256 The Entanglement Between the Emperor, Empress, and Consorts! (Part 1) Second Update
Updated: 2013-08-15 12:54:36 Word Count: 3350
The truth is too cruel and bloody. When Luo Zhiheng decided to tear open the wound and dig out the rotten flesh to stop the conspiracy from causing further damage, pain was inevitable. But after the pain, the wound would eventually heal slowly over time.
She looked at Mu Yunhe. Before today, he was a kind and innocent man living in the warmth of family, but what about after today? It seemed Mu Yunhe's life would be shrouded in a darkness that would never fade. But she had no choice. She was selfish; she only wanted Mu Yunhe to live, so the conspiracy had to be eliminated. She couldn't bear the evil people constantly watching Mu Yunhe's eyes, couldn't bear those people trying every means to kill him.
Mu Yunhe seemed to be isolated from the world. Even the strong sunlight could not warm him. He stood there all alone, like a child abandoned by his family, lost and helpless, with a sorrowful expression. His pale face and pure eyes seemed unable to bear the immense pain. Perhaps a gust of wind could make him completely collapse.
In that instant, Luo Zhiheng was terrified that Mu Yunhe would perish and leave her.
She hurried towards him and stood in front of him, but to her horror, she realized that at this moment, she was no longer in Mu Yunhe's eyes.
Luo Zhiheng carefully took Mu Yunhe's hand, only to find it covered in cold, damp sweat. She seemed instantly overwhelmed by the coldness, tears welling in her eyes. She asked cautiously, "Mu Yunhe, do you hate me?"
Mu Yunhe's blank stare finally twitched. He looked down at her, as if from another world, and for a moment he couldn't tell who was in front of him. Was it his beloved Aheng? Or the debater who had personally pushed him into despair?
"Who are you?" Mu Yunhe heard his own hoarse voice ask, and then in that instant he tasted blood, which he swallowed hard in his throat.
"It's me, Aheng!" Luo Zhiheng was terrified. She knew her words were cruel, because she knew how naive and innocent Mu Yunhe was. She had practically stabbed him in the back, reopening his deep-seated wounds. She was cold-blooded, but she didn't regret it. The wounds couldn't be healed without healing; she only wanted Mu Yunhe to heal, both physically and emotionally, instead of remaining outwardly glamorous while being rotten to the core.
"So what Aheng just said was all a lie?" Mu Yunhe suddenly grabbed her hand, as if grasping at a last straw, and asked urgently.
Luo Zhiheng closed her eyes tightly and said in a low voice, "You should know that it's all true. You already believe it in your heart, don't you? So why deceive yourself?"
Mu Yunhe suddenly pushed Luo Zhiheng away agitatedly, looking at her with a horrified gaze, rejecting and resisting her: "You're not Aheng! My Aheng wouldn't be like this, you scare me."
Luo Zhiheng stared at him in disbelief. This was the first time he had pushed her away so forcefully. His expression was so hurt and desperate, like a small animal trapped by cruel betrayal, struggling fiercely. Luo Zhiheng didn't dare touch Mu Yunhe, because at that moment, she was also filled with guilt.
Mu Yunhe didn't look at Mu Qingya; he dared not look, not even for a second. He was afraid he would question her, asking if Luo Zhiheng's words were true, if she hadn't done those things. He feared that if he asked, he would receive a despairing answer. He feared that the sister he had always loved would truly become the demon Luo Zhiheng spoke of. He rushed to the princess in a panic, trembling as he pulled her up.
"Mother, let's leave here, right now, let's go home. This place doesn't belong to us, it's filthy!"
The princess looked at Mu Yunhe with grief. From beginning to end, Mu Yunhe was the most innocent one. The son she had tried so hard to protect suffered such severe harm because of her disgraceful behavior, something she could never make up for in her lifetime. As for her daughter, she had completely lost faith in Mu Qingya.
Stiffly standing up, the mother and son supported each other. When the princess passed by Mu Qingya, she hesitated for a moment, then said coldly, "What happened back then was something I, as your mother, wronged you about. If you really hate me that much, just say the word, and I'll give you my life. I'm willing to atone with my death. But Yunhe is innocent; he knows nothing. In my whole life, my hands have only been stained with the blood of those two innocent children. I plotted to kill Consort Li's child. That year was the year I was most severely oppressed by Consort Li, and Yunhe almost died at her hands several times. I can't help but hate her."
"Now that Yunhe has Luo Zhiheng protecting her, I feel very at ease. So if it can help you completely let go of your hatred, I am willing to die." The princess admitted her crimes, which made Mu Yunhe's body stiffen.
His mother was not as wonderful as he had imagined and seen.
Watching the princess lead the distraught Mu Yunhe away, Mu Qingya, tears streaming down her face, finally roared with pent-up resentment, "What's the use of saying this now? It's all too late! It's all too late! You don't deserve to be a mother, I hate you!!"
Luo Zhiheng saw the princess's back stiffen for a moment, then her straight back gradually slumped and bent. The once graceful figure was no longer visible.
She was still reeling from Mu Yunhe's cold attitude when a loud bang made her turn around, followed by Mu Qingya's heart-wrenching scream.
In mid-air, Nalan Daibai's body was slammed down by the wet nurse's palm, which was imbued with intense qi. He fell rapidly and crashed heavily to the ground, spitting out blood and convulsing on the ground.
"Nalan!" Mu Qingya rushed over as if she had gone mad, scrambling and rolling around without any regard for her image.
However, before Mu Qingya could reach him, the wet nurse's slowly descending body struck Nalan Daibai's arm with a sword, causing blood to spurt out again. Nalan Daibai's arm was severed. Just as the wet nurse was about to dislocate his other arm, Mu Qingya rushed forward without hesitation and clung tightly to Nalan Daibai's body, abruptly stopping the wet nurse's movements.
At the same time, the emperor's panicked voice rang out: "Spare his life!"
No one knew why the emperor, who had been silent all along, would speak at this moment. 17.
The wet nurse ignored the emperor completely, looked up at Luo Zhiheng with a guilty gaze, and asked, "Young master, what should I do?"
At that moment, Luo Zhiheng suddenly noticed something: the wet nurse sometimes addressed her as "Young Miss" and sometimes as "Little Mistress." However, when Luo Zhiheng ordered the wet nurse to do something important, the wet nurse always addressed her as "Little Mistress." She frowned slightly, put aside her doubts, and said, "Wait a minute."
"Luo Zhiheng, how cruel you are!" Mu Qingya screamed, her bloodshot eyes filled with rage.
"Are you as ruthless as you? If your dead son knew that his mother was a heartless and insane person, I wonder if he would be afraid?" Luo Zhiheng said indifferently.
Mu Qingya's brow twitched. She could only look at Nalan, seeing him beaten and covered in wounds. Once again, she felt that Luo Zhiheng was too terrifying. Just who had she offended? How could a servant of Luo Zhiheng be able to hurt Nalan so badly?
"I'll find the imperial physician for you, just bear with it." Suppressing her bitterness and fear, Mu Qingya couldn't bear to look at his bleeding, severed arm. She turned to her servants and shouted, "What are you all standing there for? Go find the imperial physician now! Hurry! If anything happens to Nalan, I'll make you all pay with your lives!"
"You are not allowed to go! Mu Qingya, you are my Imperial Concubine. What do you mean by holding another man? Even if he is a eunuch, it is still improper! Furthermore, if he really is Nalan, then everything Luo Zhiheng said before is true?" The emperor stepped forward to uphold justice, asking his question with righteous indignation.
Luo Zhiheng curled her lip in disdain.
"So what if I did it all? I'm avenging our son, am I wrong?" Mu Qingya roared, completely losing her temper.
The audience erupted in uproar!
Is this an admission of her evil deeds?! Was the imperial concubine of the Southern Dynasty really so ugly and filthy?
The emperor squinted, his eyes filled with anguish, and asked, "How could you have become like this? Didn't you tell me before that Rui'er's death was just an accident? Why did you protect your mother and then your brother? Don't you know that Mu Yunhe is innocent?"
Luo Zhiheng felt a jolt of fear. The emperor's words were loaded with meaning; it seemed he was favoring her and Mu Yunhe, trying to force Mu Qingya into a position of being unrighteous and immoral. Had the emperor lost his mind? Had he forgotten who he was close to?
"What's the use of telling you? Can you kill my mother to avenge Rui'er, or send troops to destroy the Mu Dynasty? You can't do either! You probably still resent me for killing Rui'er, right? Nan Xiaoqing, I gave up on you fourteen years ago," Mu Qingya said sarcastically.
"Insolence!" The emperor was furious for a moment, but then his anger subsided, and he said calmly, "Qingya, you weren't like this before. It must be this strange eunuch who corrupted you. Be good and come back to me obediently, and I will protect you. Hand this damned eunuch over to Luo Zhiheng. He has committed many evils, instigated you to harm Mu Yunhe, and the poison was all his. He deserves to die."
Mu Qingya roared with a twisted expression, "You're not allowed to talk about him like that! Nan Xiaoqing, you hypocrite! What right do you have to say such things about Nalan? If it weren't for you, Nalan and I would have been husband and wife long ago. Don't think I don't know about your actions to suppress the Nalan family. You don't love me, yet you don't want me to have another man in my heart. A selfish man like you deserves to go to hell!"
"This is what I've always wanted to understand: what exactly happened between you and the Emperor back then? What was going on between you two?" The Empress, who had been silent all along, finally spoke. Her face was haggard, and she was equally devastated.
Another hidden story? Luo Zhiheng raised an eyebrow. Was this an unexpected gain?
Second update! There will be another update today. Huasha will continue to work hard to write the third update. Love you all! Please vote, leave comments, and give me monthly tickets! Love you all!
Chapter 257: Entanglement Between the Emperor, Empress, and Consorts! (Part 2) Bonus chapter for 15,000 comments
Updated: 2013-08-15 17:45:49 Word Count: 3375
Everyone has a past they can't talk about and some emotions they can't express, some are love, some are friendship.
Mu Qingya's mind contains two most unknown and pure places filled with clean soil: one is called Nalan Daibai, and the other is called Murong Qianchen.
If someone is destined to become a calamity in one's life, then these two people are the calamities that Mu Qingya least wants to mention in her life, yet will be treasured in her memory forever as the purest calamities.
They met at the most vibrant and beautiful age of their lives. They had dreams, they pursued the beauty of love and the joy of friendship. But they also bore the weight of their families' rise and fall. They could afford to play, but they couldn't. Because before them stood a towering mountain called political marriage! 177.
Even though Mu Qingya had done countless bad things, she always maintained a safe and respectful distance from Murong Qianchen. She had already dragged Nalan Daibai into hell, and she had personally destroyed the only two pure places in her heart, so she would never personally destroy that one and only one.
One has another. Murong Qianchen is loyal and righteous, while Mu Qingya is heartless and ruthless. But no one will know that when the young Mu Qingya carefully tried to protect her beloved sister, she messed things up time and time again. She carried the deepest, most unknown pain, and the burden of two unresolved emotional debts, but she could not speak of them, had nowhere to speak of them, and could not express them.
The person she could least face in her life was Murong Qianchen. Because she knew from the beginning that Nan Xiaoqing loved Murong Qianchen, and later, Murong Qianchen also fell in love with Nan Xiaoqing. She had been constantly sabotaging their painful and entangled love.
"Why won't you answer me? Mu Qingya, do you still consider me your sister?" Murong Qianchen slowly walked down the high steps, the trailing phoenix robe making a cold, metallic sound as it rubbed against the air.
"I have nothing to say." Mu Qingya seemed to have calmed down as well, her head lowered so her expression was unreadable.
Murong Qianchen stood on the halfway point of the steps, her steps abruptly halting as she approached her. After a long pause, she heard herself ask, "So, what is your relationship with Nalan Daibai? When did it begin? Best friends who could talk about anything, yet so many things I didn't know, and I repeatedly backed down for you. Mu Qingya, do you still have a single truthful word to say to me? Nearly thirty years of sisterhood, is this what you're going to trample on like this? Do you really think I, Murong Qianchen, am a fool who can give forever?"
When Murong Qianchen was young, she was a rather thick-skinned person, unlike Mu Qingya who was more sensitive and perceptive. So, when she learned that Mu Qingya had someone she liked, it was precisely when Mu Qingya feared marrying Nan Xiaoqing. At that time, she was shocked and angry, but ultimately chose to compromise. However, this didn't mean she could be deceived by Mu Qingya again and again.
If sisterhood is so easily deceived, and after all these years of tolerance and forbearance towards Mu Qingya, all she gets in return is Mu Qingya's repeated and inexplicable deceptions? Even a straightforward woman like Murong Qianchen couldn't contain her anger at this moment.
“I love him! I love Nalan Daibai! From the moment I met him when I was fourteen, I knew that I loved him and that I wanted to marry him! This purpose and desire was so strong that it has never wavered for more than two years. I didn’t want to hide it from my sister, but I was too ashamed to say it back then, and I never had the chance. My sister and I have been together for so many years, and this is the only thing I have kept from her during our youth.”
Mu Qingya almost knelt in Nalan Daibai's arms, and regardless of whether Murong Qianchen could hear her, she calmly said, "Do you remember the scar on my wrist? Back then, I attempted suicide by cutting my wrist. My sister said I was threatening you, and others said I was too selfish to do that. But how could you know that I was truly driven to the brink? I am no longer worthy of him. The dream I have always held onto shattered overnight, and the strength I have built up over a decade crumbled in an instant. I have no reason to live anymore. I would rather die than marry Nalan Daibai."
Nalan Daibai, who had been sobbing and unable to speak in her arms, stared at her with wide eyes in disbelief.
"Are you shocked? Do you think I'm a woman who's completely turned bad? Do you feel I'm no longer worthy of your love?" Mu Qingya looked into his eyes, those bloodshot, crazed eyes finally moistening. She carefully wiped the blood from his face, but she couldn't get it clean. He was vomiting blood profusely. Mu Qingya was terrified and, no longer caring about Murong Qianchen, shouted to the emperor, "Save him! Quickly summon the imperial physician!"
The emperor was furious. Even if he didn't love Mu Qingya, she was still his concubine. All the officials and guests from all over the country were watching. How could Mu Qingya embrace another man and boldly declare her love? Where did she put him, the emperor and her husband?
"I'm giving you one last chance, Mu Qingya. Come back to my side. Nalan Daibai is dead. This matter will be considered settled," the emperor said grimly.
Murong Qianchen's pupils constricted, her heart churning intensely, a mixture of pain and numbness. Even now, the Emperor still wouldn't let go of Mu Qingya? Had his love become so great that he could overlook all of Mu Qingya's faults and sins? Nan Xiaoqing, what right did you have to profess your love to her? Could your love really be divided into multiple parts?
"You really want him to die? You!" Mu Qingya's angry words stopped abruptly because Nalan Daibai grabbed her hand. She looked down at him, and in that instant, there was no one else in her eyes: "Hold on a little longer. You have never broken your promise to me before, and you won't this time either."
Nalan Daibai's eyes were smiling, but tears were streaming down his face. He couldn't say a word, but he kept opening his mouth, and every time he opened his mouth, large mouthfuls of blood would flow out.
Mu Qingya was confused about the situation, but she was so frightened that her eyes reddened again. She hugged his body and trembled all over.
"Ah, oh, eh..." Nalan Daibai's voice sounded like he was crying. He couldn't say a word, but he kept trying to say something. He was anxious to let Mu Qingya know what he was trying to say, but things didn't go as planned.
Mu Qingya was terrified. She cupped his face in her hands, scrutinizing his mouth, and then her body grew colder and colder. Her eyes seemed to be shrouded in mist for a moment, and she trembled with fear, her scalp tingling. She looked at her wet nurse in disbelief, unable to utter a single word.
The wet nurse, sharp and merciless, would say, "Don't be shocked, I pulled out his tongue!" That mouth and tongue had violated her before, so naturally they couldn't be left alive!
The eloquent Mu Qingya gasped for breath, unable to utter a single word.
Nalan Daibai had so much to say, but his tongue was gone, and his sobs were incomprehensible. His brows furrowed with anxiety, and he gripped her hand tightly, his eyes almost bloodshot with worry. But his breath grew weaker and weaker, and Mu Qingya was powerless to help, her heart growing colder with each passing moment.
"Please save him, I beg you, please save him. I'll do anything to save him, I'll even die for Mu Yunhe! I surrender, if you want to protect Luo Zhiheng, I won't fight anymore, please save him!" Mu Qingya suddenly abandoned all her pride and madness, and in the blink of an eye, she was humbled to the dust. She begged the emperor, begged the man who had ruined her life.
But how could the emperor, having lost face, possibly be threatened by Mu Qingya? He coldly declared, "Impossible! Nalan Daibai must die!"
Mu Qingya tried to plead again, but Nalan Daibai grabbed her and gently shook his head. She understood; he didn't want her to bow to the emperor. But how could she let him die?
Nalan Daibai slowly raised his hand behind his ear and forcefully tore something down. The sinister and terrifying light in his eyes was gone; he seemed to be looking at her with a smile.
Mu Qingya understood, and in that instant, despair washed over her. But she still trembled as she reached out and slowly pinched a thin, cicada-wing-like piece of skin behind him, gently pulling it open. It was, unmistakably, a human skin mask!
When that face that haunted her memories reappeared, Mu Qingya finally experienced the taste of deep regret, despair, and fear.
Nalan Daibai was already out of breath. With his last bit of strength, he grabbed her hand and placed it on his chest, pressing it down so hard, as if to tell her that she had always been in his heart, never leaving, never changing. His love remained unchanged.
"I know, I know everything," Mu Qingya said haphazardly.
Nalan Daibai seemed to have achieved a sense of fulfillment, laughing forcefully, yet his laughter was so clumsy. Blood flowed onto both of them. Amidst laughter and contentment, he died in the arms of the woman he loved most. His hand, tightly gripping hers, finally fell slowly to the ground.
Mu Qingya's tears fell instantly, streaming down his face, washing away the filthy blood and cleansing the deepest wounds in her heart. She didn't cry or scream hysterically, nor did she continue to argue frantically. She simply held Nalan Daibai in her arms quietly, silently shedding tears.
This was the second man she deeply loved to die in her arms. Helplessness and despair washed over her once more. This time, she had no room to break down either. In the dizzying spin, she heard her suddenly let out a heart-wrenching laugh: "Nan Xiaoqing! You're so clever, thinking you can salvage your reputation by not saving him? You think you'll be safe as long as I'm alive? Hahaha! You're wrong, you fool! Your inaction in helping Nalan is tantamount to killing yourself! Nalan is dead, and the curse on you will never be lifted in this lifetime!!"
The emperor's expression changed drastically in an instant!
It's past midnight, and Huasha thinks she's a good girl, so she'll try her best to make up for yesterday's update. Therefore, there's an extra chapter today! Huasha will try her best to write until she dies, okay? Haha, my darlings, please support and encourage Huasha! The tragic characters are ending this conspiracy journey, so get your tissues ready. Please give me recommendation votes, comments, and monthly tickets! See you later!