Chapter 186 I am here to see the Queen off
"Do you think he did that to you because he loves you? No, he is just taking revenge on me and the Xiao family. He wants to bring shame to the Xiao family and make them unable to hold their heads up in front of the people."
"The Queen of a country committed adultery with another man, and the Emperor of a country even made her son, who was born out of wedlock, the Crown Prince, intending to pass the throne to him. The Heavenly Master did it. He successfully avenged me and the Xiao family. Because of him, the Xiao family...can't hold their heads up high."
The Queen looked at the Emperor in disbelief: "No, Rui'er is his son. He can't be so cruel as to ignore Rui'er..."
The Emperor scoffed, "You probably still don't know the identity of that Heavenly Master, right? He's the son of the third-generation ancestor of the Xiao family. He used Beining's evil sorcery to keep himself alive until now, appearing in his thirties."
"Queen, you keep saying you love me, and you're willing to betray me for him... He's a monster, an old monster."
The queen suddenly remembered something and began to retch violently while kneeling on the ground.
"Your Majesty, I was truly wrong. I know I was wrong. Please let Rui'er go. I am willing to die for him. Please have mercy on me, Your Majesty."
"Die for him? If you hadn't poisoned me, and he hadn't rebelled by besieging the city, I might have spared his life."
The Emperor sighed, "In fact, I did give him a chance. Although he is not my biological son, I have raised him since he was a child. How could I not have any feelings for him?"
"After I learned his identity, I didn't expose him. Instead, I found other reasons to depose him and imprisoned him. This was to leave him a chance to survive. As long as he behaved himself, I would let him live, but he didn't want this opportunity."
"Queen, I cannot keep you or him. I am here today to see you for the last time."
"I will depose you and sentence you to death. Your remains will not be buried in the imperial mausoleum. After all... I don't want to see you again, either now or after death."
Not long after the emperor left, someone sent poisoned wine.
At this time, only the Queen was left in Fengyi Palace, while Eunuch Li was standing outside the palace waiting to return and report.
Just as the queen was about to drink it, she suddenly heard voices at the door.
"Eunuch Li, would you please let me in? After all, we've been together for so many years, and I'd like to see the Empress off."
Eunuch Li had been a shrewd man in the palace for decades, so he naturally wouldn't offend a concubine with a prince for the sake of a queen who was about to die. "Please, Concubine Shun, I'll be back later."
Watching Eunuch Li walk away, Concubine Shun pushed open the door of Fengyi Palace and walked in.
"Your Majesty, the Queen."
The queen looked up at Concubine Shun with some surprise. After all, no one in the harem wanted to have anything to do with her at this time.
"What are you doing here?"
Concubine Shun looked at the Empress who was trying hard to maintain her composure while sitting on the Phoenix Throne and couldn't help but smile, "I'm here to see Her Majesty off. After all, Her Majesty gave me a big gift, didn't she?"
A trace of guilt flashed across the queen's face: "I don't know what you are talking about."
"I don't know?" Concubine Shun put away her smile, and even her expression became gloomy. "The Queen is really forgetful."
"When I was pregnant, the Empress sent a secret letter to General Cui Hang, who was guarding the border. Do you remember?"
"I don't have any, don't talk nonsense, I don't know what secret letter it is."
Concubine Shun stood up and walked over, took out the secret letter and threw it in the queen's face: "Don't you admit it yet?"
"When the emperor was still a prince, my family married me off as a concubine. Even though I had a lover, I had no choice but to agree. I became pregnant the following month, and not long after, I received the news that Cui Hang had died in battle."
"At that time, I just thought it was a case of the swords being merciless on the battlefield. But later, at a palace banquet, Cui Hang's sister secretly gave me this letter when no one else was paying attention. That's when I learned the real cause of his death."
"You were childless at the time, and you were afraid that if I gave birth to the Emperor's eldest son, it would harm your future son. That's why you wrote a secret letter to Cui Hang, telling him that I was married and pregnant. Your goal was to hope that he would die in battle. After I learned of his death, I couldn't keep the child in my womb."
"But you don't know that before I got married, I met with the Cui family and repeatedly told them not to tell Cui Hang about this matter before he returned victorious. After all, being distracted on the battlefield is a taboo. But I didn't expect that all my precautions couldn't stop you."
"When I learned about this, you were already the queen. I could only lie low. Every day and every night, I thought about how to bring you down."
"You have no idea how excited I was when I accidentally discovered at the palace banquet that you seemed to be having an affair with someone, but I never expected that person to be the Heavenly Master."
"I had no evidence of your affair. Later, when you became pregnant, I still couldn't confirm whether the child was the emperor's, so I could only secretly order people to investigate. However, you were too secretive. It wasn't until one day in the imperial garden that I accidentally discovered some traces of your body."
"The Emperor hasn't stayed in your palace for several months, so those traces definitely couldn't have been left by the Emperor. They could only have been left by the adulterer you had an affair with back then!"
"That's right. When the Marquis of Guangling and his wife were showing affection that day, I deliberately dragged the emperor past them so that he could hear it. I wanted to arouse his guilt and make him go to your palace."
"Actually, I was just taking a gamble, but I didn't expect the emperor to go to your palace that night and find the marks on your body. You don't know, when the palace servants told me the news, I kowtowed to the heavens several times in the courtyard."
"The Emperor didn't depose you as I thought, but instead placed you under house arrest. Later, when I learned that you were planning to poison the Emperor, I helped you. Otherwise, you wouldn't have really thought that a mere eunuch could easily poison the current Emperor."
"The Crown Prince is not the Emperor's child, and you gave the Emperor a poison for which there is no antidote. Luo Yun, you will surely die!"
"Luo Yun, you should know the pain of not being able to marry the one you love, but why did you treat me like that... Why did you kill Cui Hang? Isn't it good for us to live in peace? My heart was already dead when I married him, I won't fight with you."
"You're going to die today, but it doesn't matter if you die. My brother Hang won't come back. Even if he's alive, even if it's not me, it's still good as long as I can watch him get married and have children."
The Queen stared at Concubine Shun in shock, then suddenly smiled with a twisted expression: "Yes, that's what I did. If I can't get the one I love, then none of you can either. I just want you to suffer, just like me."
"Only I can be the queen, and only my son can be the crown prince. Only then... can I be closer to him."
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