Meng Fu did not know exactly what Nanny Liu had done for the Ninth Prince in those years to make the Empress Dowager trust her so deeply. It’s just that the Empress Dowager had been in the palace for so many years, she should have long understood that the human heart is easily changeable. What was so in the past, today may not be the same, moreover, looking at Nanny Liu’s current appearance, what she did back then may not have been what the Empress Dowager thought.
Should it be said that this Nanny Liu’s acting was too good, or that the Empress Dowager’s thoughts were too simple, to actually be deceived by her for so many years?
“Ah ah!” The little prince on the bed let out two short, sharp cries. Meng Fu looked down—his small hands clenched into fists, pounding on the bed in dissatisfaction.
Only then did Meng Fu remember that after asking him a question earlier, she had not given him the book. She turned her head and glanced at Gao Xi, who immediately delivered the book to the little prince. Only then was the little prince satisfied, holding the two books and eagerly flipping through them.
Meng Fu reached out her hand and lightly patted the little prince’s head. The little prince raised his head to glance at Meng Fu, blinked, and then lowered his head again to continue reading.
The Empress Dowager took a deep breath. She didn’t want to deal with Nanny Liu in front of the little prince, even if the little prince might not have any emotional attachment to Nanny Liu.
The Empress Dowager stood up and walked outside. Meng Fu instructed the palace servants to bring paper and brush for the little prince, and followed her out.
The Empress Dowager walked to Nanny Liu’s front and stopped her steps. She looked down, examining the Nanny Liu on the ground, wanting to see a hint of regret, or any other emotion, from Nanny Liu’s face.
But she couldn’t see anything.
The Empress Dowager truly felt puzzled. Back then, Nanny Liu had repeatedly contradicted other imperial concubines for the sake of Xiao Jiu, risking her life to save the bullied Xiao Jiu from the hands of other princes. When the late emperor suspected Xiao Jiu’s lineage, it was also Nanny Liu who helped find someone to mediate the matter.
Were those things from back then all fake?
Seeing that the Empress Dowager seemed to want to ask Nanny Liu something, Meng Fu waved her hand, and the palace servants restraining Nanny Liu loosened their hold and stepped aside.
Nanny Liu probably knew that at this moment, any argument from her would be meaningless. Although it was a bit regrettable that she didn’t get to witness the Empress Dowager and the Emperor turning against each other as mother and son, seeing the Empress Dowager show such a pained expression today, Nanny Liu still felt somewhat satisfied inside.
Nanny Liu thought that her failure to sow discord all these years wasn’t because she didn’t do well enough—the problem must be with the Emperor himself. She had seen the late emperor in the palace, and had seen the other sons of the late emperor. Almost without exception, no matter how these imperial descendants presented themselves, their nature always carried a bit of suspicion and sensitivity. As long as you hinted a little with some suggestive words, they would take the bait themselves, follow those rumors and investigate.
There is no one in this world who can be perfect in every aspect. As long as someone was even slightly lacking, imperial descendants, especially skilled in overthinking, would quickly form barriers between people.
This kind of thing Nanny Liu had done more than once. When she was young, she had even set up the late emperor and his favored concubine. Yet this trick had no effect at all on the current emperor. She had hinted many times before the emperor that the Empress Dowager favored the little prince more, but the emperor either couldn’t catch her insinuation, or even if he did, didn’t care. Anyway, for a long time, all her efforts ended up being like lighting a lamp for a blind person—completely wasted.
Maybe she had been provoked by the emperor’s attitude, or maybe it was the little prince’s dull and unfeeling reaction to pain that gave her a chance to vent freely. She became bolder and bolder, and the wounds on the little prince’s body grew more and more numerous. Not only that, once she discovered that the little prince especially liked arithmetic, she even used that to threaten him—making him avoid the emperor, to stay as far away from him as possible. She told the little prince, if the emperor found out that he was secretly reading these things, the emperor would definitely be very angry and would make sure he never touched these books again.
Nanny Liu didn’t know whether the little prince truly understood her words, but afterward, he really did avoid the emperor. Seeing this, the Empress Dowager couldn’t help but overthink it. The mother-son relationship had already started to become distant before the emperor had even noticed.
Her biggest miscalculation probably came just a few days ago—after the palace banquet, when the emperor held the little prince and came to Cining Palace. She thought the emperor would be the same as before—cry out in disgust and walk away the moment he saw her.
But that day, the emperor did not act like usual. He asked the Empress Dowager one question—one that stabbed straight into her heart.
Everything likely began to change from that moment. Unfortunately, at the time she was too caught up in her emotions and didn’t notice these changes.
After that came today. After she acted, she didn’t expect the emperor to suddenly care about this matter, and even more unexpectedly, the Empress Dowager would thoroughly investigate the matter in front of the emperor.
Perhaps… this is heaven’s will.
“Why did you do this?” The Empress Dowager’s voice was somewhat hoarse as she questioned Nanny Liu.
Nanny Liu kept her head lowered and said nothing.
The Empress Dowager raised her voice and asked again, “Aijia is asking you—why did you do this!”
A long time passed again. Moonlight filtered through the dense branches and leaves, falling in scattered spots on the ground. The evening breeze stirred the bell under the palace lantern, producing a string of crisp, tinkling sounds. Nanny Liu lowered her voice and finally opened her mouth. She said: “My child died. I didn’t even get to see him one last time. It was all because of the Ninth Prince, all because of the Ninth Prince. You tell me, why would I not do this?”
“So… so you hurt Xiao Jiu because of that? Your child died of illness, Aijia was also heartbroken, but what does that have to do with Xiao Jiu? You said you would treat Xiao Jiu as your own child, love him dearly. If your child were still alive, would you have treated him this way?” The more the Empress Dowager spoke, the sadder she became. She took a deep breath and turned her head aside to avoid the gazes around her.
Nanny Liu let out a mocking chuckle, as if saying, how could she have truly regarded that little prince as her own child?
The Empress Dowager slightly composed her emotions and asked Nanny Liu, “Then why, back then, did you risk your life several times to save Xiao Jiu?”
Nanny Liu raised her head. Under the illumination of moonlight and lamplight, her complexion appeared especially ashen. She glanced toward the room behind the Empress Dowager—yet it was too far away, separated by doors, windows, and a screen—she could not see that little prince she had raised with her own hands. After a long while, Nanny Liu let out a long sigh and said to the Empress Dowager, “I couldn’t bear to see His Highness being humiliated by others.”
The Empress Dowager let out a cold laugh and asked her, “So you laid hands on him to humiliate him yourself?”
Nanny Liu once again lowered her head, refusing to answer the Empress Dowager’s question.
During this entire interrogation process, Meng Fu had not spoken a word from beginning to end. She quietly sat to the side, sipping tea while observing the changes in Nanny Liu’s facial expression, trying to judge what was true and what was false.
The outcome wasn’t very good. Meng Fu felt that what this Nanny Liu said was probably all lies. If she truly cared as much as she claimed about that child of hers who had died, then her eyes wouldn’t still carry such hatred when she spoke of him.
But it seemed that the Empress Dowager believed her words.
Unable to withstand such a heavy blow, the Empress Dowager staggered backward. Meng Fu reacted quickly and supported her, then called palace servants to bring a chair over, helping the Empress Dowager to sit down. The Empress Dowager sat alone in thought for a long time, then asked Meng Fu: “How does the Emperor plan to deal with her?”
Meng Fu did not answer the Empress Dowager’s question, and instead asked, “What does the Empress Mother think?”
The Empress Dowager closed her eyes, holding back the tears that were about to rise. She could not accept Nanny Liu harming Xiao Jiu like this, but thinking of how she had once risked her life to save Xiao Jiu, she also couldn’t truly harden her heart. She said to Meng Fu, “Your Majesty, I no longer want to see this person in the palace.”
This sentence—”no longer want to see her in the palace”—could be interpreted as an order for execution, or as banishment from the palace. She was leaving the final judgment in the Emperor’s hands.
Meng Fu was not the emperor, and this matter still needed to be reported to him before a final decision. Moreover, she believed that nothing Nanny Liu said was true. The harm to the Ninth Prince likely wasn’t just out of personal resentment—there might be deeper reasons involved. As for the truth, further investigation would be needed.
“Take her away for now,” said Meng Fu.
After Nanny Liu was taken away, the Empress Dowager rested for a while, then suddenly asked Meng Fu, “When did you find out Xiao Jiu likes arithmetic?”
“Yesterday,” Meng Fu replied.
The Empress Dowager responded with a quiet “mm” and said nothing more.
Meng Fu said, “This child still has some memorials to review, I shall take my leave first.”
The Empress Dowager nodded and advised her, “Don’t tire yourself out. Make sure to rest.”
“I shall keep that in mind.”
Meng Fu turned and left, but after taking only a few steps, she was called back by the Empress Dowager. Standing under the moonlight, the Empress Dowager looked at her with deep emotion; within her eyes, there seemed to be a faint glimmer of tears. In a soft voice, she said to Meng Fu: “Emperor, these past years… Mother has failed you.”
The Empress Dowager slightly opened her lips but couldn’t say the rest. She didn’t know whether the Emperor would understand.
Meng Fu understood. She also understood that His Majesty had never even noticed that the Empress Dowager had once neglected him. But even so, she was happy for him. It was only a pity that he could not personally hear this apology.
Thinking of what His Majesty had told her back at Baima Temple, Meng Fu felt that now was a good opportunity. She said to the Empress Dowager, “No matter what, Xiao Jiu is my younger brother.”
She saw the Empress Dowager reveal a faintly dazed expression. She knew the Empress Dowager understood her words—and also understood the Emperor’s feelings.
Upon returning to the Zichen Palace, Meng Fu immediately wrote down all that had happened tonight in a letter and had the secret guards send it to Li Yue.
In private, the secret guards whispered and gossiped among themselves. Such a major event had happened tonight, and yet His Majesty still didn’t forget to write to the lady at the Xuanping Marquis’ manor. The two of them had clearly just seen each other during the day, yet after only a few hours apart, His Majesty was already unable to resist lovesickness and sent her a letter.
Tsk.
At the Xuanping Marquis manor, Li Yue had just finished bathing and was preparing to sleep when he received the letter from the secret guards. At first, he wasn’t too concerned, but as he continued reading, his expression grew increasingly grim.
Back in the palace, when Li Yue had occasionally seen some small wounds on Xiao Jiu’s arms, he hadn’t paid them much mind. After all, children had delicate skin and could get bruised or scratched while playing around—especially since Xiao Jiu often ran wild in the imperial garden. There was no need to harshly blame the palace servants. Li Yue himself had cracked his own head open playing as a child and hadn’t thought much of it.
But hurting oneself was one thing. Someone else laying hands on him was a different matter altogether.
Before going to Beijiang, Li Yue was a prince without much background. Back then, if anyone provoked him or the Empress Dowager, he dared to retaliate without holding back. Now that he had become ruler of the world, yet had been deceived by a wet nurse for so many years…
What a good Nanny Liu! Just splendid!
Qingping didn’t know what Li Yue had encountered, only saw him with a gloomy expression pick up a brush and sweep it across the paper—as if in the next moment, their lady could lift a broadsword and go out to chop off a few heads.
Li Yue replied to Meng Fu’s letter about this matter with only a single word: “Kill.”
The strength of the brushstroke penetrated the paper—one could fully sense the emperor’s fury from that one character.
Meng Fu looked at the character on the letter and gently let out a breath. His Majesty only said “kill,” but didn’t say when to kill—this matter still needed further investigation.
Hopefully, in the next couple of days, no one in the Xuanping Marquis Manor would lose their mind and go provoke this emperor.