12.
The emperor’s behavior that night left me constantly uneasy, but a long time passed without him coming again.
I asked the children about their visits to pay their respects, and they all said the emperor seemed perfectly normal.
I breathed a sigh of relief. The Eldest Prince told me with a smile that his father had said he could govern in the emperor’s stead now that he was Crown Prince.
This had happened earlier than in my previous life.
“That’s wonderful. You must all support your eldest brother well, understand?”
After five years of teaching them brotherly affection, they no longer formed little cliques. Like chopsticks, any two of them could be paired together.
What’s more, they all looked so much like the emperor that, at a glance, they seemed like a boy band. They were quite a sight.
“We understand, Mother.”
They answered in unison, all gazing at the First Prince with admiration.
There was no jealousy or rivalry in their eyes, only harmony.
I felt more at ease, but the conflict from my previous life came sooner this time.
While the Crown Prince was governing in the emperor’s stead, An Changzai’s father was discovered taking bribes.
An Changzai intercepted the Second Prince at the Imperial Academy, weeping as she begged him for help.
The emperor had gone to Mount Tai, leaving all decisions to the Crown Prince.
In my previous life, this had been the spark that set the Second Prince and the Crown Prince against each other. The Crown Prince was upright and insisted that the corrupt official be executed.
An Changzai died of grief, and from then on, the Second Prince hated his elder brother.
I summoned the Second Prince first and asked what he thought.
“He doesn’t deserve to be my maternal grandfather. He should, of course, be dealt with according to the law. It’s just that An Changzai is weeping so bitterly, and I…”
Though he didn’t care much for the man, he was only human and still had feelings.
Even if all An Changzai had given him was life, they were still mother and son, bound by blood.
“If this were left to you to handle, what would you do?”
The Second Prince looked up in surprise, then straightened his clothes.
“I might show him some mercy.”
He said softly.
“Because An Changzai’s health is already poor.”
“What if I could make sure she survives?”
“Then there’d be nothing to worry about.”
The Second Prince’s answer satisfied me. I then summoned the Crown Prince and gently said:
“The real issue isn’t the corrupt official; it’s An Changzai. You should act according to the law, but there are also your fraternal feelings to consider.”
The Crown Prince pressed his lips together. He was clever and understood at once.
“I understand what you mean, Mother.”
Before dealing with the corrupt official, the Crown Prince arranged for a large quantity of precious medicinal herbs to be sent to An Changzai’s quarters. He also kept the news from her.
If she asked, they were to comfort her and tell her not to worry, while secretly carrying out her father’s execution according to the law.
Unlike in my previous life, when the Second Prince handled the matter himself, this time he sought out the Third Prince.
The Second Prince naturally bore no resentment. Instead, he was grateful that the Crown Prince had handled things so thoughtfully.
Seeing the first tragedy from my previous life fail to come to pass, I was overjoyed.
Since the emperor wasn’t here, I had the Crown Prince cook with his own hands. We set up a large round table in the courtyard and gathered with the children for lamb hot pot.
But just as I put a piece of lamb in my mouth, a palace maid came rushing in from outside and whispered urgently in my ear:
“Your Highness, something terrible has happened. An Changzai… she’s dead.”
13
An Changzai hadn’t left her room these past few days. She’d been given nourishing medicine every day, and even the imperial physician said her health was gradually improving.
They said she’d learned that her father had been executed and cried herself to death.
But who had told her?
To keep her from causing trouble, I’d replaced every servant at her side seven or eight years ago.
In theory, she shouldn’t have found out so quickly.
By now, all the consorts in the harem who outranked me had passed away one after another. Who could have enough power to interfere with my people?
“Mother, the Second Prince has gone to pay his respects.”
The Second Prince was ultimately heartbroken over his mother’s death and personally dealt with the servants who had attended her.
None of them admitted to leaking the news, so the Second Prince simply asked for an order to have them all executed.
But before the funeral was over, Consort Thục Phi’s younger brother got into trouble too.
Her younger brother, Trần Sinh, had beaten a man to death while seizing farmland. Consort Thục Phi’s father and my father had been close friends for years.
In my previous life, the Crown Prince hadn’t intended to protect him. My father went behind my back to plead, and only then was the sentence changed from execution to exile.
By the time I found out, it was too late. The incidents had happened one after another, but the Crown Prince’s favoritism had made the Second Prince’s faction grow even more disheartened.
“A Nghiêm, grind the ink.”
I picked up my brush and wrote a letter to my father, telling him in no uncertain terms not to interfere in this matter.
I also summoned the Crown Prince and instructed him, and he readily agreed.
But half a month later, I heard the Third Prince speaking softly outside the window: “Second Brother, honestly! Crown Prince Brother was forced into it too. No one wanted this.”
I hurriedly called him in to ask, but the Third Prince hemmed and hawed, refusing to speak.
“If you don’t tell me, that’s what will really break Mother’s heart.”
I clenched my teeth. For the first time, I lost my temper in front of the children.
These children weren’t my own, and they’d been born into the perilous imperial family. I cared for them, so I’d devoted myself wholeheartedly to them.
Across two lifetimes, I asked myself, hadn’t I done enough?
I stayed up every day preparing lessons, never getting enough sleep, and tried so hard to foster brotherly affection among them. How had things still come to this!
“It’s still about the Trần family. Trần Sinh beat someone to death, and Crown Prince Brother, remembering their old ties, sentenced him only to exile. But this really isn’t Crown Prince Brother’s fault. It was…”
The Third Prince looked at me, uneasy.
“Crown Prince Brother told me not to say anything. If I do, I’m afraid he’ll beat me to death.”
“If you don’t tell me, Mother won’t want you anymore.”
At my words, the Third Prince immediately burst into tears.
“Mother, please don’t be angry. It was Chief Grand Secretary Tạ. Chief Grand Secretary Tạ knelt and begged Crown Prince Brother, telling him to spare the Trần family out of consideration for the late Consort Thục Phi, since only one son remained in her family. He said not to be so heartless.”
Father…
I clutched my chest. No, I’d warned Father again and again not to interfere in these matters.
Father had listened to me these past few years. In theory, he wouldn’t have acted so rashly.
I hurriedly called A Ngôn and told her to bring Mother to the palace.
But to my surprise, when I confronted Mother, she looked utterly confused.
“The family never received any letters from Your Highness.”
They never received them? How could that be?
Every time, A Ngôn delivered my letters home to Eunuch Tiểu Hà Tử, who was on duty outside. He was one of my people.
Seeing that he’d been exposed, Tiểu Hà Tử readily knelt before me.
But before I could ask why, he bit his tongue and killed himself.
“Your Highness, this servant has wronged you.”
I stared at him in shock. He had served me for fifteen years and had never once betrayed me.
As he died, tears glistened in Tiểu Hà Tử’s eyes. Blood ran from the corners of his mouth like thick ketchup, so thick it seemed unreal.
I had clearly done everything I could to keep the events of my previous life from repeating. So why was the plot still hurtling forward as if nothing could stop it?
So many innocent people had died in this life, too. Where had I gone wrong?
“Find out who Tiểu Hà Tử met and where he went over the past few days.”
14.
Clutching my chest, I watched the rain pour outside. When the Crown Prince heard that the truth had come out, he had knelt outside my door for half the day.
Through a gap in the window, I saw the Crown Prince’s straight-backed figure, drenched by the rain.
He slowly closed his eyes. His face was wet, and I couldn’t tell whether he was crying.
I told A Ngôn to hold an umbrella over him, but the Crown Prince refused it.
“This son knows he was wrong. I’ve wounded Second Brother’s and Mother’s hearts.”
For a moment, I saw him as he’d been in my previous life, dying in prison. But what had he done wrong?
The ones at fault were whoever had leaked the secret and whoever had intercepted my letters.
Thinking it over, the matter of Trần Sinh had been known about for a long time. So why had one accusation after another suddenly come to light?
Clearly, an invisible hand was manipulating everything.
I stared coldly at the door and heard the chief eunuch’s shrill voice drawing closer.
“The emperor has arrived!”
The Crown Prince swayed. He turned around instinctively and came face-to-face with the emperor.
The emperor walked right past him, his eyes holding nothing but disappointment.
“You’re the Crown Prince. How can you kneel before some lowly consort?”
The emperor stood beneath the covered walkway. Behind him, the raindrops fell with a rustle like a curtain of crystal beads.
I looked at his exquisitely handsome profile, and a cold laugh rose in my heart.
The Crown Prince frowned, clearly not expecting the emperor to say that.
“I’m deeply disappointed in you. How can you be so weak and indecisive and still be Crown Prince?”
15.
“Your Highness, the place Tiểu Hà Tử secretly went that night was…”
A Ngôn struggled to speak. After a long silence, she finally uttered three words.
“Qianqing Palace.”
Before I transmigrated, I’d heard of a game that was basically a plan for raising an emperor.
Players with strange tastes would have lots of children, like raising venomous insects and watching them kill one another.
I’d never imagined that my emperor would be just like those players.
After all, to the players, they were just a pile of data, paper characters without feelings.
But these nine children were the emperor’s own flesh and blood.
Even a vicious tiger won’t eat its cubs. He was truly a great villain.
He couldn’t bear to see his children thrive. He was determined to make them fight each other to the death.
I looked at the Crown Prince, nearly on the verge of collapse outside the door, and Second Prince, holding back tears as he watched silently from the shadows. My heart felt as if it were being squeezed tight.
In my previous life, schemes to drive them apart like this had happened more than once.
I’d naively thought that if they were close enough, they could overcome any number of hardships.
But my children weren’t all-seeing gods. How could human nature withstand one vicious test after another?
When someone’s nature breaks down, how can you ask why he fell, without looking at what he went through?
“Consort Đức Phi, what are you daydreaming about?”
The emperor lifted the curtain and stepped inside, smiling as he spoke.
“Your Majesty.”
I forced a smile and rose to pay my respects, but the emperor reached out and caught me by the arm.
It felt as if a huge snake had wrapped around me—sickening and suffocating.
I kept my expression blank and stepped back half a pace.
“What did the Crown Prince do to offend you, that you made him kneel like that?”
“You’re joking, Your Majesty.”
I smiled and casually let the curtain fall.
“The one who offended me is Your Majesty.”
16.
I was a mother hen, fiercely protective of my brood.
Back when I was a teacher, anyone who bullied my students got a talking-to from me.
Someone once pointed a finger at me and called me a holier-than-thou do-gooder, saying they weren’t even my own children, so why should I care so much?
But I didn’t care. Every student of mine was precious to me.
They respected me, so I should care for them, too. There are plenty of do-gooders like me in education, and I’m proud to be one.
A teacher’s duty is to impart knowledge, teach skills, and answer questions.
I calmly looked at the emperor as his handsome face gradually twisted, like a mask cracking apart.
I must have angered him. His brows were no longer furrowed into that elegant curve.
“Consort Đức Phi, do you know what you’re saying?”
“I do. Would you like me to repeat it, Your Majesty?”
I sneered.
“Your Majesty, I only want to ask: are my letters home in Qianqing Palace?”