In the Kunning Palace.
The Empress wore a cold face, teasing her parrot in the cage from time to time. All the servants behind her clammed up like mice.
Since the chief eunuch of the Emperor came yesterday, the Empress had acted like this.
At the first glance, she was graceful, but by closer examination, her eyes were filled with murderousness and face hatred.
A nanny walked in and carefully paced to her, making a full courtesy, "Yesterday, princess Susu of Prince Jing mansion sent an invitation to the peach blossom party to lady Mo of the Founder mansion…"
"Stupid thing!" The Empress's hand teasing the bird turned stiff. She turned around and glared at the nanny, "That rude vulgar girl? She deserves that?!"
The nanny trembled, "Should I send someone to notice nanny Zhang of princess Susu to take back the invitation…?"
"No need. This princess Susu did me a great favor. I'm just worrying how to teach her a lesson and embarrass her in public. Now…haha…"
Just because of this bitch, the Emperor had sent people to warn her the day before yesterday and to scold her yesterday. He should ground her to reflect herself in the palace.
Although the Emperor considered her face by only sending a verbal edict instead of a written public one, which would become a humiliation, she still found the anger hard to chew.
Having lived in the imperial palace for so many years, the was the second time that the Emperor grounded her. The first time was because of her mother, and now her…
This little bitch, just like her mom, were unlucky stars to her.
In the creepy laughter, the Empress teased the bird with a small stick which suddenly stabbed into the parrot's body.
As it penetrated, the Empresses laughed happier, as if the stick wasn't a stick, but a sharp dagger. And the little parrot wasn't a parrot, but Mo Qianxue.
Being stabbed, the parrot whimpered, head leaning to one side, and died.
This creepy whimper freaked out all the servant girls, but none of them dared to look up at it.
The Empress smiled with the whimper, making the entire Kunning palace sullener.
The nanny remained calm at the dead bird in the cage. Obviously, she was used to this scene.
She could easily read between lines of what the Empress meant, "Then what should I do?"
The Empress squinted and looked at the nanny, eyes suddenly bursting sharp rays, which scared the nanny to step back and kneel down. Yet, the Empress laughed, "Call in Princess Yuhe. Tell her I miss her."
The nanny hurriedly took the order, "Yes."
After laughing, the Empress felt greatly relieved and ignored the nanny. She put on the usual calm face, languidly yawned and said gently, "I'm tired."
The voice was soft and elegant, authoritative yet solemn. One could barely relate this voice to that horrifying eerie laughter.
The two servant girls standing behind stepped forward to hold her in a hurry, "Your majesty, let's go back."
The two servant girls held the Empress to go back to the inner palace. The nanny wiped away the cold sweat on her forehead and waved at the other two servant girls standing on the side.
She didn't need to say anything, and one of them hurriedly walked to the corner of the Kuning palace, quickly took out a birdcage covered with a black cloth from a dark room, taking off the previous birdcage and hanging this one to the corridor before taking away the black cloth.
As the black cloth on the cage was taken away, the bird inside jumped joyfully here and there.
This was a cage exactly the same with the previous one. So was the parrot inside.
From every aspect, you couldn't tell the difference between the two cages or between the living bouncing bird and the dead one.
The servant girl hung the birdcage, watched pitifully at the parrot inside which didn't know what sadness was, and lowered her head. She took out the dead bird from the carriage in her hand, handed it to a nanny, and then hung this carriage back to the dark room.
Everybody praised the Empress for her benevolence because she regarded a parrot as treasure and teased it every day.
Everybody said that this parrot was the happiest one in the world, because it not only lived in a gold cage, but also stayed around the noblest woman in the world, with its special servants.
However, no one ever imagined that the bird that had just died only stayed in the corridor for one day and had just been hung there soon after the chief eunuch had left, in the way similar to the previous scene.
No one ever imagined that in the dark room at the corner of the Kunning palace, there was a full room of cages. The only difference was that some were covered with cloth and some were empty.
*
In the Yanqing palace.
On the couch leaned a seductively pretty woman.
She, dark hair tied in a cloud hairstyle, wore a high-waisted pink dress dotted with cherry blossoms, underneath which was a rose-red pleaded skirt. Leaning on the couch under the multiple layers of dresses, she seemed to be lying in flowers.
At this time, a servant girl brought over rose water to do hand-care for her. She stuck out the left hand, which was soft, as if it had no bones, slim and smooth like jade, making the be-holder couldn't help but love it.
The servant kneeled on the floor, dipped rose water and then began the massage.
The woman put one hand in the servant's hands and used the other arm to support her head. The pair of elegant and poised eyes slightly looked up, making them both noble and mysterious. There were subtle wrinkles at the corners of her eyes, but they didn't injure her entire look but instead added for her a beauty of mature and elegance.
Faintly hearing bird whimpering in the direction of the Kunning palace, she pulled a curve in the lips, "The Empress didn't leave her Kunning palace since yesterday. It seems she's in a bad mood. Otherwise, she would have walked around in the imperial garden to showcase her authority as an empress, just as usual."
Her expression formed a smile, but there wasn't a smile in her eyes. The bright eyes seemed to turn into a pool of water, carrying infinite coldness and indifference.
This woman was exactly Imperial Concubine Yu, who had been favored by the Emperor for more than a decade.
Nanny Ni responded, "Yes, your majesty. I heard that yesterday, eunuch De of the Emperor visited her, and then loud twittering of bird was heard from her palace, similar to what we heard just now."
Concubine Yu smiled, "This bird is so sweet. When its master is in a bad mood, it whimpers with her."
The smile was different from the previous careless one. It was obvious disdain and sneer.
Nanny Ni continued, "It's said the parrot is taken here from the Empress's original family. It has been kept in the imperial palace for fifteen years. It can sense a person's feelings. Long life it lives."
Concubine Yu said, "As long as the Empress doesn't want it to die, it doesn't dare to die."
The Emperor had married the Empress when he was a princess, and he had married concubine Yu after he had taken the throne.
Although she lived shorter in the imperial palace than the Emperor and Empress, she had also lived here for a decade. Others probably had no idea of the bird, but she did.
Nevertheless, such a trifle wasn't worth disclosure, which was also pointless. Living in the boring and tedious days and nights of the imperial palace, everybody had certain weird hobbies. No big deal to kill birds.
And that woman only dared to kill birds.
The Xie women were more and more useless.
The Empress Dowager hid in her Cining palace and didn't come out, while the Empress took pleasure in killing birds in her palace. With time, she would become the noblest and most respected woman in the imperial palace, as long as she gave birth to a son for the Emperor.
It wasn't the Xie women's fault after all!
It was said that the Emperor's biological mother had been killed by the Empress Dowager. How would the Xies tolerate other women to become nobler than the Xie women.
Yet, they had never considered how it could be possible that the Emperor would allow a woman who had killed his mother to domineer the imperial harem. Therefore, the best destination for her was to pray and worship all day long…
The Empress didn't have a son. Neither did Concubine Yu. It wasn't easy to give birth to a son for the Emperor. However, the Empress would never have one. This was self-evident upon carefully thinking in the shoe of the Emperor. But she still had a chance.
The princess of the Empress was also born before the Emperor took the throne. By then, he needed the power of the Xie family, so he permitted her to give birth to that daughter.
So far, a dozen years after he took the throne, he didn't have much descendants. Three princes and six princesses, in total, less than ten, poorer than an ordinary minister or noble family.
Princess Yuhe, the daughter of the Empress was thirteen years old, and her daughter, princess Ningxiang was twelve. Even her second daughter princess Ningtan was six. Among all the women in the imperial harem, only she had two children. Although both of them were daughters, no others dared to look down upon her.
She came from a family of neither high or low rank, so she wouldn't be suspected or ignored by the Emperor…
Among the three imperial princes, Princess Qing was eleven. His mother had died. Since the Empress couldn't give birth to a son, she often took great care of Prince Qing. As for the other two princes, Prince Mu and Prince Li, their mothers weren't loved by the Emperor, whose original families weren't worth mentioning at all…
As concubine Yu pondered, the servant girl kneeling on the floor had finished the hand care on her left hand and wrapped it with a white silk handkerchief, "The left hand is completed, your majesty. Please give me your right hand."
The girl's voice pulled concubine Yu back to the earth. She sat up and stuck out the other hand to the servant and said to nanny Ni, "Do you know what made the Empress's bird sang that loud?"
Nanny Ni replied respectfully, "Someone told me that Princess Susu of the Prince Jing mansion sent an invitation to the peach blossom party to Miss. Mo of the Founder mansion."
Concubine Yu enjoyed the service of hand care and smiled faintly, "An amazing girl that Mo Qianxue is! She isn't simple to have been able to walk out of the Empress's palace and the Emperor's Jinluan palace alive."