Chapter 5: Fuming with Anger

Songzhi knelt and reported, “Your Majesty, Her Ladyship has been busy with the Palace Selection lately and hasn’t been feeling well. She drank the Calming Decoction and retired early, unaware that Your Majesty would visit. Please forgive her.”

She really fell asleep?

The Emperor didn’t believe it. He turned and took two steps, deliberately making some noise, but his peripheral vision never left the red curtain.

He waited for Consort Hua, who had always been devoted to him, to emerge from within, dressed in red.

The night breeze gently brushed by, but no one appeared.

If it were anyone else, he would have been angry. Unable to resist, the Emperor entered the bedchamber and stood by the bed, using the beaded bracelet in his hand to tease Nian Shilan’s face.

The tassels brushed against her jade-like skin.

Nian Shilan was sleeping soundly, undisturbed by the world.

These days, there had been many matters in the palace. The Empress was frequently ill, leaving the entire harem in her hands.

She must have been exhausted. Look at her delicate face… why does it seem rounder?

Early the next morning, Nian Shilan turned over, her limbs resting on something soft. Thinking it was a pillow, she tried to hug it and turn again, but the “pillow” didn’t budge.

[What lousy thing is this?! Can’t even be hugged. I’ll have Songzhi throw it out later.]

“Awake?”

The Emperor hadn’t left last night, nor had he allowed the servants to wake Nian Shilan. He simply lay down beside her.

[Such an unpleasant voice. Why does it sound so much like the Emperor?]

The Emperor’s face darkened. “It is I.”

The light inside the green gauze cabinet was dim. Nian Shilan slowly opened her eyes, and the Emperor’s large face gradually came into focus in her vision.

“Ah!!!”

Half-asleep, she seemed to have seen a ghost and kicked out.

A low, suppressed “ah” echoed.

If not for the green gauze cabinet door blocking the way, the Emperor would have ended up on the floor.

“Outrageous!” the Emperor thundered.

Hearing Consort Hua’s scream, the palace attendants on duty immediately added two more lamps.

“Your Majesty, you’ve finally come to see your consort.”

Realizing it was the Emperor, Nian Shilan threw herself onto him, wrapping her arms around him and sobbing pitifully:

“Your consort just had a nightmare. I dreamed that Your Majesty had taken a new sister and was going to banish me to the cold palace. It scared me so much I broke into a cold sweat.”

She was delicate, soft, and pitiful, pretending that the one who had kicked the Emperor wasn’t her.

She gave the Emperor no chance to question her.

The Emperor, after all, cherished beauty and tenderness. He patted her back soothingly. “Silly talk, how can a nightmare be taken seriously? I care for you the most. How could I bear to banish you to the cold palace?”

[You wouldn’t banish me to the cold palace, but you’d have no problem ordering my death!]

[You caused me to lose my child, killed my entire family, and pitiful me, I still loved you deeply until my death. I heard it was the Empress’s decree that took my life, yet I still hoped you would come to see me one last time!]

[But not only did you allow others to take my life, you also allowed that little wretch to humiliate me.]

[A hypocrite through and through, utterly disgusting! Pah!]

At first, the Emperor thought he was seeing things upon waking up. But now, he realized Consort Hua wasn’t speaking aloud, yet her voice was clearly reaching his ears.

Was Yikun Palace haunted?

[You caused me to lose my child?]

The Emperor keenly caught the phrase about losing a child. His brow furrowed slightly, and he grew alert: How did she know her child’s loss was related to him? Had someone told her something?

He had heard that Yikun Palace had been exchanging frequent letters with the Nian Residence lately. Could it be that Nian Gengyao harbored disloyal intentions and was colluding from within and without?

Nian Shilan lay in the Emperor’s arms, her eyes lowered in shyness, yet a fierce glint shone within them.

[Fortunately, Heaven is fair.]

[The dog Emperor killed the one who loved him, only to be cuckolded by the one he loved. For years, the harem bore no children, and when they finally did, they were all someone else’s.]

[“Princes, imperial physicians, guards… Good heavens, how many more surprises in this harem does this consort not know about?”]

[“What a pity I died too early in my last life and missed it all, never got to see them tear each other apart like dogs. Heaven has eyes, letting this consort start over again.”]

It wasn’t a ghost—it was Consort Hua’s inner thoughts.

I could actually hear her inner thoughts!

After sharing a bed and pillow for so many years, I had never once heard the voice of her heart. Why would this suddenly happen now?

And why did she say I killed someone who loved me?

Last life? Starting over again?

Has Consort Hua returned from the dead?

I killed her in my last life, but why?

Could it be that in her previous life, she later conspired with the Nian family to commit some great treasonous act?

The Nian family truly harbors the heart of a wolf!

But what did she mean by “wearing a green hat” and “all being someone else’s children”?

Could it be that my brothers, the palace physicians, the guards—they have all secretly carried on illicit affairs with my consorts?

The dignity of an emperor instantly turned completely green. His heart filled with raging fury; even without looking at his face, one could feel it.

Nian Shilan affectedly called out “Your Majesty” a few times, but finding it utterly ineffective, she instantly lost all patience.

[“Isn’t that dog emperor most fond of that bitch Zhen Huan’s act of feigning weakness and playing pitiful?”]

[“Fourth Brother, Wanwan—so sickeningly sweet at their age. Why can’t this consort do the same?”]

Thinking of Zhen Huan, Consort Hua gnashed her teeth inwardly: [“Wasted—this consort is the one who loves him most in the entire Great Qing, yet his heart leans from the Forbidden City all the way to the far northwest. Doesn’t his conscience ache?!”]

But the Emperor grew even more bewildered: Who is Zhen Huan?

Even if Consort Hua has been reborn, how could she know about Wanwan?

[“Oh, that dog emperor has no conscience, so it can’t ache.”]

Daring to say I have no conscience?

She kicked me, cursed me in her heart, yet still says I have no conscience—who exactly lacks conscience here?

The Emperor’s face darkened, his brow shadowed. Just for those few utterances of “dog emperor,” he could immediately order her sent to Shenxing Si and have the entire Nian family imprisoned!

Let her end her life ahead of time and enter the cycle of rebirth again!

Let’s see if she has the fortune to be reborn once more.