Story of Yanxi Palace, Chapter 149: The Great Dream Comes to Nothing

   The Cold Palace is a place for storing things no longer in use.

   Old tables no longer used, old chairs no longer used, old beds no longer used—and… Noble Consort Chun.

Noble Consort Chun sat alone on an old chair. As the sky gradually darkened, her figure was slowly swallowed by the shadows until, with a creak, the door opened. A beam of light pierced through the crack and fell across her face.

“I thought the person who would come here tonight would be Wei Yingluo,” she said with a smile toward the newcomer. “I never expected it to be you.”

Leaving the palace servants to guard outside, the Empress entered alone. “Wei Yingluo?”

Noble Consort Chun sighed. “I finally understand why Wei Yingluo went to such lengths to compete for favor, even deliberately stirring up jealousy throughout the harem.”

“Of course it was to make you jealous, to make you anxious—no, more precisely, to make you afraid. Afraid that she would use the Emperor’s favor to expose what happened to Seventh Prince all those years ago.” The Empress set the six-sided palace lantern she carried down on the old table. “The more ostentatious Wei Yingluo became, the more terrified you grew, and the more likely you were to strike. And the moment you acted, you were bound to reveal your flaws.”

“She deliberately leaked the news about horseback riding to provoke me into making a move. In truth, this time it really wasn’t me who acted. But so what? The Emperor still became suspicious of me.” Noble Consort Chun gave a self-mocking laugh. “Rather than waiting every day for her next scheme, I decided to go all in. Unfortunately, I failed… But tell me, Empress—what role exactly did you play in all of this?”

“Me?” The Empress smiled. The candlelight illuminated half her face, leaving the other half in shadow. “Noble Consort Chun, you and Consort Ling had enmity between you. As the mistress of the Six Palaces, naturally I had to uphold justice.”

Noble Consort Chun stared at her profile. After a moment, she suddenly burst into loud, bitter laughter. “How foolish I was—to have been nothing more than a pawn in your hands all this time. The death of the previous Empress… was it truly unrelated to you?”

The Empress smiled calmly. “Of course.”

“You’re lying!” Noble Consort Chun suddenly shouted at her. “The one who instigated me to kill—was you!”

Hongli had always been fond of Noble Consort Chun’s transcendent, otherworldly aura. And Noble Consort Chun had truly once been like that—devoted entirely to playing the qin and gazing at the moon, unlike the other consorts who were obsessed with vying for favor. That is, until she gave birth to Yongrong—

At that time, the Empress who had succeeded as the new Empress (still Consort Xian back then) used this as an excuse to frequently visit her, constantly reminding her: Yongrong was intelligent, the Emperor liked him very much. It was just a pity that the Empress had given birth to the Seventh Prince; she could never outcompete the Empress, and Yongrong would never outcompete the Seventh Prince either.

“A mother is always too greedy, wanting to leave the very best for her son.” Noble Consort Chun stared at the Empress and said, “Later on I did many things, but without your secret support behind the scenes, I could never have accomplished any of them. Even when Wei Yingluo left the palace to visit her family, it was you who specially sent someone to notify me, hinting that Changchun Palace was short of manpower and that it was time to make a move.”

In the past she had thought herself extraordinarily clever and resourceful; only now did she suddenly realize there had been an invisible hand guiding everything from behind.

Yuhu had seduced Wang Zhong, but the Fire Department wasn’t managed by Wang Zhong alone. Yet within just one short month, the other two stewards—one fell ill and the other was transferred elsewhere. With them gone, everything fell under Wang Zhong’s sole control.

Later she bribed a little eunuch to secretly replace all the charcoal in Changchun Palace with highly flammable chrysanthemum charcoal. Everything went unbelievably smoothly. Looking back now, it filled her with icy dread. Back when the Empress gave birth, it was the Step Empress who was in charge of managing the Six Palaces. The charcoal substitution happened right under her nose, yet she pretended not to see, turning a blind eye and deaf ear from beginning to end.

“I was the one who killed the Seventh Prince—but the knife that killed him was handed to me by you.” Noble Consort Chun began to laugh, laughing uncontrollably, slapping the armrest over and over. “No—no, that’s not all. The Seventh Prince was the late Empress’s most precious treasure. Once he died, the late Empress was finished! Lady Nara—you step by step by step forced the Empress to her death. Right from the very beginning, your goal was to take her place!”

The Step Empress gazed at her with a smile—a smile that sent chills down the spine, like the face hidden behind a shadow-puppet screen, fingers twitching to manipulate the joy, anger, sorrow, and joy of the puppets on stage, and the emotions of the audience below, while that face itself laughed silently in the shadows.

“Kill the Seventh Prince, drive the late Empress to suicide, entice Wei Yingluo and me into a fight to the death, and finally use her hand to plunge me completely into the abyss. Yet your own hands remained spotlessly clean from start to finish! Hahaha, oh heavens, it’s too funny! Who exactly was I fighting for? Who was I working myself to death for?” Only now did Noble Consort Chun awaken from her great dream. As she laughed, tears poured out. “It was all one vast, empty dream—I ended up making wedding clothes for someone else! Succeeding Empress, what superb skill! At this point, I have nothing more to say. I only want to ask you one thing: after I die, will it be Wei Yingluo’s turn next?”

The affairs of the world are but one great dream—how many autumn chills does a life endure?

   “What did you say?”

In Yanxi Palace, upon hearing the news delivered by Yuan Chunwang, everyone froze.

Yuan Chunwang: “…Blood was everywhere. Her neck was almost completely strangled off.”

Ming Yu couldn’t help touching her own neck, as though she had just heard a ghost story; her face turned deathly pale. “Strangled off?”

Yuan Chunwang: “I didn’t see it with my own eyes either. The palace maid in charge of cleaning fainted from sheer terror.”

Ming Yu’s teeth were chattering. “What kind of thing could strangle a person’s neck… until it was hanging by a thread?”

Inside Yangxin Hall, Hongli’s expression was unreadable.

Since even Yanxi Palace had already heard the news, there was no way he could remain ignorant.

Li Yu, while bringing the dreadful tidings, had also brought something else…

Hongli lowered his head to look at the bloodstained half-length of kite string lying on the table.

Kite string seemed innocuous, yet when pulled taut, it became an extremely thin, razor-sharp blade—capable of easily slicing through a person’s throat.

No one in the room dared breathe loudly until Hongli slowly spoke: “This matter ends here. No one is permitted to discuss it privately. Anyone who violates this will be punished according to palace regulations.”

Afterward, he left Yangxin Hall and walked straight, without pause, to Yanxi Palace.

He didn’t even know why he had come here, nor what words he wanted to ask her. The moment he stepped through the door, he saw Yuan Chunwang holding a tray of kite-making materials and kneeling before him: “This servant respectfully greets Your Majesty.”

Hongli looked at the bundle of kite string on the tray; his smile suddenly vanished. “Take it away!”

“What’s wrong?” Wei Yingluo was sitting at the table, an unfinished iris kite laid out before her. A length of kite string was still wrapped around her finger. “My kite isn’t finished yet.”

Hongli strode over in a few steps, snatched the kite string from her hand, and threw it to the ground. “Stop making it!”

Seeing Wei Yingluo look at him in confusion, he sighed inwardly and softened his tone: “Your hand was injured before. The bamboo strips can easily hurt you. Don’t do this anymore.”

Wei Yingluo: “Then let Ming Yue do it for me.”

Hongli: “I said, stop! No one in Yanxi Palace is allowed to make them!”

Wei Yingluo: “Why?”

Hongli: “No reason.”

The two stared at each other for a moment. For some reason, Hongli was always the one to yield first. He casually swept the kite on the table to one side, then had Li Yu place a long qin (ancient zither) on top.

Wei Yingluo came from a humble family and was not familiar with such things. She couldn’t tell what era this ancient qin was from; she only knew its grain was intricate and it gave off a faint, unique woody fragrance—like the scent distilled by the passage of years.

“Yingluo, last time I taught you to play the qin, you said the instrument wasn’t good enough. So I had someone fetch the Yuelu Zhiyin that I used when I was learning.” Hongli sat down in front of her and said gently, “Use this qin to practice from now on, alright?”

But Wei Yingluo merely smiled coyishly: “I don’t feel like learning the qin today. I just want to make a kite.”

Hongli’s expression gradually cooled. Li Yu, standing beside him, hurriedly spoke up: “Consort Ling Niangniang, this qin was specially brought back by His Majesty from the Yuanmingyuan Gardens. Ordinary people aren’t even allowed to touch it!”

Wei Yingluo smiled at him, then—in the same careless manner Hongli had used earlier—pushed the precious ancient qin aside. She picked up the kite that had been swept away and continued working on it with her head lowered.

Only after Hongli flung his sleeve and left did she finally raise her head again.

“Yingluo!” Only then did Ming Yu speak. Her face was still a little pale, clearly frightened by Hongli’s earlier expression. With a mix of reproach and worry, she said, “You already know the cause of Noble Consort Chun’s death. At a time like this you should be avoiding suspicion—why are you still making a kite?”

Wei Yingluo gazed in the direction Hongli had gone, her eyes cool and clear: “If I don’t make a kite, will others stop suspecting me?”

In the palace, the most common thing, the most habitual thing, and the thing they were best at… seemed to be suspicion.

Back at Yangxin Hall, Hongli tossed the bloodstained kite string to Li Yu: “Get rid of it.”

Apparently not expecting that he would return from Yanxi Palace in such a mood after hitting a wall, Li Yu reacted half a beat late: “Yes, Your Majesty.”

While clearing the kite string from the table, Li Yu carefully observed Hongli’s expression and ventured cautiously: “Your Majesty, although Consort Ling Niangniang has a rather stubborn temper, she doesn’t seem like someone so cruel.”

Hongli scoffed with a sneer. Li Yu immediately slapped himself: “This servant spoke out of turn!”

He was about to withdraw when Hongli spoke coldly: “I’m angry because she doesn’t care at all—not even half a sentence of explanation!”

After a pause, he added with a sigh: “…Is she really so certain that I will definitely believe her and protect her?”

Li Yu let out an inward sigh as well. Precisely because suspicion was the most common, most habitual, and most skillfully practiced thing in the palace, such trust had become something especially precious.

“Your Majesty, once Consort Ling comes to her senses, she will surely come to apologize,” he could only say what he knew the other most wanted to hear, going along with his mood.

Hongli looked unconvinced, yet the moment Li Yu stepped out the door, he stiffly tossed out one sentence: “If she comes, don’t let her in… Make her stand at the door as punishment.”

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