EMPEROR HUIZHONG

HOUGONG

Shen Hong was back in Hougong two days later and his mother was present this time. She was surprised to see him but all the more delighted to host him. They had lunch together in which she insisted that they eat his favourite food.

Whenever he visited, she made everything about him.

After a hearty lunch, his mother had her maids ma.s.sage and oil her feet. Him on the other hand, he kept looking about expecting Little Fox to emerge but she was nowhere to be seen.

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He gulped down a heavy swig of wine offered to him. "Muqin, where is... the sick maid I saw the other night?"

"Who?" She looked around. "Oh, Li'er?"

He nodded.

"Li'er is still unwell," she mused.

"Why? What exactly happened to her?"

"Méiyǒu(No), His Majesty does not have to worry about such matters," she disregarded the matter, "tell me what Yu'er has been busy with, instead." She preferred to talk about him than any other.

He knew if he pushed the topic she would become suspicious about his relations.h.i.+p with her maid. He didn't care though, he wanted to know how she was doing.

"Muqin, how is she today?" he insisted.

His mother stopped talking and looked at him, suspicion imprinted in her eyes.

"No, Yuwen Hong." She pointed at him, rebuking. "Not my Li Lian." When his mother used his full name given by her, it meant she was being serious about the issue at hand.

"Muqin, Yu'er is just curious," he smirked.

His mother was not buying it. She picked the zabuton cus.h.i.+ons by her side and threw them at him. "You made my other two palace maids concubines. Moreover, you bed them once and discarded them."

He groaned and downed more wine. Talking about women with his mother was uncomfortable especially when in her books, he couldn't be trusted.

"So is that why you came to visit me in plain clothes? You are fooling her aren't you?" She goggled his plain khaki changpao.

He avoided her eyes, "Claiming to be the Grand General is not a lie." If there are two people he had to pick that knew him the most, it would be Luo Meng and his mother.

She shook her head vehemently. "Li Lian is not a forgiving person."

Neither was he. "Seems like we are a match made by the heavens."

"No Yu'er. You will not touch her, she is mine."

He took his refilled cup and drained it with one swoop. Alcohol did not affect him much and somehow he felt nervous to see Little Fox. That was not the normality. "This is different muqin, the other threw themselves at me, and it couldn't be helped. I was just a helpless victim."

"That's a lie." She heaved. "Li'er is a good girl, you will not have her. She is also special to me Yu'er." Her voice softened at the end.

"I won't touch her," he lied. He wasn't going to stop until he had her so that he could wipe her off his system. That was the selfish b.a.s.t.a.r.d he was.

"And I am to believe that?"

"Mother, I and Li Lian like each other."

She gave him the 'I don't believe you stare'.

"Otherwise why would she tell me about the truth everyone was trying to hide from me?" He used the Military Grounds Camp situation to validate himself. More lies. If Little Fox was there, she would not have it.

"She told you that? So it was true that she gave the letter to the wrong person?"

Looks like he just sold Little Fox out. But that didn't matter to him for he just wanted her in his palace.

"Since she is not well, why doesn't muqin give her to me? I will have my Imperial physician treat her. He is the best and you know that."

"No. Have him treat her here, instead."

"The palace walls have eyes and ears, if they see that happening they will become suspicious of your maid. Will she be safe from some concubines?"

"And they wouldn't be when they see her in the dragon palace?"

"My dragon palace doesn't have eyes and ears," he winked.

"You don't understand. Li'er is here to dance for my birthday celebration and she has been doing well teaching me to behave like a palace consort."

"Looks like both of us have selfish reasons." He swiftly rose.

"Where are you going?" She panicked as she saw him head for her bed chambers.

"Letting Li Lian decide for herself," he shouted as he went down the pa.s.sage. He didn't think she was going to follow him, not when she was enjoying her foot ma.s.sage.

The inevitable happened.

Li Lian gave him a cold shoulder and refused to go with him and he was lethally furious. Banging and crus.h.i.+ng things in a fit of rage on his way out, Shen Hong didn't even bid his mother goodbye. Grand Consort Shu screamed after him to come back. If her feet where not dipped in oil, it wouldn't be a false presumption that she would run after him.

After visiting Hougong, he found the Dowager Empress w.a.n.g waiting for him in his Dragon Study quarters. As a child he was scared of her because she had the power to take from him, be it his life, his t.i.tle, his mother. But now that he had power, he loathed her.

Dowager Empress w.a.n.g requested for permission to confess to the Dragon Court about Yang Liu's true gender.

Shen Hong was pleased. His sister had suffered much and deserved justice.

"What will my punishment be?" she bravely asked.

"You will be banished to the Lone Frost palace to repent and after five summers, you will take poison for death." He loved the idea of banis.h.i.+ng her to the place she locked his mother in when she stole him from her.

"Your Majesty, that is-"

"You are a mere palace woman, you dare refute my punishment?" he growled. "Lying to the fallen dragon is still treason even though he is gone." Shen Hong was aware that if Little Fox's response to him had been pleasing, Dowager Empress w.a.n.g would probably had received a lesser punishment. What a shame.

The rest of the day he took study with the palace scholars who pa.s.sed the exam to become officials. He asked them questions, discussing matters with them. They were the future of the nation and it was the emperor's duty to teach them well.

At night he was given the list of concubines he was to choose from, selected by his dear mother. During lunch, his mother emphasized that he should commit to his imperial duty of spending the night with women in his harem. He couldn't object. She was his soft spot and moreover, he needed to release what was knotted inside because of little Fox.

That fox.

He had never met such a frustrating woman.

He chose a random concubine who he dined with and finely screwed after, letting go of the pent up frustration ignited that afternoon. The concubine desperately begged for more of him, but he rather retired to his chambers. He was a person who didn't share his bed with anyone over the night.

S. V