The stone steps of Changle Palace were covered with a layer of green moss, soft and velvety, soaked in the morning dew day after day.
Under the deep night, palace servants silently pushed a wheelchair into the inner hall.
Xiao Jin had been using this bamboo wheelchair for a long time. Ever since she transmigrated into this world, she had replaced the original wooden wheelchair with a bamboo one. As a result, the color of the bamboo had become faded and worn.
Old Zhang had gently asked Xiao Jin if the prince wanted to replace it with a new one. Xiao Jin touched the armrest of the wheelchair and thought that there was no need. After spending so much time together, she had almost gotten used to its warmth.
Of course, there was another reason she didn’t need to mention.
Thinking about Blood Rain Pavilion, thinking about the wheelchair, thinking about the warm embrace every time they held each other, unconsciously, Xiao Jin had already arrived inside the hall.
The palace servant who pushed the wheelchair had long since left, and only a dim and faint lamp remained in the hall, accompanied by a beautiful woman sitting under the light, drinking wine.
Unfortunately, the beauty’s appearance was no longer what it used to be. Fine lines had formed at the corners of her eyes, and only the phoenix robe, red as if it bled, retained its bright color, shimmering with the patterns of phoenix wings under the candlelight.
Xiao Jin looked at the profile of Lu Wanchen and seemed to understand why things had come to this point. Her aunt still hadn’t killed this person.
Without any adornments, merely observing from the side, there was indeed a resemblance in their charm to Princess Fengxuan.
Thinking of this, Xiao Jin found Emperor Qi’s perverse taste more and more disgusting. He had gone to such lengths just to please Xiao Shuang.
“Who is it?” Lu Wanchen lifted her wine cup and looked up, only to see Xiao Jin. “It’s Prince Yan. I didn’t entertain you properly. Please have a seat.”
Xiao Jin remained silent.
Sit? She already had a wheelchair. Where else did she need to sit?
Lu Wanchen soon realized her slip of the tongue and smiled, pursing her lips. “My mistake. I’m drunk and thought I was dreaming, dreaming of the young Prince Yan from childhood.”
“At that time, you hadn’t developed a leg ailment yet. You would often climb onto the roofs of various palaces, causing headaches for Princess Zhao Yang”
Xiao Jin said, looking at Lu Wanchen ‘s drunken state. “Empress Mother, I can order someone to prepare a sobering soup for you.”
“A sobering soup? You actually want to prepare a sobering soup for me?” Lu Wanchen found it amusing, laughing so much that she almost dropped the cup on the table.
Xiao Jin replied indifferently, “If you sober up a bit, perhaps you’ll remember the evil deeds you’ve done in the past.”
“Evil deeds… I’ve done too many evil deeds. Which one does Prince Yan want me to remember? Is it killing your birth mother or almost causing the death of your Princess Zhao Yang aunt?”
Xiao Jin knew that Lu Wanchen was trying to provoke her, so she smiled and said, “Neither of those.”
“Today, I met someone. She said her name is Zhao Wanqing, and she was once acquainted with Zhao Yiran, just like you. She asked me to kill you because you killed her sister in order to gain the support of Prince Shen,” Xiao Jin continued.
Boom!
It sounded as if a bone had snapped in half. The sound of the porcelain cup shattering was clear.
Lu Wanchen was drunk and realized that she had accidentally broken the cup. She wanted to pick up the pieces from the ground, but her finger touched the sharp edge, cutting her hand and staining it red with blood.
However, she seemed to feel no pain. She stubbornly tried to piece the broken cup together with her hand, kneeling on the ground and muttering, “It can’t be broken, it can’t be broken. This is the last cup… If it breaks again, I won’t be able to drink from a cup in the future.”
Xiao Jin watched this scene without a trace of sympathy and continued speaking.
“Miss Zhao Wanqing said that you killed her sister to gain the support of Prince Shen. That’s why she hates you and asked me to kill you.”
Lu Wanchen suddenly looked up, staring at Xiao Jin with angry eyes. “No! You and Zhao Wanqing are the same. You don’t know anything. I wouldn’t harm Yanran. I would rather die myself than harm her!”
Xiao Jin was slightly taken aback. What did the Empress mean by that statement?
Lu Wanchen looked at Xiao Jin, then at her blood-stained hand, a bewildered expression appearing on her face.
“In the past… In the past, Yanran and I made a promise. We agreed that when we grew up, we would live in seclusion together in a bamboo forest.”
“We would compose poems, drink wine, paint… I liked drinking, so I called myself the Carefree Scholar, while Yanran liked looking at the moon, so she called herself the Moon Embracing Scholar.”
“But it was all because of Xiao Ye! Xiao Ye liked your birth mother, so he didn’t marry my older sister who loved him. Instead, he asked Father to marry me.”
“Why? Just because I bore some resemblance to her? Just because of that resemblance, you all wanted to ruin my life? Why? Why did she have to grow up to look like me, and why did I have to resemble her?”
Xiao Jin looked at the enraged Lu Wanchen and didn’t reveal the fact that Emperor Qi didn’t actually like Princess Fengxuan. Instead, she calmly said, “Even so, you should hate Xiao Ye, not my birth mother.”
Lu Wanchen chuckled softly, “Of course, I hate Xiao Ye. I also realized that Xiao Ye dislikes me. Every time he sees me, his eyes are full of disdain.”
“I don’t want to bear children for such a person. Even if they were born with the same bloodline as him, they wouldn’t be someone I could love. I would only hate them.”
Xiao Jin sincerely felt that the Empress had gone down the wrong path.
“If you don’t like children, why did you give birth to one? You could have aborted it from the beginning.”
“Why would I abort it? If I didn’t get pregnant, how could I bring Yanran, who was pregnant, into the palace? And how could I switch my child with hers?” Lu Wanchen replied.
“Wait a minute.” Xiao Jin was getting confused. “Why did you switch your child with Zhao Yanran’s child?”
Lu Wanchen coldly smiled. “As I said, I didn’t want to give birth to Xiao Ye’s child. I wanted to seek revenge on Xiao Ye, so it naturally had to die.”
“I gave birth to a stillborn child, while Yanran’s child would gain the support of Prince Shen. Once the coup is launched, with the alliance of Prince Shen and Concubine Chen, successfully killing Zhao Yang, Xiao Ye alone would have no power left to contend with the Lu and Zhao clans.”
“By then, the Lu and Zhao clans would control the court, and I would kill Xiao Ye, letting Yanran’s child ascend to become the Emperor of Qi. I could freely drink wine and be together forever with my beloved sister.”
After listening to Lu Wanchen ‘s words, Xiao Jin had to admit that the Empress’s ideals were beautiful, but reality had clearly gone awry.
“So, where did it go wrong?” Xiao Jin asked.
Lu Wanchen trembled as she spoke, “It was wrong… everything was wrong. I didn’t know… I didn’t know that Xiao Ye had already seen through my intentions. It must have been him who instructed the imperial physician to poison Yanran. That’s why she had a difficult childbirth and both mother and child died…”
“At that time, Yanran was bleeding heavily. I touched her hair and lied to her, saying that we would go to the bamboo forest together tomorrow and never be apart again. She looked at me, she promised me, and then she fell asleep.”
“What should I do? I held my newborn child, wishing that it was all just a dream, wishing that I was the one who died, along with my child.”
“But it wasn’t so.”
Lu Wanchen held her blood-stained hands and said softly, “I should have died, but I haven’t avenged Yanran yet. I have to kill Xiao Ye, kill Zhao Yang, kill Fengxuan, kill all those who deserve to die.”
“It was they who knocked over my wine pot, it was they who made me never see Yanran again. I will live in pain for the rest of my life, so why should they be happy?”
….
The silence in the hall was stretched by the flickering candlelight.
Xiao Jin looked at Lu Wanchen, who was sitting on the floor in a daze.
She repeated Xiao Jin’s words, “Yes, I have become the person I detest the most, and I have ruined others’ lives…”
Then her tone suddenly changed, and she looked up and smiled at Xiao Jin.
“But I didn’t kill Zhao Yang. Zhao Yang is still alive. She slaughtered my family, so why can’t I hate her?”
“And you, you are not the Prince Yan, so what qualifications do you have to criticize me?”
The Empress’s words struck like thunder in Xiao Jin’s mind.
She broke out in a cold sweat on her back, but she remained composed and responded in an indifferent tone, “Empress Mother, you’re drunk.”
Lu Wanchen shook her head, saying, “I’m not drunk. I saw with my own eyes when the Prince Yan returned to the capital and drank the poisoned wine. Although the wine was colorless and tasteless, according to the Prince Yan’s cautious nature, she shouldn’t have consumed it so readily.”
“But as long as it can make Zhao Yang’s wishes fail, even if it’s a risky move, I will still take the chance.”
“Fortunately, the child Prince Yan is helping me too. She might have thought that with her crippled legs, she had become useless, so she willingly drank that cup of lethal poison.”
“Since she drank the poison, there is no reason for her to live on. So, if you are not the Prince Yan, then who are you?”
Xiao Jin stared at Lu Wanchen on the floor, her expression remaining calm.
However, the dropped box on the ground revealed her turmoil.
The box Zhao Wanqing entrusted her to deliver to the Empress had been lying on the floor for a long time, but Xiao Jin had failed to notice it while listening to the Empress’s words.
Xiao Jin had been in this world for a long time, and she had almost forgotten that there would still be people doubting her true identity as the Prince Yan. Now that she encountered it, she had no fear. After all, Lu Wanchen was bordering on madness, and the words she uttered would not be believed by many.
Xiao Jin was only worried about one thing.
Would the Empress tell Xiao Shuang that the real Prince Yan had already died?
But for now, Xiao Jin continued to look at Lu Wanchen indifferently and said, “Empress, do you think anyone will believe the words of a madwoman?”
Lu Wanchen and Xiao Jin locked eyes, as if Lu Wanchen had seen through Xiao Jin’s inner thoughts. She said softly, “Indeed, no one will believe the insane words spoken by me. But a few days ago, Zhao Yang came to the Changle Palace looking for me, so out of great compassion, I informed her about the death of Prince Yan.”
“Do you think she will believe it?”
Xiao Jin struggled to maintain her calm facade, and she almost didn’t realize when her hand had reached out. When she did, she had already lifted her hand, adorned with a jade ring, and grasped Lu Wanchen ‘s neck tightly. “Say it again.”
Lu Wanchen was gasping for breath as Xiao Jin choked her, but she laughed in her throat, “No matter how many times… no matter how many times you say it… I have already told Zhao Yang…”
“Zhao Yang already knows… you are not Prince Yan, just a… counterfeit.”
“You… counterfeit!”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Translator’s note: Just… What the heck is happening?! There were too many revelations in this chapter. Ah… Xiao Jin, run. Run as fast as you can…!
TO BE CONTINUE…Â
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