After a whole night of commotion, Song Xibai was unable to get out of bed the next day.
When Dingxiang came to see her, she crossed her arms and looked her up and down and front and back several times.
Song Xibai awkwardly moved further inside.
What are you looking at?
"I'm observing what a woman in love looks like."
Dingxiang answered in a very serious manner.
What's so interesting about it?
"Didn't you look in the mirror today? Look at yourself! My goodness, you're practically glowing! No wonder you're His Highness the Crown Prince, so energetic and vigorous, amazing!"
Dingxiang stretched out her arm and exaggeratedly drew a circle.
Song Xibai blushed.
She was both ashamed and angry, so she picked up a soft pillow from the side and threw it at Dingxiang.
Dingxiang nimbly dodged and retreated to the window, laughing loudly.
The next few days were filled with laughter and merriment.
As expected, by the end of the month, the emperor fell ill.
It was originally just a common cold, but after taking medicine for two days, it not only didn't get better, but it got worse. I kept coughing and even developed a low-grade fever at night.
For the next two days, the emperor even skipped the morning court session and focused on recuperating.
Inside the Hall of Mental Cultivation, the personal eunuch Chen Dafu, bowing low, led in a junior eunuch carrying medicine.
"Your Majesty, it's time to take your medicine."
The emperor was furious when he saw the medicine. He reached out to take it but was burned. Enraged, he knocked over the bowl and slapped the eunuch to the ground.
"Useless thing! Are you trying to scald me to death?!"
The eunuchs and palace maids serving inside the palace were so frightened that they all knelt down and prostrated themselves on the ground.
The little eunuch was so terrified that he forgot to beg for mercy.
Chen Dafu crawled a few steps on his knees, came to the bedside, and kowtowed to the emperor.
"Your Majesty, anger is bad for your health!"
The emperor took two deep breaths, but the smell of incense in the room only made him more irritable.
He stared coldly at the little eunuch.
"Drag him away and beat him to death with sticks."
A single sentence can decide a person's life or death.
The little eunuch trembled violently and collapsed to the ground. Just as he was about to beg for mercy, two senior eunuchs rushed up from the corner and immediately covered his mouth.
Then, he was dragged out like a dead dog.
Where it was dragged, it left a pool of foul-smelling water.
Chen Dafu breathed a sigh of relief, as long as he wasn't implicated.
"Your Majesty, please calm down. This old servant will have someone bring another bowl of medicine right away."
The emperor waved his hand impatiently.
"No need. After two days of medicine, there's been no improvement whatsoever. The Imperial Medical Academy is becoming more and more useless! They're all a bunch of quacks! Good-for-nothings! I spend so much money supporting them, and they can't even cure a common cold!"
The emperor cursed a few times, vented his anger, and felt a little better.
Just then, the voice of the eunuch delivering the message rang out from outside.
"Your Majesty, Consort Shu has arrived."
When Consort Shu came to attend to the emperor, he naturally wouldn't send her away and nodded in agreement.
Consort Shu entered the palace with two maids and saw the mess on the floor. Her high eyebrows furrowed.
"How do you serve the Emperor? Why aren't you dealing with all this right now?"
Chen Dafu snapped out of his daze and hurriedly called the young eunuch in to clean up the broken pieces and wipe the floor.
Consort Shu walked to the bedside and asked the emperor a few questions with concern.
The emperor leaned back on the pillow and, seeing her dressed in a bright brocade dress, couldn't help but sigh.
"I rarely see you dressed so brightly."
The concubines who have been attending to the ailing emperor these past few days have all dressed very plainly, which only annoys him more.
Consort Shu smiled and said, "I thought that His Majesty has always liked bright and lively beauties. Today, I will put aside my old face and learn from the young concubines so that His Majesty will be in a better mood when he sees them."
The emperor was amused by her and pointed at her with his index finger.
Seeing that he was in a much better mood, Consort Shu asked about what had just happened.
After the emperor finished speaking, Consort Shu couldn't help but let out a soft hum.
"I've heard that the Imperial Medical Academy is now entirely controlled by Physician Qi, and even the head of the academy doesn't dare to challenge him!"
The emperor seemed to be deep in thought.
Consort Shu pretended not to notice the change in the Emperor's expression and continued speaking.
"Speaking of which, I was in poor health three years ago, especially in the spring. I had a persistent cough that no medicine could help. It was a physician I didn't recognize who cured me. Why didn't Your Majesty ask him to treat me?"
The emperor turned to look at Chen Dafu.
As a personal eunuch, his memory was excellent. Chen Dafu thought for a moment and remembered it, replying in a low voice.
"Your Majesty, three years ago, it was Imperial Physician Song who treated Consort Shu."
Consort Shu clapped her hands gently, revealing a genuine joy.
"Then hurry up and bring them into the palace!"
It was as if she knew nothing about Physician Song.
Chen Dafu looked troubled: "Two years ago, Physician Song's family was raided and exiled to the far north."
Upon hearing this, the emperor also remembered.
"It's him..."
Consort Shu was still acting: "Why were their homes confiscated? What a pity."
The emperor glanced at her but didn't reply. Instead, he asked about other things.
Consort Shu knew when to stop, so she ended the conversation and told some interesting stories.
After Consort Shu left, the Emperor dismissed all the palace servants and spoke in a deep voice to the empty hall.
"Has Consort Shu made any contact with anyone outside recently?"
A voice suddenly rang out in the empty hall.
No.
Only then did the emperor truly feel relieved.
"Song Siyuan..."
He didn't hesitate for long before summoning the Imperial Secretary and asking him to draft an imperial edict.
Of course, as the emperor, he couldn't admit his mistake and go back to the capital first. Instead, he found a pretext to let Song Siyuan "atone for his crime by performing meritorious service."
After the imperial edict was drafted, the scribes of the Secretariat would take it back to the Wenyuan Pavilion and present it to the Grand Secretaries of the Inner Cabinet.
After the Grand Secretaries of the Cabinet reviewed it, they didn't say anything. It was just a matter of recalling a royal physician; it wasn't a big deal.
The official imperial edict was not issued until the following day.
As soon as the imperial edict was issued, the Crown Prince immediately returned to the Eastern Palace to tell Song Xibai the good news.
Song Xibai excitedly hugged the Crown Prince.
"Will my father and brothers be able to come back?"
The Crown Prince nodded and patted her back: "It will take at least four or five days for the imperial edict to be delivered there. In total, your father and the others will be able to return to the capital within ten days."
Song Xibai couldn't hold back her tears.
For the past two years, she has been constantly worried about her father and brother's situation.
After waiting for so long, there's finally good news.
Song Xibai let out a breath, feeling as if the huge rock that had been pressing on her chest had finally disappeared.
She wiped her tears with her sleeve, but then became worried again.
"I wonder how my father is doing? And my niece, Qianqian, she was only two years old when the accident happened..."
The incident that happened to the Song family was so sudden that the family was completely unprepared. A group of soldiers rushed into the Song residence and arrested the entire family.
Song Xibai escaped this calamity by sheer luck.
But his two older brothers, two sisters-in-law, and his two-year-old niece were all imprisoned.
Afterwards, Song Xibai used a false identity to travel around and spent a lot of effort to find out the truth. However, at that time, she could not save her family and could only watch them embark on the road to exile.
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
