In the Cining Palace, the empress dowager slowly opened her eyes. Everything in front of her was blurry. After a long time, her vision gradually became clear.
The bed is decorated with phoenix quilts and red curtains.
The imperial physician and the eunuch were in the outer room, and Zhao Hongzhuang was sitting beside the bed.
Zhao Hongzhuang was like a sleepyhead, her chin occasionally nodding and then quickly lifting up, and she was obviously asleep, but instinct forced her to sit up straight.
The Queen Mother raised her head slightly and looked at the sky outside the window. It was almost dawn.
The Queen Mother looked at Zhao Hongzhuang's beautiful profile, with a complicated look in her eyes.
She didn't expect that there was a traitor in the royal family.
In her original plan, she wanted to slowly train Jingjun Zhao Yuan and let Zhao Yuan become a true imperial monarch. At the same time, she wanted him to learn to both respect Fang Yun and be on guard against Fang Yun.
Originally, everything was going very smoothly. Not long ago, Zhao Yuan had already begun to guard against Fang Yun.
After all, although Fang Yun is the emperor's teacher, he may not teach Zhao Yuan once a month. It won't take many years for the empress dowager to make Zhao Yuan distance himself from Fang Yun.
It was not until yesterday that the Queen Mother discovered that something was wrong and instantly realized that someone was secretly influencing Zhao Yuan. Upon asking, she found out that it was her sister-in-law, Zhao Yuan's aunt, Zhao Hongzhuang.
The empress dowager was furious at having her years of hard work go to waste. Add to that her old illness, and she vomited blood and fell into a coma.
Looking at Zhao Hongzhuang, a hint of hatred flashed in the empress dowager's eyes, but then the hatred turned into helplessness.
When the previous emperor passed away, if Zhao Hongzhuang had not worked hard and used her connections in the royal family to support him, the Queen Mother would have been deposed by Prince Kang and others long ago.
However, in educating Zhao Yuan, Zhao Hongzhuang was making an enemy of the entire royal family.
There is nothing wrong in letting Zhao Yuan admire Fang Yun, but Zhao Yuan is the future monarch and he must master the art of being an emperor. He must never consciously bow down to Fang Yun and he must never stand with Fang Yun.
The emperor is not the same as the people.
If Zhao Yuan had admired Fang Yun since childhood, he would have gone to extremes when he grew up. He would have either obeyed Fang Yun in everything, or stood firmly against Fang Yun because of his rebelliousness. Both would be a disaster rather than a blessing.
The Queen Mother sighed softly.
Zhao Hongzhuang suddenly opened her eyes, breathing rapidly, then looked at the empress dowager, with a complicated expression on her face.
"Queen, you are awake."
There was a brief flash of panic in Zhao Hongzhuang's eyes, then she returned to normal.
The Queen Mother nodded slightly, and then said in a slightly majestic voice: "Hongzhuang stays, and you all go down."
The rest of the people left, leaving only two people in the room.
After a long silence, perhaps even more than a quarter of an hour, the Queen Mother closed her eyes and slowly asked, "Why did you teach Yuan'er like that?"
Zhao Hongzhuang was silent for dozens of breaths, and said, "I am just telling the truth, and let Yuan'er make his own judgment. As his aunt, I will not harm him."
"You didn't want to hurt him, but you hurt him anyway. Before I passed out, I actually had... bad thoughts."
The Queen Mother did not say anything about deposing or enthroning the emperor after all.
Zhao Hongzhuang said: "I know what you are thinking, but you may teach Yuan'er to be a wise ruler in your mind, but you may harm him."
"As long as he knows how to protect himself and bide his time, he will be fine."
"Not everything in the world goes as you expect."
"So even if Yuan'er was killed, it wasn't Fang Yun's fault?" The Queen Mother opened her eyes and stared at Zhao Hongzhuang, her eyes sparkling in the night.
"We... can't do anything to Fang Yun." Zhao Hongzhuang lowered her head slightly.
The Queen Mother sneered, "Do you think I don't know what you are doing? For the sake of the Women's Society, you can even abandon the royal family and the Kingdom of Jing, not to mention us mother and son! In your eyes, Fang Yun is the hope for the revival of your Women's Society, and Fang Yun is the only helper for you, Zhao Hongzhuang!"
Zhao Hongzhuang trembled, took a deep breath, raised her head and looked at the Queen Mother, and said: "You don't know what I am going to do!"
The Queen Mother looked at Zhao Hongzhuang's fearless eyes and thought of herself back then. Her heart softened and she sighed, saying, "How could I not know? Don't you want women in the world to be like men, to be able to read and write, to master talent, to obtain literary status, and to become saints?"
Zhao Hongzhuang turned her head slightly and looked out the window. She could vaguely see that the sky had turned light blue.
"What you are going to do is too difficult, even more difficult than for Jingguo to produce a semi-saint within five years!" said the Queen Mother.
"If it wasn't difficult, everyone would do it. It's precisely because it's so difficult that there are always people who want to take the lead."
"But you're probably just starting something and getting nothing out of it."
Zhao Hongzhuang raised her head slightly and said firmly: "When I die, I will only leave a foot high, but I will make it ten inches closer to the sky!"
There was a flash of shock in the empress dowager's eyes. She had never expected that Zhao Hongzhuang's realm had reached such a high level that she no longer cared about life or death, because even if she died, she would become a stepping stone for women in later generations. By following her, women in later generations would inevitably be one step closer to achieving their ideals.
The Queen Mother was silent for a long time, and a hint of madness flashed in her eyes. She asked sternly: "You don't have this kind of awareness. Who taught you? Was it Fang Yun?"
Zhao Hongzhuang did not look at the Queen Mother and said, "He taught me a lot, but it was me who decided to take this path."
"So in order to repay Fang Yun and to get his help in the future, you have to destroy Yuan'er, the future leader of Jing Kingdom's revival?" The Queen Mother asked again.
"The Jing Kingdom has already had a leader who can revive it." Zhao Hongzhuang turned her head to look at the Queen Mother. There was a hint of surprise in her eyes, surprise at the Queen Mother's ignorance, and also something inexplicable.
The Queen Mother clearly felt that there was contempt hidden in Zhao Hongzhuang's tone and eyes.
"He is just a capable minister and a famous scholar. Only the imperial family can produce a leader who can revive the country!" The Queen Mother raised her voice involuntarily to refute.
"And then he was killed?" Zhao Hongzhuang's tone was full of resentment and pain.
"You..." The Queen Mother also showed a look of pain. She closed her eyes, and tears gradually formed in the corners of her eyes.
Zhao Hongzhuang gritted her teeth and said slowly: "Destroy the Qing Kingdom, kill Liushan Qing Jun, and avenge my royal brother. I can't do it, you can't do it, Yuan'er can't do it, and the Zhao family can't do it for generations."
After a while, Zhao Hongzhuang continued to speak.
"But Fang Yunneng!"
The Queen Mother seemed to be making an excuse, "I just want the Zhao family to last for thousands of years, and I don't want to disappoint the late emperor."
"Apart from Fang Yun, is there anyone else in the world who can ensure that our Zhao family will last forever? Isn't it the best strategy to protect ourselves to let Yuan'er be a law-abiding monarch instead of competing for the title of the leader of the revival which is doomed to fail? What you are doing is actually accelerating the demise of the Zhao family!" Zhao Hongzhuang retorted.
"You... stop talking!"
Tears flowed down the corners of my eyes and wet the pillow.
Zhao Hongzhuang reached out her hand and gently wiped away the Queen Mother's tears, saying softly, "Sister-in-law, you are trapped in the deep palace, and what you see and know has limited your horizons. I went to Kongcheng to communicate with women all over the world, traveled to various countries to build women's academies, followed Fang Yun to the north to serve as a military medical officer, and even served in government offices. I am no longer the princess who hated all men in the world and hated that she was not a man."