into them. If you could go to Daliang Village, Tongliao County, Liangzhou, you'd be able to witness everything I've done for him."
Li Wan, who was standing nearby, had already drunk half a cup of tea. She put the cup down and said to Madam Li, "Mother, there's a rumor among the people that Wen Yi came from a poor family in Yuzhou. I was surprised when I heard about it. Why would the King of Qi choose such a woman? It turns out she's the concubine."
Madam Li looked at Pei Jingyun in surprise: "But...but you have never left the Duke's Mansion. How did you do it?"
In her memory, her elder sister had become quite reclusive during the first three years after her marriage to the imperial palace. She had never expected that her elder sister had actually been secretly stirring up trouble.
"I started doing it a long time ago," Pei Jingyun replied. "The sister you always thought of is no longer me."
Mrs. Li felt that Pei Jingyun's voice sounded a little unclear. Just as she was about to ask Pei Jingyun to repeat herself, she suddenly felt an itch in her nose and two streams of hot liquid flowed down the sides of her lips. She raised her hand to wipe it, but it was covered with blood.
"What the...what happened?" She lowered her head to look at the back of her hand. The blood from her nostrils was still flowing down, staining her clothes red.
Li Wan rushed over with a panicked look on her face, hugged her and shook her vigorously, shouting something, but she could not hear anything. It was as if her ears were filled with water, making a rumbling sound.
Mrs. Li immediately felt that she could no longer hear any sound. She seemed to see blood flowing from Li Wan's mouth and nose, and Li Wan was wiping it with her hands in panic. Then she felt weak all over and slipped off the chair to the ground.
Pei Jingyun stood there, looking at Madam Li and her daughter struggling in a pool of blood, and said tearfully, "I'm sorry, sister. This secret... must not be known to him."
After saying that, she turned around and walked out of the room quickly, as if she didn't want to see this tragedy again.
Li Wan already knew the tea they drank was poisoned. From the moment they entered this room, Pei Jingyun had no intention of letting them leave alive. Even if they had simply obtained the imperial edict and left, Pei Jingyun would not have let them leave alive.
The poison in the tea would not cause her pain, but it would take her life. Blood was gushing out of her mouth and nose like a stream.
But she didn't want to die, she wanted to go back to see Qiang Lin.
In her blurry vision, Madam Li was no longer moving, blood gurgling from her mouth and nose, her eyes wide open like a dead fish. She let go of Madam Li's hand and used all her strength to crawl towards the door. Perhaps if she crawled out, someone would see her.
After only climbing a few feet, her strength was exhausted...
A moment later, several guards came in to collect the body as ordered by Queen Wen.
They didn't care who died, nor did they ask why. Working in the palace, everyone understood that there had to be a reason for death, and as for what that reason was, it was not for them to explore.
Mrs. Li was lying in a pool of blood, while her daughter Li Wan was lying near the door with a long trail of blood under her body. Both of them were dead.
As everyone was about to move the body, one of the guards noticed the bead curtain swaying back and forth, as if someone had just passed by. He immediately drew his knife and went over to check.
When he used a knife to lift the beaded curtain, he noticed that the window of the inner room was ajar, and the cold wind of the autumn night was blowing in through the gap.
Perhaps the palace maid forgot to close the window for Empress Wen, and the wind blowing in from the window disturbed the bead curtain.
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