"Brother Phosphorus, are you preoccupied? What are you thinking about so intently?" Xingxing had put down her pen and moved closer to the boy, her big, watery eyes staring directly into his peach blossom eyes.
The boy closed the book he was reading, decided to stop reading altogether, and got up to take a walk in the garden. "I'm waiting for someone, waiting for my senior brother and the others to bring back good news."
Xingxing curiously pressed him for details about the good news, but the boy remained silent, his handsome face bearing an inscrutable expression.
However, after waiting all day, Zhu Qiuyu and the others still hadn't returned, nor had any news come back. Zhu Lin suppressed his thoughts and waited patiently for another night. The next morning, Zhu Changge and Zhu Qingruo returned, but the others did not return with them.
“We underestimated Prince Gong’s strength before. We didn’t expect him to have so many useful pawns. Yesterday, we fought a fierce battle with Prince Gong’s men. Prince Gong went mad and entered the palace with a death wish. He almost blew up the palace. If it weren’t for us, the entire harem would probably have been wiped out, and the world would have been in even more chaos.”
Zhu Changge and Zhu Qingruo spoke in Zhu Lin's room. After discussing it for a while, the three of them called Xingxing in, told her about what had happened in the palace a couple of days ago, and asked her if she had thought it through and if she wanted to acknowledge the emperor and empress so soon.
“I have regained my memories, so of course I will acknowledge it. Now that you have settled things in the palace, let’s go in now,” Xingxing said solemnly.
"What about Fu Ge? Should we bring him into the palace with us?" Zhu Changge asked.
“Let them stay at the Zhu residence. You and Junior Sister can keep an eye on them there. It’s not appropriate to take them there now,” Zhu Lin said calmly.
“It’s really not appropriate. Once I’ve reunited with my father and mother and told them what I’ve been through over the past year, they will accept my parents and brothers.” Xingxing said softly, her eyes lowered.
Before she fully regained her memories, she thought about things very simply, but now she is much more mature in her thinking. Although she was young when she was kidnapped, she had a deep memory of the strict rules of the palace and the insurmountable gap between the royal family and ordinary people.
Even if she could break the rules and bring her parents and brothers to live with her, they are used to freedom, and suddenly having to adapt to a different life would probably make them unhappy.
The environment and the people around them can bring them pressure without their knowledge. This seemingly luxurious life may not be what their parents and brothers want.
Thinking about all these things makes Xingxing unhappy, but she hasn't found a way to have the best of both worlds yet, so she can only take it one step at a time.
The Imperial Palace.
In front of the Emperor and Empress, Zhu Qiuyu removed the disguise from Shui Liniang's face, revealing her original beautiful and youthful face. She disguised herself as a peasant woman from the small village that had taken Ye Ling'er back, and that peasant woman and her husband had long been silenced by her.
Neither the Emperor nor the Empress recognized Shui Liniang, but seeing her pale yet still beautiful features, they understood the mystery. They had long heard that most of the confidantes around Prince Gong were beautiful women he had specially cultivated.
In the battles of the past two days and last night, many beautiful women appeared. They were beautiful, but each and every one of them was a ruthless character.
"What are you saying? I don't understand." Shui Liniang was still struggling in her death throes.
Zhu Qiuyu threw the disguise device on the ground and laughed almost imperceptibly. "No need to pretend anymore. Prince Gong is dead, and most of his men are dead too. No one will come to save you. You're so badly injured. Even if Prince Gong hadn't died and managed to rescue you, do you think you would have recovered?"
Upon hearing this, Shui Liniang's face turned ashen, her eyes filled with resentment and unwillingness. "No, impossible! How could the Prince die? He was going to be the Emperor! If he became Emperor, I could be made Empress! This world would be ours! How could we possibly fail? Impossible, impossible..."
"This woman has gone mad from the shock. There's no use keeping her alive. Let's just execute her to avoid any unforeseen complications," Zhu Qiuyu said sincerely to Emperor Taikang, rubbing his ears.
Emperor Taikang had no chance to interrupt since he entered; it was the young man with an otherworldly air who was talking to the woman. Since his ascension to the throne, no one had dared to ignore him like this for a long time.
However, the emperor was not angry. After all, this expert had saved his life the night before. At that time, Prince Gong's arrow was shooting straight at him and was about to hit his forehead. It was this young man who caught the arrow with his bare hands at the critical moment and killed Prince Gong with a backhand sword.
Perhaps it was Zhu Qiuyu's own magnanimity that was so admirable, or perhaps it was because he had experienced so much over the years that Emperor Taikang was so tolerant of others.
Prince Gong is already dead, so this Shui Liniang is indeed useless to keep around. However, we still need to pry some clues out of her about the princess.
"You know the reason why Prince Gong sent people to kidnap Long'er back then, right?" Emperor Taikang's voice was not loud, but he exuded the pressure of a superior, and Shui Liniang did not dare to look him in the eye.
However, she quickly realized that no matter what she did, she was doomed to die. She was going to die anyway, so what was there to be afraid of? She suddenly sneered, "So what if I know? The real princess is dead. She died a long time ago. If you keep looking, you can only find the fake princess, because the real princess died two years ago."
"Alright, you stupid woman, do you think you can stir up any trouble like this?" Zhu Qiuyu interrupted her, staring at her with a half-smile, as if she were a dead person. "Trying to cause trouble even on your deathbed, it's truly a disaster to let you breathe even a little longer."
"What are you doing?" The emperor glared at the young man who had been silent until now, who was holding a silver needle and stabbing it directly into Shui Liniang's forehead, thinking that he was going to kill her.
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