TIGR Chapter 114

The Imperial Guard’s Revenge

Chapter 114 Revealed

When Wang Yanqing received the eunuch’s message, she was still wondering why Concubine Shen Xi, whom she had no particular relationship with, had summoned her. It wasn’t until she arrived at the palace gate and saw the bright yellow imperial carriage that she understood who called for her.

In the midst of this situation, Wang Yanqing felt no guilt, but she knew it was best to be cautious about such things. It was inappropriate for the emperor to meet with an official’s wife alone, but if it happened to be a chance encounter at Concubine Shen Xi’s palace, there would be no cause for gossip.

The eunuch announced Wang Yanqing’s arrival, and Assistant Zhang personally came out to greet her. Seeing her, he was very respectful: “Madam Lu, please this way.”

Due to Lu Heng’s influence, Assistant Zhang had always been very courteous to Wang Yanqing, but now there was a subtle sense of wariness hidden in his politeness. He witnessed everything that happened yesterday with so many concubines vying for favor. Wang Yanqing only mentioned Concubine Shen Xi in passing, and the emperor truly assigned the grand princess to her.

It was clear that the emperor trusted Wang Yanqing’s words. That was terrifying. Assistant Zhang, a high-ranking eunuch, seemed to live a life of grandeur, but his survival entirely depended on the trust of those in power. If the emperor ever doubted him or suspected him of lying, Assistant Zhang’s life would be in grave danger.

A single word could determine life or death. How could Assistant Zhang not be wary?

When Wang Yanqing entered the hall, the emperor was playfully teasing the grand princess, as Concubine Shen Xi stood nervously beside. After Wang Yanqing entered, she quietly stood to one side without making a sound.

The grand princess had been sent to Concubine Shen Xi’s palace last night. The emperor asked about the grand princess’s meals and daily routine, and Concubine Shen Xi answered one by one. The princess appeared sluggish, as if exhausted, and showed no reaction to the emperor’s teasing. In fact, she closed her eyes and quietly began to cry. Seeing this, Concubine Shen Xi was horrified. She quickly said: “Your Majesty, the eldest princess may have overeaten this morning and has a bloated stomach. She did not intend to offend, Your Majesty.”

The emperor had a high tolerance for his own children. He gestured for Concubine Shen Xi to take the grand princess to change clothes. Seeing that the emperor wasn’t angry, Concubine Shen Xi let out a long sigh of relief and quickly took the princess away.

In the palace, once a child was born, a wet nurse took care of feeding, changing diapers, and other tasks, so the concubines didn’t need to do everything themselves. However, whether an adoptive mother was willing to take on these duties could reveal her attitude toward the child.

Wang Yanqing remained quietly standing to the side. Sure enough, after Concubine Shen Xi left, the emperor casually asked: “Do you think what she just said was sincere?”

Recently, the emperor was most concerned about the grand princess. Even a fool knew how to please the emperor. Concubine Shen Xi was willing to take care of the princess’s every need, but was it sincere, or just an act?

Assistant Zhang, who was standing nearby, became nervous listening to the exchange. Wang Yanqing’s answer was enough to determine Concubine Shen Xi’s fate. If Wang Yanqing said that Concubine Shen Xi was pretending, the emperor would mark her as scheming and insincere, and losing favor would be the least of her worries. A single misstep could cost her life.

Assistant Zhang’s heart tightened. People like him, who relied on imperial favor to survive, saw Wang Yanqing as a terrible disaster. Wang Yanqing’s face remained calm, as though she didn’t realize just how enviable her abilities were. She said lightly: “I am not sure either. Her fear of you is so overwhelming that it drowns out any other emotions. It’s hard to judge her thoughts just from her expression alone. But when she was most frightened, her first reaction was to take the child away from you. This shows that she has a pure heart, at the very least, she will not abandon the child.”

After hearing this, Assistant Zhang felt even more suffocated. The emperor sat back on his throne, looking at Wang Yanqing with great interest: “You don’t seem to fear me.”

Even Lu Heng wouldn’t dare speak like this, yet Wang Yanqing was so forthright. Was she not afraid of angering him?

Wang Yanqing knew very well that the emperor was infamous for his unpredictable moods. Even the shrewd officials in the cabinet couldn’t guess his mood, what more her? She lowered her gaze and calmly replied: “Because I don’t ask anything of you.”

In simple terms, the cabinet, the eunuchs, and even Lu Heng all had something to gain. They hoped to acquire power through the emperor, using him to achieve their own goals. This is why they spoke cautiously, always mindful of their words, considering the consequences. But Wang Yanqing didn’t care. Like a towering cliff, unyielding and free from desires, she didn’t want anything from the emperor, so she didn’t need to worry about his opinion.

The emperor looked at Wang Yanqing with growing curiosity. He asked: “Is this how you behave with Lu Heng in private as well?”

Lu Heng lived in lies for many years and was accustomed to darkness and schemes. Is this why he was captured by a soul as pure as white paper?

“Not always.” Wang Yanqing answered honestly. “When I first lost my memory, I thought he was my only family, so I tried to please him in every way. It was he who told me to focus on my own feelings, not always to think of others. In the end, it was he who deceived me. If he didn’t care about me, why should I care about his feelings? After that, I simply spoke my thoughts. Whether he liked it or not was none of my business.”

Wang Yanqing’s indifference toward the emperor also stemmed from the fact that the emperor and Lu Heng were close, and they even deceived her together. Lu Heng took her to meet the emperor several times. How could the emperor not know Lu Heng was raising a sister?

They were both the same kind of men, dogs of the same kennel, and she had no desire to care about their thoughts.

The emperor nodded. He had witnessed most of the events and could understand Wang Yanqing’s current feelings. He sighed a little and said: “You can see through others’ thoughts with ease. It’s a skill that takes decades of practice to acquire, yet you were born with it. With such luck, what is it that you are dissatisfied with?”

If he could, the emperor would have dreamed of possessing such an ability. When officials spoke of easing the emperor’s burdens, they were often looking to use him to strike at political rivals. When concubines appeared sweet and innocent, every word they spoke was meticulously planned. Even his sons and daughters, when they grew up, would claim filial piety, but secretly be plotting how to extract the most benefit from him.

The emperor, ever suspicious and moody, wasn’t like that by nature. His paranoia came from his inability to judge what was real or fake, which led him to spend an immense amount of energy everyday contemplating whether the clever people around him were scheming against him. If he could see through things as Wang Yanqing did, whether it was state affairs, palace matters, or family issues, everything would be much simpler.

After the emperor finished speaking, Wang Yanqing remained silent for a long while before quietly asking: “Do you really think this is a kind of luck?”

The emperor was surprised and looked at Wang Yanqing, asking: “What do you mean?”

This was something Wang Yanqing had never said to anyone before, having a treasure mountain and yet claiming to be suffering, it really did sound quite pretentious. However, the emperor thought this was a good thing, so Wang Yanqing felt the need to explain herself clearly.

She lowered her head, looking at the sunlight on the floor tiles, and slowly said: “Being able to quickly identify emotions, to see through thoughts, on the surface, it sounds wonderful. But once you can do that, you’ll have no friends, no family, not even anyone to confide in. Everyone who meets you will be wary, cautious, and even resentful. No one will speak their true feelings to you, and yet you will know this with absolute clarity.”

As Wang Yanqing spoke, the emperor fell silent. Finally, after releasing the words that had been stuck in her chest for so long, Wang Yanqing let out a long breath, sighing: “If I hadn’t lost my memory, I would never have understood that the world wasn’t like this. When I was young, with the Fu family, I walked on eggshells, never daring to refuse anyone. After I lost my memory and went to the Lu family, I exposed my differences too early. This caused everyone in the household, except for Lu Heng, to be afraid to speak to me. I lived with Ling Xi and Ling Luan for two years, but when they stood in front of me, they would still tense up, as if facing a great enemy. The quicker you sense others’ emotions, the more you can feel their resistance toward you. This feeling, I’m afraid, cannot be called lucky.”

The emperor fell into a long silence. Seeing that the emperor wasn’t speaking, Wang Yanqing continued: “Your Majesty, you think I’m lucky, but I think it’s luck to have a mind as intelligent as yours, or observational skills as strong as Lu Heng’s. Perhaps that’s how people are, never able to see what they have, always thinking that what others possess is better. Life in this world is like that of a traveler on a distant journey, each being a solitary soul in the vastness of existence.”

The emperor, bathed in sunlight, stood still for a moment, then shook his head and lightly chuckled: “You lecture even more than the Grand Tutor.”

Though the emperor said this, he knew that since the Renyin Palace Rebellion, the knot in his heart finally loosened. If a few insignificant palace maids dared to kill him, who could he still trust? Yet Wang Yanqing told him that, even if he could see through the thoughts of everyone around him, he would still be lonely and in pain.

Life was like a journey against the current, and he too was a traveler. Everyone was a lone traveler.

The emperor’s heart felt lighter, even being in the mood to joke now. Curiously, he asked: “In the beginning, did you really not see through Lu Heng’s deception?”

Really, he always brought up the most sensitive topics. Did the emperor’s happiness have to be built on the pain of others? Wang Yanqing’s expression remained unchanged as she replied: “I truly didn’t. When His Majesty and Empress Dowager Zhang summoned me together, I thought that even if my second brother was lying, these high-ranking officials wouldn’t deceive me, right?”

Who could have expected that the real world was even more absurd than imagined?

Wang Yanqing paused briefly after finishing her sentence, then quietly added: “Of course, it was also because I never doubted him.”

The emperor clicked his tongue in surprise, but didn’t reply. Instead, he asked: “What’s the situation between you two now?”

“No room to advance and no room to retreat.” Wang Yanqing sighed, “It’s like having a needle stuck in my heart. The closeness we once had is still fresh in my mind, but the moment I get closer, I’ll be pierced, and it will hurt beyond measure.”

The emperor couldn’t help but feel that Wang Yanqing’s state of mind was quite similar to his own, a sense of wanting to pretend ignorance, but being unable to convince himself, struggling painfully with clear awareness. As he thought about what Lu Heng said for her, he suddenly spoke: “You say you didn’t realize it because you never doubted him. Could it be that the feelings were real?”

Wang Yanqing was stunned and couldn’t help but look up. The emperor flicked his sleeves and slowly walked toward the door, saying casually: “Starting tomorrow, you no longer need to come to the palace. Just now, he came to me and spoke for a long time, insisting that you should no longer get involved with the affairs of the harem. It’s the first time I’ve seen him act like this for a woman. I always thought that Lu Heng only cared about himself, and no one else.”

Wang Yanqing was struck speechless by these words, unable to react immediately. The unease she felt earlier now made sense. If the emperor truly wanted to investigate Concubine Shen Xi’s attitude toward the grand princess, there were plenty of ways to do so. Why would he make a special trip in person? The truth was the emperor had come because of Lu Heng. The grand princess and Concubine Shen Xi were merely secondary.

Long after the emperor had left, Wang Yanqing remained rooted to the spot, her mind blank. Concubine Shen Xi returned with the grand princess in her arms. She looked at Wang Yanqing from a distance, then cautiously calling out to her: “Madam Lu?”

Wang Yanqing snapped back to reality. She could clearly tell that Concubine Shen Xi’s kindness was laced with caution. Not wanting to linger unpleasantly, Wang Yanqing took the initiative to bid farewell.

Concubine Shen Xi spoke words persuading her to stay, but the relief in her expression was unmistakable.

After Wang Yanqing left, she didn’t immediately exit the palace. Instead, she wandered along the path, slowly heading towards the east hate. This route passed the Western Six Palaces, Cining Palace, and the Department of Rites. There were many palace maids and eunuchs along the way. When they saw her, they avoided her from a distance. Those who couldn’t avoid her would approach to smile and exchange pleasantries.

The palace concubines caught up with her for some small talk, female officials greeted her, and the eunuchs flattered her. Their smiles seemed genuine, and they appeared very kind toward Wang Yanqing, but she knew it was all fake.

Suddenly, she felt a chill. She despised being manipulated, loathed how others interfered with her destiny. Now, she had become the one who could control the fates of others. Every word she spoke came from her heart, yet she was feared by everyone, and everyone tried to avoid her. Was this really what she wanted?

Wang Yanqing told the guards to disperse, she wanted to be alone. The guards didn’t dare defy her orders but were too afraid to leave her completely alone, so they trailed her from a distance.

The sound of footsteps echoed softly on the stone tiles, silent and steady. Wang Yanqing walked slowly, carefully observing the expressions of the people around her.

A group of palace maids walked past, and one of them laughed, saying to her companion, “Your clothes look really good.” A row of eunuchs were being punished by the wall, and a young eunuch earnestly admitted his mistakes, reflecting on what he had done wrong. A couple hid behind a corner, secretly meeting, and the man swore how much he missed her, claiming she was more beautiful than all the other palace maids.

Wang Yanqing thought to herself, these were all lies. But was it necessary to expose every single one of them?

This world was full of lies. If telling the truth hurts people but lies brought happiness, would they truly thank her for revealing the truth? Wang Yanqing spoke each word with a clear conscience, yet even those whom she helped would not welcome her

She realized that if it hadn’t been for Lu Heng, her ability to see through lies could have ruined her life. Wang Yanqing was able to use her talent freely because the thorns on the road had already been cleared away by someone. Otherwise, officials would criticize her, concubines would slander her, and eunuchs would pretend to obey her while secretly scheming against her. In the end, she would be left with no place to belong.

The only reason she had come this far was because Lu Heng stood behind her. Lu Heng had shown his claws early on, which was why others dared not harm her. Even more so, when Wang Yanqing had not yet sensed the danger, Lu Heng had already foreseen the crisis, silently paving the way for her.

As she looked at the emperor, she couldn’t understand how he could have become so distrustful of others because of a single accidental palace upheaval, so paranoid it seemed almost laughable. The one who is in the thick of it was blind, while the observer saw clearly. Was that how others saw her too?

Although Lu Heng had deceived her, it was clear his feelings for her were real.

Wang Yanqing wandered for a long time in the wind, lost in thought, and only when her body began to tremble did she finally snap out of it. She stopped, called the Imperial Guards behind her, and said: “I’m a bit tired. Please tell your Supreme Commander that I wish to go back.”

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