Oops! The Black Lotus Can’t Be a Female Supporting Character

CHAPTER 60 PART2

Ning Shu glanced around, then lowered her voice. “After the wedding, Lady Liu remained unmarried. As soon as His Majesty ascended the throne, he brought her into the palace and made her a Noble Consort, even though she was already in her twenties.”

Her mother’s admonition suddenly echoed in her ears: ‘My dear, the sweeter and prettier a man’s words sound, the less they can be trusted!’

Ning Shu couldn’t help but laugh, eyes glistening with mirth and unshed tears.

Xiao Yanfei: “…”

She had no idea what the little princess found so amusing.

After a moment, Ning Shu stifled her laughter, cleared her throat, and said, “I just asked the senior monk about it. He said Her Majesty was unwell, so Master Kong Liao checked her pulse. It’s nothing serious—she only needs to rest.”

Although no one was around, Ning Shu still dropped her voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “I bet she was upset by the Crown Prince. But that old monk pretended not to notice and kept changing the subject in front of me…”

“Gurgle—”

Her stomach cut her off with an audible protest.

Blushing, Ning Shu pressed a hand to her belly and pouted. “I was going to take you to Jiangyun Pavilion to try their new pastries. Oh well, the vegetarian meals at the temple will have to do.”

“Come on, let’s eat!”

She hooked her arm through Xiao Yanfei’s, tugging her along like a gust of wind toward a side room in the temple’s northwest wing. A young monk soon brought them their meal.

After finishing their simple fare and some hot tea for digestion, nearly an hour had passed before a plump little monk came hurrying in with a cheerful smile. “Your Highness, Second Miss Xiao—the Empress is about to depart.”

Ning Shu’s smile faded. Since Her Majesty was leaving, propriety demanded she go pay respects; there was no avoiding it. Reluctantly, she and Xiao Yanfei left the room.

The Empress’s quarters were only a few dozen paces away, guarded by imperial soldiers to keep idle visitors out.

After the time it takes to drink a cup of tea, Empress Liu and her entourage finally emerged, moving slowly toward the main gate.

The soldiers began clearing the path again so no pilgrim would dare block the way.

As the Empress passed by Ning Shu and Xiao Yanfei, her gaze swept lightly over them. She caught sight of Xiao Yanfei, head bowed, idly turning the gold-and-jade bangle around her left wrist with her fingertips.

A concubine’s daughter will always be a concubine’s daughter—so sloppy in her manners, the Empress thought with a trace of mockery. She was about to look away when something caught her attention.

Hm?

“Second Miss Xiao,” she asked with a slight frown, “where did you get that bracelet?”

It looked very much like one of Ming Rui’s.

Xiao Yanfei curtseyed, slipped the bangle from her wrist, and traced her fingers gently over it twice before presenting it in her palm. Bowing her head, she answered meekly, “Your Majesty, just now in the stele forest, Princess Ning nearly stumbled. I happened to steady her, and she rewarded me with this. Should I… return it to her?”

She lifted her eyes hesitantly toward the Empress.

Such petty taste, Empress Liu thought with disdain. Gu Mingjing’s nephew truly deserves no better than a concubine-born girl like this.

Gracefully smoothing the embroidered hem of her sleeve, she said coolly, “Since the Princess gave it to you, you may keep it.”

Smiling brightly, Xiao Yanfei slipped the bangle back onto her wrist and bowed again.

Ming Rui, head lowered, allowed the faintest smile to touch her lips.

Anything she owned would be noticed the moment it went missing. But now, with this gold-and-jade bangle openly acknowledged by the Empress herself, its disappearance was explained.

This Second Miss Xiao was indeed a quick-witted girl.

She hadn’t chosen the wrong person.

By the time Empress Liu’s gaze turned toward Ming Rui, the princess’s expression had already returned to one of icy composure.

“Ah-Ze…”

The Empress turned, intending to summon the Crown Prince, only to find he was no longer behind her.

Just as she was about to question Zheng momo, her eyes caught sight of Tang Yueze standing beneath a nearby bodhi tree. He drew a handkerchief from his sleeve and extended it toward Xiao Luanfei.

Xiao Luanfei accepted it with a radiant smile, her eyes glimmering like autumn waters.

Empress Liu’s face darkened at once, her breath catching in her chest. Forcing the words out, she told Zheng momo, “Go tell the Crown Prince it’s time to return to the palace.”

That single sentence seemed to drain the last of her strength. The fire she had just managed to smother flared again, choking her with a stifling pain in her chest.

Zheng momo hastened to obey, quickly summoning the Crown Prince back.

The three great vermilion gates of Huangjue Temple swung open once more. Imperial guards lined the path from temple to street, driving away the beggars waiting for porridge outside.

Within the temple grounds, worshippers bowed as one toward the phoenix palanquin, their voices thundering: “We respectfully send off Her Majesty the Empress, His Highness the Crown Prince!”

The roar rolled down the street like thunder, awe-inspiring in its force.

Inside the palanquin, Empress Liu sat rigid, her face dark as iron.

She had left the palace in high spirits, only to return seething with unspent anger.

Once back at Fengyi Palace, she shut herself inside, collapsed onto her beauty couch, and sobbed uncontrollably.

The attendants rushed to inform the emperor. Before long, he arrived, and the sight of his consort weeping into her sleeves pained him deeply.

“Lian’er!”

“Your Majesty!” Empress Liu rose from the couch and flung herself into his arms like a swallow returning to its nest. Her lithe form melted against his chest, a single tear glittering at the corner of her eye like a pearl.

Biting her full red lip, she complained in a choked voice, “Your Majesty, that Xiao Luanfei is utterly shameless! How could such a woman ever be worthy of our son? Her schemes run far too deep. You didn’t see it today—everything I’ve worked so hard to build for the Liu family was stolen away by her.”

“This marriage… I will never agree to it.”

Dabbing away her tears with her fingertip, she stamped her foot in frustration, the fire she had swallowed at Huangjue Temple still burning inside her.

A woman in her thirties, yet in that moment she wept with the delicate charm of a maiden.

When the Emperor said nothing, she lifted her face anxiously, ready to plead further—only to notice his expression. His brows were drawn, fine lines etched at the corners of his eyes.

“Your Majesty, is your head aching again?” she asked in alarm, straightening at once. “Shall I massage it for you?”

The emperor pressed his fingers to his temples.

It wasn’t pain this time—the pills Liang Zheng had given him worked well enough. Each time he took one, the headaches eased.

But lately, fatigue dogged him. After reading memorials for a short while, his vision would blur, the characters swimming on the page. Even now, his eyes stung with dryness.

Though the Empress was only an arm’s length away, her face appeared shrouded in a hazy veil.

“Your Majesty?!” Empress Liu’s color drained. “Let me help you sit.”

The emperor was her greatest reliance; her every honor came from him. He could not—must not—fall ill.

Carefully, she guided him to a Luohan couch, her gaze never leaving his face. “How do you feel now?”

The emperor shook his head to clear it. Slowly, his vision returned, the world sharpening again.

He smiled faintly. “It’s nothing.”

No doubt his eyes were tired from poor sleep.

After all, the elixirs bestowed by Daoist Master Wu Liang worked wonders. Each time he took one, vigor surged back into his limbs—he could even complete an entire set of martial forms with the energy of his youth.

Drawing Empress Liu into his embrace, he said warmly, “On the day of the Longevity Festival, I intend to proclaim our son as Crown Prince.”

“Truly?!”

Empress Liu’s eyes lit up, her earlier gloom swept away in an instant.

She had finally waited for this day.

For years, the emperor had held her back out of regard for the Duke of Wei’s household, telling her again and again to endure. She had endured—nearly twenty years of it. Now her son was nearly grown. If she had not been certain that the emperor’s hopes for their son matched her own, she might have been consumed by unease long ago. Yet as long as the emperor refused to name an heir, she could never truly rest easy.

But now—at last—the day had come.

Her son would ascend to the throne. And as for Gu Mingjing? What did it matter if she had once been the emperor’s first empress? She was nothing more than a handful of yellow earth now. Even that cursed child in her belly had long since returned to the dust.

She was the final victor.

“The trouble,” the emperor said, his brow furrowing as a sigh of irritation escaped him, “is with the Liu family. I sent your elder brother north to suppress the bandits in Youzhou. I gave him troops, I gave him provisions. I even assigned Xu Zhigong as his deputy. The Youzhou garrison was already waiting at Fanyang. With heaven’s favor, the right terrain, and ample men, every advantage was his.”

“But your brother arrived in Youzhou and has done nothing—holed up in Shanggu City, refusing to march.”

Xu Zhigong, commander of Yangzhou, was a proven general. When he came to the capital earlier that month to report, the emperor, struck with inspiration, had sent him to Youzhou as Liu Chuan’s deputy. “Deputy” in name, but in truth the emperor meant for Xu to win the battle and let Liu reap the credit.

Now that Shanggu and Fanyang already had the bandits pinned between them, if only Liu Chuan would move his forces to cooperate, victory was assured.

The emperor’s mood soured further at the thought. He rubbed his temples, his face tight with frustration.

For years, he had sought to raise up the Liu family. Yet time and again they proved useless—not only failing to bring honor to the Empress and the Crown Prince, but dragging them down instead. If only the Liu family had even a fraction of the Gu family’s merit…

A shadow flashed across his weary eyes, dark and dangerous.

“How could this be?!” Empress Liu frowned, her soaring spirits dampened at once, vexation and resentment tightening in her chest. “Before he left, I gave my brother very clear instructions.”

She had spelled it out for him in painstaking detail: the emperor had placed ten thousand elite Shenchu troops under his command, with the Youzhou garrison as support. The bandits numbered no more than three thousand, little more than a rabble. The risk was negligible; this was military merit handed to him on a silver platter.

All he needed to do was march with those ten thousand men, take nominal command of the garrison, and then delegate. Xu Zhigong and the Youzhou commander could lead the fighting. Liu Chuan need only show his face on the battlements from time to time.

He was nothing more than a living talisman—a symbol.

How could even something this simple be beyond him?!

“Your brother is not fit for great responsibility,” the emperor snapped, anger rising with every word. “Time and again, I have given him chances, thinking to entrust him with weighty matters. And every time—”

“Every time he disappoints me.”

His temper boiled over. He surged to his feet from the Luohan couch in a sudden movement.

That seething pressure in his chest demanded release. He meant to pace, to let it out—but as soon as he stood, the world went black. Darkness surged like a tide, drowning his vision.

Staggering, he lurched forward and struck the edge of a flower stand. Empress Liu’s shrill cry rang in his ears:

“Your Majesty!”

The stand shuddered with the impact. A white porcelain plum vase toppled from above, crashing down onto the emperor’s head.

The vase shattered into pieces.

Blood spattered to the floor.

***