Including you

It said that someone had drugged him after he had been drinking, and he had lain with Miss You Family. Disloyal to his sovereign, faithless to his friend, and heartless toward his family, he would take his own life to atone.

Second Miss You Family...

His mother's surname was You.

The contents of the letter struck the Eldest Prince like a club to the head, leaving his world spinning.

With trembling hands, he opened the second letter.

The handwriting was delicate and graceful. It was his mother's.

It described a young girl's budding love, saying she had fallen for Eldest Young Master Su Family. She poured out her tender feelings and mentioned that Eldest Miss Yin Family was to become engaged to Eldest Young Master Su Family, revealing boundless envy and bitterness.

The third letter said she had fallen for the Imperial Grandson, now the Qi Emperor, but could not become his lawful wife. Eldest Miss Yin Family was fortunate: the Great Ancestor had betrothed her to the Imperial Grandson.

If the first letter was the bitter fruit of sin, the second and third were its roots, and the fourth was the evidence.

The fourth letter brimmed with possessed jealousy. Everything she wanted, the eldest daughter of the Yin Family had received: Eldest Young Master Su's admiration, the Imperial Grandson's affection. Why should she fall short of the eldest daughter of the Yin Family in everything?

The letter ended with-I must have Su Changhe.

Then he recalled the first letter, in which Su Changhe said he had been drugged.

The Eldest Prince's world collapsed, heaven falling and earth splitting.

Had his mother, who seemed steeped in Buddhist serenity, written these letters?

Could these pages of jealousy and outrageous words have been written by his mother, who seemed untouched by worldly dust?

The Eldest Prince stood stunned in the long night. A gaze pricked his back like needles, making him turn around in near panic.

At the far end of the darkness, dim yellow lamplight illuminated a woman's face.

Shadows fell across her face, making her seem both divine and demonic. The letters slipped from the Eldest Prince's hands to the floor. His pupils kept shrinking, his heart pounding hard.

The woman spoke.

"I never knew my son could recognize so many characters."

The Eldest Prince's spine tingled, but he forcibly checked his body's instinctive reaction.

"I... recognized some and guessed the rest..."

The hall lit up. With lowered eyes and a meek expression, Nanny Ning withdrew behind Consort Xian-no, Lady You.

The Eldest Prince stood as though pierced by needles. His mother looked at him as if he were an object whose worth she had yet to determine.

He pressed his lips together, picked up the letters, and returned them to their envelopes, conceding meekly:

"I was wrong."

"I should not have read your letters, Mother."

Lady You rolled the Bodhi Beads between her fingers. "How did you know there was a hidden compartment beneath the Buddha statue?"

The Eldest Prince was about to invent an excuse to muddle through when she spoke again.

"Never mind. It doesn't matter."

She approached the Eldest Prince and reached out to stroke her son's face gently.

The Eldest Prince lowered his eyes, his body drawn taut as a bowstring. He had thought he would welcome her touch, only to find a resistance rising from deep within him.

When the woman's hand touched his face, the Eldest Prince felt no tenderness, only danger and cold.

"Chengyou, you've grown up. There are things I ought to tell you now."

Lady You's voice was calm, as though she remained as pure and unblemished as the Bodhi Beads in her hand.

But Qi Chengyou knew that was not true.

"Your father dislikes you because he suspects you aren't his son."

"I gave birth to you. Wouldn't I know whose son you are?"

"You are your father's own flesh and blood."

"Before she died, the Empress sowed discord and turned your father against you."

"Otherwise, your father and the Empress had no children in their four years of marriage. As his first son, how could he not love you?"

"All the favor the Crown Prince receives now should have been yours."

"It is because of the Empress and the Crown Prince that your father pays you no attention."

Lady You delivered these divisive words calmly, as though merely stating a fact.

The Eldest Prince listened quietly, his thoughts wandering midway through. Had he heard such words in his previous life, he would surely have hated the Crown Prince to his very bones.

A question reached his ears:

"Chengyou, tell me, what should we do?"

The Eldest Prince raised his eyes and suddenly felt a little pity for this woman.

In his previous life, had she hidden helplessly behind the scenes like this too, watching him fight the Crown Prince tooth and nail, secretly praying he would win back everything she had lost to the Empress?

And he had done as she wished, fighting and grasping all his life.

Everything in the past suddenly became clear through these four letters.

No wonder his father disliked him. No wonder his father never showed him a kind face. No wonder his father had dared give him the military tally.

His father had never feared his rebellion. He was not his father's son at all!

No wonder Su Changhuai had been willing to stake his family on joining his rebellion. Su Changhuai was his own uncle!

The truth was horrifying, yet unsurprising.

His previous life had been a joke. He had struggled through the madness of fighting for the succession, struggled through the anguish of an immoral bond between aunt and nephew, while his mother watched his folly from above!

He had been treated as a fool, a stupid donkey, made into a blade aimed at the Crown Prince.

And he had been so smug, even believing his defeat had been honorable!

In the end, only the Crown Prince had treated him sincerely.

Only the Crown Prince had regarded him as an elder brother, calling him "Brother" at every turn.

He had left the dancing maidens he liked in the Eldest Prince's residence to be cared for. Without trust, why would he have done that?

Even when their father shouted at him and confined him, he still came to the Prince's Residence to cadge food and drink. Without affection, why would he have done that?

When the Crown Prince caught him visiting a brothel, he slapped him so hard that all his dignity as a prince was lost.

At the time, he had felt only anger. Now that he thought about it, if the Crown Prince had not truly cared for him, why would he have risked breaking their bond by striking him?

Had the Crown Prince not known he would bear a grudge? Yet he had struck him anyway.

That meant he believed their bond was stronger than the force of that slap.

But he had disappointed the Crown Prince.

He remembered again the decree ordering his bones gathered and buried in the Imperial Mausoleum.

The Crown Prince had not known he was not his blood brother, and had specifically instructed that he be buried as close to their father as possible.

As the Eldest Prince thought, the ardor filling his chest dissolved into tears of release.

He had no intention of fighting for the throne again anyway. In this life, no one would get past him to hurt the little Crown Prince!

Lady You repeated herself.

"Chengyou, tell Mother. The Crown Prince stole everything from us. What will you do?"

Clutching the Bodhi Beads, she stared at the Eldest Prince, forcing him to answer.

"Mother, give up. I will not fight him."

Crack. It was as though something invisible shattered with that answer.

Lady You's calm vanished. She tore the string of Bodhi Beads apart, sending the beads bursting across the floor.

They rolled and rattled, grinding over Lady You's fragile nerves.

"What did you say? Say it again!" she demanded in disbelief, her voice rising to an ear-piercing shriek.

Now it was the Eldest Prince who remained calm. He spoke word by word, earnest and solemn-so solemn that he seemed to be making a devout vow before something sacred.

"I will never be the Crown Prince's enemy."

"Anyone who seeks to harm the Crown Prince will be my enemy."

Qi Chengyou looked at her quietly. "Including you."

When the Empress stole the man she loved, Lady You had not gone mad.

When the child she bore was neglected, Lady You had not gone mad.

When the Qi Emperor exposed her plot against the little Crown Prince and stripped her of her rank, Lady You still had not gone mad.

Because she still had a final card to play. She had a son. Qi Chengyou would inherit her hatred and fight the little Crown Prince until one of them died!

She had intended to keep lying low until the Eldest Prince grew up, then unleash her hatred upon the little Crown Prince and the Qi Emperor.

But the little Crown Prince's unexpected appearance had made her impatient, and she had shown her hand.

Still, that did not matter. She could simply lie low again. She still had Qi Chengyou.

But tonight, her own flesh and blood had told her he would protect the Crown Prince!

He would even become her enemy!

Lady You went mad.