Chapter 170 - Cunning Empress and Poisonous Woman
Chapter 170 Cunning Empress and Poisonous Woman
Fourth Gongzhu’s letter said that she was holding a grudge because Zi You had disgraced her in public last time. She was bent on killing Zi You, but Fuwang and the others did not help her. So she could only threaten her fourth brother to help her. She found Rong Tianyi’s subordinate Wang Haiji to rope in Rong Yunhe to make him want to assassinate the Emperor and make it easy to frame Mu Zi You.
She learned that the Emperor was summoning the female medical team into the Palace on New Year’s. So, her dozen guards had already made preparations in the Palace. They were waiting for her order to go support Wang Haiji, who was lying in ambush outside, and the Jianghu experts whom she had hired to go assassinate the Emperor in the Palace. She would blame it all on Rong Yunhe and force Mu Zi You to commit suicide to apologize for her offense.
This matter had nothing to do with Fourth Wangzi. He was just coerced by her.
Fourth Wangzi’s letter was even simpler. It was only a few words. “I have committed a heinous crime! Erchen apologizes to Fuwang. Erchen will die for his sins!”
The Emperor looked at the letters and angrily shouted, “Animals. In order to seek revenge, they didn’t even care about Zhen, their Fuwang. They really deserve to die!”
He was so angry that he didn’t consider why such a selfish person like Shangguan Lingluo would be willing to commit suicide. He decreed to demote her to the status of a commoner. She was hastily buried in a substandard coffin. She was not allowed to be buried in the Imperial Tombs.
Fourth Wangzi’s treatment was a bit better than hers. He was buried on the edge of the Imperial Tombs, but he didn’t even have a tombstone.
Yaohua Palace’s palace servants were all flogged to death. Even Rong Yunhe and Rong Qiyan were sentenced to exile.
After Shangguan Lingluo was buried, the Empress fiercely slapped Taizi, who had come to pay respects to her. She scolded in distress, “You’ve made me too disappointed! You can even do this kind of muddleheaded thing. If your Fuwang finds out, do you still want to be Taizi?”
Taizi clutched his face. He pretended not to understand as he said, “Muhou, Erchen doesn’t know what you are talking about. What did Erchen do to make you so angry?”
“Are you still trying to hide it from me?” The Empress stared at Taizi as if she hated iron for not being steel. “What woman can you not get? But you just have to tangle with that darned yatou Shangguan Lingluo? Do you know how dangerous that is?
“I was wondering why that darned yatou hated Mu Zi You so much. So it was because of this. I was actually very happy to see her arrange all this. If she had really succeeded, I would have taken the opportunity to seize that old man Mu’s military power for you. But I didn’t think that you would……”
Taizi was stunned silly. He stared at the Empress in disbelief. “Muhou, how did you know?”
The Empress looked contemptuously at him. “If you don’t want anyone to know, then don’t do it in the first place. You think that you did it seamlessly? In fact, as long as other people carefully scrutinize the situation, they will know what happened.
“Why would your secret guard have an affair with Shangguan Lingluo? Where were you at the time of the incident? Did Yaohua Palace’s palace servants see you leave Yaohua Palace? You left so many loopholes. Your Fuwang just did not think that you and she would…… When he figures it out, can you still sit in Taizi’s position? Idiot!”
“Then what should we do?” Taizi was so scared that wailed. He repeatedly begged the Empress. “Muhou, Muhou, you have to help Erchen. Erchen doesn’t want to lose the position of Taizi.”
The Empress didn’t stop her son from desperately kowtowing. She finally said sinisterly after a while, “I have already dealt with what you should have dealt with. Useless thing. Killing Shangguan Lingluo, but leaving Shangguan Botao. Aren’t you afraid that he knows about your scandal? If you don’t remove the roots when you cut grass, the grass will grow once again with a spring breeze.”
Taizi looked at the Empress in disbelief. He muttered, “So you sent someone to kill Shangguan Botao? Heavens! I thought……”
“What did you think?!” The Empress sneered. “How many times have I told you not to leave something behind? But look at you now!”
Taizi lowered his head guiltily. He thought about it and still didn’t understand. He looked up and asked, “Since you know about Erchen and…… her matter, why did you ask grandfather to save her?”
“Idiot!” The Empress once again scolded in dissatisfaction. “What kind of person is your Fuwang? Can he be fooled so easily? He is so paranoid. If I didn’t tell your grandfather to come out to interfere and muddle the truth, do you think that your Fuwang won’t doubt your relationship?
“Once he doubts your relationship, he will suspect that you killed Shangguan Lingluo and Shangguan Botao to silence them. But with your grandfather desperately trying to save Shangguan Lingluo on the surface, he will think that I’m not that stupid. If you really had an indecent relationship with Shangguan Lingluo, the first person who will want to kill Shangguan Lingluo will certainly be me.
“In that case, I would not ask your grandfather to offend Mu Junyuan to save her. At the same time, he would think that I really loved Shangguan Lingluo. When you stood out to expound justice, not only will you give a good impression to your Fuwang, but even the officials will feel that you are upright and selfless. That can also eliminate the dissatisfaction Mu Junyuan has towards your grandfather.”
After so many turns, Taizi looked at the Empress with a face of worship. “Muhou, you’re too amazing!”
The Empress looked at Taizi and smiled coldly. She said earnestly, “Son, don’t do anything foolish from now on. You have to think twice before you do anything. And stay away from that Mu Zi You. Don’t be mesmerized by her. I feel like Shangguan Lingluo’s death has something to do with her.”
“Erchen sent someone to kill Lingluo.” Taizi obviously wanted to defend Zi You. “That darned yatou was too crazy. She couldn’t stay alive. This has nothing to do with You’er.”
“You’er?” The Empress coldly sneered. “Haha. How intimately you call her. But do you know who went to catch the adulterers? It was her!”
“Impossible!” Taizi exclaimed, “It was clearly third brother and second sister. Muhou, Yunluo resents Erchen so much that she worked together with third brother. They must have wanted to embarrass Erchen. That was why they brought people to Yaohua Palace.”
“I said that you’re stupid, but you don’t admit it!” The Empress scolded, “If Mu Zi You didn’t want to question Shangguan Lingluo, then how can the rest of the events happen? Even your third brother has been used by her. Your second sister is obviously a fool because she keeps sticking up for Mu Zi You. You have to be careful in front of her from now on.
“And there’s also that Shangguan LingRan. I don’t think that he’s that simple. He can use an apple to injure the assassin’s eyes. Can he be a dandy who doesn’t know martial arts? His relationship with Mu Zi You might not be what it is on the surface, as if they’re a pair of enemies. You know that the ones who end up together are always enemies.”
Taizi no longer spoke up for Zi You. He looked up and said, “Shangguan LingRan will be taken care of sooner or later. He is the only one left in the imperial family with two moles on his forehead. Erchen is also worried. Even if he doesn’t know martial arts, he still needs to be taken care of. Muhou, you can rest assured that Erchen will no longer disappoint you. If Mu Zi You really dares to scheme against Erchen, Erchen will definitely not let her off.”
“En.” The Empress waved her hand and finally let Taizi off.
The General’s Manor
After Old General Mu returned from the Palace, he said furiously to Zi You and Mu YingYi, “That woman can’t stay here any longer. She must have sent a message to Shangguan Lingluo when Zi You went into the mountains and about the female medical team this time. I will never let her off.”
Zi You thought for a moment and asked, “Then how does grandfather want to deal with her? You can’t kill her, right? Even if she’s worse, she is still father’s wife. If you let her leave, she will go out to harm other people.”
Old General Mu heard his granddaughter’s disapproval. He thought of her performance in the Palace and couldn’t help but ask, “Then do you think that she should be sent to a temple?”
Zi You sneered. “So what if such a shameless and poisonous woman is sent to a temple? Would she put down her knife and become a devout worshipper of Buddha? No, she would immediately contact someone and pretend to be a victim. She would cry that she was bullied miserably by her husband’s deceased wife’s daughter, father-in-law, and brother-in-law. It’s better to keep such a woman under our eyes……”
“Lao TaiYe.” Zi You hadn’t finished speaking when someone knocked on the door. “Laoye and Furen requests to come in. They said that they are here to offer a humble apology.”
Zi You secretly sneered. See? She knew that she wouldn’t just sit and wait without a fight. She was here already. She certainly received the news quickly.
Old General Mu angrily slammed his hand down on a table. “Let them come inside. I want to see how this poisonous woman will explain herself.”
Mu YingRui and Wang Yiping walked inside. Both of their heads were wrapped in cloths. They looked a bit funny. But they were tearful and looked inconsolable. They didn’t seem to be faking it.
They both pounced over when they saw Zi You. They wailed, “I’m sorry, You’er. It’s mother’s fault. I didn’t discipline my own servant and caused you to encounter danger again and again. No wonder you misunderstood me. It really is mother’s fault!”
“You’er, it’s father’s fault. I didn’t expect that that poisonous woman Wei mama will collude with Fourth Gongzhu to repeatedly harm you. If she didn’t tell the truth today, your mother and I wouldn’t know why you hate us.”
Their acting was very good. They cried with tears and snot. They looked like they had wronged their child, caused her to suffer grievances, and were so guilty, regretful, and heartbroken.
Wang Yiping repeatedly kowtowed to Old General Mu. “Father, it’s your daughter-in-law’s fault. I was deceived by my nanny. It turns out…… It turns out that she had always been deceiving me. She had always been sowing discord and dissension.
“She couldn’t stand the pain and took poison to commit suicide today. That was when I found out that she had sent messages to Fourth Gongzhu to kill You’er. Father, I wronged You’er and blamed her again and again. I even…… I even have thoughts that I should not have had. Your daughter-in-law’s death can’t even make up for my sins.”
Old General Mu looked at her and somewhat believed her. He actually asked, “Did Wei mama tell you to give the drug to You’er to induce her fever? Don’t you have a brain? She told you to harm people and you go harm people?”
Wang Yiping cried heartbreakingly and could barely speak. “I didn’t know…… didn’t know that the drug was so powerful. You’er and I…… weren’t close. I was worried, so…… So I fell into Wei mama’s trap. And…… Imperial Doctor Qin guaranteed that the drug had no toxic side effects. So…… So that was why I…… Wuu…… Father, I was wrong. I was very wrong. You……. You should have Laoye divorce…… divorce me. Or…… Or you can kill your daughter-in-law!”
She then rushed at Old General Mu and kowtowed like a chick pecking rice. The cloth on her head was knocked off. Skin was scraped off her forehead.
Mu YingYi couldn’t stand seeing this anymore. He looked at Zi You and then at Mu YingRui. “Brother, this is your fault. Sister-in-law is young, so she can’t help but be instigated by others……”
“Yes, yes, yes.” Mu YingRui’s attitude was extremely sincere. “This matter shouldn’t be blamed on your sister-in-law. I had agreed back then when she asked me. I wished that You’er and her mother would be close as soon as possible. It wasn’t good if they were so estranged, right? We were anxious so we lost our reason and fell into someone else’s trap.”
After explaining to Mu YingYi, Mu YingRui rushed to desperately beg Old General Mu. “Father, Ping’er knows that she was wrong. She just found out from Wei mama that Fourth Gongzhu wanted to frame the female medical team for assassinating the Emperor. She anxiously wanted me to deliver a message to the Palace. But you returned just as I was about to go.
“Ping’er was so regretful that she wanted to kill herself. She was too ashamed to come and plead her sins. She wanted me to divorce her. But…… But I have been married twice already. If I really divorce her, my reputation would be ruined. Father, please be magnanimous and forgive us this one time. We will treat You’er very well in the future.”
Mu YingRui loudly cried. “Ping’er is so young. What will she do if I divorce her? Can’t our General’s Manor tolerate someone changing and correcting their mistakes?”
Zi You looked at their exciting performance and almost wanted to clap in admiration. Her slag father, especially, was soft- and kind-hearted. His sentence of “Can’t our General’s Manor tolerate someone changing and correcting their mistakes?” did indeed move her grandfather.
Old General Mu sighed. He thought for a moment and said, “You dare to swear that Zi You going into the mountains was not something that Nee Wang had Wei mama tell Fourth Gongzhu?”
Mu YingRui froze for a moment, but Wang Yiping immediately kowtowed and swore an oath. “If it was done by me, then I will die miserably.”
As she was speaking, she was inwardly cursing Old General Mu. You old b*stard! You’re the one who will die miserably. I’m going to live thousands of years and watch you and your precious granddaughter go to hell! I’m not your daughter-in-law. I’m the King of Hell who is here to take you and your granddaughter’s life!
Zi You heard Wang Yiping’s oath and couldn’t help but inwardly praise her. How ruthless! This is a vicious and poisonous person who can be ruthless to herself too. You’re not afraid of retribution?
If Zi You had not experienced her previous life, she would have been deceived by Wang Yiping too. But the pain from her previous life was too deep. It reminded her not to trust her at all times.
But her grandfather obviously believed this shameless poisonous woman. That was because oaths in this day and age would convince a lot of people.
Zi You looked up. Sure enough, her grandfather was looking guiltily at her.