Shumo lowered his eyes, his gaze settling on the palace maid's dispirited yet still pitiful face. He curled his lip in scorn.
"Why, Shuilian? When you tried to seduce His Majesty and your own mistress slashed your face and left you in your room to await death, who saved you? The Crown Prince. Who looked after you, bringing you food and medicine? That girl Yaohu." His voice brimmed with anger. "And how did you repay them? You forgot their kindness and repaid it with treachery. Yaohu came to you for help, but you betrayed her, handing her over to your mistress to vent her anger. You got her killed."
Shumo sneered. "You wanted to climb over her to get ahead. And how did that turn out? Your mistress still pushed you out to die."
Shuilian trembled uncontrollably. She raised her head, timid and humble, and reached out to grab Shumo's robe hem. He stepped back, leaving her grasping at empty air. Her delicate hand fell limply to the ground.
"Eunuch Yu, I didn't mean to. I didn't want to. Consort Jing forced me. If I hadn't obeyed, both of us would have died." Shuilian shook her head frantically, tears flying through the air.
"Then that made it all right to get Yaohu killed?" Shumo lowered his head, his lips delivering a cruel barb. "What a pity. Why couldn't you have been the one to die back then?"
Then perhaps Yaohu might have survived.
Shuilian sobbed until she could barely catch her breath. "Eunuch Yu, for the sake of His Highness the Crown Prince having saved me, spare my life. I'm willing to go to the Laundry Bureau. I don't mind even emptying the night soil buckets. Please let me go." As she spoke, she kept kowtowing until her forehead was bloody.
Though she looked wretched, Shuilian had a frail, delicate air that stirred people's pity. A softhearted person might have been moved.
Unfortunately, Shumo's heart was made of stone. Pity and compassion had no place in it.
"Shuilian, do you think I don't know you went back and begged Consort Jing to take you in? You betrayed His Highness the Crown Prince's kindness and got Yaohu killed. No one will take you in." Shumo straightened and spoke coldly. "Drag her away and beat her to death."
As soon as he finished speaking, two execution eunuchs rushed forward like wolves and tigers, seized Shuilian, and prepared to drag her away.
Shuilian went limp, as if she had turned to mud. Or perhaps, knowing she could not escape death, she let a flash of malice cross her watery eyes and roared at Shumo, "Did I ask the Crown Prince to save me? If he hadn't meddled, maybe His Majesty would have taken pity on me and favored me long ago. What was wrong with not wanting to spend my whole life as a servant, growing old in the palace? I wanted to rise above others and enjoy wealth and glory. What was wrong with that? You think I'm grateful to the Crown Prince? No. I hate him. Who asked him to stick his nose in my business?"
Back then, when she had been disfigured and her fever would not break, the Crown Prince had brought a physician to save her. He had even said that if she wished, he could arrange for her to leave the palace and settle somewhere outside.
She had been unwilling to accept that she was so beautiful, yet could only live at another's mercy. She had tried to climb into the Emperor's bed, so she refused the offer to leave the palace.
Shuilian thought dazedly that if she had accepted then, even if she could not have lived in wealth and glory, she might have married an ordinary man and lived a peaceful, ordinary life.
But now, it was too late to say any of that.
Shumo's face turned livid. Through clenched teeth, he spat out a few words: "Drag her away. Beat her to death at once."
Without the Crown Prince, she would have died long ago, unnoticed, her corpse reduced to bones. And she still had the nerve to resent him? Wretch!
Eunuch Hai waved his hand, and Shuilian's mouth was immediately gagged before she was dragged away for her execution.
He sighed. Back then, His Highness the Crown Prince had been benevolent and magnanimous, willing to risk offending every master in the palace to win a chance at life for the lowly palace servants beneath him.
The Crown Prince had not needed to do that; no one would have dared blame him. Weren't servants there to vent their masters' anger on? Even on the verge of death, they had to kowtow and thank their masters for granting them death, lest their families be implicated.
The Crown Prince had done it, and it had brought him little in return. Instead, he had offended everyone.
Back then, even Eunuch Hai had secretly admired and been grateful to the Crown Prince. They were all servants, after all. Who wanted their life to be snuffed out on a whim by someone above them?
Who could have known how unpredictable the world was? In the end, those who had benefited from the Crown Prince's kindness had become the knives plunged into his back.
Truly, in this world, you couldn't go around being a good person!
Eunuch Hai sighed.
There was no need to question the rest. Shumo had verified their crimes, and they were all guilty. One by one, they were dragged away and put to death.
He meant to make everyone in the palace understand: the Crown Prince was not someone they could afford to offend. If they offended him, they had better be ready to pay with their lives.
Shumo did not fear being called cruel. From now on, he would be the vicious dog at His Highness the Crown Prince's side. Anyone who dared harm the Crown Prince would have to step over his corpse first.
Those who knew how to read the room had bowed their heads and offered up their subordinates as scapegoats to make amends. But some still refused to see reason—like the Grand Princess and the Second Prince.
At the thought that they had deliberately caused Huaying and Qiyu's deaths, Shumo hated them so much his eyes nearly bled.
The Grand Princess, Xiao Yuan, was Consort Guo's daughter.
Consort Guo had been greatly favored by Emperor Yongchang ever since entering the palace, and his favor had never waned. As a result, the Grand Princess had been raised spoiled and domineering, treating human lives like grass. Whenever anything displeased her, she took it out on the palace maids and eunuchs beneath her. Every month, several corpses were carried out of her palace.
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