Chapter One Hundred and Forty-Three
The worries of Ji's father and son were quickly spread to the palace.
"Put it in the Qingci Palace." After reading the secret letter in her hand, the empress stuffed it into the gilt gilt incense burner next to her, watched it burn up little by little, scattered the remaining ashes with a gold pick, and turned her head to order.
"What are you panicking about?" After a while, in the side hall of Qingci Palace, the Empress Dowager put down the tea bowl slowly, and said lightly, "Ai's family is in this palace, and you are also in this palace. Aren't you here, Mrs. Chunjia?" This palace? This palace city is said to belong to the Gongxiang family, but since Emperor Shenzong's later years, it has been my Ji family that has been in charge of the house inside and out."
"The management since the three dynasties, Chunjia was able to erase all traces after only a few years in power?"
"Now that Chunjia is still staying in the palace calmly, why are we afraid first?"
Empress Ji said in a low voice: "The grandson's daughter-in-law is not afraid, it's just the matter of going back to the Chao family last time. It can be seen that Chunjia has long been guilty of evil! When he sent someone to persuade the Chao family to bite back, he was still doing nothing in front of us. Counting the days It has been almost ten years since he entered the palace, and our family has been quite slack in these ten years, so how do we know if he has left any behind here in Qingci Palace?"
The Empress Dowager thought for a while, and said: "The Ai family's close servants are all old people who have accumulated many years. Even the palace servants who have been recruited in the past two years have been thoroughly checked. There will be some serious problems. But you, the empress, have to be more cautious. That lowly maidservant of the Yuan family has seen you as a thorn in the side and a thorn in the flesh...Maybe he will take the opportunity to vent his anger on you!"
"Grandmother, please don't worry, the granddaughter-in-law will take care of it." The queen said calmly, "Moreover, there seems to be a quarrel between the empress dowager and the empress dowager. The empress dowager was sick before, and it was the empress dowager who did it. They just wanted to hide it Looking at Chunjia, but Chunjia thought we did it. At this moment, the loving mother Empress Dowager's thoughts are probably on the side of Jiashan Palace, maybe she is still staring at Xuanqing Palace, which has always had a good relationship with Jiashan Palace, but I don't have much time to pay attention to my granddaughter-in-law."
There was a little regret in the eyes of the Empress Dowager: "A moment of negligence back then made my family fall into such a passive situation!"
The queen comforted her: "From now on, it's still unknown who will win the battle. No matter what happens, you will be the empress of Shenzong Yuan and the direct elder of the royal family!"
"At the beginning, my family chose to establish Chunjia. Although we had some intentions of seizing power, we actually made good friends with him sincerely." The Empress Dowager said with emotion, "Otherwise, why would we send the most outstanding daughter-in-law of the family into the palace as the empress? It's a pity Ah, these years, you haven't given birth. Otherwise, the position of crown prince has been decided long ago, and Chun Jia'an would have the chance today?"
"It's all useless grandson's daughter-in-law." Empress Ji hurriedly left her seat to bow down and plead guilty.
The Empress Dowager sighed and asked her to get up: "The Ai family didn't mean to blame you, and you can't blame you for this matter."
The queen said in a low voice: "Although Chunjia's visits to the Central Palace were not too many times, they were not too few. Later, Yuan Niang's lowly maidservant made frequent disturbances, and he went to his granddaughter-in-law less often in order to calm things down. At that time, the grandson-in-law Her family status is also self-respecting, although she often looks good to Yuan Niangniang at this time, she has never tried every means to keep Chunjia... Therefore, the reason why she has nothing to do in the next nine years is because the granddaughter-in-law is too slack."
"It's not your fault." The Empress Dowager hesitated to speak, and finally sighed and waved her hand, "Forget it, you go back. Chunjia personally went to the Royal Beast Garden for the matter of Ruishou. You will easily let it go, and there will be troubles in the future. Every time there is a disturbance in the previous court, the concubine Xian will not be peaceful, and you have to raise your spirits, so as not to be overwhelmed."
After sending the empress away, the Empress Dowager looked at the empty hall in silence for a long time, then sighed quietly, and called her confidants to come to her, "Take a message to the family, everyone in the Royal Beast Garden...try to take care of it!"
At about the same time, Yun Fenghuang was listening to Chen Zhu's report: "The empress went to Qingci Palace after lighting the lanterns. When she returned to Yanfu Palace, the palace gates were locked? What is she doing at Qingci Palace so late?"
The Qing people speculated: "Could it be that there is something wrong with the Empress Dowager? After all, there are people talking about the auspicious beast. If it really fell on Ji's head, how can we not call him sick in advance?"
"If you are sick, the empress dowager is not in the palace now, and the empress dowager and the empress dowager are both sick. Since the empress has gone to Qingci Palace, how can she leave?" Yun Fenghuang said lightly, "You must stay in front of the empress dowager Filial piety... I'm afraid I didn't go there specifically to pass on the message, so of course I left when the message was brought."
Chen Zhu said embarrassingly: "The servant is incompetent, but he never asked what the Empress Dowager said after she went to Qingci Palace. I only know that the Empress Dowager talked with the Empress Empress alone in the side hall for a while, and the Empress Empress came out. "
No wonder Chen Zhu, after all, the Empress Dowager, as the first wife of Emperor Shenzong, lived in Qingci Palace older than Yun Fenghuang, if the news of Qingci Palace can be inquired by Chen Zhu's senior servant, The Ji family will not cause headaches for the emperor so far.
"If you can't find out, then you can't find out." Yun Fenghuang narrowed his eyes, thought for a while, and said indifferently, "Anyway, His Majesty has his own opinion, and we are just watching the fun."
When she said this, she sneered a few times, very unwilling.
Because after the news of Ruishou's accident came, when Chunjia came back to the palace from the Imperial Beast Garden, Yun Fenghuang followed Concubine Xuan Ruifei and immediately rushed over to ask for her health, and accompanied the emperor to scold Ji for being insane—then Yun Fenghuang dismissed her. The second concubine wanted to ask some news in private, but Chunjia was very tight-lipped, saying "I'm really touched by the love of my concubine for being so considerate to me".
If this was Qi Jiulu, Yun Fenghuang would have gone mad and asked him if he didn't trust him.
But Chunjia, it's not that Concubine Xian is very tolerant towards him, but that Yun Fenghuang knew early on that the most important thing in this person's heart is his throne. For myself, I will keep a hand with anyone. After all, she is similar, on the way to promotion, she doesn't trust anyone, she would have confided in her own mother a year earlier, but now she only uses Jiang's earnest words as a reference.
I didn't bother to touch soft nails, so I said a few words of relief with a fake smile and left.
... Uh, even so, she still felt that Chunjia was sorry for herself.
No reason, that's what I think anyway.
Chunjia was probably very busy that night, so she didn't spend the night with any concubine, but lived alone in the bedroom of Taichu Palace.
Early the next morning, the concubines got up and went to Yanfu Palace to greet the queen. In fact, Chunjia had just told the queen two days ago that she should be sick again, so this greeting should be cancelled.
But Chunjia can make the empress sick, but it is not easy to make the empress dowager sick—so no matter what the empress is, the concubines always have to go outside the Yanfu Palace.
The queen didn't show up that day, as before, a palace official was asked to come out, saying that the queen's phoenix body was against harmony, and let the concubine Xian take the lead to go to Qingci Palace to pay her respects.
From the beginning, the Empress Dowager of Qingci Palace didn't look like she was willing to accept the greeting, and in fact she did.
The Empress Dowager retired to the Qingci Palace from the time when her niece became the empress. After so many years of purification, she lived a leisurely and lazy life, truly caring for her life. All of a sudden, she has to get up early and dress up, waiting for a bunch of juniors who don't like her to come to pay her respects. The Empress Dowager is actually very annoyed.
But no matter how troublesome, when the Ji family was repeatedly suppressed by the front court and the harem, she had to toss like this.
She had to tell the six palaces why they were favored and why they were upstarts, and they still had to bow down in front of their Ji daughters.
It's just that in terms of the current situation in the palace, the concubines in power and the Ji family hate each other, and after the salute, it's almost the same-earlier, the empress dowager wanted to beat the concubines verbally in order to cheer up the Ji family, but Who told her to meet Yun Fenghuang?
The Empress Dowager can contradict ten sentences with one sentence, and she is still the kind who has plausible words and does not lose ground.
Although her current position is respectful in front of the Empress Dowager, it is not something that the Empress Dowager can handle with a single word.
Let's make a fuss in front of Chunjia, Chunjia always apologizes and admits her mistakes with a guilty face, and it's over: "Grandmother, don't be as knowledgeable as Concubine Xian, she is young and ignorant..."
The empress dowager wanted to be as knowledgeable as Yun Fenghuang, but the problem was that the emperor dealt with her with a good attitude, while protecting the concubine Xian with a firm attitude. After coming down several times, she was old and mentally ill, so she could only compromise: let them finish the invitation. Ann left.
This day was also about the same, the Empress Dowager asked about the loving mother Empress Dowager, the Holy Mother Empress Dowager and the Empress, as well as several imperial heirs, and let them go away.
The palace concubines meandered out of the Qingci Palace surrounded by concubines, and they were boarding their chariots one after another. At this time, they saw a small servant running towards the direction, his face was red and he seemed to be very anxious, and he ran to the roadside flower bed not far away. A clump of grass protruding out stumbled and got up after climbing two times. It can be seen how hard the fall was, but he didn't care about it at all, and almost rushed into the Qingci Palace—this situation is terrible. It was a great event that caused the Empress Dowager to be so gawkish and desperate to the errand runners in front of her—the concubines hurriedly ended their greetings, and each rushed back to the palace on foot.
Yun Fenghuang came back to Huanhua Hall, didn't even have time to take off his cloak, so he asked Chen Zhu, who was also running sweating, and who had been waiting for a while with his hands down in the corridor: "How is it?"
"Today, the main topic of discussion is the matter of auspicious beasts." Chen Zhu hadn't rested yet, with a little panting in his voice, and speaking faster than usual, he said hastily, "At first, Duke Yi returned the favor." There was Doctor Ouyang arguing with Duke Min Yanghou of Ye Kingdom and the others... Later, the envoy of the Imperial City asked for an interview outside, saying that he had tortured all the people in the Royal Beast Garden overnight, and the matter of Ruishou had not been clearly investigated, but another major matter was found out!"
"Oh?" Yun Fenghuang originally listened with a blank face, because at the court meeting today, it is natural to blame each other, and there is nothing unexpected. He raised his eyebrows when he heard the last sentence, and asked, "But What's the big deal?"