Amid shifting light and shadow, the newcomer's silhouette gradually came into focus. He stood tall and straight, silent as a deep pool, his features so handsome he seemed heaven-sent. She had traced his likeness in her memories again and again, but whenever she reached out to touch him, he vanished into thin air, leaving only a dream behind.
He was the Crown Prince of the Great Xi Dynasty.
No, they said he wasn't the True Crown Prince. They said he was her son.
They claimed she had schemed to switch him with the True Crown Prince on the day they were born, all for the sake of that supreme dragon throne.
But it wasn't true—she had never done such a thing.
Liu Wanning's tears fell like rain. Her heart ached as if someone had ripped it right out of her chest. She had carried the child for ten months; he was her own flesh and blood. How could she ever have given him away?
But no one believed her.
Everyone called her sinister and deceitful, accused her of ambition and shameless scheming, and said she deserved to be hacked to pieces.
She had been thrown into the Imperial Clan Court. All she knew was that the son she had raised for twenty years wasn't her own, while her true son had become the Crown Prince in the imperial palace.
And soon he wouldn't be Crown Prince anymore, either. Because of her, he had been thrown into the Imperial Prison, condemned as the son of a rebel and sentenced to be executed.
Countless times, Liu Wanning had prayed to the heavens to let her see the "Crown Prince" just once. She had seen the "Crown Prince" in the palace before, but not as his mother—as strangers facing one another without recognizing each other.
She wanted to look at him, touch him, tell him she was his mother, and say, "I'm sorry." She, his mother, hadn't protected him.
But even after she had knocked her head until it was bruised and swollen, even after she had beaten herself unconscious, she still couldn't see him.
Now, it all seemed like a dream.
"Crown Prince, is that you?" Liu Wanning gazed at him in a daze, reaching out with her battered, trembling hand to touch him. "Am I about to die? Have you come to take me to the Yellow Springs?"
She vaguely remembered someone telling her that the rebel who had impersonated an Imperial Prince was to be executed. She had thought Xiao Qianyu had become a "ghost."
Without hesitation, Xiao Qianyu took her hand and clasped it gently. "Heir's Consort, you've got it wrong. I'm not dead. And I have good news for you." His face lit up with joy. "Thunder struck from the heavens, and the sky bore witness. It turns out a few muddleheaded officials were deceived and passed judgment in a wrongful case. I am the legitimate son of Father Emperor and Mother Empress. You never switched the Imperial Princes. You are innocent. I've come on Father Emperor's behalf to release you, an innocent woman, and take you back to Prince Jiujiang's Estate."
Huh?
Confusion broke through the lifelessness on Liu Wanning's face. For a moment, her expression froze. A mistake? A wrongful case?
She struggled to move her tongue. "They got it wrong?"
Xiao Qianyu studied the Heir's Consort's face and saw that she was genuinely lost and bewildered, like a little deer that couldn't find its way. She murmured, "You aren't my child, so where is my child? Where in the world is my own flesh and blood?"
The understanding she had clung to all this time had been overturned. The Heir's Consort of Prince Jiujiang was already on the verge of a complete mental collapse.
This wasn't a calculating woman, nor a master schemer—let alone an ambitious woman capable of heartlessly switching her newborn with the Empress's child.
She was frail and slender, with gentle features. Even when she questioned him, she seemed so weak and powerless.
So the decision to switch the children hadn't been hers. Or perhaps she, too, had been kept in the dark.
That didn't matter. Xiao Qianyu firmly believed he was the "False Crown Prince," which meant the woman before him was the original's birth mother. The villain and the cannon fodder were one family.
And family had to stick together and help one another.
Xiao Qianyu crouched down and clasped her hand tightly, giving it an encouraging squeeze. "Heir's Consort, don't worry. I'll help you find your son. He's surely still alive in this world." Wake up. The one you're looking for is far away yet right in front of you. I really am your son.
Liu Wanning clearly hadn't understood. She clutched Xiao Qianyu's hand in a panic. "Is what the Crown Prince said true? My child, is my child still alive? Can I still find him?"
Xiao Qianyu sighed inwardly and encouraged her. "He's definitely alive. So, Heir's Consort, you have to take good care of yourself. The most urgent thing is to get you back to Prince Jiujiang's Estate. You need a physician to examine you properly."
At the mention of returning to the estate, the Heir's Consort's body instinctively trembled. Her face was full of fear and hatred, with a trace of resistance.
Xiao Qianyu's eyes shifted as he pieced it together. The matter of the switched children probably had everything to do with Prince Jiujiang's Estate. Perhaps they had arranged the whole thing themselves, keeping the Heir's Consort in the dark, then pushing the innocent woman forward as a scapegoat once it came to light.
So his elders weren't just villainous cannon fodder—they were scum, too.
His birth mother was cannon fodder among cannon fodder. In a word: tragic!
Fortunately, he had planned ahead and secured the Emperor's compensation for her.
"Heir's Consort, the royal family wronged you and made you suffer. So Father Emperor has specially issued an edict to compensate you. Great-Uncle..." He turned to look toward the doorway.
Prince Gong entered with a stern face, looking none too pleased.
Even if he knew in his heart that Liu Wanning might not have been the one to switch the Imperial Princes, she belonged to Prince Jiujiang's Estate. Prince Gong was hardly going to greet her warmly.
He took out the imperial edict. "Liu, receive the decree."
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