Chu Yi happened to see Feng Yang falling from the armchair and cried out in surprise. The usually elegant, dignified and calm young man showed a rare expression of emotion.
He took two steps forward at a time, and quickly caught Fengyang's rapidly falling body, holding her steadily with his strong arms.
The emperor, who was lost in thought, finally came to his senses and saw Fengyang lying in Chu Yi's arms with sweat all over his forehead, his eyes closed and motionless.
Her face was pale as a bloodless mass, beads of sweat rolled down her forehead, and her teeth were clenched tightly.
The gray-haired old woman usually looked energetic, but now she was easily carried by the young man. Against the backdrop of his tall figure, she looked so thin and weak.
"Aunt! Aunt!" the emperor called out twice in a lost voice.
But Fengyang closed her eyes tightly and did not respond at all. She looked weak and dying in coma.
The emperor frowned deeply and shouted, "Come here, hurry up and call the imperial physician."
The chief eunuch Zhao Rang also heard the noise from outside and came over. He was about to accept the order and leave when he heard Chu Yi say again, "Go and bring Miss Gu to the palace."
The emperor nodded hurriedly, a gleam of light flashing in his panicked eyes, "Yes, yes, go and get Yan Fei!"
Compared to those imperial doctors, Gu Yanfei definitely has better solutions.
Zhao Rang retreated in a hurry. On the one hand, he asked the eunuch to summon the imperial physician, and on the other hand, he personally went out of the palace to Gu Mansion to pick someone up.
It took almost half an hour for Gu Yanfei to go back and forth and reach the South Study as quickly as possible.
"Second Miss Gu, Her Royal Highness the Grand Princess is inside."
"The person has been unconscious for half an hour."
"Several doctors from the Imperial Hospital have examined your Highness, but they can't figure out what the illness is."
“…”
Gu Yanfei was led to a small room by a middle-aged eunuch. Fengyang was lying on a beauty couch, still unconscious. The emperor, Chu Yi and the imperial doctors were surrounding her.
Gu Yanfei's arrival made the imperial doctors secretly breathe a sigh of relief, and the imperial doctors, who were sweating profusely, were quickly asked to leave.
In an emergency, Gu Yanfei did not rush to pay his respects to the emperor, but went to check Fengyang first.
She sat down on a stool beside the beauty couch, stretched out three fingers and gently placed them on Fengyang's wrist, checking her pulse with her eyes half closed.
After three breaths, Gu Yanfei withdrew his hand and just sighed slightly, with an expression on his face that was a mixture of understanding and helplessness.
"I'll give her the acupuncture."
As Gu Yanfei spoke, he took out the needle bag, burned the silver needle with candlelight, and then began to give Fengyang acupuncture.
The first needle is inserted into the Renzhong point, the second needle is inserted into the Jingming point, and the third needle...
Seven silver needles sealed Fengyang's seven orifices, and finally a piece of talisman paper was pasted on the top of his head.
The whole process took only a short cup of tea. Even the emperor did not dare to make a sound to interrupt. He just watched quietly from the side with a frown.
Soon, Feng Yang's face regained some color, his originally weak breathing became steady, and his chest rose and fell.
Even people who don't know medicine can see that Fengyang's "condition" has temporarily stabilized.
Fengyang's personal nanny and the head palace maid both breathed a sigh of relief and listened carefully to what Gu Yanfei had to say.
After Gu Yanfei finished speaking, Chu Yi took a few steps forward, naturally held her hand, and pointed in the direction of the outer room with his other hand. The two of them followed the emperor out of the side room one after another, leaving the nanny and the head palace maid to take care of the unconscious Fengyang.
The emperor took Chu Yi and Gu Yanfei out of the southern study and went to the warm room on the east side.
Through the glass window frames, one could see that the clouds in the sky had become thicker, and the sky had become a little darker, as if a solemn atmosphere was permeating the entire palace.
After arriving at the East Warm Pavilion, the emperor could not wait to ask, "Yan Fei, how is Princess Fengyang's condition?"
The emperor's brow was filled with unrelieved sorrow.
Chu Yi waved his hand silently, and several eunuchs retreated, including the chief eunuch Zhao Rang.
There were only three of them in the empty warm room.
The house was quiet, a window was open, and the breeze blowing in brought a hint of flower scent. In the corner, a green jade incense burner with a Qilin pattern was emitting faint green smoke.
Gu Yanfei stared at the worried emperor in front of him and said slowly, "Your Majesty, the eldest princess is not sick, but her life span is coming to an end."
"..." The emperor's thin body shook, and he staggered and held on to the small square coffee table beside him to steady himself.
The emperor looked at Chu Yi eagerly, and Chu Yi nodded slightly. He had heard Gu Yanfei mention this matter.
The emperor slowly sat down with the help of the coffee table, a bitter taste spreading in his mouth all the way to his heart.
Fengyang was already 68 years old, almost 70 years old, older than the late emperor. It was not a sudden thing that he was about to die, and the emperor had been mentally prepared for it.
but……
The emperor rubbed his brows, thinking of the scene when Feng Yang fainted just now, and asked in a hoarse voice: "Yan Fei, why did she suddenly faint today?"
"Are you sick?"
After the question was asked, the emperor immediately denied it himself: "No, it's not illness."
If she was sick, Gu Yanfei had just checked Fengyang's pulse and given her acupuncture. The next step should be to talk about Fengyang's condition and the plan for her treatment, instead of just saying: her life is coming to an end.
If Feng Yang had no illness or disaster and died of old age, she should have passed away peacefully in her sleep. Why is she in such pain now, as if she is suffering from bone-eating pain? !
The emperor's expression became solemn.
Gu Yanfei glanced in the direction of the room where Fengyang was and said, "Your Highness's soul is imprisoned. After death, his soul will be scattered and he will not be able to enter reincarnation. When I took your pulse just now, I found that your soul has been damaged..." Fengyang doesn't have much time left.
"What?" the emperor blurted out in disbelief, his face pale, and his weak body swayed again, staggering.
Obviously, Gu Yanfei's words dealt him a huge blow.
Being born as a human being, the death of the soul is probably the cruelest ending, which means that a person will never have an afterlife. This life is the end and there is nothing to look forward to.
The temperature suddenly dropped sharply, and the air was filled with the chill of autumn frost.
"Your Majesty, I once asked Her Highness why this happened, but she refused to tell me." As Gu Yanfei spoke, she felt her cold fingertips warm up, and Chu Yi's slender fingers hooked around hers.
The emperor sat there as if he had not heard anything, with his eyes lowered, silent for a long time, his body trembling and hunched.
After a long silence, he raised his head, his eyes bloodshot, and said in a hoarse voice: "I may know."
The emperor rubbed his brows tiredly and motioned for the two to sit down.
Chu Yi took Gu Yanfei's hand and led her to sit by the east window. He gently stroked her black hair and neck with his right hand, then took the teacup, tested the temperature of the tea before handing it to her.
Gu Yanfei smiled at him, her smile so light that even her eyebrows rippled softly.
The emperor calmed himself down and when he looked up, he happened to see the two children smiling at each other. He felt warm in his heart and his spirits lifted. The fatigue and powerlessness in his heart also dissipated a little.
The emperor coughed twice, cleared his throat, and asked seriously, "Yan Fei, can you tell when the royal aunt's soul was damaged?"
"About twenty years." Gu Yanfei roughly estimated, "I can't tell the exact date."
The emperor grasped the armrest of the chair with one hand, his eyes widened, the wrinkles between his brows seemed to become deeper, and he nodded heavily, "That's probably right."
Twenty years ago? Chu Yi's handsome face showed a thoughtful expression, and he handed the plate of candied fruit next to him to Gu Yanfei.
Gu Yanfei picked up a candied crabapple and put it into his mouth.
The emperor sorted out his thoughts and told the story of a long time ago: "This happened twenty-one years ago. At that time, Emperor Taizu had just passed away, and the late emperor had not yet officially ascended the throne..."
"After the body was kept for 49 days, the late emperor, his aunt, and other officials escorted Taizu's coffin to the imperial mausoleum for burial."
"That night, everyone stayed overnight in the temporary palace near the imperial mausoleum. The late emperor kept vigil at the mausoleum and prepared for the rituals the next day. Who would have thought that in the middle of the night, the late emperor led thousands of the vanguard soldiers of the imperial army to surround the temporary palace and force the imperial aunt to hand over the "Taizu Handwritten Notes."
Having said this, the emperor paused, his eyes became darker, his teeth clenched tightly, and the lines of his entire face became tense.
No one knows a father better than his son. Chu Yi immediately saw some clues from the subtle changes in the emperor's expression and asked sharply, "Father, is there any hidden story behind this matter?"
Many people have heard about how the late emperor forced Fengyang to hand over Taizu's Notes after Taizu's death, but the matter ended up in nothing, but that was all.
The emperor smiled bitterly and nodded slightly, then he talked about the unknown inside story behind this matter: "Back then, the late emperor wanted more than just the "Taizu Handwritten Notes", he also wanted the life of the imperial aunt! But he never expected that the imperial aunt was well prepared. The imperial aunt's personal guards, the Shangyang Army, had been on standby and killed those vanguard soldiers of the palace army."
"That night, the palace was stained with blood."
"The Imperial Aunt led her troops straight to the Imperial Mausoleum and pointed her long sword at the late Emperor in front of the Emperor's coffin..."
Hearing this, Gu Yanfei narrowed his eyes slightly and almost guessed the ending.
Fengyang was not cruel enough after all. If she had been cruel enough and killed the late emperor, she would not have ended up like this.
The emperor continued, "The late emperor and several of his trusted ministers begged the imperial aunt with both soft and hard tactics, appealing to her emotions and reasoning with her. They talked about the internal and external troubles of Dajing at the time. Yizhou was in turmoil, the Western Rong sent a large army to raid Liangzhou, there were bandits in the northeast, and the people of Nanyue were eyeing them covetously... If the royal family of Dajing had fought for the throne at that time, then Dajing would be in danger."
"The late emperor knelt in front of Taizu's coffin and swore that he would never kill the imperial aunt again in this life. If he violated this vow, his soul would be imprisoned forever, and after death, his soul would be scattered and he would never be able to reincarnate."
"After the late emperor swore a poisonous oath, he asked the imperial aunt for the "Taizu Handwritten Notes", and he kept saying that if the imperial aunt had not hidden the notes, he would not have gone astray, and accused the imperial aunt of forcing him..."
"For the sake of the great Jingjiangshan and the spirit of Taizu, the imperial aunt did not want to continue fighting with the late emperor, and she also made the same oath in front of Taizu's spirit, guaranteeing that the "Taizu's Handwritten Notes" would not be in her hands."
The emperor sighed deeply, his voice becoming hoarse as if it had been honed by sand and stone. "When I hurried to the imperial mausoleum, I only heard the oath of the imperial aunt, and I didn't take it too seriously. After all, the "Taizu Handwritten Notes" was indeed not in the hands of the imperial aunt, which meant that the imperial aunt could not break her oath. This oath was just to give the late emperor peace of mind, so that he would not always suspect that the imperial aunt had hidden the notes."
It was not until today, when Gu Yanfei mentioned the three points of soul imprisonment, soul dispersion and inability to enter reincarnation after death, that the emperor recalled this old event that he had almost forgotten twenty-one years ago.
The emperor's intuition told him that this should not be a coincidence.
A son should not speak of his father's faults, but even if the emperor once had any affection for the late emperor, it had long been worn away over the past few decades.
The late emperor was neither a qualified father and brother, nor a qualified emperor.
Twenty-one years ago, this so-called "oath" should have been a backup plan left by the late emperor when he failed to kill Fengyang. However, Fengyang fell into the trap set by the late emperor because he was concerned about the overall situation.
The emperor closed his eyes, scratched the armrest of the chair with one hand, his palms damp with cold sweat, and asked, "Yan Fei, do you think this matter is related to the imperial aunt's 'illness'?"
His eyes were complicated. Even though he was already 80% to 90% sure, he still hoped to get a clear answer from Gu Yanfei.
Gu Yanfei nodded slightly.
Taking an oath is similar to speaking a word. Ordinary people taking an oath casually will not have the effect of speaking a word. However, if someone who is proficient in Taoism performs a ritual when Fengyang takes an oath, then her oath at that time will no longer be ordinary words, it can even become a curse.
The oath Fengyang made twenty-one years ago was taken out of context and turned into a curse. It was like a chain that tightly bound Fengyang's soul, imprisoning and damaging her soul over the long years.
Gu Yanfei said nothing, but the emperor and Chu Yi were both smart people, and they could guess a lot from her eyes.
The air was almost frozen, oppressive and heavy.
The emperor's pale lips moved slightly, his chest heaved violently, his expression was full of sorrow, and even more so of indignation towards the late emperor.
He was about to say something when he heard the eunuch Zhao Rang's shrill voice outside: "Your Majesty, Prince Kang wants to see you!"
The moment the emperor's eyes met with Chu Yi's father and son, they understood each other's thoughts and knew why Chu You came.
"Xuan." The emperor released his right hand, then tightened it again, uttering only this one word.
Soon, Zhao Rang brought Chu You in. Chu You was still wearing his previous court dress. A bright red leather cap made him look very high-spirited.
Chu You's deep and sharp gaze swept lightly over Gu Yanfei and Chu Yi, and finally fell on the emperor sitting on a high-backed chair. He walked straight to the emperor and saluted with his fists clasped.
"Brother, I just heard that my aunt Fengyang is seriously ill, so I came here to visit her. My wife, Li, is also a bit knowledgeable in medicine, so would you like to summon her to the palace to see my aunt?"
Chu You looked at the emperor with heavy eyes, and his eyes met the emperor's.
(End of this chapter)