Perhaps because he had spent too much energy, He Qing originally just wanted to lie down for a while, but unexpectedly he fell into a deep sleep while maintaining this posture.
It was Yuping who saw that she was motionless and came into the room to check on her. She then took off her shoes and socks and covered her with a thin blanket. However, these actions did not make He Qing sleep more comfortably. Perhaps the prone position put pressure on her heart, and she did not sleep well and began to dream again.
Although it was a dream, it was something she had personally experienced.
She felt as if she were back on her wedding night, seeing her husband, whom she had just met for the first time, dead beside her. People were coming and going around her, and He Qing huddled in a corner, filled with fear and despair. But this feeling didn't last long, as someone soon discovered her.
"It's all this bitch's fault!" A middle-aged woman in red, with a long face and drooping eyes, and a hair adorned with gold, silver, and jade, dragged her over and threw her to the ground. "Bah! What's that about a beautiful woman? I said my son would definitely get better if I married her. But I spent hundreds of thousands of taels of silver, only to marry such a disaster! My son was clearly getting better before, but he must have been brought down by this disaster!"
While cursing, she raised her feet and kicked He Qing repeatedly, with an extremely ferocious expression on her face, like a ghost.
He Qing crouched on the ground with her head in her hands. She could sense a crowd of people around her, but no one spoke up for her. Some even echoed the woman, while others speculated, "She doesn't look like a noble woman at all. Could it be that old bastard He Buping took the money but didn't do the job, and brought in a fake to fool us?"
In the midst of war, He Qing didn't know how he remembered the name "He Buping".
Someone else spat, "What do you mean by gilded and jade-leafed? Their life might even be worse than our daughter's! Otherwise, how could we even be in a position to ask for her hand in marriage? But she's not favored in the palace, and I'm afraid even Heaven won't bless her, so this marriage proposal won't work."
What happened afterwards was a mess in He Qing's mind. He could only hear everyone talking at once, but he couldn't hear what they were saying specifically.
Until she was grabbed by someone again.
It was the same long, thin face with droopy eyes, looking incredibly mean. It was her dead husband's mother, her mother-in-law. The middle-aged woman was holding her by the collar, her expression ferocious, like a hungry ghost. Her mouth, heavily greased, looked terrifying, and when it opened and closed, the sound seemed to come from the sky.
"Since you killed my son, you will be buried with me and continue to serve him in the underworld!"
Then... then the bright red satin was wrapped around the neck, strangling it tightly...
A suffocating feeling quickly enveloped her. The excruciating pain caused her to hallucinate. At one moment, she felt like she was being burned in a raging fire, at another, she felt like she was being drowned in a river, and at another, she felt like she was being tortured to death. The pain, like a knife cutting through her body, penetrated her heart...
He Qing was held down and struggled exhaustedly. At first, he could still maintain a little clarity, but then he gradually fell into chaos until there was only darkness in front of his eyes.
With a "bang", He Qing rolled off the bed and fell to the ground. The pain made her open her eyes immediately and wake up, but she couldn't muster the strength to get up.
He Qing just lay on the ground, his heart pounding, sweating profusely, clutching his collar, gasping for breath. It took him a long time to recover from the suffocating state.
She stared at the colorful ribbons hanging from the tent, and for the first time she realized so clearly that she was still alive.
Just be alive, there are infinite possibilities when you are alive, and you can do many things when you are alive.
Only after her breathing became even and the palpitations gradually faded did He Qing awkwardly get up from the ground and call for Yu Ping to come in and serve her. But as soon as she opened her mouth, she realized that her voice was completely hoarse. No sound came out at first, and when she spoke later, it was hoarse and unpleasant.
He Qing was startled. He walked to the table and poured a glass of water to moisten his throat. Only then was he able to speak.
She had sweated several times after today's ordeal, but she hadn't changed her clothes, so they stuck to her body and made her feel very uncomfortable.
So after calling Yuping in, the first thing to do was to take a bath.
After immersing her body in the slightly scalding water, He Qing slowly relaxed. It was only then that she realized she had been clutching Gu Zheng's note in her hand. She quickly opened her hand, but the note had been soaked by the water and had clumped together, unable to unfold.
That night, He Qing did not sleep, but recited Taoist scriptures all night. For the next period of time, she also stayed indoors, only letting Yu Ping announce to the outside world that she was in seclusion.
But it didn't make much difference whether she said it or not. From beginning to end, only Empress Dowager Zhang sent people to ask a few times.
By the time He Qing left the house again, she had completely adjusted her mindset. The first thing she did was to go to the Ziping Palace to pay her respects to the Grand Empress Dowager. However, He Qing's real purpose was to see He Buping.
Gu Zheng's words seemed like a kind of comfort, but they were more like a warning.
This was the palace, and if she showed any unusual behavior, she would be immediately noticed. So He Qing had to make sure that when she saw this person, she would no longer have any emotional fluctuations, at least not be easily seen by outsiders.
Copying a Taoist scripture and writing a few hundred words about "Ren" apparently worked.
He Buping had been standing behind the Empress Dowager. Whenever He Qing looked up, her eyes would always pass by him, but except for the first time, she did not look at him again, nor did she show any emotion, and she answered fluently from beginning to end.
Finally, he presented the Taoist scriptures he had copied in the past few days to the Empress Dowager, and this visit to pay his respects was concluded.
As he was leaving, he ran into Huang Xiu, who was coming to report. He Qing slowed down his pace, and before he crossed the threshold, he heard Huang Xiu say, "Report to the Empress Dowager, a report from Ruizhou!"
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