"Your Majesty, the court session is over. Miss Lotus is waiting for you outside the gate, and it seems she is holding the little prince in her arms. I guess the Empress misses you," Liu Feng said with a beaming smile.
"Oh?" The emperor raised an eyebrow.
This was clearly a good thing, but he felt inexplicably uneasy.
"What's wrong, Your Majesty? Is something troubling you?" Liu Feng asked with some concern, noticing that the emperor's expression was not very happy.
The emperor shook his head, said nothing, and quickly walked out of the palace.
Lotus held the child, her head constantly looking around, as if she had been waiting for a long time, waiting for him to come out.
The emperor's heart skipped a beat, because the lotus flower's expression didn't look like it was going to bring good news.
He quickened his pace and walked up to Lotus: "Lotus, has something happened to Her Majesty?"
The emperor spoke hastily, and before Lotus could even bow, she was startled by his words.
"Your Majesty, the Empress has gone to Cixi Palace. She seemed a bit strange when she left, and she specifically entrusted the young prince to me. I think the Empress probably wanted you to know about this."
"Ci'an Palace?" The emperor's voice rose considerably, and his entire body tensed up.
"Yes, the Empress Dowager's maid, Granny Sun, arrived early this morning. She originally wanted the young prince to go with her, but the Empress Dowager said the young prince was ill, so he couldn't go."
The emperor frowned, a wave of panic rising in his chest.
Something's not right, something's not right!
Suddenly, as if he had just realized something, his face turned deathly pale.
"Tomorrow is the little prince's one-month celebration!"
“Yes, Your Majesty,” Lotus replied blankly.
"Full moon... another full moon..."
The emperor murmured to himself, and in the blink of an eye, he became so anxious that he lost his mind and started running towards Cixi Palace.
"His Majesty!"
Liu Feng and Hehua hurriedly chased after him, but they couldn't catch up with him.
They didn't know why the emperor was suddenly in such a panic.
But they knew something big must have happened.
Because they had never seen the emperor so distraught and panicked.
The emperor didn't stop running, and before he even reached Cixi Palace, he was so frightened by the shouts that he almost lost his mind.
"Fire! Cixi Palace is on fire!"
"Someone come quick!"
"Fire!"
The emperor stood outside Cixi Palace, watching the gray smoke rising into the sky, and felt dizzy.
He tried his best to regain his senses and stopped a eunuch who was running to fetch water.
"Who's inside! Who's in Cixi Palace!"
The young eunuch was so frightened he almost cried, and said in a trembling voice, "The Empress Dowager... the Imperial Noble Consort... are inside. The door is burned and can't be opened."
The emperor's steps faltered, and it seemed as if darkness enveloped his vision.
The eunuch's voice, along with the surrounding noise, kept echoing in his ears, impossible to dispel.
A faint, sharp pain in his chest made it difficult for him to breathe.
"Is the Imperial Noble Consort... inside?" His throat seemed to be blocked by something, and every word he uttered was extremely unpleasant.
The young eunuch trembled, "Yes, yes, Her Majesty is still inside."
The emperor didn't speak, but when he looked up, the starlight from Cixi Palace burst out of the window.
It was both red and shiny.
It filled his entire field of vision.
In the firelight, several people lay on the ground, all of them already dead.
Children who are not yet grown up, infants in swaddling clothes, and...
The woman who walked into the firelight by herself.
Once again, I could hear the crackling sound of fire burning wood.
There was also a ten-year-old child crying out at the top of his lungs.
The memory of that fire twenty years ago flooded his mind once again like a tidal wave.
But this time it wasn't a dream, it was reality.
Seeing that things were not going well, Liu Feng immediately ran a few more steps and stepped forward to support the emperor.
"Your Majesty... don't worry, the fire brigade arrived in time and is already putting out the fire. Her Majesty will be alright."
He said this, but he was still very anxious.
The lotus flowers just a few steps away were already weeping bitterly.
The baby in her arms also began to cry.
"Why are they crying? My brother is dead. Who is crying?" the emperor murmured.
The baby's cries grew stronger and more powerful, just like those of the boy who knelt on the ground with a hoarse voice twenty years ago.
Soon, his eyesight returned to normal.
The emperor suddenly turned around.
The baby in the yellow swaddling clothes waved its hands incessantly, crying and fussing without stopping.
He felt a jolt in his chest and instantly regained his senses.
This isn't twenty years ago!
"Save her...save her...save her..." He repeated the same phrase over and over again.
Liu Feng understood the meaning behind his words and quickly said, "Your Majesty, the fire department is already working to put out the fire. Her Majesty is a lucky person..."
"Get out of the way!" Before Liu Feng could finish speaking, the emperor roared, interrupting him, "I will go myself!"
Hehua and Liu Feng both gasped for breath; they never expected the emperor to say he would go personally.
But the next moment, the emperor had already taken off his outer robe and, with lightning speed, soaked it in the water basin of a passing firefighter.
His yellow robe was soaked, so he draped it over his head and ran swiftly toward the firelight.
Liu Feng jumped up and down in a panic: "Your Majesty! You can't go! It's too dangerous, Your Majesty!"
The emperor ignored him and rushed straight into the fire.
He hadn't felt the intense heat of the fire for many years.
Every step he took to get here was painful for him.
But he had to come.
The gate was burned and deformed, but something was blocking the inside, so they couldn't rush in to rescue people.
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