After reading my mind, Daddy, why don't you smile?

It was night on the seventeenth day after the Queen Mother suffered a stroke.

Cining Palace.

In the bedroom, the candlelight was dim. The empress dowager was lying on the bed with her eyes open, staring fixedly at the ceiling.

Prince Shou was ill and did not come.

The palace maids close to the Empress Dowager had left early, leaving only two maids taking shifts. They were called shifts, but in fact they were to keep an eye on Emperor Jianxi, for fear that he would do something bad to the Empress Dowager.

There are all kinds of dirty things in the deep palace. Although Emperor Jianxi cannot be so stupid as to openly attack the empress dowager, he still has to be on guard. Isn't it always a safe bet?

After all, there is no wall that is impenetrable in this world, and Emperor Jianxi obviously knows this. It would be fine if the Empress Dowager was fine, but if something happened, even if she just coughed twice, it would be Emperor Jianxi's fault.

Of course, according to the Empress Dowager, she was hoping that Emperor Jianxi would take action. The notoriety of matricide would be enough to make Emperor Jianxi suffer, not to mention the gossip of the public and the detailed description in history books.

The Empress Dowager has two trusted maids, one is Maid Hua who was brought from her mother's home, and the other is Maid Sun who is on duty tonight.

Nanny Sun has been with the Empress Dowager for forty years and is over sixty years old this year. The Empress Dowager met her when she accompanied the late Emperor on a tour. Nanny Sun was good-looking at that time and was favored by the late Crown Prince, who wanted to bring her back to the Crown Prince's Mansion. However, the late Emperor was already dissatisfied with the late Crown Prince at that time. If he brought a woman back, he would surely make the late Emperor angry again.

The former crown prince was also a disobedient child. The queen mother had no way to deal with him and could only coax him, saying that she would take the person back. If he was interested, he could come to her and she would help cover up for him if anything happened.

So, with this guarantee, the former Crown Prince Zhen and Nanny Sun started to have an affair in Kunning Palace.

However, not long after, the former crown prince's old illness recurred and he got tired of it. Nanny Sun was also a smart woman. She did not argue or make a fuss and served the empress dowager contentedly, which led to her later blessings.

First the crown prince was deposed as Prince of Yan and then exiled. All the women in the Prince of Yan's mansion became official prostitutes, but Nanny Sun escaped this disaster.

Nanny Sun was good at observing people's hearts. After the death of Prince Yan, she often acted as if she was mourning and heartbroken. As a result, the Queen Mother became more and more fond of her, even more than Nanny Hua who came with the dowry.

Suddenly, there was a loud thunder outside the window, which startled the Queen Mother. Nanny Sun hurried over to greet her, "Don't be alarmed, Queen Mother. It's just thunder."

There was a thunder in spring and the weather began to warm up.

Nanny Sun glanced at the window, then came to her senses and pinched the corner of the quilt for the empress dowager. "It will rain tonight, so your majesty may not come."

Emperor Jianxi would come here every day after dinner.

The Queen Mother sneered with her mouth crooked.

It seemed as if he was saying, how could Emperor Jianxi let go of such a good opportunity to laugh at her?

Nanny Sun still insisted on her own opinion and went out to the palace maids on duty and said, "It will rain tonight, you should go down early. I will serve the Queen Mother here."

Of course the palace servants were willing to leave work early, and before long, everyone had left.

In the dark Cining Palace, only one room was lit.

A drizzle began to fall. The guards on duty were getting wet in the rain. They wanted to take turns to leave and put on their straw raincoats, but they saw Emperor Jianxi's procession from a distance. As usual, it was grand and majestic. Emperor Jianxi was wearing a dragon robe and leading the procession. Wu Yonggui held a lantern in one hand and held an umbrella for Emperor Jianxi in the other. The old eunuch was so wet that he could not open his eyes, but the hand holding the umbrella was as firm as a rock.

"See Your Majesty!"

Emperor Jianxi lifted his robe and stepped over the threshold. He paused and said to the guards, "Go back and change into your raincoats first, so you don't get frozen."

The guards knelt down with tears of gratitude, thinking that the biggest devil is the human heart, which deliberately assumes ill of good people. The emperor is so kind and compassionate, no wonder the Duke of Zhenguo's family is so powerful and obeys the emperor's orders.

The personal charm of the leader.

The chief guard of the Cining Palace was a close confidant of Prince Shou, and he came with a mission. Seeing this, he was unsure of Emperor Jianxi's thoughts, so he politely declined, saying that they had all left and there was no one to guard the palace.

"How dare you! You dare to disobey the emperor's order?"

The chief guard knelt down and said, "I dare not!"

"That's all..."

The captain of the guards breathed a sigh of relief.

After Emperor Jianxi left, a guard asked the chief guard, "Boss, why did you disobey His Majesty? His Majesty has good intentions..."

"What do you know? If we leave, won't it give someone an opportunity to take advantage of us? If something happens to the Queen Mother, Prince Shou will kill our whole family!"

"But I see that His Majesty doesn't look well..."

"Don't be afraid, His Majesty won't bother with us little people because of these trivial matters."

The night rain is like a thin thread, stretching longer and longer.

In the bedroom, Emperor Jianxi brought in a breath of damp air.

Nanny Sun stepped forward and saluted, "I am here to see Your Majesty. It is raining outside. Your Majesty, for the sake of your health, does not need to come."

"I remember that my mother had rheumatism. It's raining heavily and I'm worried that she will be in pain." Emperor Jianxi lowered his voice.

Since Emperor Jianxi came in, the Queen Mother closed her eyes and hoped for luck.

Suddenly, there was a noise beside the bed, and the voice of Emperor Jianxi was close at hand, "Is the Queen Mother asleep?"

The Queen Mother took a deep breath but did not open her eyes.

Emperor Jianxi tapped his knees intermittently with his thick fingers, his brows were lazy and he was not in a hurry.

Suddenly, he chuckled and said, "I know my mother is not asleep."

"I can't sleep in this kind of weather."

"Mother, do you know why?"

Emperor Jianxi glanced at the Queen Mother, and when he saw her eyelids rolling, he retracted his gaze, narrowed his eyes faintly, and said in a hoarse voice, "When I was eight years old, my brother, Prince of Yan, broke my ten fingers one by one. Since then, even if they were reattached, every time it is cloudy and rainy," Emperor Jianxi slowly raised his hand, frowned and looked at it carefully, "it always hurts a little."

"Hyomin always said that the emperors in the novels she read were either thin and slender or white as a flute, but mine was like a radish."

After Emperor Jianxi finished speaking, he looked at the Queen Mother, only to find that she had already opened her eyes and was looking at him quietly, like a poisonous snake.

His mouth just twisted uncontrollably, which looked a little funny.

Emperor Jianxi's pupils lit up like a child who had discovered a treasure. "Mother, I knew you were not asleep!"

The Queen Mother could not answer him.

Emperor Jianxi smiled as he spoke to himself, "It was also on a rainy night like this that my brother, the Prince of Yan, was abandoned by my father. My mother knelt outside the Yangxin Palace in the rain for the entire night, and she fell ill from then on."

Emperor Jianxi touched the empress dowager's knees through the quilt.

"Mother, the Prince of Yan ended up in such a situation, isn't it because of your indulgence?"

"Ahhhh..." The Queen Mother glared at Emperor Jianxi.

Emperor Jianxi shook his head in disappointment, "I didn't expect that my mother still has no remorse at all."

Emperor Jianxi suddenly changed the subject and smiled wickedly, "It's exactly the same as what my brother Prince Yan did before he died!"

boom!

The Queen Mother was as if struck by lightning.

Emperor Jianxi saw this, as if he had expected it. He took out a box, opened it, pinched out a golden pill and stuffed it into the empress dowager's mouth. Nanny Sun beside her hurriedly fed her some water.

Emperor Jianxi wiped the saliva from the corners of the empress dowager's lips, his eyes cold and without warmth.

"I had originally wanted my mother to see my brother the Prince of Yan before she died, but he couldn't bear it and died on your eightieth birthday... But you only had eyes for Huai'an, that barbarian daughter, and didn't care about your own son at all. My brother the Prince of Yan died miserably, with his hands and feet broken, his eyes gouged out, his tongue cut off, his nose choked off, and he spent all day in the stinking toilet, waiting for my mother to save him. Unfortunately, he didn't wait for my mother to save him, but was choked to death by a mouthful of feces..."

Emperor Jianxi smiled faintly and looked at the empress dowager.

The Queen Mother stared with bloodshot eyes, opened her mouth, lay stiffly, and choked.

Emperor Jianxi reminded, "Don't worry, mother, you won't die. The golden pill just now is very valuable, enough to keep you alive."

"My Queen Mother must be regretting not killing me back then, right?"

"My mother deliberately set up a trap to make me eat the poisoned buns without worrying about it. But ever since I was old enough to understand, I have always felt sad. Even if I snatched the food from a dog's mouth, I would go back and prick it with a silver needle."

"It turns out that the steamed bun is really poisonous!"

"My mother must have thought that I knew the bun was poisonous and gave it to Concubine Jin on purpose so that she would die in my place..."

A hint of red crept up in Emperor Jianxi's eyes, and his cloudy and deep gaze lost focus, as if he had returned to that cold night, the lonely palace, and the two poor people who depended on each other for survival.