"The Emperor has ordered that Your Majesty go back and rest." The guards refused to budge.
The Queen Mother staggered and almost fell. She looked up at a place that was the Emperor's bedroom, and it was also the place she had longed for and struggled for.
For herself and for her son, as long as her son could enter that place, no one would be able to control her from then on, and that would be her true freedom.
Being the Queen is not the end, being the Queen Mother is. As long as she becomes the Queen Mother, she will be the real number one, the number one person who can suppress the Emperor.
Originally, she knew that Prince Jing was plotting a rebellion and Concubine He was dead. She was extremely happy, thinking that Concubine He would not be able to survive her after all. Her son had rebelled for no apparent reason, and now he could not be deader.
Everything belongs to her. No matter how cunning the concubine is, it doesn't matter. The one who laughs last is the winner, and she just waits for victory to come.
But she was not the final winner. After all, she was the Empress Yuan, and she had always been the Empress Yuan. There was no one else. Concubine He was just a shadow in her life. She had never seen through it before, and even thought that Concubine He was her biggest enemy. She felt that the dead Empress Yuan was nothing.
Nothing? After all, I am the one who is nothing. So what if I have been the queen for half my life? In the end, I am still nothing.
Her vision went dark, a mouthful of blood spurted out, her body went limp, and she could faintly hear the panicked cries of the palace maids. So was it her turn to die this time
Is it her turn to become the laughing stock of others
A deposed queen dies and that's it. That's what she said at the beginning. Now it's her turn.
She spent so much effort to bring down the Empress, secretly set up a trap, and finally ascended to the throne, thinking that all this was for herself and her son.
But now it seems that it is nothing but empty talk. Even after being the queen for so many years, I have never felt comfortable and happy. I have to be alert all the time, be careful everywhere, have trouble sleeping at night, can't eat well, and can't sleep well. All of this is really not worth it.
"It's ridiculous that Pei Yuanjun is the emperor's son. How is this possible?" Concubine Zhu Jing was released from the palace and only then did she learn the news from outside. When she heard that the emperor recognized Pei Yuanjun and established King Ying, she threw the teacup to the ground, breaking it into several pieces, and her face turned ashen with anger.
Her face had always been pale and sickly in the past, but now it was bluish and looked ferocious. Was this still the gentle Concubine Zhu Jing who could barely walk a few steps
Everyone in the palace knew that Concubine Zhu Jing had the best temper and was the most gentle person, but now she seemed like a different person.
Pei Qingmin looked at the debris under his feet, his handsome eyes calm.
He was also pale, but this calmness made his paleness seem more calm. Fragments of debris slid across his robe, breaking several silk threads on it.
"You useless thing, why didn't you get rid of that person earlier? You can't accomplish anything I asked you to do. You are such a useless thing."
Seeing her son's calm expression, Concubine Zhu Jing couldn't help cursing, "I spent so much effort to arrange so many people for you, but you didn't use them. You just stayed in your house to recuperate. What kind of illness can you recover from with your body? It would be better for you to leave an heir early. Even if you can't leave an heir, you have to marry a wife and give birth to a legitimate son."
When Concubine Zhu Jing said this, she burst into a violent cough. Her health was not good, and now it broke out completely. After coughing hard, she glared at Pei Qingmin fiercely, as if the person in front of her was not her son, but her enemy.
"So what mother wants is not my son, but a son born under my name." Pei Qingmin asked with a slight smile.
It was as if he was not the one being hated and resented. He was just an outsider, staring blankly at the mother who was gentle in the eyes of others.
How many people in the harem envied him for having such a mother.
Among the princes in the harem, except Prince Yan, who has no mother, everyone knows that the Queen and Concubine He are scheming. Only Concubine Zhu Jing is quiet and peaceful. She doesn't fight for anything and just wants to protect her son to grow up well. She is the most gentle and kind woman. With such a mother, even if he doesn't have the position of crown prince, at least Concubine Zhu Jing truly loves her son.
But what is the reality? Pei Qingmin couldn't remember when he became numb to all this. His mother had two faces in front of people and behind people, and he no longer had any expectations.
When he was young, he didn't understand why his mother treated him like this. He only wanted to be loved by his mother. No matter how his mother beat and scolded him in private, saying that he should not have been born, he didn't care.
But now it has become commonplace.
"As long as you marry Yan'er, the child you give birth to will be of the Zhu family's bloodline, and will be your mother's relative. But what about you? You don't listen to a word I say, you can't handle things outside, and you can't even handle things like this. What's the point of you living? If I had known you were useless, I would have strangled you to death when you were born."
Concubine Zhu Jing's eyes were bloodshot as she continued to curse.
"Give birth to a child with Zhu family bloodline and then treat him as my own child. My mother really thinks highly of me." Pei Qingmin curled the corners of his lips sarcastically. Now he no longer cared about Zhu Jingfei's scolding and was no longer heartbroken for not being loved by his mother. His heart had died long ago and had been broken into the most broken state.
He could even see Concubine Zhu Jing more clearly and calmly.
"What's wrong with this?" Concubine Zhu Jing was very angry.
"There's nothing wrong with this. Just like what you always told Qu Zhizhen, I am his bloodline." Pei Qingmin smiled calmly.
He discovered this only after he started paying attention to the Princess of England. It turned out that there was such a person who thought he was his son. Qu Zhizhen has always been smart, but he didn't expect to be deceived like this.
When my mother entered the palace, she was just a girl from a noble family in Jiangnan, and she had no great influence in the capital. How could she not be a virgin? How could she have any other relationship with Qu Zhizhen
He was just a maidservant beside Concubine Zhu Jing, but Qu Zhizhen thought it was real and thought he was really his son.
The mother used this reason to gain Qu Zhizhen's support and also secretly ordered Qu Zhizhen around.
Pei Qingmin had no sympathy for Qu Zhizhen. If he hadn't been so ambitious, he wouldn't have been deceived by Concubine Zhu Jing. The two of them were at most the same. It was just a pity for Madam Qu Er, who was schemed against by everyone around her, not just Mrs. Yu, but also Madam Liu and even her own mother.
The mother wanted Qu Zhizhen to have someone she could order around him, and it was obvious that Madam Qu Er was not one of them. That's why Yu came into being, and so did the current Madam Qu Er.
These people were sent by my mother to Qu Zhizhen. They are the ones my mother trusts.
After all, he was sorry for the girl in his childhood. It was all his fault that the girl fell into that state. He caused her to lose her mother and contract smallpox.
All the reasons were actually his. If it weren't for him, she would have suffered less, even if her biological mother was the wife of Duke Yu.
Buddhism talks about fate, and he is her fate.
"What does it matter whether it's his or not? As long as he thinks it's his, then it's his." Concubine Zhu Jing was furious and slapped Pei Qingmin hard in the face.
Pei Qingmin didn't dodge and took the slap.
The force of this blow was so strong that his head tilted to the side. Then he slowly turned around and looked at Concubine Zhu Jing, still with a hint of sarcasm, "Mother, aren't you afraid that people will find out that I was beaten?"
In the past, Concubine Zhu Jing seldom took action, not because she felt sorry for him, but because she was afraid that people would find out that he was beaten by her and become suspicious of her. So even if she was angry, she would only pinch and twist him hard, but would never hit him in the face.
"What's the point of having you now? Will the emperor still care about you? He will still care about a loser like you, a loser son. He has the King of England now, and the King of England will become the Crown Prince. If you had listened to me in the beginning, you would have gotten rid of the King of England earlier, and now you would be the only one left."
The more Concubine Zhu Jing thought about it, the angrier she became. She was just a little bit away from success.
If he had been a little faster, Pei Yuanjun would have been fine. But this useless son kept holding him back.
Kill the King of England? Pei Qingmin curled the corners of his pale lips, stretched out his sleeve to wipe away the trace of bright red blood hanging from the corner of his lips, and straightened his body: "Mother, are you still fantasizing? Are you still thinking about revenge for that man? Do you want to seize the world for that man?"
His voice was gentle, just like he always was, but these few words exploded in Zhu Jingfei's ears like thunder.
"What nonsense are you talking about?"
"Mother just admitted what happened to Qu Zhizhen, why don't you admit it now?" Pei Qingmin smiled disapprovingly, looking at Concubine Zhu Jing as if she were an outsider.
"In fact, I have never understood why a son of a traitor would make my mother obsessed with him. Why would my mother even give up her own son and everything for him? My mother does not want her own bloodline to inherit the world, but only wants to seize the world for that man. Unfortunately, the Rebellion of the Three Kings is nothing in the end."
Pei Qingmin's smile became more indifferent.
"You are talking nonsense. He was wronged and was murdered." Zhu Jingfei's voice became anxious and she couldn't help but want to scream. That boy, that beautiful boy was originally so beautiful, but he died right in front of her eyes. He died right in front of her eyes.
Just a moment ago, he was holding my hand and wanted to run away with me. The next moment, he was dead, died in my grandfather's hands.
At that moment, she almost went crazy and rushed over, covered in blood.
"Was he wronged? Mother may not know. I have specially checked. This prince has many confidantes around him. During the war, he had more than a dozen maids with him. All of them were beauties, and each one was stunning. However, he had to leave them behind when he escaped. Then he escaped along the way and seduced several women. With the help of those women, he fled to the Jiangnan area."
Pei Qingmin smiled, with a bit of cruelty, and rudely tore apart Zhu Jingfei's self-righteousness for so many years. That deep affection was actually a tool for that man.
He said it was love at first sight, but he had other intentions. He was after the power behind Concubine Zhu Jing. He wanted to take Concubine Zhu away, but only because he could make her his hostage at the critical moment. At that time, Concubine Zhu Jing was about to be sent to the capital for a beauty show.
It is even more crucial for the Zhu family.
The fact that the Prince of Han could escape so far and not be caught for so long shows that he was very shrewd and schemed against many women along the way. He used his handsome face to escape to Jiangnan, where he met Concubine Zhu Jingfei. In Concubine Zhu Jingfei's eyes, everything that happened afterwards was a beautiful encounter, and everything beautiful was all the good things she had experienced over the years.
For this beauty, she is willing to sacrifice everything.
But for the Prince of Han, this was the result of a carefully planned plan. He needed a woman to devote herself to him wholeheartedly and help him continue to escape south.
The Jiangnan area was not his destination. He fled to southern Xinjiang. It was said that there were snakes and insects everywhere, and swamps were everywhere, making it difficult for a large army to enter. Only by fleeing there could he recuperate and plan for the future.
If one escapes to the northern border and the other to the southern border, they can also raise an army together in the future to attack the Great Zhou Kingdom in the middle. This was the plan made by the Prince of Han and the Prince of Qin from the beginning.
Except for the Prince of Chu, whom they looked down upon, there was a deal between the two princes. The destination of the Prince of Han was Southern Xinjiang.
He didn't have many soldiers and was afraid of being discovered, so the only thing he could use was this "beautiful encounter"
"Do you want to meet that man's confidant? Listen to what he says? I think you would like to! It is said that he also met you before. For you, he is an old friend."
Pei Qingmin continued, looking at Concubine Zhu Jing's shaky appearance, still smiling gently, he didn't care about anything in this world.
The so-called maternal love is also fake and has a purpose, so why should he care
What he cares about, he only keeps in his heart. That is the place he will always care about, and it is also the only warm place in his frozen heart.