The End (3)

It was silent for a while, save for a few gasps, then an uproar spread through the crowd.

Someone started with a comment, “I heard that the father of the current king of Liao…has six fingers, and it’s the same for many of his sons…”

“Rumor has it that Yeluzong has that too, but in order to fight for the throne, he actually chopped off that extra finger at a young age…”

“That sixth finger thing is hereditary…”

“So, that should be there when the child is born right? Even if it’s just a little bump…”

“But not everyone’s sixth finger presents the same way. Some are very obvious, and some are very small. And then some just don’t have it. The father of the current king of Liao has six, and the king has several sons with six too, but the king himself doesn’t have six…”

Empress Chen, meanwhile, was too stunned to react to anything. The blow dealt to her was too severe and her legs were about to give way.

Qi Yan leaped to where Zhou Tongxing was. “Do you admit to all these things or not!”

Zhou Tongxing started, “I don’t—”

“I’d advise Mr. Zhou to choose his words wisely,” said Song Caitang in a loud voice. “I went to your home earlier and your elderly mother misses you very dearly. Your wife and son are also very worried about you.”
Zhou Tongxing didn’t know what to say.

He was very shocked that the entire truth of the matter and what he had secretly done over the years, had actually been put together by this small team so quickly.

But they didn’t have hard evidence! He could continue denying the whole thing!

However, when Song Caitang mentioned his family…he had to reconsider.

Was she threatening him?

Was she going to hurt his family if he didn’t speak the truth?

Actually, Zhou Tongxing was overthinking it. If he continued to deny everything, Song Caitang and Zhao Zhi would have found a different way to make him confess without hurting any innocent party. But because Zhou Tongxing had brought harm to way too many people for the sake of achieving his goal, his first thought was that others would behave the same way as him…

“Fine, I’ll say it! It’s no big deal anyway!”

This was just the worst case scenario, which was something that he had considered before.

“At least over here, there’s someone even more unfortunate and more pitiful than I am!” Zhou Tongxing felt a lot better after turning to look at Empress Chen.

“This woman has no shame! She privately communicated with that man, became pregnant with his child despite being married to another man, and insisted on giving birth to the child even though she knew well that he didn’t truly love or even respect her. It was as though she thought that she would be able to keep the child after giving birth to it. But actually, the one who least wants to see this child survive is not our emperor, but Yeluzong himself!”

Zhou Tongxing snorted. “The people of Da’an despise the people of Liao, and you think it isn’t the same for them? To them, the people of Da’an are inferior! A child born to a lowly woman he slept with for fun is not even good enough to work as a stableboy, so why would he want the child? Yeluzong is a prince, for crying out loud! Does he look like someone who desperately needs children to you? Tons of aristocratic women within Liao are dying to give birth to his children, so why would he bother to keep a child born to him outside the country? Is it because he thinks his life is too smooth sailing? Because he would like trouble to come knocking on his door several years later?”

Every word he said was like a heavy hammer that struck Empress Chen in the heart. Empress Chen felt like she was having trouble breathing and wished she could die right now, but that wasn’t possible.

“I really didn’t kill that child. It was really Yeluzong who strangled the boy himself! He came to me because I have an aunt who married a wealthy Liao merchant, and this merchant works directly with Yeluzong. Yeluzong said that he has his own plans and he allowed me to benefit from this situation. He gave me the baby’s dead body wrapped in his swaddling cloths, then said he’s never coming to Da’an again and instructed me to deal with this dead baby properly.”

Zhou Tongxing’s voice was loud, “He told me to deal with it properly, so I did it very properly! He wasn’t going to come back to Da’an anymore, so I could decide what to do and how to explain things. At that time, I did have a son and I’m not sure if Yeluzong looked me up because of that, but since there was a chance, why not take it? The baby was already dead anyway, so why not take this chance to turn this situation into a good one and strike it rich in the future?”

“That’s right, I knew all about everything that Empress Chen has done over the years, including all the secret gold that she shipped to Yeluzong, the salt shipping routes that she used, the network that she gained using her father’s reputation, the officials she bribed, the people she silenced, the dozens of murders committed by her subordinates… In fact, I was the one who planned and gave instructions for a lot of those actions! I killed Li Qi, as well as all those people around her! So what!”

“I thought that if everything went well today and she successfully put my son on the throne, then I’d wait for everything to stabilize before killing her. If she didn’t succeed, that was fine too. All of this would have nothing to do with me, I would remain an innocent party and I could make a comeback in the future. But I overestimated her! She turned out to be completely useless! She couldn’t even do a simple thing like this and everyone can see how stupid she is!“

Empress Chen pointed a trembling finger at him, “Why, you…you…”

“What? If you weren’t so useless and flushed all our efforts down the drain, I would have succeeded!”

Everyone couldn’t help but shake their heads at this scene.

A group united by benefits was often like this. Each one had their own selfish aim and worked together only because they stood to gain from one another. There was no true care for one another and no true loyalty to each other. Once one party no longer needed the other, or if the other party was no longer necessary for meeting one’s aim, the group immediately fell apart. Nobody care if the other side was hurt, or how ugly things got.

Empress Chen finally fell to the ground and let tears stream down her face. “I don’t believe you…I don’t believe a single word you’ve said… If…if all that is true, then…then what have I been doing all this for all these years?”

What had she been doing all these years? What had she gotten out of it?

For the sake of a child that died shortly after it was born, how many foolish things had she done?

She had disregarded danger, disregarded her own pain as she continued to send more and more money to Yeluzong to keep him quiet. She worried day and night, unable to sleep or eat well, carefully using every ounce of energy she had to carry out her plan, to prove her motherly love for her supposed son…

Everything she had done turned out to help her enemies become stronger!

Song Caitang fished something out from her sleeve. “You listened to Yeluzong because he gave you this item, I suppose.”

It was a round badge made from black metal. It looked old, crude and not worth anything at all, but the moment it appeared, all the officials present widened their eyes.

Others might have no idea what it was, but they knew very well what it was. This was a badge of the Liao army!

Showing this badge was enough to command a troop of at least 10,000 soldiers!

Song Caitang explained, “I found this in your hidden room along with the antidote.”

Empress Chen no longer had the energy to care about any of this. She sat listlessly in despair on the ground as pain and regret filled her heart. All she could think of was the fact that her son was dead, and had been dead right from the start. She had done all of this for nothing!

The emperor, seated on a chair, narrowed his eyes and motioned to the crown prince to go over and take the badge.

Since the crown prince wanted to take it, Song Caitang would not withhold it.

The crown prince took the badge, then tried to help Empress Chen to her feet, but Empress Chen refused.

“You…were too naïve in your thinking,” said the crown prince with a sigh. “The Liao people are not stupid, and an ambitious prince would be even smarter. It’s been hard for Da’an to defend our borders, but Liao is a much colder and mountainous country – did you think it was easy for them to defend their border? And if they felt like they were losing the battle, they would try to think of alternative ways to fight this war. If given even the slightest chance, they’d find a way for us to start fighting among ourselves. If they could get money out of us along the way, better still.”

Right from the start, Yeluzong had been making use of Empress Chen. He knew her greatest insecurity and had all of this planned out.

After all, the one who was more affected by this secret, the one who was more afraid of this secret being exposed would be on the losing end. The less affected one would have all the negotiating power, while the more affected one would end up getting bullied.

Empress Chen had a vacant stare in her eyes. “But he said that if I was successful, he would send troops to help me…”

“I would definitely never believe that.”

The crown prince looked at Empress Chen. “If you succeeded and didn’t call for his help, then nothing much would change. But if you called for his help and Liao troops entered the country, what do you think would happen? Do you think our soldiers would just allow the enemies to come in and step all over us? They’ll definitely fight back. So, not only would your success hang in the balance, but the reality is that the Liao troops would not be strong enough to fight all of Da’an’s troops. There is only one way all of this will end—”

It would end in war.

Da’an would be in complete chaos. Those hiding around the capital would gather soldiers to fight, regardless of whether they were ambitious officials hoping to take over the throne, or they were patriotic citizens who wanted to help the emperor. Either way, it would be a complete mess in the capital, and there would be no way the Liao soldiers could possibly hold all of them back. A large number of Da’an people would not surrender and they would certainly outnumber the Liao soldiers.

“Liao is a fairly large country today, but they’re not very strong or flourishing. It’s not that they aren’t ambitious, but you have to make sure your ambition is supported by sufficient capability and morale. Otherwise, if the time is not ripe and you bite off more than you can chew, all you’re left with is a complete mess. If you open the door to the enemy, then there’s profit to be made and Yeluzong will surely come. But at the end of the day, he’s just here to pick up what he can. Once he’s done making a mess here, he’ll leave. Why would he care if you’re dead or alive? The messier Da’an becomes, the happier he would be.”

The crown prince was tall and he was standing in the wind’s direction. The embroidered hems of his robe flew gently in the wind, making him look like a strong pine tree in the mountains, or the straight bamboo on a slope, standing tall and upright even in the wind.

But he spoke slower and slower, gentler and gentler, as well as softer and softer.

It sounded like the breeze in between the pine trees and bamboo. There was a sense of sadness, regret, and even grief.

It was as though he was asking, why did you…have to come to this?

Why…must you have your own child? Why did you want one so badly, even if he was going to be a bastard child who would be hated and cursed at for the rest of his life?

Am I not good enough? Why couldn’t we all just live happily together?

But he didn’t say any of that.

He just held the cold, metal badge tightly in his hand and allowed the design on the badge to hurt his palm.

Empress Chen didn’t look at the crown prince at all. Her eyes were red as she looked toward the emperor instead. “Did you…know about this a long time ago?”

The emperor looked back at her and nodded.

He didn’t know when it first happened. He knew that the bandits on Beiqing Mountain 18 years ago had been difficult to handle, but he managed to take control of the situation in the end. It was easier to handle compared to the natural disasters and the famine that followed. He had only become the emperor for just a few years, so the crown prince was too young to help him. He had been so busy with the matters of the country, he almost forgot who he was. There was no way he could have known about Empress Chen sleeping with someone else and even bearing a child during this time, because he simply did not have the bandwidth to keep an eye on the palace.

Empress Chen was a careful woman who became even more careful after giving birth. Once she was set on rebelling against the emperor, she made sure to lay as low as possible, to take each step slowly and steadily, so that she wouldn’t give anything away. He couldn’t possibly have noticed anything, much less become wary of her.

That was until ten years ago.

Empress Chen had formed her organization and they had made some headway, so she grew more confident. A long enough time had passed as well, so she began cleaning up any traces she left behind back then. She wanted to get rid of anything from that time that might get her into any sort of trouble.

After all, as long as a deed had been done, it would leave traces behind.

Just like what Song Caitang had said, once the process of getting rid of evidence and witnesses started, it was impossible to stop, because like a field of grass, it was able to propagate even if it were hit by strong winds or blazing fires. As long as humans were alive, they would be part of a community and they would create connections with people from all walks of life. The more thorough you tried to be, the larger the scope became. And the larger the scope became, the more mistakes would be made.

If Empress Chen did not do such a huge sweep of the people around her, the emperor would not have connected it to what happened in the past. He would never have known that the person sleeping next to him was actually afraid and worried all day.

That she was actually paranoid about everything.

And once an anomaly was noticed, a secret could no longer be kept a secret. Someone was bound to find out sooner or later.

Once the emperor grew suspicious but found nothing after sounding out his officials, he sent the Eagle Guards to investigate.

Initially, many of them got hurt because they had very little information on hand. The Eagle Guards were the emperor’s trump cards, a secret elite force that had been trained with much effort and resources. Losing any one of them was painful. The emperor had to become even more careful and uncover the truth slowly…

“Since you knew so long ago, why didn’t you just expose me then? Or was it because you wanted to watch me busy myself for nothing like a clown and embarrass myself? Are you happy now?!”

Empress Chen shrieked these words at him, then covered her face and laughed bitterly. “Then again…I’ve betrayed you to this extent. Of course you would want me to pay dearly for it.”

“I’ve been trying to find what you had.” After the crown prince handed the Liao badge to the emperor, the emperor checked it carefully and looked very relieved after making sure it wasn’t a fake. “This item is too dangerous and it affects the security of our borders. I had to be careful.”

He turned slightly to look at Song Caitang with a smile. “Thank you, Miss Song, for helping me to find it.”

Song Caitang bowed and humbly said she was just doing what she ought to.

This badge was able to command actual soldiers, so it was a dangerous thing to possess. Song Caitang guessed that the emperor knew that Empress Chen was holding onto this item, and Empress Chen knew the importance of the badge and made sure to hide it well. Nanny Sun had been a loyal assistant who had helped to hide it too. The emperor might have tried to sound them out and search for it, but had failed to find anything concrete, so he did not do anything that might raise the alarm.

But that wasn’t enough reason to drag this out until now. There had to be other reasons…

Probably the crown prince.

The emperor had been ill for a long time and his health was failing. The crown prince was an exceptional young man who could definitely become the emperor someday, but he still was not mature enough and his temperament was still not steady enough. This concerned the empress, a woman who had helped to bring up the crown prince. The emperor had to deal with this very carefully, so that the crown prince would know what to do, how to handle the matter and make sure the scribes wrote about this incident correctly.

As for Prince Ling…

Empress Chen had supported him and allowed him to be misled, while the emperor did nothing about it too, possibly because he was using Prince Ling to train the crown prince’s patience and temperament.

He wanted to teach the crown prince what he couldn’t within controllable circumstances, while being able to do what he was worried about.

When her thoughts came to this, she couldn’t help but look toward Zhao Zhi.

Zhao Zhi was standing not too far behind the emperor as he discussed something with the leader of the royal guards. His expression was calm and he stood confidently. He had everything under control.

The emperor did indeed have other arrangements in mind.

Song Caitang sighed inwardly. The thoughts and plans of someone in power were indeed very different from ordinary folk.

The emperor ran a finger across the badge and glanced past Empress Chen. “Why did you do this?”

Empress Chen had a sad smile on her face. “I was a tool from the day I was born. My mother used me to gain my father’s favor, my father used me to upkeep his connections. I had to become the most intelligent and sensible daughter just so that my parents would even pay any attention to me. I had to become your empress so that my family would see me as important. I had to take care of and teach the crown prince well so that you would shower care and respect on me.”

“For the past few decades, I’ve had to meet the expectations of others with every step I took. I had to be a good daughter, a good empress, a good foster mother. But what about myself? Where am I in the picture? Nobody sees what I’m like beneath the thick layer I had wrapped around myself. Nobody knows what I like, what I dislike, whether there’s anything I want…and nobody cares.”

Empress Chen looked down at her trembling fingers. “I just wanted someone who truly cared for me. I wanted a space where I could be myself, even if it wasn’t a small space. Nobody wanted to give me that, so I had to find someone who would not be able to refuse me…”

“My own flesh and blood, a son who fully belonged to me. I would put my heart and soul into nurturing him and give him the world. I would be the one who gave him life and everything he had, so he would owe me for it. He would have no reason to reject me. He would definitely respect and love me from the bottom of his heart.”

“But…but he still died in the end! He’s…he’s dead!”

Empress Chen buried her face in her hands as she wailed miserably.

The whole place was silent.

After a long time, the emperor broke the silence, “So, you think that if you are sincere toward another person, the other person would definitely be sincere toward you. But why should they?”

Empress Chen stopped crying for a moment.

Before she could retort, the emperor said, “Have you been sincere toward the ones who were sincere to you?”

Empress Chen stared at him and suddenly went into a daze.

Was he saying that…

Some things that happened very long ago suddenly appeared in her mind. She suddenly remembered that they had gotten married right in the middle of a year filled with natural disasters, so the country was filled with suffering and the emperor was very, very busy. Yet despite how he was barely able to find the time to sleep, he still found the time to enter her chamber twice a day. He had even learned about the commonfolk’s tradition of a husband helping his wife to draw in her brows. He had painted a portrait of her while she slept. He had held her hand and taken a night stroll in the palace gardens to admire the moon…

She had always thought that he did all this for the sake of the crown prince.

He wanted her to put all her efforts toward taking good care of the crown prince, that’s why he showered her with so much affection. Otherwise, why would he bother with her when he knew she couldn’t have children?

What he wanted was to make sure the crown prince remained the most important person in her life.

And so, the closer he tried to get to her, the more disgusted she felt. The closer he got, the more she wanted to get away.

The emperor wasn’t stupid, so he could sense this after a while. So, he stopped being romantic and just continued showing her respect, since that was what she deserved as the empress.

But what he said just now…

Had she misunderstood him?

He once had feelings for her?

“No…I won’t believe it…” Empress Chen’s face was pale. This was something that she found even harder to accept.

The emperor said, “Not every sacrifice or contribution you make will yield something in return. I understand that well and I know I cannot force it to happen. Why are you unable to understand this?”

There were plenty of stories about ungrateful children. Even if that child were still alive, there was no guarantee that he would treat Empress Chen the way she had hoped him to.

“It’s hard to find a genuine heart, and it’s also very fragile. It can be worn down. If you don’t take notice of it, if you don’t cherish it, it will disappear.” The emperor was really in poor health. After that fierce battle, he started coughing after just saying a few sentences. “All of this is just part of life. Why did you have to trap yourself in a cycle of self-pity, refusing to let others in, and refusing to let yourself walk out?”

His gaze was filled with disappointment as he looked at Empress Chen.

He was the emperor, the ruler of this vast country who sat on a throne. He was above everyone else, but he could still understand the hearts of the people below.

Yet he still married Empress Chen.

If he really didn’t want to, nobody could have forced him to.

At the very least, he did have some feelings for her back then.

But that was already in the past. They could never go back to that time.

“What one should stand up for, what one should let go of, whom one should cherish, what one should cherish – I suppose the empress is no longer able to make good judgment on that.”

With that, the emperor waved his hand to get the crown prince to help him out of his chair.

The crown prince took one last look at Empress Chen.

This woman had raised him, but also killed his biological mother. He was filled with mixed feelings.

Some people…simply didn’t understand that what they needed and what they wanted were two different things.

Now that the truth had come to light, the ceremony could continue. But this time, the royal guards held Empress Chen down and nobody made any trouble. Everything went on smoothly.