“Why are you here?” the dull yellow candlelight could hardly hide Princess Yang’s weary look. She surely wasn’t in the mood to talk to Madame Wei who she hadn’t talked to for three years. She said flatly, “Haven’t you guys already separated from us and lived apart? Haven’t you guys already broken up with your first and second brother and become a stranger? How do you have time to visit me? Aren’t you afraid of me who raised a useless daughter implicating your kids?”
Madame Wei was the third master of Yang Family, Yang Yong’s wife. There were successive rumors about the daughter of Yang Family’s second branch Yang Yifu and the daughter of Yang Family’s first branch Yang Yishi having an affair back then. Not only did Yang Tao get banished from Jing City, but the third branch also got into big trouble. Madame Wei and Yang Yong surely weren’t willing to suffer in silence. They made a fuss about it and then separated from the family. Since then they hadn’t only broken contact with the first and second branch, but also with Princess Yang.
She came to visit suddenly this time. Princess Yang surely wasn’t kind to her.
“Are you still angry with me at this kind of moment?” seeing this, Madame Wei frowned and said impolitely, “You already can’t save your daughter. Do you want to lose your son too?”
Princess Yang was shocked, “Did Empress Dowager send you here?” Actually, Princess Yang thought so when Madame Wei who she hadn’t talked to for three years suddenly came to visit at night. However, she still had a little hope before Madame Wei talked. She was totally in despair at that moment. She smiled sadly, “They even sent you. What could I say? She is my daughter after all! She’s not even 15. Even Qiu Yelan said in front of Empress Dowager that who hadn’t been young and ignorant? I’m not asking for anything else. Just let her live as a civilian. I won’t see her for the rest of my life. And I’ll never let her bother others anyone…”
Madame Wei listened indifferently. She didn’t deny that she was there on Empress Dowager’s command. She just said, “Empress Dowager has made up her mind. No one can make her change her mind. So, stop spending your time making plans for Jinzhu. How can you stop Empress Dowager? In my opinion, since it has already come to this, you’d better make plans for you and your son! You’re already going to lose a daughter. You can’t abandon your only son, can you?”
Seeing that Princess Yang was just crying in silence, Madame Wei raised her voice slightly, “Do you really believe that you can be at ease when Yinzhi becomes the Young Prince?”
She sneered, “Don’t blame me for stating the truth! Although Kuang Qingwu seduced Jinzhu this time, he is of high status. As long as Kuang Shihan has power over the Western Army, Empress Dowager won’t punish him for real! Princess Changping will marry him eventually! So, as far as Empress Dowager and Princess are concerned, Jinzhu is a thorn in their flesh! Now they don’t want Kuang Qingwu to have a bad reputation and they don’t want others to accuse Princess Changping of fighting over a man with a Commandery Princess. So, they offer you the Young Prince position in exchange! Otherwise, can Empress Dowager easily make your whole family suffer in private?”
“From another point of view, Jinzhu lives in the mansion. You aren’t the only one who can make her disappear without others knowing about it! Prince always favors boys over girls. He definitely is more decisive than you. Empress Dowager came to you first. Because you’ll do it as long as she offers you the Young Prince position. But Prince already has the Prince’s Mansion of Xihe. If they want Prince to kill his daughter, they have to offer him something else!”
“So, it doesn’t matter that you aren’t willing to. You aren’t young. You can’t be wilful like an unmarried girl and refuse to hear the truth, can you? Although the truth is painful!”
Princess Yang looked at her dully, “Since you said so, I imagine that you must have a plan? Do you want to keep me guessing when it has come to this?”
“Empress Dowager just said that once you did it, Yinzhi would become the Young Prince. But she didn’t promise that Yinzhi would own Prince’s Mansion of Xihe in the future! Prince is in the prime of his life. Others all notice that he has been treating Qiu Hongzhi and Qiu Maozhi better than Yinzhi recently! If Yinzhi gets framed by others in the future, which lets them have something on him and they want to depose him, how will you guys spend the rest of your lives? Jinzhu will be dead for nothing!” hearing that, Madame Wei said directly, “According to my discussion with your third brother, you may as well take this chance…”
Her eyes sparkled. But her look was cold. She whispered, “Eliminate the harem completely to avoid any future trouble!”
Princess Yang was stunned for a moment. Then she smiled coldly, “Are you dreaming? Empress Dowager summoned me to the Summer Palace today. Judging by her tone, I have no room for bargaining!”
“Empress Dowager’s aim is nothing more than to make Jinzhu disappear. So, she won’t be in the way of Kuang Qingwu being the princess’s husband!” Madame Wei said flatly, “As for Prince’s life or death, or even the next Prince of Prince’s Mansion of Xihe… do you think Empress Dowager will care? Besides, we both know that no royal family is happy to see a Prince’s family prosperous. Especially, a prince with a different family name! Although Prince doesn’t have real power, he is in the prime of his life. And Yinzhi is still young! If you put yourself in Empress Dowager’s position, she may be very happy that Yinzhi becomes Duke of Xihe!”
“Do you think me as a fool?” Princess Yang was quiet for a moment and then she sneered, “Empress Dowager will be happy if Yinzhi becomes the Duke of Xihe. But will she be happier that Prince’s Mansion of Xihe doesn’t exist anymore instead of a useless person becoming the future prince? If I do as you suggested, Empress Dowager will find out about the truth later and kill me and my son, won’t she? Then she’ll accuse the Prince of lax management of his family and abolish his title, won’t she?”
There was hatred in her looks, “I don’t know what Empress Dowager promised you. Or it’s your idea because you guys want to impress her. Anyway, there’s no way I’ll let you guys get what you want by using us as the stepping-stone!”
“You’re overthinking it!” seeing this, Madame Wei lifted her eyebrows, “You didn’t pay attention to what I said. All Empress Dowager wants is to make Jinzhu get out of the way! That’s also the reason she came to you! But if Jinzhu dies at this crucial moment, even if you tell the Prince that it was an accident… There may still be rumors, right? In that case, it doesn’t count that you did what Empress Dowager told you!”
She gestured towards the east and west yards, “Jinzhu is about to marry Kuang Qingwu and Yinzhi is about to become the Young Prince because of it. Those two concubine’s sons are worried and jealous. It’s said that a cornered beast will do something desperate…”
Princess Yang’s hands shook a bit and then she mumbled, “You guys really thought of everything! But that’s my daughter for god’s sake!”
“Empress Dowager doesn’t have much patience!” Madame Wei sneered, “Besides, for the sake of Kuang Qingwu’s reputation, he can’t get engaged with others the moment Jinzhu dies, can he? He has to be sad for a while. If you keep stalling, Empress Dowager’s patience will run out. She may go to the Prince! When that time comes… Let me tell you something. Empress Dowager and Empress have been quarrelling every day recently because of Princess Qi. They both aren’t in a good mood!”
Then she softened her tone, “Even the daughter of a normal family who does such a shameless thing will be drowned in the moat! It’s not that you don’t adore her. It’s her own fault. And she implicates you and Yinzhi! In the final analysis, she asked for this, didn’t she? If she wants to blame, she should blame Kuang Qingwu and herself for her lack of self-respect!”
“…” Princess Yang was sad and worried. She didn’t know what to say at that moment. She just kept wiping her tears and then whispered, “Since there is still time, let me think about it for tonight. Is this okay?”
Madame Wei frowned. She was very dissatisfied with her refusal to give an accurate answer. However, judging by Princess Yang’s look, they might get into a fight if she kept forcing her. So, she stood up and said, “I’m not forcing you. I’ll wait for your answer tomorrow morning. If you haven’t decided by then, it’s really hard to tell how the thing will go!”
Of course, Princess Yang didn’t sleep that night.
She was still struggling until dawn and couldn’t make up her mind. She knew that according to the worldly rules Qiu Jinzhu surely deserved to die! But few mothers in the world had the heart to kill their daughters!
She hoped that day would never end.
However, before that day was over, something determined her mind!
“Say it again. Who did this?” Princess Yang with a pale face stood in front of Qiu Yinzhi’s bed and asked in disbelief.
Qiu Yinzhi had been spoiled by his mother since he was a kid. He was always rude and bossy. But at that moment, he was lying unconsciously on the bed. His childish face still bore traces of fright and sadness. Even the thick bandage on his head couldn’t cover the faint bloodstain. A twelve-year-old boy could almost be considered as an adult. But he was still short and thin. The large bed made him seem even younger and more vulnerable.
He lay still. He was so quiet. It seemed that he would never wake up again. Princess Yang’s heart was broken seeing him like that!
Her hands and feet were cold, and she was shaking. But she heard Qiu Yinzhi’s servant answering with tears clearly, “Prince did this!”
“Why?”
“Prince said that Young Master Qiu Yinzhi bullied Young Master Qiu Maozhi… But I swear on my life that Young Master Qiu Yinzhi only rebuked Young Master Qiu Maozhi because Young Master Qiu Maozhi got dirt on his clothes! Senior Concubine Bian ran to Young Master Qiu Maozhi immediately and took him to Prince to complain. Prince didn’t even ask Young Master Qiu Yinzhi. He kicked him at once which made him bump his head on the pillar…”
Princess Yang looked at her son blankly. She couldn’t say a word!
Qiu Jinzhu arrived after hearing the news. She examined Qiu Yinzhi’s injuries and pulled Princess Yang’s sleeve. She said crying, “Mother, that b*tch Bian is way over the line! She dared to hoodwink father into treating Yinzhi like this. Let’s go and settle scores with that b*tch!”
“…Jinzhu!” Princess Yang was dragged two steps by her daughter. She looked down and saw the hand pulling her sleeve. She called her in a soft voice all of a sudden, “Do you want to seek justice for your brother?”
Qiu Jinzhu said in surprise, “Of course! How dare she! She is just a concubine. Even she has become the senior concubine, she is still a concubine. How dare she incite father into beating the trueborn! Since she has a death wish, why don’t we grant her wish?”
Princess Yang looked at her daughter with tears. Her daughter was really naive. Even if she put her mind into teaching her daughter, she only made her daughter vixenish and arbitrary. She had never made much progress in being scheming! At that very moment, Qiu Jinzhu was still naive enough to believe that even her father who she had always been afraid of couldn’t do anything to her because Kuang Qingwu promised to marry her. Then Bian wasn’t even a concern!
Qiu Jinzhu hadn’t expected it at all that how could Senior Concubine Bian framed Qiu Yinzhi rashly considering how scheming she was? Besides, Qiu Jinzhu was Kuang Family’s future daughter-in-law at that moment. Even Qiu Mengmin gave her special treatment. Let alone that her brother didn’t do anything to Qiu Maozhi, even if he did… So what?
Madame Wei reminded her last night that she couldn’t bear to kill her daughter as the mother, but Qiu Mengmin as the father could!
Madame Wei said that she had a day to think about it when she left. Judging by the current situation, either Empress Dowager Gu didn’t want to wait a day, or Qiu Mengmin decided to do it himself first to avoid Empress Dowager and Princess Changping being mad at the entire Prince’s Mansion of Xihe!
“This is your destiny!” Princess Yang turned around. The tears coursed down her cheeks. Qiu Jinzhu was confused by what she said, “It’s my fault. If I had known it would come to this, I would never have let you do what you want… I would rather teach you to be an obedient kid. You may not dare to…”
Qiu Jinzhu was confused. She asked suspiciously, “Mother? What are you talking about?”
“I’m tired. I want to be with your brother. You… you go and find Bian yourself,” Princess Yang lowered her head and wiped her tears. She patted the back of her hand choking up, “Your father won’t punish you at present. Give Bian what she deserves to avenge your brother!”
“Mother, don’t worry. I’ll punish that b*tch well!” Qiu Jinzhu promised confidently. She didn’t know that the moment she walked out of the door Princess Yang collapsed like she didn’t have any bone in her body!
“Princess!” the maids cried out in alarm and rushed to hold her up. Princess Yang stopped them in a weak voice to avoid alarming her daughter who hadn’t gone far. She mumbled in a voice only she could hear, “Now… Bian has the reason to kill Jinzhu…”