NOVEL NEXT Outraged as I was, I totally forgot about the rule. The fighting spirit that I just summoned up immediately mitigated, but I wasn’t just going to let it go. As I turned around, I noticed that pretty face of Lv Li and I suddenly had an idea. I whispered, “Lv Li, you are a daring girl, aren’t you?”
Lv Li patted on her chest and replied confidently, “At your service, Your Majesty, I can be as daring as you want me to be!”
I smiled in satisfaction and nodded, “Good, I have an idea. Let’s get Qi Sheng over here and drug him. Then… you take care of him. If you were to have a child, I will make sure that you are made a royal consort.”
Upon hearing that, Lv Li immediately dropped to her knees and started howling, “You Majesty! I never have any design toward the Emperor. If you don’t believe me, I will cut off my hair this instant and become a nun.”
Well, what’s that saying about not trusting the words of a woman? Well, this was the proof.
The incessant howling was too much for me and I had to summon someone to hold her up and get her out of the palace.
Not willing to throw in the towel, I then summoned Xie Yi over and asked with a gentle voice, “Rumor has it that you were trying to seduce the Emperor while you were at the Youlan Hall?”
The small and delicate body of Xie Yi stumbled a bit and she immediately dropped to her knees, crying and begging, “You Majesty, this is a blatant lie. I have never had that improper thought.”
I hurriedly held her up and replied, “There, there. What improper thought? What is so wrong for a young girl like you to have an aspiration for a good life? “
Hearing that, Xie Yi dropped to her knees again, refusing to get up, “Your Majesty, I would never do that. I confess that I was sent by Jiang to spy on you, but I never go through with it. Please, please spare me, Your Majesty.”
Feeling disappointed, I had no choice but to get a maid in and take that wailing girl out of here.
Looking at the empty palace, I felt a deep sense of frustration and defeat. Was it really so hard to place someone in between the two of them?
Luckily, Lv Li didn’t bail on me. Having cried enough, she then walked in and consoled me, “Your Majesty. You were right about not faking pregnancy. If we really had brought in a random baby and the Emperor had found out about it, you would have been removed on account of screwing up the royal lineage and your family would have been dragged down with you as collateral damages.”
I quickly waved my hands, “Stop sweat-talking me. Qi Sheng set me up and you helped dragging me right into his trap. Now look at what happened. Go find me a solution right now!”
Lv Li was ostensibly troubled by my demand, “If the Emperor set us up, then it’s only logical that we assume he has known about your fake belly. What’s to be done? We couldn’t very well fake miscarriage too. What will the Emperor think about it?”
What would Qi Sheng think of the situation? Well, how should I know? I just had to wait and see.
Befuddled, Lv Li added, “Strange. By the look of it, His Majesty was genuinely worried about your condition. It didn’t look like he was lying.”
Amused by this gullible girl, I thought, ‘Well, if you could easily see through a lie, then it wouldn’t be a clever lie, would it?’
Nonetheless, after much deliberation, I replied, “Let’s put a stop to the medicine prescribed by Physician Song. When my next period comes, I’ll just tell them I had a miscarriage. I don’t care if Qi Sheng believes it.”
Lv Li did a bit of calculation and thought this plan feasible as I was only two-month pregnant and people wouldn’t expect a fully formed baby coming out of my body. So long as Physician Song was taken care of, there was no reason why this wouldn’t work.
At such, I stopped taking the medicine without anyone knowing and expected the arrival of my period. But the promised period never came, and I became worried.
When Physician Song visited me again, I couldn’t help but ask him, “What kind of medicine have you prescribed for me? I have stopped taking it a month ago and nothing happened.”
Surprised, Physician Song asked, “Your Majesty has stopped taking the medicine?”
I nodded.
Doctor Song looked deeply disturbed by this news, “Your Majesty, you have been too careless. If not for your young age, the likelihood of you having a miscarriage would be very high. If anything should ever happen to you, how am I supposed to say to the Emperor?”
I was slightly annoyed by his reply and thought, ‘Well, there is no one here. I even keep Lv Li out. There is no need to put on a show here.’ I crooked my finger at him and whispered, “I can’t have this baby right now. I am asking you when I can get rid of it?”
Hearing that, Physician Song blinked his eyes, his fingers trembling out of fear, “Your Majesty, this baby is inside your belly now.”
I knew he was just protecting himself from being incriminated, and so I insisted, “I can’t have this baby.”
Trembling all over, Physician Song replied with a quivering mouth, “Your Majesty, you indeed are carrying a child.”
I really didn’t understand why he kept saying that. I squeezed my eyes and stared at him.
Physician Song couldn’t help trembling in fear before he dropped to his knees and kowtowed, beads of sweats forming on his forehead. He stammered, “Indeed Madame Zhang and I had reached an agreement earlier. But before coming to you, the Emperor summoned me over and described to me all the things I had said to your family. He even knew about the place we met. So, I confessed everything to him.”
I was all sweaty when I listened to him and I kept telling myself not to kick an old man, so I simply snorted, “What did he say?”
He wiped clean the sweats on his forehead and stammered, “The Emperor said that since Your Majesty was expecting the good news, then I shouldn’t tell you otherwise. Who would have that when I examined you, I realized that Your Majesty is indeed with child.”
I felt like my head was being submerged in water as I listened to his words and my lips started trembling like him as I replied, “Why didn’t you tell me sooner?!”
Physician Song looked at me like an aggrieved child and said, “Your Majesty, I kept telling you that you are pregnant.”
I was rendered speechless and continued, “Why didn’t you tell Madame Zhang that I am really pregnant?”
Physician Song felt even more aggrieved, “Well, she never asked me again.”
I was so infuriated by his reply that I felt like I was going to puke blood and that I would not be able to control myself from strangling him to death. Therefore, I simply waved to him and said, “Go, just get out of here!”
As if he had been waiting for this, Physician Song immediately backed out.
I sat alone, feeling dizzy and detached.
Lv Li tip-toed into the palace and whispered, “Your Majesty, did Physician say when we can have the abortion?”
I held up my head and stared at her for a long while before saying, “Lv Li, I am really pregnant.”
The two of us simply stared at each other without uttering a word. Just when my tears were about to rolled down my face out of worry, Lv Li jumped up and exclaimed happily, “Ah, Your Majesty. Jiang shi must be so pissed at this news!!”
I was choked by her words and stumbled back a few steps. “Lv Li, just how I have been able to put up with your stupidity is beyond me!”
Sensing my frailty, Lv Li hurried forward and yelled, “Your Majesty! Your Majesty! Are you OK? Somebody! Help!”
At her call for help, many of the palace maids and guards swamped into the palace, including Qi Sheng.
The next thing I knew, Lv Li was standing by the side of my bed with a bowl of bird’s nest porridge in her hands, crying and begging, “Your Majesty, Your Majesty, you should eat something. Don’t do this to yourself.”
I was a bit touched by her words and popped up my body against the bed.
Lv Li was beyond herself when she saw me get up. She immediately rushed forward to hold me up, “This is more like it. Even if you don’t care about yourself, you should at least care for the baby inside you.”
‘Lv Li, since when did you become such a nagging, hysterical girl?’ I pushed her aside and laid down again.
Immediately there was a commotion going on inside the palace, but suddenly the noises receded. It was Qi Sheng. He walked up to the side of my bed and instructed, “You may retreat.”
Lv Li looked up at Qi Sheng in fear and cast me a worrying glance. She hesitated for a bit before taking her leave. Before she left, she worked up all her courage and placed the porridge bowl into the hands of Qi Sheng.
Qi Sheng was hesitant when he took the bowl, but then he sat down by my side and broke the silence, “Honestly, I didn’t want this child.”
It wasn’t his style to just blurt out something as honest as this, and so I sat up from the bed and watched him with vigilant eyes.
He crooked his lips and there was a trace of bitter smile on his face. He avoided direct eye contact with me and only resumed talking after a while, “But when I heard about his existence, some part of me was actually quite happy.”
I felt relieved by what he just said. The fact that he kept lying to me even now said a lot about his fear about the influence my family wielded. It also meant that my situation hadn’t become as bad as I had thought.
Qi Sheng continued, “Sometimes I wonder whether it is a boy or a girl and what this baby would look like. Will it take after you or me? If it is a boy, I can expect him to stay by my side even after he marries. But if it is a girl, I can’t bear the thought of marrying her off to some other family. I wouldn’t want her to be unhappy, and I sure don’t want someone else to mistreat her…”