"But..." Lin Chunhuan was not reassured by the emperor's words. Instead, she became more entangled. "After all, I am a second-time bride. I am afraid that the empress dowager will think that I am a seductress and will be displeased."
Lin Chunhuan's concerns are actually the emperor's concerns.
Therefore, when he sent the letter to Qin Huashan, he only said that he wanted to establish a queen, but did not clearly state Lin Chunhuan's identity, because he was afraid that the queen mother would have a grudge against this future daughter-in-law.
He just wanted to wait until everything was settled before going to Qinhua Mountain in person to explain to his mother.
Unfortunately, plans cannot keep up with changes. Even though the empress dowager no longer cares about worldly affairs, she still cares very much about her son.
"actually."
The emperor took a deep breath and looked at Lin Chunhuan with a heavy gaze. "The world only knows that I used to be averse to women, but they don't know why. There are some things I have kept in my heart for over twenty years. Now that I have decided to marry you, I should tell you."
Get married...
The emperor was talking about getting a wife, not establishing a queen.
Lin Chunhuan's heart was touched for a moment, but he quickly suppressed this thought, looked at the emperor and nodded slightly.
"My past is known to the world. It's not a secret. However, most people only know one part of it. My mother and I were driven out of the house by that vicious woman, and there was a severe drought."
"My mother is a woman, unable to lift or carry anything. It must be so difficult for her to support herself in such a chaotic world, and also to support a burden like me."
Lin Chunhuan nodded again.
Even if the emperor didn't say it, she could imagine the hardships involved. What's more, this world is harsh on women, and the empress dowager's life will only be more difficult than she imagined!
"I remember one year when our family had only thin porridge to drink for a long time. It was the kind of porridge so thin you could clearly count the rice grains. Mother went out every day looking for work, but at that time, all the strong men lined up to take the work. Even the hardest and most tiring work was never her turn."
"The land was completely dry and nothing could be grown. Countless people died of starvation."
"Finally one day, the rice jar at home was empty, and there was not a single grain of food left."
Having said this, Lin Chunhuan was suddenly startled. He didn't know what the emperor recalled, and the emotions around him gradually became violent and almost impossible to suppress.
A pair of eyes also turned red in a short moment!
"I saw with my own eyes a man enter my mother's bedroom... Huan'er, I was only eight years old at that time, eight years old!"
Her left hand was pinched so hard that it hurt, but Lin Chunhuan didn't even dare to move. She could feel the emperor's grief and helplessness in his heart. He was sad not only for the empress dowager, but also for the overall environment.
"That man came out and smiled at me, leaving behind a whole piece of meat pancake, and I was unable to do anything..."
"Later, more and more people came to our house. Some of them would leave a few copper coins, but most of them would leave some food, half a bag of potatoes, three or four corns. And I could only listen to the painful sobs of my mother in the inner room, swallowing those mouthfuls... the food that my mother had sold her body for."
The emperor stopped talking, the sob in his throat preventing him from speaking again.
The atmosphere in the room was heavy, and Lin Chunhuan bit his lips tightly, his heart filled with bitterness.
"Huan'er, will this make you look down on my weakness and my mother?"
"No." Lin Chunhuan shook her head repeatedly, "Of course not! I used to just respect the Queen Mother, but now that I know about this past, I admire her from the bottom of my heart!"
"To be fair, I consider myself resilient, but compared to the Empress Dowager, I'm petty. Sir, not every woman in that situation could make the bold decision the Empress Dowager did. In that world, being alive was the greatest achievement!"
"As for weakness, that's out of the question. What can an eight-year-old do? Moreover, if it weren't for this relentless drive, you wouldn't have achieved what you have today. And how could the people today live such a peaceful life?"
That night, the emperor said a lot, as if he wanted to pour out all the depression he had experienced over the years. Coincidentally, Lin Chunhuan was a good listener.
From the look in the emperor's eyes when he left, Lin Chunhuan could tell that it was only at this moment that the emperor truly regarded her as the person he would spend his life with.
After the emperor left, Lin Chunhuan sat quietly in the house. She did not ask anyone to light the lights at night. For a moment, it seemed as if thousands of thoughts were clamoring in her mind.
No wonder the emperor had no interest in women for all these years. Now it seems that the experience of the empress dowager in his childhood left a very serious psychological trauma on the eight-year-old child.
Before this, she always thought that the emperor would appear in Qiansui Mansion that day because she really understood the emperor's thoughts, but today she heard it.
The emperor did not save her, and he did not stop Yuan Shaojun and the Nine Thousand Year Old Wei Fuzhong.
It was obvious that the person being saved was the Queen Mother at that time, and the person being stopped was the man who left the meat pancake behind!
Taking a deep breath, Lin Chunhuan stood up and asked someone to light the lamp. She had taken things for granted before, so she had to be more cautious in the future and should think carefully about the Queen Mother's attitude!
Xingqing Palace.
The emperor bowed respectfully to the empress dowager and said, "Your son respectfully welcomes you back to the palace. However, I am very busy with official duties and have not been able to personally go outside the city to greet you. I hope you will not blame me."
"You are the emperor, so naturally you should put national affairs first. I am an old woman with so many people serving me, what can go wrong?" The queen mother said with a smile.
There is not a single strand of black left in her head of white hair, and she looks like a kind and amiable old lady.
Reaching out her hand to help the emperor to his feet, the empress dowager impatiently asked, "The emperor said he wants to establish a queen. Which young lady is he interested in? You didn't explain clearly in your letter, and you've made me feel uneasy all the way here!"
The emperor looked a little embarrassed.
But the Queen Mother seemed not to notice. She only asked with shining eyes, "Is that girl coming today? If she is, please call her in and let me see her!"
"Don't worry, mother. You've been exhausted from the journey. Take a good rest for two days. After a few days, I will bring the person to you!"
However, the Empress Dowager was not convinced by this. She withdrew her hand from supporting the Emperor and snorted softly, "What do you mean by tiring journey? You're afraid I might bully that little girl, so you're hiding her from me, right?"
"Mother, you..."
The emperor froze in place, then his rage soared to the sky. "Who is this audacious bastard who dares to gossip in front of my mother? If I find out..."
"Alright." The Queen Mother waved her hand nonchalantly, even taking a sip of wine. "I haven't even arrived in the capital yet, but I've heard so many stories about the current emperor, who, in a fit of rage, beheaded a nine-thousand-year-old eunuch, that my ears are already callused."
"Why would anyone need to gossip about me?"
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