Chu Yanxi spoke these words with pain, looking intently at the closed palace gate. She took a few steps back, knelt down, and kowtowed three times to the palace gate. Then, she turned and left without looking back.
Behind the gate, the Empress witnessed Chu Yanxi's departure. Tears couldn't help but slide down the corners of her eyes. After a moment of silence, she looked up again, wiping the tears from her cheeks. Her face was filled with a murderous intent.
Even if she were to die, she would drag a few people down with her to make her life worthwhile.
She was always the one to wrong others; there was never an opportunity for others to wrong her. The Empress Dowager, the Emperor, and that lowly Imperial Consort all deserved to die. Since she could not live, she wanted to drag them to death as well. That way, she would not be too lonely on the road to the underworld with them as companions.
"You venomous woman, what are you doing in here? Get out, get out!"
The Imperial Consort was the first to see the Empress enter and immediately, full of vigilance, shouted angrily. She hurried to the Empress Dowager and Emperor Xuanwen's side, shielding them protectively, and looked at the Empress with great caution.
"Ru'er, hide behind朕!"
Emperor Xuanwen forcibly pulled the Imperial Consort behind him to shield her. He absolutely would not let a woman protect him.
"Lady Liu, what are you doing here? Did Chu Yanxi lose or win?"
The Empress Dowager still kept her eyes closed, meditating. She continuously rubbed the prayer beads in her hand, presumably thinking that Chu Yanxi had already failed. If they had won, given Lady Liu's nature, she would have already impatiently rushed to their front to show off.
She hadn't said a word since entering, which made one think that Chu Yanxi had been defeated by Ling Mohan's forces. Thus, Lady Liu, seeing that there was no hope, was not rushing to escape but came here wanting to do what?
The Empress Dowager immediately felt that something was amiss. She lifted her eyelids and quietly sized up Lady Liu, wanting to see what she was planning.
"Your Highness Empress Dowager, of course, I've come to see you all and to take you away from this place together."
"You would be so kind, Lady Liu, what are your intentions? Why don't you just state them directly!"
The Imperial Consort shouted loudly. She absolutely would not believe that that venomous woman Lady Liu would be so kind as to let them leave. A weasel paying respects to a chicken meant no good intentions. Who knew what bad idea Lady Liu was brewing in her belly now.
"You lowly creature, I am speaking with the Empress Dowager, what right do you have to speak? Don't forget you are merely a lowly concubine. Do you really think you are a mistress? I am the legal wife. As long as I live, you will forever be a concubine, destined to be trampled under my feet, never to rise again for all eternity!"
You truly think that because you were made Imperial Consort, you are truly a mistress. Little do you know, a concubine is always a concubine, the most lowly of people.
To have been trampled on and bossed around by this lowly creature for so many years was the greatest mistake of her life. She should have been more ruthless, letting all these lowly creatures disappear from this world.
"Enough, what do you want? Just say it directly. There's no need for these pointless words!"
Emperor Xuanwen's tone was full of distance. As he spoke, he didn't even glance at the Empress, as if the Empress simply didn't exist before him.
"Your Majesty... Your Majesty won't even look at me anymore when you speak. Your Majesty, have you truly forgotten the words you said when you proposed to me?"
The Empress looked at Emperor Xuanwen with a sliver of hope, still harboring a trace of expectation in her heart.
"Of course, I remember. But you are no longer the you of that time. I never imagined you would become this hateful person you are today!"
The Empress let out a cold laugh, feeling that her life was a joke. She had actually become this person she herself found so unfamiliar: "Yes, I have changed. But if I hadn't changed, if I were still the naive fool I was before, I would have already died thousands of times in this man-eating, bone-spitting harem."
"If it's true that I have changed, then hasn't Your Majesty also changed? Your Majesty once promised me that you would protect me your entire life and would not let me suffer even the slightest harm. But hasn't Your Majesty also broken your promise? Every time I needed Your Majesty the most, where were you?"
"I was busy with official duties. Did I not visit you every time I had free time? The Empress's honor and my favor were all given to you. What else are you not satisfied with? Now that you have committed such treasonous acts, what else do you have to argue about!"
Emperor Xuanwen's answers to the Empress's questions were logical and well-founded. He never felt he had wronged Lady Liu in any way.
From the time he married Lady Liu, he had yielded to her in everything. Even when his mother disliked her and repeatedly asked him to depose her, he had managed to block it all and gave her all the honor. For their child, he had also personally taught them. Even though he knew Chu Yanxi's talent was not insignificant and he couldn't bear great responsibility, he still wanted to make him the Crown Prince.
This was so that when he passed away, she would have a good future. But all that he had done was still worthless in her eyes. In the end, she still felt that he only owed her an endless debt.
He had done his best with what he had to do, and he was at peace with himself for what he had accomplished.
"Isn't... isn't all this what Your Majesty should have done? Since Your Majesty married me, you should have given me the best of everything. But you still have one concubine after another, leaving me to sleep alone night after night. Do you know how many long nights I have endured!"
"Yanxi is the legitimate son. According to the ancestral rules, the eldest legitimate son should inherit. It was supposed to be Xi'er's. But it was because of your favoritism. No matter how outstanding Xi'er performed, you were always unwilling to make Xi'er the Crown Prince. You forced me to do this, you forced me! All of this was caused by you, and no one else can be blamed!"
The Empress yelled hysterically, placing all the blame on Emperor Xuanwen. For so many years, Xi'er had done everything to please him, but Emperor Xuanwen had always refused to make Xi'er the Crown Prince, always using other excuses to fob him off.
Now, the current situation was entirely due to Emperor Xuanwen's coercion. It was his own doing, and they were not to blame.
"You are still stubbornly refusing to see the truth, you are truly mad... mad!" Emperor Xuanwen shook his head and sighed, unable to imagine that Lady Liu had become so deranged, completely losing her previous gentle and lovable demeanor.