Her personal senior palace maid, Qiulan, carefully poured her a cup of hot tea:
"Empress, His Majesty may truly be busy. Recently, I haven't even heard of him visiting any palace."
Su Yue's willow brows drew tightly together. "You don't understand."
No matter how busy he had been before, His Majesty would always come sit with her. Most of every month, he had spent in her palace as well.
But now, she could clearly feel that he was avoiding her.
When had it started?
It seemed to have been... the banquet?
Yes, it had started after the banquet. From then on, he had intentionally or unintentionally avoided her.
Su Qiao!
It was all because that wretched Su Qiao had spouted nonsense.
A strong killing intent flashed through her almond-shaped eyes, and her nails dug viciously into her palms.
"Empress..."
Another personal senior palace maid, Qiuyu, hurried in.
Su Yue restrained the killing intent radiating from her and swept her a cold glance. "What is it? Why are you so flustered?"
"Empress, our people... our people found Nanny Gui's corpse near the mass grave."
Qiuyu was panting heavily from running. Despite the early-spring weather, her forehead was covered in sweat.
"What?"
Su Yue was utterly shocked. She shot to her feet and asked, "How did she die?"
Qiuyu drew two hurried breaths before quickly replying, "Her head was smashed open. It appears that she struck the wall and killed herself."
"Killed herself?"
How could she have killed herself?
Had someone forced her to do it?
But what could they have forced her to reveal?
Nanny Gui had been her wet nurse and had watched her grow up from childhood. Their bond was extraordinary.
Amid her grief, Su Yue sensed that something was wrong.
Everything that had happened recently seemed wrong.
An