System: [I suggest you wake up and take a look at where you are before you start running your mouth.]
Jiang Shuyue: [Where else could I be? Isn't this just a dream... hey, hey, hey, hey, hey! Mother of mercy! Where am I?]
A crowd of rough-looking men stared straight at Jiang Shuyue, whether they could hear her thoughts or not.
Liu Ning even stood nearby, smiling and waving hello to her.
Look, that was his niece.
With a fearsome brute on either side, she really did the Liu Family proud!
"Ahem! My dear sister-in-law~~"
The emperor craned his neck with a beaming smile, leaning forward from his wheelchair. "This is the Golden Chariot Hall. Take a look. Do you like my place?"
Jiang Shuyue: ...
She looked at the emperor, then at Zhou Yunshen, then at the crowd of wretched old men, some familiar and some not, and let out a spiraling howl inside:
[Aaaaaah! No way, no way, no way! Why are all these old men surrounding me? Where are my clothes?]
Jiang Shuyue looked down at herself. [Thank goodness, thank goodness. Nobody took advantage of me! But how did I get here?]
Why? Because your man brought you here, of course!
Everyone felt disgruntled.
Old men? The oldest among us is only sixty, and the youngest are in their twenties. How did we all become old geezers?
Liu Ning: She means you lot. Not me, anyway.
Lin Fang: I'm an old man, but not a wretched old man. I get along splendidly with my relatives!
Jiang An had no idea what was happening. All he saw was his colleagues' faces taking on every shade imaginable, like a dye works opening for business.
And then there was the emperor.
He had not seen Jiang Shuyue for years, so why did he seem so close to her? How strange!
The emperor smiled. "Yue'er, I held you when you were little. Do you remember me?"
One phrase came to Jiang Shuyue's mind: creepy uncle.
System: [When you were a month old, the emperor was still the Second Prince. He attended your one-month celebration and held you once.] [After he ascended the throne, when you were three, he held you again.] [And both times, you peed on him.]
Jiang Shuyue blushed. She had come for the juicy gossip, only to become the gossip herself. What was this nonsense?
The emperor also recalled those scenes.
Even his own children had never dared pee on him, but this girl had done it twice in a row, drenching him each time.
Perhaps this was what they called favoritism.
The emperor chuckled. "It has been so long since I last saw you that I asked the Marquis of Zhennan to bring you into the palace for a look around, and to show you where I hold court. Well? Is the Golden Chariot Hall beautiful?"
"Yes. Very beautiful," Jiang Shuyue said.
Jiang Shuyue lowered her head, thoroughly embarrassed. [It is beautiful, but this method was way too unusual! I was still asleep. How did I get bundled up and carried off? Zhou Yunshen is such a jerk. He didn't even wake me!]
Zhou Yunshen felt terribly wronged, too.
He had tried waking her, and the household servants had all helped.
She had slept like a pig and simply would not wake up.
Jiang Shuyue: [Besides, if we were coming to the palace, we should have gone to bed early. Yet he put me through all that last night. Three times in one night... my poor back... I'm never trying new positions with him again!]
Everyone: The Marquis of Zhennan is impressive!
Prince Huai felt a little envious.
The Marquis of Zhennan was not crippled like him. His married life must have been quite harmonious.
System: [Gossip, gossip, gossip! You've held things up for so long. Do you still want it or not?]
Jiang Shuyue: [Yes, yes, yes! I want it!]
System: [Prince Huai was the child who resembled the Late Emperor most. He also grew up at the Empress Dowager's side and was greatly favored, making him the acknowledged choice for crown prince. You know that, right?]
Jiang Shuyue nodded discreetly.
System: [But when he was twelve, he went out with the emperor on business and was poisoned, nearly losing his life. He was left crippled, and the Empress Dowager took her anger out on the emperor. Their relationship as mother and son remains extremely strained to this day.]
At this, both Prince Huai and the emperor wore very strange expressions.
Secrets of the imperial family had always been taboo. Zhou Yunshen wanted to warn her discreetly, but a look from the emperor stopped him.
System: [But none of them knows that the person behind the poisoning was actually the Empress Dowager!]
Everyone's pupils shook.
Good heavens, this really isn't something we should be hearing!
Prince Huai and the emperor looked ghastly. Neither could believe their mother had actually tried to kill her own son!
The emperor was even more devastated. His heart was riddled with wounds, the pain so intense that he went numb.
For a moment, Zhou Yunshen regretted bringing her. He was already considering whether to knock her unconscious and carry her away.
Jiang Shuyue: [Even a vicious tiger won't eat its own cubs. Surely disliking him wouldn't drive her that far?]
System: [Mm-hmm. A little matter like that wouldn't even merit this system's attention. There's an even bigger piece of gossip behind it!] [Actually, the sea cucumber soup the Empress Dowager sent wasn't poisoned. She's just a little too proud to admit her feelings. Back then, her rank was too low, so her eldest son was taken away and wasn't raised at her side. All these years, she's wanted to grow closer to him, but she doesn't know how.] [The emperor is also painfully literal. He thinks the Empress Dowager is cold because she doesn't like him, when in fact both mother and son care deeply about each other.]
Jiang Shuyue: [A classic case of having mouths and never putting them to use!]
The emperor began to feel happy again. His mother actually liked him! Then why...
System: [The poisoner was their eldest maternal uncle!]
What?!
Prince Huai nearly sprang out of his wheelchair. Even his knees throbbed with pain.
Zhou Yunshen was curious, too. The Duke of Qi was certainly ambitious, but both princes back then had been born to the Empress Dowager. Whichever one became emperor would make no difference to him. Why would he do this?
System: [To be precise, it was the Duke of Qi's wife. Back when the eldest prince and the emperor were fighting for the throne, she did this stupid thing to help the man she loved take power!] [She was also operating on the principle that one fewer contender was one fewer problem! Later, the eldest prince failed to seize power and died, so she held the Qi Family responsible.] [The Duke of Qi learned the truth years later, but to protect the Qi Family, he could only swallow his anger and pretend not to know.]
Jiang Shuyue: [Another reason is that his wife's family is rich and powerful, right? Commandery Princess Qingping, the eldest legitimate daughter of a great clan, the Grand Princess's adopted daughter, and the Poet Sage's final personal disciple. Tsk, tsk, tsk. All those connections make my head hurt.]
Prince Huai gripped his legs. Remembering how Commandery Princess Qingping had played the caring elder every time they met made him sick enough to vomit!
Never in his wildest dreams had the emperor imagined that the culprit who had harmed his brother and driven a wedge between him and his mother was his aunt!
That shameless bitch even wanted her son to marry his daughter. Dream on!
The emperor narrowed his eyes and smiled. "Seeing Yue'er reminds me of the Grand Princess. Princess Chaohua has now come of age, and I intend to have her..."
Jiang Shuyue perked up. [Here it comes, here it comes! The emperor is going to betroth Chaohua to Commandery Princess Qingping's son!]
System: [What a pity. Princess Chaohua loves the Top Scholar! Their feelings are mutual. After they were separated, the Top Scholar never married, while the princess suffered in her husband's household. They made life difficult for her at every turn, and she eventually died of depression.]
Outrageous!
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