BERW - Chapter 9

Chapter 9

"Mother Consort came so quickly."

After staring at Qu Yanyue for a long moment, Shen Yuyao finally stammered out something to break the awkward silence, a remark with no substance to it at all.

Qu Yanyue looked her precious daughter up and down, and only once she was certain nothing had happened to her did she speak. "If I hadn't come, were you planning to spend the whole night pressed against the side hall wall? This is Ziwei Palace, not Yongkang Hall. There's no telling how many eyes are watching this place, in the open and in secret. Only you would be so bold."

As she spoke, she reached out and tapped her index finger against Shen Yuyao's forehead, till Shen Yuyao could not lift her head.

Shen Yuyao nodded meekly, but inwardly her mouth twisted. She had been afraid of being seen, which was exactly why she had sent everyone away; there was not even a mouse in the side hall, so who could have seen her?

If she had not been so absorbed in listening that she failed to notice someone at the door, she would never have been caught red-handed by Qu Yanyue.

One look at the way Shen Yuyao hung her head, and Qu Yanyue knew she was beyond correction: today she admits she is wrong, tomorrow she will dare it again.

She had no way with this daughter of hers. A daughter taken from her the moment she was born, a daughter she had once thought of day and night, how could she bear to let her suffer the slightest grievance?

"Enough, stop pretending to be pitiful and move over a little." Having said that, Qu Yanyue leaned in as well. "The wall between the side hall and the main hall is awfully thick. Can you really hear anything with your ear pressed against it like that?"

As she asked, she pressed her ear to the wall, in a posture no more dignified than Shen Yuyao's.

Her own mother. Truly her own mother!

Shen Yuyao, like a magician, pulled a book out from her sleeve.

Before Qu Yanyue's puzzled gaze could settle, Shen Yuyao tore two pages from the book, rolled the paper into a tube, pressed it against the wall, and put her ear to the tube.

Qu Yanyue copied her, and the voices that had been muffled a moment before instantly became much clearer.

Her mother's astonished look seemed to say, "You even know that trick?"

Shen Yuyao blushed a little. This was nothing but a childhood game she had long outgrown. "I took that book from the study."

She had deliberately picked one with fresh ink on it, which did not look like any rare edition and so was probably not valuable. It was filled with winding, convoluted characters she could not read, and since the book had been lying about carelessly, she had assumed it was not important.

Qu Yanyue waved a hand to say it was fine. The book looked a little familiar to her, but she could not recall what it was.

Nothing mattered more at this moment than listening to gossip! Mother and daughter huddled together, holding their breath, listening to everything happening in the main hall. The Emperor was furious beyond measure; he snatched up the teacup by his hand and hurled it at the Crown Prince. The Crown Prince did not move, meekly accepting this "bounty" from his Father, and the sound of shattering porcelain made Zheng Wanwan's head ache unbearably.

Tormented by illness, Zheng Wanwan could not control herself; she stepped forward and slapped her own son across the face.

She could not very well slap the Emperor's face! She was suffering, but she had not yet lost her mind.

That one slap hurt the Crown Prince more than several blows from Shen Chong. Shen Zhuocong had never imagined his mother would strike him. He stared at Zheng Wanwan in disbelief, and the wounded, utterly devastated look in his eyes left even Shen Chong at a loss for what to do.

In truth, Shen Chong was a little frightened too. In all the years Zheng Wanwan had been married to him, he had never seen her fly into such a rage.

With the family quarreling behind closed doors, there was no room to stand on rank and precedence. Zheng Wanwan drew two deep breaths, straightened the robes that had gone askew from her sudden movement, and only then glared at them. "Have you made enough of a scene? Crown Prince, what do you think you are doing? Do you no longer wish to be Crown Prince? And Your Majesty, Cong'er is our only child, and he is the Crown Prince, the Heir Apparent of the realm. Is his dignity to be thrown to the ground and trampled at will?"

Shen Chong looked at his son, whose face was mottled with bruises from his blows, and only belatedly felt a pang of heartache.

After all, this was the son he had raised at his side for twenty years, the son on whom he had once pinned such hopes.

But this very son was not obedient in the least! Just looking at him made one angry!

Shen Chong turned his back. Once he could no longer see the Crown Prince, he felt a little better. Bowing his head to the Crown Prince was absolutely out of the question.

Seeing this move from Shen Chong, Zheng Wanwan knew the Emperor was offering a way out. When a way out was offered, one ought to seize it quickly!

"Crown Prince, I ask you: are you truly determined to cast aside the worthy daughters of high officials and insist on taking the descendant of a convicted minister as your Crown Princess?"

"Yes! Mother, Qiluo and I have pledged ourselves to each other for life. She is even carrying your child." Shen Zhuocong thought Zheng Wanwan was relenting, and hurriedly spoke to declare his feelings. "In this life, I wish only to be with Qiluo, one heart, one life, growing old together."

This was the longest speech the Crown Prince had made in Ziwei Palace that day. Now his earlier silence had its reason: from the moment he entered, he had been using silence to resist the pressure from his parents.

The anger Shen Chong had just suppressed surged up again. "Beast! That palace maid is the descendant of a convicted minister! Back then, We should not have been merciful. We should not have spared her life! You are the Crown Prince, and the Crown Princess is the future mother of the realm. Three years, three years you have not married. Was it from three years ago that you were scheming for this day? Truly, We have raised a fine lovesick fool!" Shen Chong now regretted why he had stayed his hand back then.

At the time, to accumulate blessings for the newborn Crown Prince, he had not carried out a great slaughter. And now look: that mercy had brewed this grave error.

Three years ago? Shen Yuyao found this strange. How had three years ago come into it?

"So that is it. Three years ago, His Majesty intended to bestow Qin Shujun on the Crown Prince as his Crown Princess, and the Crown Prince kicked up a fuss and refused to have it. So the signs were there even then. He hid it well."

Qu Yanyue sighed, resolving part of Shen Yuyao's confusion, and then more questions arose.

"Eldest Imperial Brother was already with that palace maid three years ago? Why did he not make a scene about taking her as Crown Princess then?"

Qu Yanyue was silent a moment; for an instant her expression was very strange. Then she reached out and rubbed Shen Yuyao's head, dropping an impatient reply. "Little children should not pry into grown-ups' affairs! Ask again, and you will go back to bed and lie there resting properly."

Shen Yuyao's eyes went round like a cat whose fur had been rubbed the wrong way. She wanted to put up a fight, but was ruthlessly suppressed by the heartless human.

"Mother Consort must know everything, and yet she will not tell her daughter. So stingy," Shen Yuyao grumbled. Qu Yanyue narrowed her eyes at her, and she immediately shut up and went back to listening intently to the main hall.

After Shen Chong finished speaking, Shen Zhuocong fell silent again, and his silence made Shen Chong even angrier.

But the next to attack was not Shen Chong. It was Zheng Wanwan.

"Consort Qin has not conceived in three years. Is it that her health is poor, or that you have never touched her?"

At these words, even Shen Chong was shocked.

Shen Yuyao let out a "wow." She had not expected the Empress to know even the affairs of her own son's inner quarters.

Then again, it made sense. The Empress was mistress of the Inner Palace, and nothing that happened there ever passed without leaving a trace. As long as suspicion was raised and a little investigation made, the Empress would surely find clues and deduce the whole course of events.

Nothing could be kept from her, unless the Empress chose to feign deafness and muteness.

"Your child has not." The Crown Prince spat out those words, and Shen Yuyao did not quite understand what they meant.

Did it mean he had never entered Consort Qin's rooms, or that he had never done the thing the Empress spoke of, that Consort Qin's failure to conceive had nothing to do with him?

"What a wretch. If Consort Qin had not had Chancellor Qin at her back these three years, there is no telling how much cold mockery she would have endured. Marrying the Crown Prince is worse than marrying a stone. And even a stone would have warmed after three years."

Qu Yanyue felt the injustice done to Qin Shujun. Three years of devotion had failed to warm this stone, and in the end the Crown Prince had humiliated her.

To make a pregnant palace maid the Crown Princess: was that not to let a woman of no name and no standing give birth to a legitimate son?

A legitimate son of the imperial house. If the Crown Prince ascended smoothly, that child would be the next Crown Prince, the next Emperor.

All the help the Qin clan had given the Crown Prince over three years would come to nothing, and yet they could not withdraw. Qin Shujun was in the Eastern Palace, under the Crown Prince's hand, a piece he could use to threaten the Qin family.

The mere thought of it was despairing.

Qu Yanyue might consider things from Qin Shujun's standpoint, but the three in the main hall would not look at the matter from Qin Shujun's position. The Emperor and Empress refused the Crown Prince's request now because that palace maid's birth was too low; she was unfit to be mother of the realm.

The Crown Prince clearly knew where the main conflict lay. Tonight's failed attempt to leave the palace had already made him realize that leaving was impossible.

Especially since Shen Chong had ordered the Imperial Guard to keep a close watch on the Eastern Palace; there was even less chance of him wandering about. But leaving Qiluo and the child outside, the Crown Prince could not feel at ease.

So in the end, he compromised. He conceded a step.

"Your child still has the position of Crown Prince's Senior Consort. If Qiluo cannot be Crown Princess, then I beg Father and Mother to permit your child to take Qiluo as Senior Consort. She is still carrying a child, Father and Mother's only imperial grandson."

At this, Qu Yanyue immediately let out a scornful scoff.

Hearing the sound beside her, Shen Yuyao turned her eyes to Qu Yanyue's face. "Mother Consort, Father and Mother will not agree, will they?"

"Mm. The position of Senior Consort is too high for her."

As Qu Yanyue spoke, on the other side Zheng Wanwan's voice spoke almost in unison.

"The position of Senior Consort is too high for her. Let her step down to Crown Prince's Junior Consort. What does she amount to, to sit on equal footing with a Qin daughter? As for an imperial grandson? Let her actually give birth to one first."

Shen Chong did not rebut Zheng Wanwan's words; clearly he agreed.

Three years had passed since the Crown Prince's marriage, and they had been waiting all along for a child of the next generation. As the Crown Prince said, for the child's sake, they could not truly do anything to Qiluo.

This was also why, when the Crown Prince made his scene, Shen Chong had merely expelled the palace maid from the palace rather than having her beaten to death on the spot.

Shen Zhuocong said no more, merely thanked them for their grace, and Qiluo's status was settled.

When Shen Yuyao heard the Crown Prince and Empress take their leave, she lowered the paper tube from her ear, a little dazed.

"Mother Consort, is this what they mean by 'if you cannot tear off the roof, you can take off the window'?"

Qu Yanyue did not answer Shen Yuyao. Her mood was poor, her expression grim.

Shen Yuyao thought Qin Shujun was truly pitiable. That very day, Qin Shujun had told her she wanted to wait until Qiluo gave birth, then take the child to raise at her knee, and no longer concern herself with whether the Crown Prince went off to dally with Qiluo.

Qin Shujun did not know how Shen Zhuocong, her husband, the one who ought by name to be her closest bedmate, had racked his brains to scheme against her.

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