Chapter 280: One Life for Another
The capital city -
Concubine De mourned for three days in the Duke Cheng's mansion. On the fourth day, when she was about to return to the palace, she finally got rid of the spy planted by the emperor in the Yanqing Palace and found a chance to talk to her father.
Duke Cheng exhaled heavily through his nose: "A mere daughter of the Minister of Justice has forced you into such a situation. Is she too capable or are you too incompetent?"
Defei hung her hands at her sides and clenched her fists tightly: "Doesn't father know whether she is capable or not? Wasn't it father's people who instigated the mistress of the Zhu family to use her connections in the palace to take action against the Sixth Prince?"
Duke Cheng frowned: "Don't you dare say that again."
Everyone thought that it was the late Empress's maternal family who wanted to kill the Sixth Prince, so they put white phosphorus powder in the wet nurse's clothes.
They didn't know that the reason why the Zhu family bypassed the late emperor and attacked the Sixth Prince was because the personal maidservant beside the mistress of the Zhu family was a traitor who had an affair with Duke Cheng in her early years and was coaxed into obedience by him with sweet words .
Duke Cheng promised her that as long as the Sixth Prince died, he would take her as a concubine.
Now the lowly maidservant followed the Zhu family whose property was confiscated and came all the way to the capital.
Defei believed that with her father's viciousness, he would never let the maidservant reach the capital alive.
In this way, no one in this world would know what he had done.
If Jiang Xinyue had no ability, how could she force him to take action personally?
De Fei took a deep breath and said, "Was my grandmother really killed by the assassin of the Zhu family? Or did my father kill my grandmother in the name of an assassin to appease the emperor's anger?"
"Pa!"
Duke Cheng turned around and slapped De Fei in the face, "How dare you mention it? If you hadn't been so confused and poisoned Xuan'er, your grandmother wouldn't have beaten the empress for you, giving the emperor an excuse to take back the tiger-head stick. The empress is dead, and if your grandmother was still alive, would the emperor let the Duke Cheng's mansion go?"
This was a disguised admission.
The Zhu family did assassinate my grandmother, but the injury was not fatal. It was my father who chose to kill her in order to appease the anger of the people and the palace towards the Duke Cheng's mansion after the death of the empress.
"Father..."
Tears fell from her eyes. Concubine De didn't turn her face away from the blow, but lowered her tearful eyes: "If one day, you need to sacrifice your daughter's life to preserve the wealth and glory of the Chengguo Mansion, will father abandon me without hesitation?"
Grandmother...
Grandmother is the only person who has been kind to her since she was a child without asking for anything in return. In order to protect her and her father, she can die without hesitation.
But father is not sad at all. He even thought of a way out when he asked grandmother to beat the queen.
He was the one who caused grandmother's death.
Even without the killer, grandmother would die, either from illness or from guilt over the queen's death.
"Don't think about all these nonsense."
Duke Cheng did not answer her question directly: "What you have to do now is to keep quiet and don't let Jiang Xinyue catch you. You don't have to worry about Xuan'er. I have found a famous doctor and will let him speak. Remember, I asked you to keep quiet, which means don't do anything. Jiang Xinyue... your father will find the right time to get rid of her for you. When necessary, you'd better show repentance in front of the emperor. There is no wall that is impenetrable. You must prepare for a rainy day."
"Daughter knows. If father has nothing else to do, daughter will go back to the palace first."
In the Duke's Mansion, she couldn't even cry freely, because the seven emotions and six desires that normal people should have were not allowed in her.
"Yes!"
Duke Cheng nodded with satisfaction: "While the concubine of the Jiang family has not returned to the palace yet, you should quickly arrange your own people to enter the Hexi Palace."
If Jiang Xinyue comes back, the Hexi Palace will be like an iron barrel again.
Yanqing Palace -
a dull shouting sound rang out, and Lu Yin was at the door, nervously closed her eyes, covered her ears with both hands, pretending that she could not hear.
The muffled sound was accompanied by a terrified cry for mercy: "Empress Defei, I know I was wrong, wuwu... Don't kill me, don't kill me... wuwuwu... uh..."
The person begging for mercy inside had his mouth covered and could only make short and rapid painful sounds.
Until the smell of blood came from the room, Lu Yin hurriedly held the basin and waited at the door.
De Fei came out with her hands full of blood, washed them in a copper basin, and wiped the water stains with a cloth: "I don't want to hear anyone in the harem say they heard screams or cat calls, do you understand?"
Lu Yin nodded quickly: "I will ask the people from the Ministry of Internal Affairs to come over tomorrow to renovate the windows and doors here."
Make some soundproof designs.
De Fei snorted and left.
Several palace maids who usually had a very good relationship with Lu Yin finally dared to breathe deeply and grabbed Lu Yin's arms: "Sister Lu Yin, the Queen is getting more and more scary, I... I want to be transferred to another Queen's palace."
"I... I want to too!"
Suppressed crying sounded: "Sister Lu Yin, I have old people above me and young children below me, I don't want to die in the palace... "
"Okay!"
Lu Yin felt a little reluctant, but still hardened her heart and said: "If you do your job for the Queen, nothing will happen to you. I will pretend that I didn't hear those words just now. If they reach the ears of the Queen, I can't save you."
Several little palace maids trembled with fear and shut their mouths.
In the room,
a barefoot woman in a pink palace dress was lying on the ground, with her ten fingers covered in blood and her nails all pulled out.
Her fingers were connected to her heart, but she was in so much pain that she couldn't move.
Lu Yin opened the door and came in. The person on the ground raised her head. It was Xiao Ronghua who had disappeared in the palace. The emperor had searched for her extensively, even turning the entire harem upside down, but couldn't find her.
Some people even said that before Xiao Ronghua disappeared, she always said that they could hear screams at night, and that she must have been captured or eaten by ghosts.
It made everyone panic.
It was only after the imperial concubine ordered that the harem was not allowed to discuss the matter anymore that the ghost rumors stopped spreading.
"Bang!"
The huge noise was particularly harsh in the dark night. Jiang Chuan opened his eyes and ran out without even putting on his clothes: "What's going on? Why is there so much noise?"
Most of the people in the palace were empty. The emperor and the concubines went to Chenzhou to escape the summer heat, and the palace suddenly became quiet.
The concubines who stayed behind did not have to compete for favors. They spent the whole day either admiring flowers in the Yu Garden or looking at the scenery in the Observation Pavilion, or playing mahjong in groups of three or two.
The days in Hexi Palace were also extremely peaceful.
However, because the queen had sometimes instructed that the guards in Hexi Palace must not be relaxed, even if the harem was so peaceful, Jiang Chuan did not dare to neglect it, for fear of harming the queen and the sixth prince in the future.