Qiqi gazed calmly at Empress Jian. "I'll ask you one more time. Did you poison Father's food and drink?"
Long Tingsheng woke from his brief spell of unconsciousness and cried out, "Mother, you mustn't fall into her trap..."
Qiqi signaled the eunuchs beside him with her eyes. They immediately seized Long Tingsheng's right leg and, with a crack, snapped it at the knee as well.
Hearing her son's heart-rending screams, Empress Jian's last defenses crumbled completely. She threw herself at Qiqi's feet and pleaded mournfully, "Please spare Tingsheng. I admit it. I admit everything. I poisoned His Majesty's food and drink, but Ji Feihua put me up to all of it. I did everything myself. Tingsheng knew nothing about it."
Qiqi took a written confession from Li Yan and tossed it in front of Empress Jian. "You know what you need to do!"
Empress Jian nodded repeatedly.
Qiqi rose and walked out through the doors. Outside, the rain was falling harder and harder. She stood beneath the covered walkway, watching it for a while, before Li Yan came up behind her with the confession Empress Jian had just signed. "Your Highness, she has confessed!" he said respectfully.
Qiqi nodded.
Li Yan lowered his voice. "What should we do with the two of them?"
"One plotted to murder her own husband, and the other murdered his father and sovereign," Qiqi said. "What do you think we should do?"
"This servant is ignorant," Li Yan replied respectfully. "I await Your Highness's orders."
"Make their crimes known to the world," Qiqi said. "Great Kang's laws are perfectly clear. Deal with them as the law dictates."
"Yes!" Having answered, Li Yan remembered something else. "Oh, and as Your Highness instructed, Grand Tutor Wen, Chancellor Zhou, and the others have all been invited to the