Chapter 44: The Three Corpses Outside the Palace
"The day this prince ascends to the throne will be the day you, beauty, become empress," vowed Ye Zixiao.
"Suluan doesn't dare to covet the throne of empress. Everyone knows how deeply Prince loves the luminescent princess. Suluan just hopes that Prince can leave Suluan a place in the inner palace. Suluan would be forever grateful just for that." Yao Suluan buried her head in Ye Zixiao's chest as she murmured this to test him.
"Ziruo is Senior Prince Duan's favorite daughter who's also of the main line. The only reason this prince treats her well is because this prince is worried about Senior Prince Duan's prestige. If this prince becomes emperor, who would this prince still need to fear?" The implied meaning in Ye Zixiao's words were clear.
"Then Suluan won't reject Prince's kind intentions!" Yao Suluan's face filled with joy at having obtained Ye Zixiao's promise.
"This prince naturally has this desire, but whether it will be achievable or not will still require your help. Nothing disgraceful has during this current dynasty though so there aren't any good opportunities to take advantage of," said Ye Zixiao seriously.
"If there are no opportunities, we'll just have to create one. After the campaign in Geyan, Ye Junqing's name has become even more famous. There's no way that Ye Hongyi will let him off after he made such a grand achievement! In reality, Ye Hongyi has been wanting to kill Ye Junqing for a long time. Anyone intelligent is aware of this." Yao Suluan leaned into Ye Zixiao's arms as sharp light flashed through her eyes.
"If Ye Junqing dies, it'll definitely make the military officials in court displeased. If this prince takes advantage of this chance and take the lead to make a public appeal, this prince will be able to pit the military generals against Ye Hongyi and gradually win the public over. At that time, Ye Junqing would already be dead and Ye Hongyi would've lost the faith of the people, so this prince would naturally succeed to the throne and unite the people! However, this prince doesn't have the power to take Ye Junqing's life," said Ye Zixiao with a sigh.
Ye Zixiao was vividly aware of how good an opportunity this was. He had tried many ways to kill Ye Junqing, but not a single one had succeeded. Regardless of whether it was assassins or poisons, Ye Junqing managed to deal with all of them easily. Ye Zixiao couldn't help but wonder if Ye Junqing had already known about his plans so he stopped those attempts in order to avoid alerting him.
"There's no need for Prince to do anything about this. Suluan naturally has ways to make sure that Ye Junqing falls to the point he can never recover. Prince just needs to give Suluan enough manpower." After what happened with Ye Liyu, Yao Suluan was sure that Yao Mowan had someone helping her from the shadows. In that case, she was currently too weak in comparison.
"No problem. Ling Yun!" After Ye Zixiao shouted, a black figure appeared in front of Yao Suluan. Yao Suluan hadn't expected for someone to suddenly appear and hastily pulled the blankets around herself.
"This subordinate Ling Yun kowtows in salute to Master!" A man dressed completely in black stood respectfully in front of the bed. His voice was like a strong bell, but his face was extremely cold and expressionless.
"Prince?" Yao Suluan glanced over at Ye Zixiao in confusion.
"From now on, Ling Yun will listen to all of your commands," said Ye Zixiao.
"Is he the manpower Prince intends to give Suluan?" Yao Suluan looked towards Ling Yun again, her voice filled with unconcealable disappointment and complaint.
"Beauty, don't underestimate Ling Yun. this prince had asked for a very long time before this prince finally got him as a hidden guard. One Ling Yun is enough to take down over a hundred imperial guards!" If it weren't for the sake of the great scheme, there was no way he would've given Yao Suluan the hidden guard he was most proud of.
"Don't worry Prince, Suluan definitely won't disappoint you. Ling Yun, withdraw!" Yao Suluan tried giving an order. Right after she spoke, Ling Yun disappeared from sight.
The following days, Yao Suluan gained even greater of an understanding how useful Ling Yun was. Now that she had Ling Yun's help, she became increasingly unbridled in her actions.
In Guan Osprey Palace, Yao Mowan was looking at the ledger Ben Lei had sent over when Ting Yue rushed in from outside.
"Your Highness, as this servant was heading back from the kitchen, this servant noticed that a lot of people were gathering at Changle palace so this servant went over to take a look and found that three corpses were hanging outside the palace. Although the corpses were so rotten that they were unrecognizable, there were papers on each of the corpses. The papers had Nurse Sun, Eunuch Zheng, and Yun Er on them." Ting Yue quickly reported everything that she saw.
"Who? Who did you say?" Her heart abruptly clenched in pain like wildly growing vines were strangling it. The sudden suffocating sensation and the pain attacked every part of Yao Mowan's body. Tears whirled in her eyes, but she forced them back.
"It was Nurse Sun, Eunuch Zheng, and Yun Er." Ting Yue had heard of those people back when she was working in Yao Residence. She knew that those people were Eldest Miss's most trusted aids. She always thought that they had gone back to their hometowns as recorded in the registry and had never imagined that this was what had happened to them.
Yao Mowan's hands trembled and her tears overflowed despite her efforts to hold them back.
"Your Highness… are you alright?" When Ting Yue saw that Yao Mowan's expression was off, she moved up to support her, but Yao Mowan pushed her away.
"Put the ledgers away!" Yao Mowan tossed the account book she was holding towards Ting Yue, then rushed out of Guan Osprey Palace. On the way there, Yao Mowan's tears rolled down like a strand of pearls had broken. The gentle scenes from back then kept flashing through her mind.
When she almost reached Changle Palace, she abruptly tripped and fell to the ground. She had been so impatient that her steps were unsteady and she tripped on a branch. The fall scraped her palm and arm and small droplets of blood appeared.
"Nurse Sun… Eunuch Zheng… Yun Er… Sorry, it was this consort that implicated you…" sobbed Yao Mowan.
She paid no attention to the pain coming from her palm and repeatedly hit the ground hard to vent the hatred that she had suppressed for so longer. Her body trembled from her intense anger and her face became contorted from rage. In this instant, Yao Mowan was like the king of hell who wanted to make this imperial palace tremble from her wrath.
After a long time, she finally stopped injuring herself and looked towards Changle Palace, her eyes now calm and still.
There was no more anger, no more rage in Yao Mowan's heart. The impulse to burn Ye Hongyi alive had calmed, all that was left was destructive hatred that made her gradually become calm and cold. Her brows unfurrowed and she slowly got up. As she turned to look towards Changle palace, her eyes were ice cold.
The several dozen maids and eunuchs surrounding Changle palace were pointing at the palace and talking. Yao Mowan walked over with heavy steps and did her best to only look sad and scared.
Three corpses were hung outside the palace doors with hemp ropes. The corpses were rotten and stank terribly due to the midsummer weather. The stench was so bad that everyone was covering their noses.
Yao Mowan gritted her teeth as she took in the state of the corpses. They had already died unjustly, but they still had to suffer this treatment after death!? What had they ever done wrong? Why did they have to take such suffering?
"That's why it's said that even a servant must make sure to pick the right master, otherwise they wouldn't even know why they died. Ming Yu ah, don't you agree?" A soft dark voice came from behind Yao Mowan. Yao Mowan turned around and saw that Yao Suluan was looking at her with contempt and a smug expression.
"You're the one behind this?" Although it was a questioning tone, Yao Mowan was already certain that Yao Suluan was behind this. Everyone that was involved with what happened to her back then had already disappeared except for Ye Hongyi and Yao Suluan. There was no way Ye Hongyi would reveal a scandal about himself, so the only person that could've done this was Yao Suluan.
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Credits: Translated by Chiyomira
[Chiyomira's Corner]
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Lol, this is pretty late, but when I first finally got this site going, I was going to give a warning to Celestial fans not to use the $1 pledge to read ahead, because it ends on an awful cliffhanger. I… forgot.