Song Liang had barely returned to Zhaoyang Hall when someone flung herself into his arms. A delicate, lovely woman in palace attire clung to him, weeping as though her heart had broken.
“My imperial son, you’re finally back! Your mother has missed you so terribly! How could you bear to leave me behind? You heartless child! You’re my only child. If anything happened to you, how could I go on living?”
“…”
Presumably, this was the supposedly easy-to-fool Empress Dowager Helan Ze had mentioned—the young emperor’s birth mother.
Song Liang patted her back soothingly.
“It’s all right. Haven’t I returned safely?”
At his words, the woman’s sobbing abruptly stopped. She looked at him in confusion.
“Are you my son?”
Song Liang remained perfectly composed.
“Of course I am.”
“Then why aren’t you frightened anymore? I heard you encountered assassins and injured your leg… Why is your hand bandaged too?”
“Because I’ve grown up.”
“Good child.”
The Empress Dowager’s tears immediately began flowing again. She looked at him with aching tenderness.
“You’ve lost weight.”
Song Liang thought that if she looked closely, she might notice he had grown taller too.
Still, she was clearly as easy to fool as Helan Ze and the others claimed. Slightly reassured, Song Liang eased her out of his arms.
“Mother, I’m hungry.”
“I knew you would be. I made your favorite sweet milk curd myself. Come, try it.”
Wiping her tears, she had a maid bring the milk curd and place it before him.
Song Liang took a spoonful. The Empress Dowager watched expectantly.
“How is it?”
He swallowed.
“Not good.”
【…Would telling one little lie kill you??】
【Eating this would.】
Song Liang handed the bowl back and asked, “How much sugar did you put in?”
“Half a jar.”
The Empress Dowager looked at him with satisfaction.
“You really have grown up. You don’t even like sweets anymore. Good child.”
【…】
She really was easy to fool.
Hearing “half a jar” gave Song Liang a jolt too.
“Mother, you shouldn’t eat too much sugar. It’s bad for your health. You should cut back as well.”
Moved, the Empress Dowager shed a few more tears. Then she gave him some bad news.
The Grand Empress Dowager wished to see him.
“I had intended to let you rest, but the Grand Empress Dowager ordered you to go over as soon as you returned. There is nothing I can do.”
She looked distressed.
“You must behave. Whatever you do, don’t defy her. Otherwise, your mother will suffer too. Understand?”
Song Liang: “…”
When Song Liang reached Shoukang Palace, Helan Ze happened to be leaving. They met at the entrance, and in front of the palace attendants, Helan Ze respectfully bowed. Song Liang said, “No need for ceremony,” and went inside.
Unlike Ci’an Palace, where entering brought a chorus of “Your Majesty,” Shoukang Palace was silent. The attendants moved almost soundlessly. Even upon seeing the emperor, they merely lowered their heads and bowed without speaking.
Buddhist incense burned in the inner hall. At its center stood a mutton-fat jade screen carved with a phoenix perched in a parasol tree. Beyond it, a reclining figure was faintly visible on a couch.
Song Liang was about to offer a greeting when an imposing female voice sounded from within.
“Kneel.”
Song Liang: “?”
“I said kneel. Did the emperor not hear me?”
Song Liang answered calmly, “I heard. But a sovereign kneels only before Heaven and Earth, the ancestral shrine, and his parents. Before whom does the Grand Empress Dowager wish me to kneel?”
The hall fell silent.
The maids and eunuchs were shocked. They had never expected the timid, soft-spoken young emperor to defy the Grand Empress Dowager.
The person behind the screen seemed equally surprised by his boldness. After a long pause, she spoke slowly.
“One excursion, and the emperor has grown bolder and more eloquent. Did someone outside the palace incite you, or was your departure itself arranged by another?”
Song Liang said nothing.
He knew these lines. In the original novel, the Grand Empress Dowager had also summoned Li Huai after his return to intimidate him. The timing simply hadn’t been this urgent. She had waited until the following day.
A few words had frightened the original character almost to the point of wetting himself. Only after kneeling and repeatedly saying, “Thank you for your mercy, Grand Empress Dowager,” and, “I shall never dare again,” had he been allowed to leave.
With Song Liang, she couldn’t even wait a day. He had barely returned before being summoned, and she had begun by asserting her authority.
Clearly, the old woman was genuinely angry.
In other words, she was anxious.
Why she was anxious took Song Liang only a moment to understand.
He nodded without hesitation.
“Yes. Someone incited me, and someone directed me. Regent Xie Yun! He did both. It was all him!”
The figure behind the screen abruptly sat upright, her breathing growing slightly heavier.
“Truly?”
“Absolutely!”
Song Liang shut his eyes and lied without restraint.
“I swear to Heaven: if it wasn’t him, may I die without descendants! And if it was him, may he die without descendants too!”
【…】
You had better be swearing an oath, not making a wish.
The person behind the screen, however, seemed stunned by his solemn curse. For some time she said nothing, then asked doubtfully, “He told you to leave, and you did? Don’t you usually dislike him most of all?”
“Because he said the Grand Preceptor’s daughter was exceptionally beautiful. I said I didn’t believe him. Surely the daughter of the Commander of the Left Army, whom you recommended, must be prettier.”
“Naturally. The commander’s daughter is a renowned beauty in Yanjing.”
“But the regent said the Grand Preceptor’s daughter was even more beautiful than he is.”
“…”
The figure behind the screen fell abruptly silent.
Clearly, she too considered Xie Yun remarkably handsome. If the Grand Preceptor’s daughter surpassed him, never mind the young emperor—even she would want a look.
“Why did he lure you out of the palace?”
“He wanted me to agree to make the Grand Preceptor’s daughter empress.”
“And you agreed?”
“Of course I refused. I had already promised you I would make the commander’s daughter empress. How could I defy your wishes? But the regent’s methods were too vicious. He broke my leg, twisted my hand, and threatened to throw me into the mountains in the middle of the night, where wild beasts were everywhere. I had no choice but to agree.”
“…”
After a short silence, maids moved the screen aside.
At last, Song Liang saw the Grand Empress Dowager clearly.
She looked no more than her forties. Her hair was swept into a lofty coiffure adorned with gold pins and kingfisher-feather ornaments, and she wore magnificent palace robes woven with peonies in gold thread.
Seated upright on a cushioned couch, she had slender fingers as delicate as an eighteen-year-old girl’s. A few wrinkles touched her eyes and brows, but her dignified beauty made them easy to overlook.
What remained most striking was the profound authority of someone long accustomed to power, enough to make others fear meeting her gaze.
Truly a woman capable of standing alongside Xie Yun and Chancellor Yin.
Her gaze moved to his splinted lower leg, then his bandaged wrist. She immediately believed most of his story. Her fine brows drew together, and her voice turned cold.
“Attend me. Summon the regent and the two commanders of the Black Armor Guard to the palace.”
“Yes, Your Majesty.”
At the prince’s residence, Cen Huan and the others assumed the summons meant the young emperor intended to reward them. Remembering how he had agreed to make their prince empress on that street in Hanshui, they couldn’t help grinning.
Even as they approached Shoukang Palace, Cen Huan was secretly wagering with Ruan Chong over what the Grand Empress Dowager would bestow upon their prince—or whether she really meant to make him empress.
Then, the instant they entered, the imposing woman seated above confronted them.
“Regent, His Majesty says you incited and directed him to leave the palace without permission, then threatened him into making the Grand Preceptor’s daughter empress. Do you know your crime?!”
“…”
Ruan Chong: “?”
Cen Huan: “???”
Both confidants were aghast.
Only Xie Yun calmly looked toward the young emperor beside her. Song Liang wore a serene expression, as though nothing had happened.
Xie Yun raised a brow, his intonation lifting slightly.
“I incited Your Majesty to leave the palace?”
“Mm.” Song Liang nodded.
“I was unaware Your Majesty trusted me so much.”
“What could I do? The regent’s sweet words are far too beguiling. I’m young. It was only natural that I was easily deceived.”
“…”
The words were so suggestive that he sounded like an inexperienced young lady who had been coaxed into eloping by a frivolous rake.
Even the composed Xie Yun fell silent for a moment.
Then he asked, “And what sweet words did I say?”
Song Liang looked bashful.
“Such things are hardly fit for outsiders’ ears. In any case, the Grand Empress Dowager knows everything.”
Xie Yun found it absurd. He was about to speak when the Grand Empress Dowager said sternly, “His Majesty is young and naturally susceptible to beauty. Regent, you should never have used that to lure him!”
“…”
Xie Yun almost laughed in anger.
He no longer even wanted to refute it.
He simply wanted to know what outrageous nonsense this little liar had told the woman.
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