Fu Yuheng had just finished dealing with the things at hand and was about to get up and rest for a while when he heard a woman crying outside. The noisy sound gave him a headache, "What's that noise outside?"
He looked at the chief eunuch beside him with displeasure, waiting for him to give him a perfect explanation.
"Your Majesty, it was the maidservant beside the princess who was clamoring to see you, and we couldn't stop her!" The chief eunuch answered cautiously with a sad face, fearing that he might say something wrong and upset the emperor.
"Forget it, I'll go out and ask." Fu Yuheng looked at the palace maids crying outside and felt a little annoyed. These women just kept crying and whining, and none of them were any good. Only Shen Qingwan was...
Fu Yuheng sighed. Why did he think of her
"Tell me, what happened?"
"Your Majesty, please follow me to the princess's bedroom. The virtuous concubine, she..." The maid knelt in front of Fu Yuheng, choking with sobs and unable to speak clearly.
After waiting patiently for a while, he found that he could not hear anything useful, so he turned around with a sullen face and went to the princess. Along the way, Fu Yuheng was thinking about the words of the palace maid. She said Concubine Xian, could it be that Concubine Xian had an accident
But Fu Yuheng never expected that what he would see would be such a scene: Concubine Xian's hands were covered in blood, the princess was lying in a pool of blood, and a knife was stuck in her body.
He frowned and looked at her. The coldness and determination in her eyes, the hesitation and helplessness on her face, everything was visible to him.
Looking at this bloody scene, my head started to hurt more and more. "Come here, take Concubine Xian back to her bedroom first. Without my order, no one is allowed to enter or leave at will."
Shen Qingwan didn't say a word when she was taken away. She didn't start to explain and beg for mercy like those people did. Fu Yuheng looked at her calmness and determination, and actually felt strangely that she was not the one who killed the princess.
Fu Yuheng returned to the study and sat on the dragon chair, looking at the table full of memorials. Her thoughts had long since drifted away. Accidents occurred one after another in the harem, and each of them involved her. She felt very headache and had no mood to read the memorials.
"Someone, call Consort Xian over."
"Yes." The eunuch went down tremblingly, feeling a little scared in his heart.
Looking at the candlelight in front of his desk, Fu Yuheng recalled the several times he summoned Shen Qingwan to the study. This woman always surprised him. Her intelligence, stubbornness, fortitude, and plainness all attracted him. It must be said that she was indeed an interesting woman.
"Your Majesty, your servant pays homage." Shen Qingwan's cold voice interrupted Fu Yuheng's thoughts.
Seeing her coming over, he coughed lightly, lowered his voice, and spoke slowly. "Is there anything that Concubine Xian wants to explain to me?"
Fu Yuheng looked at the thin woman kneeling in front of him. She almost never cried or acted like a girl in front of him. She always knelt straight in front of him and endured everything.
He raised his hand slightly to signal her to stand up.
"If I explain, will the emperor believe me?" Shen Qingwan met his gaze with determination and sarcasm in her eyes, but without the slightest retreat or avoidance.
Seeing this look in his eyes, he was a little dazed. He almost said the word "believe" but quickly changed the sentence, "Believe it or not, I still want to hear your explanation."
Shen Qingwan tried hard to recall the fragments she remembered, but she had no idea why the princess fell in a pool of blood and why she was covered in blood.
But he managed to sort out the confusion and recounted the situation in detail.
"Is there anything unusual in that?" Fu Yuheng frowned. The words in it really made him a little distrustful. Did she know nothing? Or was it really her who did it
"The princess has been unwilling to contact me since she woke up. She refused to drink the porridge I gave her and instead poured it all over the floor." Shen Qingwan closed her eyes and kept recalling what had happened before, and told Fu Yuheng everything.
"What else?" Fu Yuheng didn't think there was anything wrong with it, and even looked at Shen Qingwan with suspicion. In his opinion, the princess's temper was a bit unruly, so these things were understandable.
"Since I fell into the lake, we haven't had any contact, so when the princess sent someone to invite me, I was a little hesitant, but even though I had my doubts, I still went."
Suddenly Shen Qingwan thought of the maid who opened the door at that time, "When I arrived at the princess's bedroom, the door was locked. I knocked for a long time before a maid who seemed to be the princess's new maid opened the door. I always felt that there was something wrong with that maid's behavior. I don't know if it was an illusion, but I felt that there was something wrong with this maid."
Fu Yuheng looked at Shen Qingwan who was trying to recall the past. The clarity in her eyes made him feel conflicted. He felt that she was a person, but what he saw with his own eyes was also...
"You go first and don't come out for a while. After all, this matter involves too many things. But what happened today was really not done by you. I will give you justice." He said so, but in fact it was probably a disguised form of house arrest.
"Your Majesty, please believe that I am not a cruel person. I did not do what happened to the princess. I will take my leave." Shen Qingwan suddenly knelt on the ground, looking at Fu Yuheng firmly, and every word she spoke was sonorous and powerful.
Looking at Shen Qingwan leaving, he fell into deep thought.
"Your Majesty, the virtuous concubine has been placed under house arrest by the Emperor." It was already late, but the servant came over to report.
Aunt Gui looked at the flower pot in Xiao Shushen's hand and said in a brisk tone, very proudly, "The Queen is so wise, that bitch Shen will never be able to turn things around this time!"
Xiao Shushen didn't look up, just looked at the flower pot in her hand, "The women in the harem are like this pot of flowers. No matter how they compete with each other for beauty, as long as one day they offend me, I can easily get rid of them. Shen Qingwan's fate was her own fault, and no one else's fault. Who told her to bloom too vigorously and attract too much attention!"
Suddenly, her eyes became sharp as torches. Xiao Shushen stared at the largest and best flower in bloom, and cut it off with a pair of scissors. Her fierce eyes made people terrified.
"Women in the harem should be more stable. They must not be reckless by relying on their talents. The first bird to stick its head out will be shot. If you want to live long in this harem where people are eaten without leaving any bones, you must be mediocre and learn to play dumb. So the saying that a woman's virtue lies in her lack of talent is still correct. Too much wisdom will lead to harm! Haha."
Hsiao Shushen laughed ostentatiously, yet sinisterly, and as she laughed a tear came out of the corner of her eye. Who in the harem doesn't act cautiously and carefully
"Madam Gui, I am tired. Please help me to rest."