Chapter 465

Chapter 465 Concubine Liu pressed relentlessly, and her own mistress refused to take a stand, so she had no choice but to grit her teeth and leap into Guanyuechi. In the dead of winter, even the wind could strip flesh from bone, let alone jumping into a frozen lake. Her entire body felt as if pierced by ten thousand needles, her very marrow soaked through with cold. She was frozen stiff, and through the haze she could still hear Concubine Liu berating her mistress. And her mistress could only apologize endlessly, occasionally pleading for mercy on her behalf once or twice. At that moment, only two words filled her mind—useless. Utterly useless! Was such a mistress truly worth her devotion unto death?! Concubine Shen soon fainted from the cold. Hearing someone cry out in alarm, Concubine Liu also feared that a death might result from the affair, so she turned and left. Before departing, she cast a disdainful glance at Concubine An. "Worthless thing." Concubine An, humiliated, wept like rain and hastily ordered people to carry Concubine Shen up. That ordeal nearly cost Concubine Shen her life. She lay in bed burning with fever for five days, drifting in and out of consciousness, nearly meeting the King of Hell. Voices droned on at her bedside—people saying they were sorry, saying they should have stopped Concubine Liu... So noisy! Listening to all this, Concubine Shen wished she could just die and be done with it! If she recovered, she'd still have to serve that mistress like a beast of burden, still be thrown into Guanyuechi at Concubine Liu's whim. She might as well die now! But then she heard someone say that her mother was gravely ill, needing money for medicine and someone to care for her. Concubine Shen gritted her teeth and crawled back from the gates of hell. Her mother had always said she would live to a hundred—she couldn't let that sharp-tongued old woman die just like that. But it was already too late. She only managed to open her eyes on the tenth day. "Where's my mother?!" Ping'an wiped her tears and said, "Mother Luo is bedridden..." Without a second word, she struggled to get out of bed, wanting to go see her mother. But the moment she moved, she realized she didn't even have the strength to throw off the blanket. She was pinned to the bed and had to recuperate for another three days. Ping'an came to see her every day, sitting by her bedside and weeping for half the day. Concubine Shen found it utterly irritating. She hadn't died, and she still had to follow such a mistress—she hadn't even cried herself, yet Ping'an was already sobbing away. When she could finally manage to get out of bed, she struggled to go see her mother. She had barely been helped to her mother's doorstep when she saw a young girl running out in tears: "The doctor! Go fetch the doctor! Mother Luo is failing!" Concubine Shen stood frozen in place, as if she had fallen into the wintry Guanyuechi once more, frozen from head to toe. By the time she stumbled trembling into the room, her mother could no longer see people clearly. She only kept calling out, "Da Ya! Da Ya!" Tears streamed down Concubine Shen's face like a spring. She knelt in place and grasped her mother's hand. "Mother, Da Ya is here!" Mother Luo had been ill for too long and couldn't actually hear what Concubine Shen was saying. She only mumbled, "Da Ya, don't serve Mistress An anymore!" "Mother's saved up silver to buy back your freedom. We won't suffer that hardship anymore!" "Da Ya, Mother's saved lots of good things to eat. You were always so greedy—why haven't you come to eat them?!" "Da Ya, your father seems to have come to take Mother away... Mother has to go, but I can't bear to leave you behind!" As she spoke, Mother Luo's voice gradually faded. "Mother! Mother!" "Mother, wake up! Don't go!" Concubine Shen's hands trembled as she reached to check beneath her mother's nose. Her body instantly crumpled to the floor. After being stunned for a long moment, she suddenly wailed: "Mother!" The mournful, desperate cry pierced through the roof, lingering long in the air. It was only after burying her mother that Concubine Shen learned she could never bear children, because she had been frozen too long in Guanyuechi. Perhaps because she had already grieved too deeply, she felt little about it now. Unable to bear children, yet still alive... living like a joke. From that time on, her heart turned cold. She no longer served Concubine An with the same loyalty as before. She began to slack off and shirk her duties, and a faint resentment grew within her—hoping her mistress would meet misfortune, hoping she would reap what she sowed. Yes, she was exactly that kind of spineless person. She only dared to spit behind people's backs, never daring to actively harm anyone. For the first time, she realized how difficult loyalty was, and how easy life could be when one was "disloyal." Concubine An truly had some luck on her side. New women entered the household, fighting like wild roosters, while she cowered in her room fearing everything—and somehow still got pregnant. By then, several pregnancies in the household had already been lost, so the Princess Consort took the initiative to protect Concubine An's pregnancy, allowing her to safely pass the three-month mark. That luck—sometimes even Concubine Shen had to admire it. She thought her days would simply drag on in tedium. But then Ju Zi's elderly mother fell gravely ill and urgently needed money. Back when her own mother, Mother Luo, was sick, it was Ju Zi who had cared for her—the one who had rushed out shouting for a doctor was Ju Zi. The two of them whispered together in the room for a long while, and suddenly a bold idea took shape in Concubine Shen's mind. Climb into the master's bed!