Consort Rong summoned her trusted nanny and instructed her to send a message out of the palace, instructing people outside the palace to investigate the whereabouts of Consort Wang and Consort Li.
Yinzhen was quite discreet in his actions. Although Consort Wang and Consort Li had indeed gone to their new home, they still had to put on an act. The people sent by Consort Rong said that Consort Wang and Consort Li were indeed practicing Buddhism.
The people sent by Consort Rong were not from the palace, so they naturally couldn't recognize the faces of Consort Wang and Consort Li. They only found out that there were indeed people practicing cultivation, so they sent a letter to Consort Rong.
When Consort Rong received the letter, she still felt something was amiss, but she believed it nonetheless. After all, Consort Wang and Consort Li were of low rank and very honest, with little presence, so there seemed to be no need to expel them from the palace.
The affair between Consort Wang and Consort Li was only a temporary sensation; after a while, the harem returned to calm.
Consort Rong looked even more docile, spending her days in her Yanxi Palace, eating vegetarian food and chanting Buddhist scriptures, and appearing increasingly kind and benevolent.
Perhaps the phrase "kind-faced and benevolent" is usually used to describe the elderly, but Consort Rong, a woman in her early twenties, did indeed possess that kind of kind-faced and benevolent quality.
Consort Rong dressed dignifiedly, even somewhat old-fashionedly, in simple and plain attire, with her hands always adorned with Buddhist prayer beads.
...
Seeing that the women in the inner palace were behaving themselves, Yinzhen and Yunrong didn't take it to heart.
Now, the women left in his harem are all women his father slept with. He can't take responsibility for them, even if he hadn't met Yunrong, his true love.
He was happy to provide them with good food and drink, and as long as they didn't cause trouble, he would also give their families some face, provided they didn't cause any trouble.
Has Consort Rong really become obedient?
No, she just knew that her strength was limited, and she believed that as long as she remained calm, she would eventually have a chance.
Making the Empress miserable has become an obsession for her! The Empress has never done anything to her, but she just feels that the Emperor has stopped favoring the harem because of the Empress. She even blames the Empress for the death of her second son.
When her son died, the Empress was still Consort Xian. At that time, she didn't think that way, but now that the Emperor dotes on the Empress so much, she can't help but blame the Empress for her son's death.
She told herself that otherwise the Emperor would not have been so cold to her son if he only loved the Empress when she was still Consort Xian, and her son would not have died suddenly if he had the Emperor's care...
She had forgotten that her child was premature, and that the Empress had not yet entered the palace when the child was born. She had also forgotten that she had learned from the imperial physician that her son might not grow up, and that she had ignored him for quite some time...
Consort Rong sent her maid to send out messages for a period of time, and she also planned to make trouble for Consort Wang and Consort Li.
Consort Rong knew that if rumors suddenly appeared, they would be too false, and if the Emperor found out, he would definitely investigate thoroughly. This time, Consort Rong planned to take a roundabout approach.
She planned to let the rumors spread little by little, and by then, once the rumors had truly taken hold, their origin would be impossible to trace.
The rumor that Consort Rong spread was that the Emperor, in a fit of rage for the Empress, ordered the two concubines to go to a temple to meditate and pray for blessings.
This rumor clearly claims that the Empress is heartless, lacking the composure and magnanimity expected of an Empress, and is instead jealous, intolerant, and ruthless...
The rumors initially spread among the lower strata of society.
At a banquet, several grown men got drunk, some genuinely so, others feigning intoxication.
A man swayed as he said, "My wife went to the temple to pray for blessings. She heard from the monks that two concubines in the palace are now living on the back mountain of the temple. It's quite pitiful. I heard that those two concubines are as beautiful as flowers. What a pity! Her Majesty the Empress has ordered them to leave the palace to pray for blessings. I guess they can't go back. They'll have to stay on the back mountain for the rest of their lives! It's really pitiful."
Another drunkard said, "How could that be? His Majesty is wise and not the kind of person who would listen to a woman's words so easily. It must be that monk talking nonsense. We can't take it seriously."
Another person said, "Why can't we take it seriously? Right now, there's only one prince in the palace, and the Emperor dotes on the Empress! The Empress really might just be intolerant of others."
"The Empress is indeed unfit to be a virtuous wife. When Empress Xiaochengren was alive, one prince after another popped up in the harem. She was truly jealous by nature..."
...
They had all drunk quite a bit, and one after another, they started arguing, each a staunch supporter of ancient male chauvinism.
They spoke loudly, and quite a few people in this not-so-high-class tavern heard them. What one person knows isn't a secret, and as the drinkers got a little tipsy, the news spread.
The news spread slowly, as it concerned the royal family, but it did begin to circulate. After two or three months of fermentation, it reached the mouths of the upper class in the capital.
Yunrong's mother naturally found out and got very angry. But the rumors had already spread, and no one knew which wicked person would spread such unfounded things.
She knew her daughter's temperament perfectly well. To put it bluntly, not everyone was willing to lay a hand on her. Those two concubines, Concubine Wang and Concubine Li, were not favored and had never even been heard of. Why would anyone bother to target her? Would they have nothing better to do?
Fearing that her daughter would be kept in the dark, Lady Uya sent a petition to the palace.
When Yunrong heard that her mother had submitted a petition, she wondered why she had to come back so soon after arriving. Could it be that something was wrong?
After entering the palace, Uya asked, "Are you aware of the rumors circulating outside the palace?"
Yunrong was busy with the train blueprints recently, so she naturally didn't know: "What rumor?"
Seeing her daughter's blank expression, Uya knew that her daughter really didn't know: "There are rumors outside the palace that you can't tolerate people, that you drove away Consort Wang and Consort Li, and others. The rumors are so detailed that if you weren't born to your mother, your mother would think that you were talking about Daji reincarnated!"
Yunrong was completely bewildered. She knew Consort Wang and Consort Li! How could this matter be related to her? Sending them away was the Emperor's idea.
Yunrong thought for a moment and said, "Since these words have reached Mother's ears, they must have spread quite widely. Thank you for informing me, Mother. I will find a way to deal with this."
Seeing that her daughter had taken it to heart, Uya stopped talking. She still needed to go back and investigate who was behind this!
Anyone who dares to speak ill of her daughter and spread rumors should pay the price.
Yinzhen had always been paying attention to Yunrong's news, but whenever he got busy, he would become engrossed in it. In addition, the rumors had spread from the lower to the upper levels of the ship, so Yinzhen did not know about them in time. He only received the news on the very day that Wuya handed over the plaque.
When Yinzhen heard that the rumors had spread throughout the streets and alleys of the capital and were even beginning to spread to the surrounding areas, he knew that he had been careless this time.
Indeed, I was careless. In fact, Consort Rong alone could not have done this so perfectly. Consort Rong started this incident, and it's impossible that no powerful or wealthy family noticed it during the subsequent spread of the rumors.
However, they all remained silent, and even subtly gave each other a push, not wanting the harem to become too powerful.
When Yinzhen learned that Lady Wuya had entered the palace, he knew that Yunrong might already know about the rumors. The first thing Yinzhen said when he came over that night was, "I've implicated you in this matter."
Yunrong wasn't the kind of person who didn't know what was good for her. Yinzhen did so much for her, otherwise he wouldn't have treated the harem as just a decoration.
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