Spitting Venom at Each Other

The Third Prince knew Princess Baozhu all too well. Which of the brothers could hide his dirty dealings from the others?

Before the Crown Prince fell from power, they had presented a united front. To keep themselves ready to join forces against their enemies at any time, they never took things too far.

Among the brothers, the eldest was an openhearted man. With no need to worry that he would vent his anger on the wives and daughters in his household, the Third Prince was naturally happy to stay close to his eldest brother.

The eldest knew he had seduced the Crown Princess, and he knew the eldest had seduced their little aunt. Holding each other's most fatal weaknesses had kept their alliance solid all along.

When he learned the two had gotten together, he had been astonished for ages. Their little aunt did not like the eldest, so why had she taken that risk?

Back then, the Crown Prince had escorted the bridal party a thousand miles with a single long spear, then torn up the marriage-alliance treaty on the spot and brought Princess Baozhu safely home.

On the day they returned to the city, crates of severed heads led the procession. The princess in the phoenix carriage had put on her splendid bridal finery, and as the carriage traveled down Fledgling Dragon Road, her eyes had seen nothing but the dashing youth ahead.

The Third Prince had noticed something strange in Princess Baozhu's gaze even then. He had fully expected her to seduce the Crown Prince. Who knew she would choose the Eldest Prince?

After turning it over and over, he could only guess that it was because the Eldest Prince's martial prowess was second only to the Crown Prince's.

The brothers worked like dogs every day, with a Crown Prince like the King of Hell watching over them, forbidding them from touching sex, gambling, or drugs. Even when they pocketed money, they could not take enormous sums.

Their only daily amusements besides making babies with their wives and concubines were listening to gossip.

His favorite gossip concerned the eldest and their little aunt, followed by whether the fifth brother wore women's clothes when he went to bed with his wife.

Now, an even greater amusement had arrived.

In his previous life, the Empress Dowager had already been buried by the time he could remember anything. He had had no way to learn of all their grudges.

Now he was certain that his father must have killed the Empress Dowager.

He was about to experience an emperor's wrath, yet the Empress Dowager had no intention whatsoever of having someone carry him away from the eye of the storm.

The Third Prince feared that if the two argued themselves into a fury, he would get caught in it. If his father impulsively smashed him to death, he would not even be able to cry out against the injustice.

He wanted to escape, but could not.

He wanted to sleep, but did not dare.

Why did this madwoman insist on holding me?!

Push me too far and I'll piss all over you!

Sharp fingernails slid over the Third Prince's cheek, and that familiar, cloying sensation made him quail.

His father would not even have to act. The Empress Dowager looked as though she wanted to kill him right now.

"Tell me, can little children understand what happens around them?"

The Empress Dowager curiously poked at the eyes of the child in her arms.

"Everyone talks of gradual influence. When the Eldest Prince was little, I would beat and scold servants in front of him every time. Now I've raised him into an arrogant, reckless boy."

The Empress Dowager's voice was soft and sinister. The longer the Third Prince listened, the more his skin crawled. This madwoman really had gone mad!

The Empress Dowager held the month-old Third Prince upright and studied him closely.

The child was still so young that his unsupported head drooped limply, unable to lift itself.

"This one, I want to raise into a lecherous, vicious brute. Tell me, do you think I can succeed?"

The Third Prince cursed furiously inside.

If he really were a child, growing up amid the Empress Dowager's live erotic shows every day, he did not dare imagine what he would become!

Delighted with her own brilliant idea, the Empress Dowager covered her lips and chuckled to herself.

Just then, Princess Baozhu arrived.

Outsiders thought the Empress Dowager doted on Princess Baozhu, but in truth, she was sometimes gentle toward her and sometimes barely acknowledged her.

Princess Baozhu had been raised to be sensitive and melancholy, and deep down, she was somewhat afraid of the Empress Dowager.

"Your daughter pays her respects, Mother."

Princess Baozhu obediently curtsied.

The Empress Dowager acted a little more normally in front of Princess Baozhu.

"Rise. The emperor will be coming shortly, too. I have some good news to tell you both."

When the servants of the Hall of Nurturing Origin went to summon people, they dared not say a single word more than necessary, fearing for their lives.

The Empress Dowager did not care. She preferred to deliver this good news herself, so she would not miss even the slightest change in the emperor's expression.

Before long, the Qi Emperor arrived as well.

The Third Prince wailed, hoping to escape this den of trouble.

The wet nurse beside the Empress Dowager seized upon it like a lifeline and immediately stepped forward.

"Your Majesty, the Third Prince may be hungry. Let me take him down to feed him."

The Empress Dowager patted the Third Prince's bottom. "It's all right. Letting him cry is even better."

The Third Prince despaired.

The Third Prince panicked.

He cursed the Empress Dowager in every way he could imagine. At this moment, he shed genuine tears for himself.

Heaven means to kill me!

The Qi Emperor disliked the Empress Dowager, but he was a man of decorum. His upbringing compelled him to observe the proper courtesies, and only after paying his respects did he ask coldly:

"Why did you summon me, Mother?"

Princess Baozhu was apprehensive, an uneasy feeling lingering in her heart.

The Empress Dowager smiled brightly. "Something good."

Holding the Third Prince in one arm and stroking her belly with her other hand, she stared fixedly at the Qi Emperor and announced:

"I'm pregnant!"

"Chongsi, you're going to be an elder brother."

The Third Prince no longer dared to cry. He clenched his fists nervously, bracing himself against the suffocating silence.

A falling pin could have been heard in the Hall of Nurturing Origin.

The Qi Emperor felt as though the whole world had gone deathly white, his body floating in emptiness with nothing to hold him up.

Chongsi was the Qi Emperor's name, given to him by his imperial grandfather.

The Empress Dowager hated that name and had never been willing to use it.

When he was young, she called him Imperial Grandson. When the Late Emperor ascended the throne, she called him Crown Prince. When the Late Emperor died, she called him emperor.

The first time the Empress Dowager called him by his name was in this absurd situation!

Not out of tender concern, but deliberately to hurt him, to drive him mad!

His chest ached and tightened. He could not tell whether it was because the Empress Dowager's pregnancy violated all morality, or because she had called his name solely to torment him.

A breath lodged in his chest, refusing to come. The Qi Emperor's face visibly reddened, and he trembled where he stood.

Fat Eunuch's heart shattered in fright. Piecing it back together, he nervously supported His Majesty, wanting to soothe him but not daring to make a sound.

Everyone thought the Qi Emperor would erupt in thunderous fury, but this emperor forcibly swallowed his anger along with his blood and tears.

He knew that the angrier he became, the more he hurt, the happier his opponent would be. She would mock his wretchedness, scattering salt over his bleeding wounds as she danced!

"Do you know why you call yourself the 'mourning widow'?"

The Empress Dowager's expression darkened. When an emperor died, his surviving widow referred to herself as the "mourning widow" and observed twenty-seven months of mourning.

"The Late Emperor has been dead barely two years, and you already couldn't wait to indulge in pools of wine and forests of meat?"

He shattered the beautiful dream she had woven of taking revenge on him this way:

"Mother, however much you cheapen and degrade yourself, it's the Late Emperor you're cuckolding. When people gossip, all they'll say is that the Empress Dowager is a whore."

"Even singing girls in brothels seek money and hope to leave that life, yet the exalted Empress Dowager is bent on learning the debauchery of a whorehouse."

"If you've taken a fancy to some eunuch and want a bedmate, have someone let me know."

"With so many eunuchs, I could pick you a handsome one. Sneaking around until the seed has almost grown into a melon before telling me-you're treating me far too much like an outsider!"

The Qi Emperor was like a venomous snake flicking its tongue. His trembling voice did nothing to stop the venom spraying from his mouth, one mouthful after another, poisoning the Empress Dowager to the utmost while poisoning himself until his whole body turned cold and his soul seemed to leave it.

He exhausted a lifetime's worth of filthy words, emptying himself of malice to avenge himself on his own mother.

Each mouthful of venom tore away the Empress Dowager's bodhisattva face, revealing the hideous demon spider beneath.

She flung the Third Prince far away as though tossing an object.

A wave of despair and terror made the Third Prince's tiny body convulse. Tears and snot smeared his face, yet his adult reason kept him from daring to cry aloud.

The servants prostrate on the floor were scared out of their wits by the confrontation between the Empress Dowager and the emperor. How could they spare any attention for the Third Prince?

The Third Prince's body struck a pillar hard, and the wet nurse caught him as he fell toward the floor.

Fat Eunuch was terrified. Remembering that this was His Majesty's son, after all, he immediately ran over and took the child into his own arms.

One look at the Third Prince's tightly shut eyes and the enormous lump on his forehead told him things were bad. He hurried out the door and hastily handed the Third Prince to a eunuch.

"Quick, get an Imperial Physician to examine him!"

With that, he rushed back to His Majesty's side, fearing the madwoman would hurt him!

Sure enough, the Empress Dowager's unbridled screams rang through the hall.

"If I'm a whore, then you're the bastard who crawled out of a whore's belly!"

"Just thinking that I gave birth to you makes me sick!"

"You coldhearted, coldblooded monster of imperial power! A monster who watches his own mother kneel before him again and again! Why don't you die-!"

"You're a monster raised by that old thief!"

"Shut your mouth!" the Qi Emperor roared. "How dare you revile the Great Ancestor!"

"I'll curse him all I like! He was a robber! A tyrant! He had eyes but couldn't see! He was cold and heartless! Selfish and grasping! He wasn't human!"

"Are you angry? Furious?! Does it hurt?! Do you dare hit me?!!!"

The Empress Dowager cursed like a shrew in the street, clutching the Qi Emperor's collar and spraying spittle as she tipped back her head in a hideous taunt.

Smack-!

A heavy slap struck her face. The Empress Dowager fell to the floor in disbelief, while the Qi Emperor stood red-faced, panting like an ox.

Fine beads of sweat had been forced from his brow.

After delivering that slap, the Qi Emperor staggered back several steps. Fat Eunuch hurried to support him.

"Your Majesty! Please calm your anger, Your Majesty. Take care of your imperial health..."

The Qi Emperor had become a fish out of water, his mouth gaping as he struggled for breath. His chest was tight and blocked. Unable to endure any longer, he turned and fled in disarray.

Supporting him, Fat Eunuch hurried outside.

The gates of the Palace of Nurturing Origin opened and closed. On the floor, the Empress Dowager clutched her swollen cheek, weeping and laughing like a woman possessed.

"Hahahaha!!! I was a cherished daughter of heaven, waiting to be wed! Why should I have had to marry that pighead?! The child I bore! They stole my child from me-!"

"Rape! Robbers! Bastard! Monster! Hahahahaha!!!"

The Empress Dowager spread her arms and lay on the floor, laughing without restraint.