Inside the palace.
The Emperor said, "Empress, the Second Prince deserved his fate. Why are you making things difficult for Ye Zhen?"
This was a rare instance of him speaking so seriously to the Empress.
Yun Wang's behavior reminded him of the late emperor; only an incompetent man would set his sights on women.
And this man happened to be his son. This wasn't the first time. The emperor felt that his death was justified, so he was unwilling to investigate the cause of his death further.
In such a situation, the Empress should be able to empathize with Ye Zhen, so how could she vent her resentment on him?
"How did I make things difficult for her? I just wanted to tell her about my troubles."
The Empress was even more displeased.
The Crown Prince always protected Ye Zhen, and now even the Emperor is protecting her.
In the past, if she got angry, the emperor would always consider her feelings first.
“She hasn’t even married into the family yet, and she’s already treating me like that because of your protection. How could I possibly want anything to happen to my grandson? Her wild speculations about me, if they reach the Crown Prince’s ears, are a deliberate attempt to sow discord between my son and me.”
The emperor sighed and didn't lecture the empress.
She understands everything.
It's just that the scales in her heart have tipped towards her own child.
The Empress continued, "I only suspected it before, but now I am increasingly certain that Yun'er was killed by her."
What do you intend to do?
The emperor's face turned serious. "Empress, in all my years as emperor, I have never felt so relaxed and at ease."
Grand Princess, all the forces that Li Heng openly and secretly hindered me have now been eliminated, and Great Wei has provided us with a great deal of assistance.
"Our present situation is thanks to both the Crown Prince and Ye Zhen. Do you want me to be an ungrateful person? Or do you hope I will become estranged from my son, whom I finally reunited with? Or perhaps Da Yuan has the ability to oppose Da Wei?"
The Empress remained silent.
She didn't think that way.
The emperor continued, "Ye Zhen has a different meaning to the Crown Prince. The Crown Prince's life was given to him by Ye Zhen."
They are deeply in love and their feelings for each other are profound. The Crown Prince cares a lot about Ye Zhen. If you make things difficult for her, our son will be caught in the middle. We already feel very guilty towards the Crown Prince.
"The crown prince is my son."
How could Ye Zhen have given him his life?
The Empress did not accept this explanation.
Ye Zhen had been kind to the Crown Prince, but after the Crown Prince returned to the capital, he helped Ye Zhen a great deal. In fact, the time when she suspected that Lady Liu had harmed Ye Zhen, it was the Crown Prince who had intervened.
Without the Crown Prince's help, Ye Zhen would still be a widow in the Marquis's mansion's backyard. How could she possibly know her own background and attract Shi Yan's attention?
Without that, there would be no glory today; his debt of gratitude has long been repaid.
The emperor knew she was being stubborn and fixated on something, so he decided to take drastic measures: "The crown prince was indeed born of you, but he has already returned his life to you."
The intention was to remind the Empress that it was not easy for mother and son to reunite, and not to let the matter of Prince Yun cause a rift between them.
Of their biological children, only the crown prince remains.
"His Majesty?"
The Queen's face turned pale, and she said in disbelief, "You also blame me for shooting him? But I did it to protect you, and I was afraid he would commit an irreversible mistake."
Her tears flowed freely, and the emperor, who couldn't bear to see her cry, regretted that he had spoken too harshly.
"How could I blame you? I'm just afraid you might do something you'll regret in a moment of impulse."
He wiped away the Empress's tears and gently coaxed her until she finally stopped crying.
The emperor sighed, "I am also saddened by the matter of the second son, but the child went astray first. Besides, we have no conclusive evidence that Ye Zhen was behind it. Let's not mention it again."
"Once the Crown Prince is married, I will devote myself entirely to you. At that time, we will go to Yan to see the child, and then visit the Helian family, shall we?"
These past few days, he suddenly thought of the Marquis of Zhongyong's mansion. Xie Yunzhou's death could not withstand investigation. At that time, Xie Bang did not know that he was not his biological son. How could he not know that Xie Yunzhou died at the hands of Ye Zhen?
But you're just pretending to be confused. Your own son is a good-for-nothing who has really done bad things. You've failed to raise your son properly, yet you won't allow him to fight back?
If Xie Bang could do it, then the emperor couldn't possibly be less magnanimous than his subjects.
The Empress, unaware of the Emperor's thoughts, remained silent.
But in his heart, he felt that the emperor was still helping Ye Zhen.
Because of Ye Zhen, her son became estranged from her, and her husband of several decades began to side with outsiders.
Now that things have happened, if Ye Zhen harbors resentment towards her, and the Crown Prince takes control of the country in the future, will Ye Zhen take revenge on her by relying on the Crown Prince's favor?
It was the empress who suggested that the emperor abdicate sooner, but now she is not so sure.
If Ye Zhen knew what the Empress was thinking, she would only be happy for Xie Tingzhou. He had worked hard since childhood and never had a moment of leisure. If the Emperor was willing to sit on the throne for a few more years, Xie Tingzhou could finally enjoy a more carefree life.
But she didn't have time to think about that right now. She asked the woman opposite her, "What do you want with me?"
After the woman stopped her carriage, she remained silent.
She had no choice but to bring the person to the charity hall for questioning.
After sitting for a while, the woman remained silent, so Ye Zhen had no choice but to ask again.
If she didn't say anything more, she would return home.
The woman understood her meaning, knelt down with a thud, and gestured with her hands.
Ye Zhen couldn't understand it.
"Can you read?"
She noticed that although the woman was dressed plainly, her slender fingers suggested that she came from a relatively well-off family.
The woman nodded.
Ye Zhen then had someone bring him pen, ink, paper, and inkstone, saying, "You write."
“I killed someone, and Li Heng knows my secret. He's using this to blackmail my father into delivering his message…”
It turns out the woman's name was Gu Xiuxiu.
She is Gu Yucheng's daughter.
A year ago, she met a scholar surnamed Qu, and the two fell in love in secret, but the Gu Yucheng couple did not approve of the scholar.
Feeling that he wasn't as honest as he seemed, and considering that his family lived far away and that Gu Yucheng only had one daughter, and that they didn't know him well, the couple couldn't bear to see their daughter marry far away, so they decided to cut off all contact between them.
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