The Grand Princess had covered up the matter. After all, it would have been a scandal in any household, whether royal or common.
So, after a tip-off from her trusted Senior Palace Maid led her to catch An Fu red-handed in his quarters, the Grand Princess ordered him given fifty vicious strokes of the paddle, then thrown out of the Princess's Residence and left to fend for himself.
Afterward, she issued a strict gag order, forbidding any servant in the Princess's Residence who knew about it from breathing a word outside.
All these years, even the emperor had remained unaware of it.
She had no idea how that cold voice had learned of the incident. All she could do was wait and see.
Members of the imperial family were, in fact, the most adept at reading faces and gauging moods.
The emperor silently glanced at the Grand Princess. Judging by this incident alone, she really was rather pitiful.
[Salty Fish System: But after the Grand Princess threw An Fu out of the Princess's Residence, he proved hard to kill. He survived and eventually recovered from his injuries, though he was left permanently disabled.] [He always nursed a grudge against the Grand Princess. Later, when he learned she was pregnant, he used his old connections to have the midwife steal her baby during the delivery and replace it with an abandoned child for her to raise.]
The Grand Princess, whose expression had remained perfectly calm until then, felt her legs give way at those words and dropped straight to her knees.
The crucial thing was that the emperor happened to be standing right in front of her. To anyone unaware of the truth, the two of them looked as though the Grand Princess had knelt before him to beg