"Father!" Seeing the finger marks on his face, Ning Shu pressed down on his hand. She couldn't stop her tears from rolling down. "I wronged you. These years … how did you live …"
It wasn't a day or two, but nearly seventeen years, nearly six thousand days and nights. For her and Ji 'er, for this family, they were like walking on thin ice, enduring unimaginable torture. Normal people would go crazy after a day like that, but what about them? No matter how exhausted they were at night, when they opened the door in the morning and faced her and Ji 'er, they still had to do their best to smile and pretend to be at peace.
She couldn't imagine it, because as soon as she thought about it, her heart hurt so much that she couldn't straighten her back. However, she knew that now wasn't the time to cry. Empress Cao's warning was still in her ears. There wasn't much time left for her and the Ning family.
She held her breath. When she opened her eyes again, her thoughts were clear. "Father, I still have a question. Why is that person so fixated on mother?"
Ning Deyuan stooped down and sat on a high stool under the windowsill. The clouds covered the moon, and not a single ray of light could be seen. Only a corridor lamp outside the window swayed, casting a dim light on his dry lips.
"There is a secret that you may not know. Or rather, there aren't many people in the world who know that secret and are still alive."
"This has to be traced back to more than twenty years ago, when the present emperor hadn't ascended the throne and was still a nameless prince. There was a woman who the world called Empress Zhou. At the time, although I wasn't very old, I was already enlightened. I was very familiar with this Empress Zhou. She was really a strange woman. The previous emperor had three hundred concubines in his harem. Young, beautiful, and talented, they were like carps in the river. But none of them had received the previous emperor's grand favor. To put it bluntly, the former Emperor really wasn't a wise ruler. His throne hadn't been won by him through painstaking efforts. Instead, it had come from his mother, who was extremely scheming, and his uncle's family, who was extremely powerful. He was lazy and didn't like to govern the country. He left all the important matters of the country to the Prime Minister and Assistant Prime Minister. He liked poetry and books the most and didn't care about the people's livelihood. Instead, he was interested in carpentry. In the 15 years after he ascended the throne, the people of Great Yue did not make any progress. The lives of the people became increasingly difficult, and there were complaints from the people everywhere. Countless imperial censors, remonstrants, and old ministers broke their heads in the throne room, but it was to no avail. Until Empress Zhou came.
From the first day she entered the palace, the previous emperor had been infatuated with her. In order to make her smile, the late Emperor offered her countless treasures, but she didn't even look at them. He spent a lot of money to build the Fairy Stargazing Tower, but she turned and left without even looking at it. The late Emperor tried his best to find out that she liked pearls from the Eastern Sea, so he ordered hundreds of palace servants to spend half a year collecting Qianhu Pearls from the Eastern Sea and sent them to her for her choice. She frowned and poured all the Qianhu Pearls into the Supreme Liquid Pool, scolding the late Emperor for wasting money and manpower. In the end, the late Emperor was at his wit's end. For her sake, he gradually began to attend court and ask about politics. Little by little, he also learned how to read memorials. His previous lazy, arrogant, and extravagant style took on a new lease of life, and he even began to look like a wise ruler. Such a big change made all the civil and military officials, as well as the millions of people, overjoyed and praised him. Empress Zhou was the biggest contributor behind the scenes.
However, there were also many people who were secretly worried. Empress Zhou was beautiful, but there would always be a time when her beauty would fade. As the saying goes, love grows when beauty declines. When she was no longer as beautiful as a flower, the previous Emperor would throw himself into someone else's arms. Would this great momentum be gone forever? But it turned out that they were thinking too much. As time passed, the previous Emperor didn't dislike her. Instead, he favored her even more, to the point where he even wanted her to sit on the dragon throne with him.
Perhaps it was on that day that the people's praise for Empress Zhou turned into disgust overnight. "
You've already exceeded your reading limit for today. If you want to read more, please log in.
Login
Select text and click 'Report' to let us know about any bad translation.
