Professional Ethics of a Concubine

When the empress heard his question, she said calmly,

"You said this, it's not in vain that your father loves you so much.

But I tell you clearly that I don’t owe him anything. To be honest, it is your father who owes me a lot.”

The fifth prince was even more surprised and couldn't understand.

"I don't need your understanding or approval of my affairs."

The empress looked at him and said calmly,

"Just take care of your own business. If you have nothing else to do, please leave and come to the palace banquet in the evening."

The fifth prince suffered a heart attack, but facing his strong mother, he didn't know what else to do.

Is he going to use this incident to contact the conservatives in the court and pull his mother off the throne?

He didn't want to do this. First, he didn't have the courage to do so. Second, he didn't want to hurt his mother like this and become the betrayer between them.

And, more importantly, he didn't have the confidence to overthrow his mother's rule.

Although my mother was a woman, there is no doubt that under her rule, the Gulan Kingdom went from decline to strength.

No one can deny her strength!

He knows himself that he is not as good as his mother.

So what can he do now that he knows the truth?

The fifth prince walked out in a daze. He thought and thought, and finally found that he seemed unable to do anything.

Just help keep this secret.

However, he still felt unwilling and angry in his heart, feeling that he had been deceived and ignored by his mother.

Even though he did nothing, he still felt guilty towards his father. His father doted on his mother and himself so much when he was alive. How could his mother not feel any guilt and even say that his father owed her.

The Fifth Prince is really hard to understand.

The fifth prince couldn't help but feel a resentment towards his mother that he had never felt before.

Looking at the mother's attitude towards the Crown Prince of Zhao, it is obvious that she loves him very much and wants to give him all the good things. It seems that she treats the Crown Prince of Zhao even better than she treats him.

The fifth prince felt very uncomfortable.

He left the palace and rode around on horseback when suddenly a group of people surrounded him. The Fifth Prince was startled, but when he saw the people coming, he couldn't help but breathe a sigh of relief.

"General Bai, why are you stopping me?" the fifth prince frowned.

"My father has something important to discuss with the Fifth Prince. Please follow me," Bai Zi said.

The fifth prince frowned and nodded in agreement.

The Bai Zi family were nobles who supported him, so he had to give them this face, even though the way they invited him was too harsh, which he did not like.

However, the Baizi clan not only had its own army and a large amount of land, but also had salt mines, gold mines and other wealth. It was a huge clan.

The Fifth Prince followed Bai Zi to the place. Before he could sit down and drink a sip of tea, he heard Bai Zi's father, the old noble Bai Chi, speak with a look of arrogance and judgment on his face.

"The empress was unfaithful to the late emperor and is no longer worthy of sitting on the throne. Those conservatives will definitely seize the opportunity to overthrow her. We will take this opportunity to push you to the throne."

The fifth prince opened his eyes wide in shock and shouted a little late,

"You, don't talk nonsense! The Queen Mother has done nothing wrong to the Emperor Father. Those conservatives want to overthrow her, but they have no chance at all."

"Haha, the Crown Prince of Zhao looks more like the Empress than you do. This is a shame." Bai Chi sneered twice.

"Just wait and see. The conservatives will definitely take action. Your Highness, if you want to wait for the empress to pass the throne to you, you may have to wait another ten years. Are you really willing to wait for such a long time?"

The fifth prince was silent.

"Why not take this opportunity to join hands with the conservatives to overthrow the empress? It's time for us to put an end to the humiliating days of being ruled by women."

Bai Chi spoke again with a gloomy face,

"Fifth Prince, please express your opinion immediately!"

The Fifth Prince was shocked by Bai Chi's threatening look and asked angrily,

"What will you do if I don't agree? Are you trying to coerce me?"

"Haha, Your Highness, you are joking. We certainly won't force Your Highness." Bai Chi smiled sinisterly.

"However, His Highness already knows our little tricks. In order to prevent His Highness from informing the Empress, or His Highness from causing trouble for us in the future, we must always take some protective measures."

"...What protective measures?" The fifth prince asked fearfully, but the next moment, he stood up again and shouted angrily,

"You, how dare you! I am the fifth prince. If you dare to do anything to me, I will tell my mother and let her punish you!"

"Don't be nervous, Your Highness. We won't do anything to you. We are just telling you a fact. Once the empress falls, who can protect you?

Think about this carefully. Those conservatives will only support the crown prince to take the throne. You are the daughter of the empress, and you are the object of their hatred. If you do not cooperate with us, your fate will be miserable. "

"The Queen Mother will not be overthrown by those conservatives!" the Fifth Prince emphasized again.

"If you don't overthrow her now, the empress will eventually grow old. Will you really have power by then? The nobles and officials of the empress's faction are not close to Your Highness. Can you get their support?"

The fifth prince's face was distorted.

"Your Highness, please think about it carefully." Bai Chi looked superior again and waved his hand, "Send Your Highness back home."

"By the way, there is a gift we prepared for Your Highness in the mansion. I hope Your Highness likes it."

Bai Chi said again and smiled at the Fifth Prince, but there was something weird in that smile.

The Fifth Prince wanted to say something else, but Bai Zi and several guards had already come to him.

They surrounded him, not touching him, but leaving him room to turn and leave.

The fifth prince clenched his fists in anger, and walked away with red eyes and gritted teeth.

-

The Fifth Prince was sent back to his palace by Bai Zi and others, feeling humiliated. Before he could calm down, he was told that his favorite concubine had died.

"How did she die?! Who killed her? Ah! Tell me!" The fifth prince was shocked, his eyes widened, he grabbed the maid and asked hysterically.

"Your Highness, calm down. Wuwu... The beauty was poisoned to death. I don't know who did it..."

The maid was almost frightened by his furious look, and she cried and begged.

The fifth prince angrily loosened her collar and walked quickly towards his favorite concubine's room.

The woman who was whispering sweetly in his ear and cuddling with him yesterday, fell on the cold ground.

Moreover, her death was extremely horrific, with her eyes wide open and full of horror, and black blood flowing from her nostrils, eyes, ears, mouth, etc.

The Fifth Prince was so frightened that he could not help but step back again and again, and only managed to stand firm by grabbing the door frame with both hands.

Bai Chi's threatening words began to replay in his mind.

Is this the gift he was talking about?

His people could easily poison his favorite concubine, which meant that if they wanted to do something to him, it would be easy.

The fifth prince felt infinite fear and anger in his heart. He loosened his hands and let himself slide to the ground, letting the feeling of powerlessness fill his whole body.

How could he be so cowardly and incompetent? He became a pawn in the hands of the nobles, controlled and slaughtered by them.

【You are very much like your father. 】

The Queen Mother's voice also sounded in his mind again.

He used to think, what's wrong with being like his father? He was very proud. His father was such a gentle man, it was good for him to be like him.

But now, when he himself faced the inhuman hegemony, he finally understood another sentence from the Queen Mother:

[If it really comes down to it, your father owes me a lot. ]

"Your Highness, should we send someone to the palace to report this matter to His Majesty?" The palace's steward helped the fifth prince up and asked softly.

"If the Queen Mother wants to know, someone will tell her." The Fifth Prince was in a trance for a moment before speaking again, "Let's not bother the Queen Mother with such a small matter."

"Yes, Your Highness." The butler asked again, "Do you want to prepare a meal for Your Highness now?"

"I'm not hungry." The fifth prince waved his hand, took a few steps forward and stopped, and said to the steward in a dead voice,

"Clean up her body, put it in a good coffin, and choose a good place to bury her. Send one thousand taels of silver to her family."

"Yes, Your Highness, I will arrange it right away." The butler agreed immediately.

"Don't disturb me." The fifth prince gave another order before returning to his room.

"But, there is a palace banquet in the evening..." the steward frowned and reminded.

"Tell my mother that I'm sick and can't attend," said the fifth prince.

The manager had no choice but to agree.

However, after dealing with the matter of the favorite concubine, the steward wrote down all the abnormalities of the Fifth Prince and the affairs of the Fifth Prince's Mansion and had someone present it to the Empress.

-

In the palace, when it was lunch time, the empress indeed sent someone to invite them to have lunch together.

There was no one else at this lunch except the empress, so the atmosphere was much more casual and friendly, and the topics were more homely.

The empress smiled and asked Mingyu and Mingyan to call her "Grandmother".

The two children were really sweet-talkers. After calling her the Imperial Grandmother, they said they were not used to it because she looked too young. They felt they could only call her the Imperial Aunt.

These words also amused the empress, and she naturally felt happy about it.

Who doesn’t want to be praised for being young? Especially women, as they get older, they care more about their age, and the empress is no exception.

All I can say is that the two children's flattery touched the empress's heart.

However, it cannot be said to be flattery, we can only say that sincerity is the killer skill.

The two children are not afraid of strangers and dare to say what is on their mind.

Because the empress has maintained herself very well. She is almost fifty years old, but she is still graceful, beautiful, and imposing. She is intimidating without even getting angry and looks dignified. She really makes you forget her age and focus only on her beauty and coolness.

The empress also chatted with Ye Qingzhi and asked her for her opinions. Ye Qingzhi just smiled and answered her questions with shining eyes.

If the empress praises her for being smart, she will praise her back ten times as much.

Flattery, love potion, and a big pot of chicken soup were all presented to the empress.

One can only say that the empress was also bewildered by her fragrance, and looked at her with more fondness, instead of the slight scrutiny she had at the beginning.

The prince looked at his cheerful mother, then at Ye Qingzhi, and felt a little envious of his mother.