Fu Huaiyu's rebellion has ended, and the palace has calmed down.
But in some places, you can still hear some young palace maids and eunuchs gathering together to talk about these things, and they are proud of knowing so much.
On this day, Hua Xiangwei had nothing to do, so she took her personal maid to the back garden of the imperial garden to pick some flowers. They were great for making fillings for pastries or for bathing.
"Empress Zhaoyi, just let me do these things." The personal maid Lan'er followed behind Hua Xiangwei and advised, "Why do you need to do these?"
Upon hearing this, Hua Xiangwei curled the corners of her mouth, as if she was very satisfied with her compliment and enjoyed such treatment.
Although the concubine did not need to do anything, she had heard that the emperor did not like women who did nothing, so if she wanted to win his favor, it was necessary for her to pretend to do something.
Hua Xiangwei was holding a flower basket and walking among the flowers. After a while, she squatted down and got closer to smell them. "I have nothing to do, so I wanted to go out for a walk. It's not a very tiring job anyway." She said it easily, with a virtuous look on her face, but there was indeed a layer of pride hidden in her eyes.
Lan'er smiled and stopped trying to persuade her, and followed behind her to protect her.
As she walked along, there were more flowers in the basket. She smiled with satisfaction. She picked the flowers herself and was able to defend herself. No one could harm her. "That's all. Take these away. I'll wait for you here." She handed the basket to Lan'er.
There may be some bees or insects on these bright flowers, so they must be checked by the palace maids before being brought back to the courtyard.
Lan'er took the order and went downstairs with the flower basket. She felt bored so she admired it for a while. Suddenly, a conversation caught her attention.
Shifting his gaze from the flowers, he looked towards the source of the sound, and saw a few little palace maids gathered together, talking stealthily about something.
There were quite a few people gossiping in the palace, but she was too lazy to pay attention to anything that had nothing to do with her. She listened quietly and vaguely heard some words about the Ninth Prince.
"I heard that the Ninth Prince had been planning a rebellion for a long time, and the Emperor knew about it a long time ago."
"Really? I thought the Ninth Prince was just an ordinary suave playboy!"
"How many of these royal children are easy to deal with?" The maid carefully glanced around before lowering her voice, "Even brothers will kill each other for the throne."
The palace maids who were listening were all in cold sweats. If these words were heard by someone with ulterior motives, it would be a matter of life and death!
Hua Xiangwei stood there and listened carefully. She couldn't help but frowned. She was struggling in her heart whether to speak out to stop it. This matter concerned the royal family. If she spoke out to stop it...
"You can't just tell anyone about this!"
"How dare you!" After some inner struggle, she decided to speak out.
The young palace maids were already nervous to begin with, and were even more frightened by the scolding. They immediately fell to their knees.
"Your servants pay their respects to Her Majesty Hua Zhaoyi..." The maids were shaking all over, their voices filled with tears, "Her Majesty, please spare me! Her Majesty, please spare me!"
"You are ignoring the palace rules and talking nonsense here. Do you really think this palace is your home?" Hua Xiangwei scolded harshly. She has always had experience in teaching servants. If she doesn't show some ruthlessness, these palace maids will never take her seriously!
Hearing her cold voice, the palace maids were frightened and kowtowed immediately, "We were just careless and confused for a moment, please forgive us, Your Majesty!"
But Hua Xiangwei just snorted coldly. People are mean. If persuasion can be achieved with kind words, there will be no torture in the cell. These people will not learn their lesson if they are not punished. "Talking about the royal family in public, you know it is a capital crime!"
“Your Majesty, Your Majesty, please spare my life, I didn’t mean it…” Upon hearing the death penalty, the palace maids turned pale and begged for mercy.
This greatly satisfied her vanity, and she became even more arrogant. "If I forgive you so easily, will there be any law to abide by in the harem in the future?" She ignored their pleas for mercy and said, "Each of you should receive twenty strokes of the cane. If I hear these vile words again, no one can protect you!"
She didn't have the courage nor the right to sentence them to death directly, but twenty strokes of the cane were not light.
The palace maids didn't dare to say anything and had to go down quietly to receive the punishment.
Fu Yuheng, who was not far away, saw this scene and couldn't help but narrow his eyes. He had never noticed that there was someone like Hua Xiangwei in the palace. Her behavior was not petty, but generous and decent, and she could establish her authority in front of the palace people.
What they were discussing was related to Fu Yuheng, which was a royal scandal anyway, so she did a good job.
He raised his hand slightly and coughed. Hua Xiangwei looked back in surprise and was startled to see that it was him. "Your Majesty, I pay my respects to you."
"Get up." He coughed lightly again, as he had accidentally caught a cold recently.
She felt uneasy, not knowing when the emperor would come and whether he would blame her for what she had done.
The man's steady voice came from above his head, "Why are you so reserved now?"
She was puzzled and looked up at him cautiously. There was a hint of teasing in his eyes, so she must have known what she had done.
"The people in the harem love to gossip. What you just did was a good idea." His praise was indifferent, just like usual, but Hua Xiangwei was shocked when she heard it, and a flash of pride flashed across her eyes.
The emperor was actually praising himself!
She was silent and didn't know what to say, but she was very anxious in her heart, and then she heard him cough again. She couldn't help but frown, and put on a worried look, "Is the emperor unwell? Should we call the imperial physician to take a look?"
Hearing this, he waved his hand, "No need, a little cold won't be a problem."
"How come the emperor's dragon body is not a problem?" He said with a strong tone, "Your Majesty, please return to the palace and rest as soon as possible."
Fu Yuheng looked at her deeply, and finally returned to the palace without saying anything. In the following days, Hua Xiangwei always sent a bowl of medicine to the imperial study. Later, seeing that she insisted, he allowed her to take care of him.
This was Huang Enhao, and she felt proud, thinking that he saw her good side.
The news that Hua Zhaoyi took care of the emperor day and night soon spread out, and many people were jealous that she had gotten such a good opportunity!
Li Jieyu was jealous, so she tried to imitate her and deliver medicine to the emperor every day, but was always turned away.
"What kind of tricks did Hua Xiangwei use! She got all the benefits!" She was very jealous. The virtuous concubine had finally returned to the general's mansion and was not in the palace. They also got the chance, but they did not expect that Hua Xiangwei would snatch it away before it was their turn. How could she not be angry