“Cousin, I truly don’t know! I don’t know this man, and I have no idea why he was in my palace. Cousin, you have to believe me. I really have been wronged. They deliberately planted evidence to frame me—it has to be them!”
Her eyes were misted with tears, her delicate face streaked with them like pear blossoms in the rain, and her accusations rang out with desperate force. Yet no matter how hoarse Consort Shu Meng screamed herself, she could not win so much as a cold glance from Feng Xuanyi.
“Search him.”
At the order, the Commander of the Palace Guards, who had been waiting at the side, immediately stepped forward and swiftly searched the assassin. Before long, he pulled an identity token from the man’s waist. The single character Meng emblazoned prominently at its center made everyone present suck in a sharp breath. Even Consort Shu Meng’s pitiful sobbing froze in her throat. She stared incredulously at the token in the commander’s hand. Every protest of innocence she had made before suddenly seemed pale, powerless, even ridiculous. Her rigid body sagged, as though the last of her confidence had been drained away by this completely unexpected development.
“Since matters have reached this point, if Consort Shu has anything else to say, you might as well say it all now, lest you leave yourself with regrets later.” The empress remained unhurried and composed, neither servile nor overbearing. There was no triumph at finally settling years of resentment, nor any hypocritical display of sympathy. She seemed almost like an uninvolved observer who needed only state the facts before her.
“…I was framed. Cousin, I really am innocent…” A single waist token had been enough to bring down the normally domineering, spoiled, and willful Consort Shu Meng. Now she could only stare in shock and repeat the same few sentences over and over, as though sheer repetition might somehow carry the depth of her grievance into Feng Xuanyi’s heart.
“If this truly has nothing to do with you, then the household of the Gurun Prince Consort cannot escape suspicion either. A Meng family waist token already explains quite enough. Entering the imperial palace to commit an assassination and injuring an imperial consort is an unforgivable crime of the highest order, regardless of the reason. If Consort Shu truly knew nothing about it, as you claim, then perhaps this was the Gurun Prince Consort’s doing—”
“It has nothing to do with me, and nothing to do with my family!” The empress’s speculation clearly struck a nerve. Consort Shu’s body, which had only just gone limp, jolted as though electrified. She glared viciously at the empress. “Isn’t Your Majesty the Empress being a little too impatient? If we are discussing this incident, then discuss the incident. Why drag innocent people into it? Or was this Your Majesty’s true purpose all along—to deliberately stage an assassination so you could frame the Meng family?!”
“Frame you?” The empress laughed softly. “Consort Shu thinks far too highly of me. I was merely curious about where that token came from and happened to speculate aloud.”
“I am curious as well,” Feng Xuanyi suddenly said, following the empress’s words. He had refused to answer Consort Shu Meng until now and had not even been willing to look at her. “How did the identification token of a retainer from the Gurun Prince Consort’s household end up on an assassin?” The words sounded almost casual, like idle conversation, yet they were enough to leave Consort Shu Meng frozen where she knelt.
“Imperial Cousin, you have to believe me! I truly didn’t know. I-I’m sure Father didn’t know either!” She hurried forward and knelt at Feng Xuanyi’s feet, pleading desperately. “Someone must have stolen a token from the residence to deliberately frame us. It has to be! Imperial Cousin, you must investigate this properly. You have to clear Father’s name!”
“Believe you?” A dark, vicious shadow flashed briefly through Feng Xuanyi’s expression before his face returned to the calm self-possession befitting an emperor. “I believe only facts. I believe only the truth I see with my own eyes. Tonight, if Virtuous Lord had not reacted quickly, if the Palace Guards had not arrived at the critical moment… I do not dare imagine what might have happened next.”
“Imperial Cousin!” Consort Shu’s cries became piercing. Never had she imagined that such a day would come. The husband who had shared her days and nights, the cousin closest to her, now treated everything she said with complete indifference. “Yes, I hate him! I hate him so much I wish I could grind his bones to dust! Because of him, Imperial Cousin no longer treats me the way you did before. The way you look at me isn’t as tender or affectionate as it used to be. You still favor me, but I know—it’s different now. And it’s all because of him! He took your attention away from me. Because of him, you’re no longer only my cousin, no longer only my husband! I love you. I truly, truly love you, so I can’t stop myself from being jealous, from resenting him, from watching helplessly while the favor that should have belonged to me is taken away little by little. I really can’t stay calm. I truly can’t stop myself from hating him! But I also know that no matter how much I hate him, I am still me and he is still him. Even though being placed on equal footing with him now humiliates me beyond words, I know that if I still want to remain beside Imperial Cousin, then I have to endure it. I have to learn to share you with others…”
Every word seemed wrung from blood, every sentence filled with emotion. By this point, Consort Shu Meng was already sobbing so badly she could barely speak, yet those final words still reached everyone present without a single syllable being lost.
“Because I love you, I want to stay beside you. Even if you no longer treat me the way you once did, I still want to remain with you… because I truly love you…”
So humble, so stubbornly devoted. Every word shook the heart, every sound overflowing with love. It was the helplessness shared by countless men and women trapped within the imperial harem, and the chain that bound countless imperial consorts. That single word—love—had entangled too many people and too many things, restraining too much helplessness and too many once-grand ambitions. Consort Shu Meng was bound by it. The empress was bound by it. And how was Nalan Xuan any different?
Unfortunately, an emperor’s love was simply that cold and fleeting. Tender intimacy and lingering affection from only moments before could disappear in an instant, too quickly for anyone to prepare themselves.
“I will investigate this thoroughly. Virtuous Lord’s injury will not have been suffered for nothing. I will see justice done for him.” No matter how sincere the feelings or how profound the love, they might move everyone beneath Heaven, turn a prodigal back from his ways, or bring someone abruptly to his senses—but they could not call back an emperor once he had become resolute and cold.
Feng Xuanyi remained expressionless, as though the person kneeling before him were merely an unrelated stranger. Her tears and desperate pleading were nothing of consequence in his eyes, incapable of stirring even the slightest ripple in him—not even a moment’s hesitation.
“Transmit my decree. Consort Shu has grown arrogant through imperial favor, acted recklessly, and shown no respect for rank or propriety. Such insolence cannot be tolerated. Strip her of her title and demote her to Cainü, the lowest rank of the imperial harem. Confine her to the Cold Palace, never to leave for the remainder of her life.” Without even blinking, Feng Xuanyi’s thin lips opened and closed, and with a few words he cast aside the woman he had once indulged to the heavens, leaving her to fend for herself. “Empress, proclaim the decree throughout the Six Palaces.”
Elio’s Notes: Cainü (採女), literally “Selected Woman,” is a low-ranking imperial consort title. The raw text in this chapter writes 才女, but subsequent chapters consistently refer to Meng Zhen as 孟採女, so this translation standardizes her demoted rank as Cainü.
“Imperial Cousin! Imperial Cousin, no! Imperial Cousin! You have to believe me! I truly knew nothing about this, and Father must know nothing either! Imperial Cousin!” Tears covered her face as she screamed herself hoarse, yet she still could not win a single glance from the man she loved. She could not understand how the man who had grown up alongside her, who had indulged her since childhood—her cousin, her husband—could possibly have come to this point with her.
“It is already deep into the night. If the decree is proclaimed throughout the Six Palaces now, it will disturb every consort in the inner palace. Perhaps—”
“Please proclaim it throughout the Six Palaces.” Feng Xuanyi repeated the command one word at a time, his icy voice cutting off the empress’s concern. He was willing to make the entire affair public simply to ensure that everyone in the imperial harem learned of Consort Shu’s downfall overnight. His decisiveness was merciless. Even if there had been no love between them, there had at least been affection accumulated over so many days. Yet now Feng Xuanyi treated Consort Shu Meng as though she were nothing more than an irritating pebble in his path, something he could not wait to kick aside.
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