Consort Wu, still full-figured and charming, folded her hands over her still-flat lower belly and paced on tiptoe like a cat.
With every step she took, her body swayed visibly. Even the heavy sable cloak could not conceal her lush curves.
The movement was not overly conspicuous, yet it stirred the heart just so, making one unable to resist the urge to explore further.
In her youth, she had actually been much the same sort as Lady Liu. Only after bearing the Heir Apparent had she deliberately curbed her coquettish ways.
But one could paint a tiger's skin but not its bones. Those few steps alone exposed the artificial dignity she had affected earlier.
Just as Consort Wu reached the doorway, she suddenly stopped, turned back, and said solemnly, "My lords, I have something to say, though I do not know whether I should."
Though she claimed not to know whether she should speak, she did not wait for the three men to respond before raising her voice again. "If we had done this, we should have acted when the Joseon envoys came three years ago. Why wait until now?"
When she had been speaking in circles earlier, always steering the conversation toward Lady Liu, Sun Shaozong had known that she wanted to seize this chance to stir up trouble.
But after probing a few times, he found that she would only imply that Lady Liu must have committed the crime, without offering any actual reasoning. Thus, he had not pursued the matter.
Yet even at the end, she had not forgotten to smear Lady Liu a few more times—Lady Liu had only entered Prince Zhongxin's residence two and a half years ago, so naturally she had had no chance to act three years earlier.
Sun Shaozong glanced sidelong at