Chapter 10: What color was the long gown Chu Xingchen wore that day when he pushed This Palace into the lake?

Moreover, Zhang Susu also understood that Chu Xingchen would kill Su Yingxue, but not now. It would be on the day he led the Da Qi Iron Cavalry to breach the gates of the Da Sheng Kingdom, when he would openly flay her and stuff her with grass to vent his personal hatred.

In this regard, it must be said that Chu Xingchen was a man of action. At the very least, his revenge would not be like that of the mastermind behind this incident, who only dared to strike from the shadows with underhanded schemes.

“Since you claim to have seen Chu Xingchen, you must have clearly seen what color the silk long gown he wore that day when he pushed This Palace into the lake was. Did you see it clearly?”

Zhang Susu recalled the detailed account Qiushuang had given her in the bedchamber while Chu Xingchen was unconscious that day. Suddenly, a flash of insight crossed her mind as she remembered what Qiushuang had told her.

That day, when the maidservants carried Her Highness back to the palace for treatment, Qiushuang personally saw Her Highness tightly clutching a piece of torn fabric in her hand.

Because the situation was urgent at the time, and Su Yingxue’s condition was not good, Qiushuang did not report this matter to the Inner Service Directorate. Instead, she secretly took the opportunity to hide the piece of fabric, intending to hand it over to Her Highness the Eldest Princess for her decision once she awoke.

Qiushuang, like Chunfeng, Xiahe, and Dongxue, had always been a descendant of loyal servants from the maternal clan of the deceased imperial consort. Therefore, even though Her Highness the Eldest Princess was seen by others as exceptionally arrogant and domineering, she treated them with the utmost kindness. In turn, the four of them were absolutely loyal to Her Highness the Eldest Princess.

Qiushuang had always been steady and cautious. She did not hand over the item because she feared that those in the palace who wished to harm Her Highness the Eldest Princess wielded immense power. She worried that the Inner Service Directorate might also harbor such individuals, and that revealing it prematurely might alert the enemy and spoil their plans.

However, because of this, by the time Qiushuang handed the fabric to Su Yingxue, she had already sent someone to the Inner Service Directorate and Chu Xingchen’s palace. They had searched his entire palace and retrieved all his personal items and clothing from the Inner Eunuch Directorate.

The fabric worn by the person who pushed Su Yingxue into the lake was of the finest silk. Yet, after carefully examining and comparing the fabric brought by her trusted guards, she discovered that over the years, the materials of Chu Xingchen’s clothing were not even silk—let alone silk.

Even the fabrics worn by ordinary maidservants and palace servants were softer than the coarse hemp clothes and worn inner garments full of patches that Chu Xingchen wore.

Wasn’t this boy a Hostage Prince? How dare the servants treat him so harshly, giving him the lowest-grade coarse hemp fabrics that were not even as luxurious as the clothing of palace attendants.

What was more, she had ordered a thorough search of the entire palace, and not only was there not a single garment made of fine silk, but there was also not even a thick cotton coat or a warm cotton quilt to be found.

Later, it was Zhang Susu herself who refused to believe it and personally went to inspect the side hall of the Cold Palace where Chu Xingchen lived. Only then did she discover that the place he resided in, generously called a side hall or small courtyard, was nothing of the sort.

The courtyard was overgrown with weeds, and the hall was covered in spiderwebs. The window paper was old and tattered, and the roof tiles, long neglected, were sparse and broken, allowing rainwater to drip through the gaps.

When Qiushuang, holding an umbrella and a lantern, led her into the inner hall as light rain fell inside the room, a nauseating musty smell filled the entire inner hall of the Cold Palace. Disgusted, she covered her nose with a handkerchief. This was hardly the treatment a prince should receive.

Zhang Susu had never imagined that Chu Xingchen lived such a miserable life as a Hostage Prince within the Da Sheng palace.

She saw his room with its crumbling walls on all sides, the quilt soaked through by leaking rain, the tattered clothing, and the interior that held nothing even worth looking at.

Zhang Susu’s eyes reddened as she had Qiushuang summon the person in charge. This Cold Palace actually had nothing—not even a stool—aside from Chu Xingchen’s soaked bed.

The Cold Palace supervisor, upon seeing her, groveled obsequiously, kowtowing and kneeling with an ingratiating smile.

Zhang Susu suppressed the fury in her heart. She forced a smile and softly asked the supervisor about Chu Xingchen’s daily life.

She listened as the supervisor flattered her while describing how he and the other palace servants had mistreated Chu Xingchen—how he lived in the Cold Palace lacking clothes and food, even eating spoiled meals.

During the day, he had to scrub the nightsoil buckets sent by the various masters of Dasheng Palace; at night, he still had to clean and work for those eunuchs. Sometimes, if his work wasn’t good enough, he would be beaten or cursed at on the spot.

Because the original host, Su Yingxue, after being rejected, would periodically find various excuses to flog and punish Chu Xingchen, the servants in the Cold Palace had followed suit.

Thus, as Zhang Susu looked at that servant’s despicable expression, her heart was filled with resentment. She resented Su Yingxue for treating human life as worthless, arbitrarily abusing and beating Chu Xingchen, and she also hated these servants who fawned on the powerful and bullied the weak, acting arrogantly on borrowed authority.

But she hated herself even more, because at this moment, she, Zhang Susu, was Su Yingxue.

She was using Su Yingxue’s body. Her hands, Zhang Susu’s hands, were now stained with Chu Xingchen’s blood, stained with the blood of all those Su Yingxue had flogged.

After understanding the situation and obtaining ironclad evidence that could prove Chu Xingchen’s innocence, Zhang Susu did not alert the enemy. To lull others into complacency, she handed a silver ingot to that palace servant, stabilizing him.

Su Yingxue also dispatched over a dozen guards to surround the entire Cold Palace, making it watertight.

Now that she knew the suffering Chu Xingchen had endured because of Su Yingxue, and since she, Zhang Susu, had become Su Yingxue, she had to find a way to atone to Chu Xingchen for Su Yingxue’s cruel actions.

Therefore, Zhang Susu had arranged a good show today—inviting the culprit into the trap.

Upon hearing this, the palace maid in yellow felt beads of sweat as large as beans roll down her temples. She seemed somewhat afraid. At the time, she had only glimpsed from afar the Eldest Princess falling into the lake and calling for help, and saw a black figure jump into the lake to rescue her.

Later, she heard that the guards had captured Chu Xingchen, and because she had been sweeping in the Imperial Garden at that moment, she was to be taken as a suspect to the Inner Service Directorate for interrogation, which terrified her.

What kind of place was the Inner Service Directorate? Any decent palace servant who entered would be skinned alive.

With her delicate skin and tender flesh, could she come out in one piece?

She only had two more years before she could complete her service and be released from the palace. At this critical juncture, she couldn’t afford any trouble.

So, she recalled the gossip often spread by palace maids from various halls—rumors that Her Highness the Eldest Princess particularly hated and despised this person named Chu Xingchen. Coincidentally, he was the first one captured that day.

Even the young eunuch under Eunuch Shen of the Inner Service Directorate who interrogated her said that as long as she went with the flow and directly pinned the blame on that Hostage Prince, their Inner Service Directorate could wrap up the case. Not only would she be free of fault, but she might even receive a reward.

Thus, she momentarily lost her judgment. After all, who would have thought that the Eldest Princess, who had previously despised Chu Xingchen so much, would now protect him like the apple of her eye and speak up to clear his name?

Now, forget about any reward! If Her Highness the Eldest Princess didn’t take up a whip and give her a severe flogging, it would already be fortunate!

She looked up to see Her Highness the Eldest Princess strolling leisurely toward her, asking a question that seemed trivial.

Yet for some reason, she sensed that when Her Highness the Eldest Princess’s indifferent gaze swept over her, it carried a fleeting, piercing chill, making her feel guilty and nervous. Instinctively, she knelt even lower, more afraid than before.