The Empress Dowager had no idea that the Emperor knew about this matter and had kept quiet about it, never revealing it to her.
They might even suspect that she orchestrated this to make it difficult for him to have children. In that case, whether it's succession by a younger brother or adoption, the fourteenth prince would still have hope.
"No wonder......"
"No wonder you wouldn't let your brother go, so that's why."
The Empress Dowager wept uncontrollably, filled with deep regret. She had failed to restrain Yixiu, resulting not only in the emperor's declining offspring but also in his growing estrangement from her.
And it even caused the fourteenth prince to bear these consequences.
“In the years before you ascended the throne, the concubines were all in the Prince’s residence, and the Empress always concealed it very well. So I didn’t notice anything amiss.”
"It wasn't until all the concubines moved into the inner palace, right under my nose, that Consort Fang and Consort Xin suffered miscarriages one after another, that I realized something was wrong."
"I had my own selfish reasons, so I kept this matter a secret and only reprimanded and punished the Empress in private. As for anything else, I really did nothing."
The Empress Dowager spoke half-truthfully, but she truly had no intention of harming her imperial grandsons.
The chubby orange said, "What about Consort Cheng's child back then? Wasn't that thanks to the Empress Dowager?"
Thinking of all this, tears welled up in Big Fat Orange's eyes.
After that incident, no matter how many times he went to the harem or how many concubines he had, not a single one of them has become pregnant since.
Back then, to guard against Nian Gengyao, he had no choice but to do that extremely difficult thing. The difficulty in having children in recent years can be seen as retribution for that past actions.
The Empress Dowager, panting heavily, felt a bitter taste in her mouth. The Consort Cheng's miscarriage truly had nothing to do with her. It was clearly an accident; if anyone was to blame, it was the Emperor himself.
"Now that things have come to this, I know that nothing I say will make a difference. But a dying man's words are often the best."
"I truly never intended to harm those imperial grandsons. Out of consideration for Chun Yuan and because of my maternal family, I have been extremely tolerant of Yi Xiu."
"I deeply regret my past actions. I was wrong, but I am still your mother. Does the Emperor truly intend to watch over me and the late Emperor, preventing us from finding peace in the afterlife?"
The chubby orange-haired woman's eyes were indifferent. Even at this moment, the Empress Dowager was still thinking about the fourteenth prince.
He dismissed everything—what was irrelevant, what was wrong, what was regretful—as mere pretense to appease the fourteenth prince.
"Your Majesty has forgotten that because of your affair with Longkodo, the late Emperor's soul has long been restless."
“Longkodo committed heinous crimes, including embezzlement, bribery, selling official positions, and treating his concubine as his wife while treating his original wife like a human pig. Each and every one of these crimes should have resulted in him being torn apart by five horses as a warning to others.”
“I consider his service in supporting the emperor and also take into account Your Majesty’s feelings, so I have only placed him under house arrest and have spared his life.”
"I just wanted to wait for the Empress Dowager and him to arrive in the underworld so that I could personally explain things to the late Emperor. Otherwise, how could I have kept him alive until today?"
At this moment, the Empress Dowager truly couldn't cry even if she wanted to. She never expected that her son would hate her so much.
Even blood relatives aren't as close as children if they weren't raised by your side from childhood. If the fourteenth prince were here, he would definitely protect his mother.
"I did all this for your throne. If it weren't for Longkodo, you wouldn't be sitting on the throne now."
"For your sake, I will have no face to meet the late emperor in the afterlife. You sold your mother for personal gain, you are heartless and ungrateful, you will surely suffer the fate of unfaithful wives and concubines, unfilial children, and a terrible death."
Having said that, the Empress Dowager breathed her last. Her arm, which she had been raising with all her might, fell limply to the ground, marking the end of her life filled with scheming and intrigue.
The chubby orange cat took two steps back, knelt before the bed, kowtowed forcefully, and muttered to itself,
“Your Majesty, I remember that when I was a child, you would secretly come to see me. Every time you were discovered, you would be punished by Empress Xiaoyiren, but you would still come again the next time.”
"But why did you change after the Fourteenth Prince came into your life? Why haven't you come over anymore...?"
The chubby orange cat staggered out of the palace. The concubines kneeling outside, as well as the princes and princesses in the palace, all knew that the Empress Dowager was gone, and the sound of their weeping suddenly increased several times.
The coffin and funeral arrangements had been prepared six months ago. As soon as the Empress Dowager passed away, Shen Meizhuang led Zhu Xi and the others inside.
After wiping the Empress Dowager's body, changing her into the prepared burial clothes, and applying her burial makeup, Zhu Xi, with tears in her eyes, took a luminous pearl the size of a longan and had Shen Meizhuang personally place it into the Empress Dowager's mouth.
Several eunuchs placed the Empress Dowager's body into a coffin made of Phoebe zhennan wood. Shen Meizhuang picked up a bright yellow silk handkerchief and wept uncontrollably.
Finally, it was placed on the Empress Dowager's face, and several maids then covered her with a sutra blanket adorned with pearls and jade and embroidered with swastikas and Buddhist symbols.
The jewels and ornaments that the Empress Dowager used frequently were also placed in the coffin, to accompany her to her eternal rest underground.
The Empress, along with her concubines, wives, and noblewomen, knelt in the hall, while the princes and princesses knelt beside their mothers.
Perhaps it's because of the recent rains and high humidity, but everyone seems to enjoy ginger soup to ward off the cold. Nine out of ten people seem to have a strong smell of ginger on them.
Sun Miaoqing knelt at the front, exchanged a glance with her adopted son who was standing beside her with tears in his eyes and looked extremely aggrieved, and then turned her head away helplessly.
The little boy tugged at her clothes and whispered, "Mother, I'm hungry..."
Sun Miaoqing wanted to cry; she was hungry too! Three meals a day consisted of thin porridge—what good was that?
"Go find your father, Mother is hungry too."
Consort Hua, unable to bear the sight, secretly took a piece of red date cake from her sleeve and handed it to Hongzhou. Even adults are suffering from the heat, let alone children.
Hongzhou grabbed the jujube cake and stuffed it straight into his mouth, as if afraid of being seen. He only saw his grandmother once a year, and even then, she didn't give his mother a kind look. He wasn't sad at all!
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