"Your Majesty, please stop Feng Yong Rui Da Ren from kowtowing!" The Empress Dowager whispered softly to the Han Emperor. She gave him a little warning, "Don't let the other officials have a cold heart towards you! Feng Yong Rui Da Ren is always loyal to you and yet, you embarra.s.sed him in front of everyone at the moment!"

She didn't forget to give him a reminder. When the wicked concubine heard the Empress Dowager's words, she frowned but didn't dare to say anything. If there was one woman that she couldn't beat in this palace, it was only this Empress Dowager. It was all because of the Han Emperor's filial trait. If one of his women dared to touch his mother, he wouldn't hesitate to kill her --- whether his woman was his favorite or not.

The Empress Dowager was his bottom line.

There was already an example case back then. One of the Han Emperor's favorite concubine at that time dared to be arrogant and disrespectful toward the Empress Dowager, just because the former didn't like to be criticized. In the end, the Han Emperor knew about this and he killed the woman himself.

Yes, the Han Emperor was that cruel.

Thus, the wicked concubine also understood her boundaries and knew how she should behave in front of the Empress Dowager. She also understand that the latter hated scheming woman the most. However, she still felt indignant that she should lower herself in front of another woman --- even the Empress wasn't her opponent. Besides, the Empress Dowager was a hindrance to her own plan.

After all, she wanted to see Feng Yong Rui being ruined! It seemed like she had to make another plan --- a better one. Feng Yong Rui, this old man... he was really hard to deal with! She had planned this a long time, but he managed to get away before the ma.s.sacre happened and it really irked her to death!

The Empress Dowager felt like her son didn't do it fast enough. She quickly gave him a code by winking a few times and it made the Han Emperor become sober at once. 'My mother is right!' He thought to himself. He should think far ahead ah~! He couldn't ruin his plan because he was in a hurry to eradicate Feng Yong Rui.

As an Emperor, he shouldn't move based on his intuition alone! How could he point at Feng Yong Rui without any evidence whatsoever? What if he targeted the wrong person? If the latter could prove his innocence, it would certainly make the other officials didn't trust his judgment anymore --- instead, he would be deemed as framing Feng Yong Rui. Who would dare to work under him again in the future? The most important thing was... who would dare to be loyal to him, if a loyal official like Feng Yong Rui was killed by him just based on baseless intuition?

The Empress Dowager felt that something was fishy with her son's behavior. Why did he seem to become another person? He seemed to have changed a lot. She had felt it before, but it became more obvious when she spent more time with him. He became more paranoid than ever!

The Empress Dowager wanted to wash her hands from the political matter, thus, she didn't try to pry over the matters regarding it. However, it seemed like she needed to ask her subordinates to do some investigations about what happened when she was away from here.

The Emperor used to ask her advice from time to time, but she had been dedicated to Buddha and tried to atone for her past sins, after all, she had been fighting for so many women in the harem and there were a lot of lives that had been dead by her hands. She stopped the Han Emperor from asking her for advice, because she also wanted him to grow up and become a real leader.

Thus, she decided to go to the temple to pray and also fasting. If the banquet for her birthday didn't happen, she wouldn't bother to come out from the temple at all. She just wanted to spend the rest of her life peacefully.

The Emperor had tried to call her back to enjoy her glory which she had refused and he had used another reason to force her out... He pulled out the filial card which was hard to refuse, after all, their kingdom was emphasizing the importance of filial piety.

How could she make the Han Emperor bearing the unfiliat t.i.tle? Thus, she relented and decided to come out once, showing to the public how filial her son was. Judging from the current situation, it seemed like she would stay here from the time being until she was sure that nothing was wrong with her son. She furrowed her eyebrows in displeasure but she had no other choice.

The Han Emperor woke up from his reverie and knew that he was wrong in this matter. He looked around and saw how surprised the other officials were. The Emperor cleared his throat and quickly tried to appease Feng Yong Rui, "Yong Rui ah~! Stop kowtowing! I was just asking because I thought this is a part of the performance! This Emperor doesn't like darkness and you should know about it too!"

Everyone knew that the Han Emperor was just saying nonsense because he just didn't want to admit his rashness, but they couldn't do anything to him. Thus, they went along with his facade.

Feng Yong Rui also had to follow along with it whether he liked it or not. He stop kowtowing and his forehead was bleeding due to the impact, it made the officials whose names were on the blood letter's list become more symphatetic towards him. They also became more furious at the Han Emperor, feeling indignant for the treatment that they had gotten after being so loyal to the man. They didn't feel that they should be treated this way!

Feng Yong Rui was the one who was most loyal to the Emperor and how did the Han Emperor treat him? Then, how about them?! They believed that they would end up worse than Feng Yong Rui.

Feng Yong Rui answered humbly, "This official knows, Your Majesty. However, this really has nothing to do with this official because this isn't a part of our performance. How could this official dare to play around in the palace ah~? This one has always been loyal to your majesty!"

The Han Emperor furrowed his eyebrows, pretending to be thinking hard. "I believe you... You can get up first and sit down at your seat first so we can talk about this."

"Thank you, Your Majesty," Feng Yong Rui said and he did as he was told to do.

"People, Come! Call a physician to treat Feng Yong Rui Da Ren's forehead!" The Han Emperor didn't forget to appease Feng Yong Rui by giving him the best treatment.

"No need... no need... Your Majesty. We should probably think about what happened here and find out what's going on," Feng Yong Rui rejected politely and gave a suggestion.

The Han Emperor nodded his head in agreement. "What's actually going on here?" He looked at the palace guards' leader and asked, "This... Have you investigated it clearly?"

The palace guards' leader felt ashamed because this phenomenon meant that he was incompetent when doing his job. If he couldn't find out what happened soon, he knew that he wouldn't be able to keep his job anymore and he could only say goodbye to his promotion.

"This... this guard has already sent people to investigate. We will find out about it soon," the palace guards' leader answered while sweating heavily. He hoped that his subordinates would be able to find a lead --- anything. As long as he could explain a little bit, it should be fine ah~!

"Good... Good..." The Han Emperor sighed in relief. "Give me a result as soon as possible!"

"Yes, Your Majesty!" The palace guards' leader answered obediently, after that, he gave a signal to his subordinate to tell everyone to work faster. The latter quickly scurried away to do his job as soon as possible.

However, another weird phenomenon happened once again. The torches which were brought by some of the palace guards suddenly moved erratically and there was no wind at all, making the palace guards feel surprised, thus, they gasped loudly.

What was actually going on here?!