Chapter 950 A Different Xie Shang
Seeing that Aoxue was frowning and silent, and noticing that Aoxue was also angry, Gongsun Lan asked Aoxue again, "What's wrong with the Empress?"
"Master, please don't ask. Her Majesty forbids me to say," Aoxue said directly.
Gongsun Lan was speechless. Her apprentice actually listened to the Empress: "You went to see the Emperor. It must be related to him!"
Ao Xue wanted to say "yes," but after being glanced at by the Empress, she quickly stepped aside. Then Jiang Fenghua said, "Miss Gongsun..."
“If Your Majesty doesn’t mind, you can call me Lanlan. I always feel like I’m disturbing Your Majesty by living in your palace. Your Majesty always calls me Gongsun Lanlan, which always feels very formal.” Gongsun Lanlan was not at all formal. “For the sake of my apprentice being Your Majesty’s bodyguard, if you want to ask the Emperor anything, just ask. Just don’t ask that pretentious and scheming woman, Su Tingwan.”
Jiang Fenghua paused, then glanced at Ao Xue again. "Your master doesn't know that Su Tingwan is dead?"
Ao Xue didn't say anything, because her master hadn't been to Shengjing for several years, and besides, she was always traveling and only interested in medicinal herbs. She didn't even know that her master knew Su Tingwan.
Just then, Hongxiu rushed over with a secret letter, "Your Majesty, Miss Yu has sent an urgent message."
Jiang Fenghua took the letter, opened it, and read the contents. Not only had Yuzhou suffered a flood, but it had also experienced a landslide, resulting in many deaths. After leaving the capital, Lin Yu encountered refugees fleeing the disaster and learned that the situation was actually much more serious than what had been reported to Xie Shang. Yuzhou urgently needed doctors and medicines because Shengjing had been experiencing torrential rain, and the supplies Lin Yu had collected overnight could not be delivered to the disaster area.
Hongxiu didn't know what was written on the letter, but she rushed over as soon as she received it, her clothes mostly soaked. "What happened? Miss Yu has only been out of the capital for a short time!"
Jiang Fenghua glanced at the sky outside the window, her eyes filled with worry. When would the rain stop? In such terrible weather, even if there were relief supplies, they couldn't be transported out!
In this kind of weather, Jiang Jinyan probably can't do anything about it!
Seeing that the mistress and servants were whispering to each other and frowning, Gongsun Lan said, "The man surnamed Xiao is preparing to leave the capital for the Ghost Realm. I am also preparing to go. This matter is also related to the Empress. Why don't you come with us, Empress?"
"With such heavy rain, how does Miss Lanlan plan to get there?" Jiang Fenghua asked.
“I’ve been through knife wounds before, it’s nothing, I’m used to it,” Gongsun Lan said.
Jiang Fenghua asked in a serious tone, "Swords falling from the sky? When did swords fall from the sky?"
Gongsun Lan paused for a moment, then gave an example: Couldn't Empress Jiang tell that she was joking?
“Ice blades, you’ve never seen them, have you? That year in the Northwest… heavy snow blocked the roads, and many people froze to death. The ice shards on the road were longer and sharper than knives. So many people died because of them, and it was almost impossible to move an inch.” Gongsun Lan recounted the snow disaster she encountered in the Northwest.
After hearing this, Jiang Fenghua said, "Even the Northern Xiao Kingdom can encounter such a great disaster! Xiao Shang's indifferent attitude shows that he has never experienced natural disasters and suffering people, so he doesn't care about the suffering of the people of the Great Zhou."
Jiang Fenghua continued, "I just wanted to ask Miss Lanlan about the situation outside. You travel around all year round and are very knowledgeable. You must know many medicine merchants! In this kind of weather, can you contact medicine merchants? The price is negotiable."
Gongsun Lan thought for a moment, “I came from Jiangnan, not directly from the snow mountain. I took a long detour. When I came, it was not raining in Jiangnan, and the weather there was good. There should be no shortage of food and medicine. The court will also go to areas that have not been affected by the disaster to collect supplies. The Empress does not need to worry too much. These are matters that the Emperor should be concerned about. I believe he will handle them well.”
Jiang Fenghua was still puzzled about the relationship between Gongsun Lan and Xie Shang, "With such a severe natural disaster, does Miss really trust Xie Shang to handle it well? You two..."
Gongsun Lan explained, "My brother, the emperor, and I have known each other since we were very young. My father told me that he was the one who witnessed my birth."
Jiang Fenghua was embarrassed. Xie Shang watched her birth, and it felt like a father watching his daughter's birth. No wonder Xie Shang doted on Gongsun Lan so much.
"Besides the midwife who brought me into this world, the Emperor was the first person to hold me when I came into this world. At that time, I was just a baby, and he was only six or seven years old!" Gongsun Lan's tone was not one of boasting, but rather a recounting of their childhood.
Jiang Fenghua listened quietly, not feeling unhappy, but rather finding it strange. "Even if the emperor was only six or seven years old at the time, he was still a man. How could he have been by your mother's side when she gave birth to you?"
Gongsun Lan said, "My elder brother is also here. Besides him, there are other guards, all of whom are protecting Xie Shang."
"My father was also a member of the royal guards, but he was a physician who did not know martial arts. My father was not by my mother's side when my mother left. I was born after a difficult childbirth. I have never seen my mother since I was a child. It was because of me that my mother passed away. One life for another. My mother's name was Lan'er, so in order to continue my mother's life, I was named Gongsun Lan. This name was given to me by Xie Shang."
When my mother gave birth to me, Xie Shang saved me. Without him, I would have died along with my mother, so he's like a second parent to me!
Jiang Fenghua chuckled when she heard the words "second parents," saying, "Lanlan, you're really funny."
Gongsun Lan said, "Does the Empress suspect that my relationship with the Emperor is not so simple?"
Jiang Fenghua quickly denied it: "No." She felt a little guilty.
“Su Tingwan once had doubts and often got angry and jealous about it. However, the Emperor only treated me as a younger sister, so no matter how angry she was, the Emperor never paid attention to her. I feel like he is his daughter. Do you think the Emperor can like a daughter he watched being born?”
Jiang Fenghua asked in confusion, "He loves Su Tingwan so much, shouldn't he keep his distance from you because of her? Xie Shang was so young back then, how could he possibly treat you like a daughter? You two grew up together, you should be the real childhood sweethearts!"
"Love?" Upon hearing this word, Gongsun Lan felt that Jiang Fenghua did not understand Xie Shang.
“Isn’t that right?” Jiang Fenghua said.
"At that time, the Su family held military power. Which ruler wouldn't want such military power? The Su family's support was very beneficial to him. Su Tingwan just happened to be a bit unreasonable, so he let her be, spoiling her to the point of being lawless. She treated him as love, while he treated her as a pawn to gain military power." Gongsun Lan spoke without any restraint. "Your Majesty should know that a prince who can be sent to the Hidden Divine Camp for training is destined to be the next emperor. Since he is the future Son of Heaven, how could he possibly develop feelings for a woman?"
"You mean the late emperor had already chosen Xie Shang as his successor?" Jiang Fenghua had always thought that the late emperor's choice of Xie Shang as emperor was an achievement he had made later in life, but she never expected that he would choose him when he was only a few years old.
Gongsun Lan grew up in the Hidden Camp, but she was not a member of the Hidden Camp. She wanted to be a free bird, or rather, she wanted to inherit her mother's will to be an unrestrained doctor.
No one forced her to practice martial arts every day like the other bodyguards; she had been free since birth.
She had never met her mother, who died giving birth to her. Childbirth is a life-or-death experience for women. In all her years of medical practice, her specialty was actually helping women give birth.
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