"I'll go take a look." Without another word, Su Ziji turned to Xinping. "Once I've finished my business, I'll come find you."
Xinping curtsied, visibly a little happier.
Zhou Yao followed directly behind, with four eunuchs trailing after them in silence.
The chief eunuch's reward had been a separate courtyard. After walking at an unhurried pace for a quarter of an hour, they reached its entrance, where Gao Ze and more than a dozen palace attendants were already kneeling in welcome.
Without speaking, Su Ziji saw a man seated in a chair. There was neither terror nor fury between his brows; his eyes were tightly shut, and only a thread of blood hung from his lips.
It was Zhao Bingzhong.
"Your Majesty, Eunuch Zhao was perfectly well just a few days ago. We don't know why..." A palace attendant choked out the words as he kowtowed.
Gao Ze frowned, unable to make sense of it. Su Ziji, however, seemed to understand something. He looked toward Zhou Yao, whose eyes were deep and distant as she shook her head.
Su Ziji already understood. Sure enough, after searching carefully, he found a letter and opened it.
After reading it, Su Ziji let out a long sigh.
"Why did it have to come to this?"
When the old Emperor had died, it had been Zhao Bingzhong himself who had "urged him to drink." Because of that, Zhao Bingzhong had carried two knots in his heart: one, that as a servant, he had slain his master and grievously betrayed profound grace; the other, that the new Emperor might not tolerate him and might even implicate many others.
Thus, once the mourning period ended, after turning it over and over in his mind, he drank poison himself.
It would have been false to say Su