Chapter 348

“Give me water… give me… give me water…”

In the pitch-black punishment room, a hoarse, intermittent voice echoed.

It was New Year's Eve today. Normally, there were two young eunuchs who would occasionally check if the person inside was still alive. But today, everyone was celebrating in the front palace, watching fireworks, and who would remember that there was an old woman locked up in the punishment room?

“Squeak, squeak, squeak…”

The rats were back again…

The scurrying rats emitted unbearable noises. In the darkness, fear was magnified. The Dowager Empress felt that she might be eaten by these rats.

There were no mirrors here, so she had no idea how disheveled and haggard she looked. She also had no idea how long she had been locked up here, but she guessed it was almost a year.

She wasn’t sure!

She couldn’t see the time, only relying on her body to sense the changes of the seasons.

Now it was winter, and the sound of fireworks exploding could be heard. It was… New Year’s Eve!

Just imagining it, she knew her appearance must have withered, her hair had turned white, and she no longer looked human.

The Dowager Empress hugged her knees, trying to shrink herself as much as possible to avoid being touched by the rats.

“Squeak, squeak…”

“Ahhhhh!”

However, fate seemed to conspire against her. The more she feared something, the more it happened.

Two soft objects were moving at the corner of the wall where her waist was pressed against. Her hair stood on end, and she screamed as she jumped up from the ground.

“Let me out! You let me out! Or just kill me, I can’t endure this life anymore, kill me!”n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

“Bang! Bang! Bang!”

Her head slammed forcefully against the closed door, and before losing consciousness, the figure of Noble Consort Jing appeared in her mind.

The noble lady from the Jing family of Longxi, who had grown up in the palace, had been childhood sweethearts with the Late Emperor.

She had been showered with love from her parents and the emperor. She was so lucky to give birth to a son.

The Late Emperor’s harem was filled with many beautiful women, each more stunning than the last, but the only one who truly captured his heart was Noble Consort Jing.

Other concubines saw Noble Consort Jing as their enemy, and they used all kinds of schemes, but before Noble Consort Jing could be harmed, the Late Emperor would deal with them first.

Only she, seeing through the coldness beneath Noble Consort Jing’s purity, chose to act differently.

Day after day, year after year, she showed kindness to Noble Consort Jing, always thinking of her, and presented herself as a naive and innocent girl, making both the emperor and Noble Consort Jing believe she was just an innocent and naive young lady.

Noble Consort Jing treated her as a best friend, and the Late Emperor, loving Noble Consort Jing, showed her a bit more favor than the other concubines.

She ​​‌‌​‌‌​​​‌‌​‌‌‌​​‌‌​‌‌​​​‌‌​‌‌‌​​‌‌​‌‌‌​​‌‌‌​​‌​​‌‌​​‌​​​‌‌‌​​‌​​‌‌​‌‌​​​‌‌​‌‌​​‌‌​​​‌‌​‌‌​​‌​​​​‌‌​​‌‌​​‌‌​​‌‌​​‌‌​‌​​​​‌‌​‌​‌​​‌‌​​‌‌​​‌‌​​‌‌​‌‌​​​‌​​​‌‌​‌​‌​​‌‌‌​​​​​‌‌​​‌‌​​‌‌​​​‌​​‌‌​​‌​‍used this favor to often seduce the Late Emperor just a few days after he had been with Noble Consort Jing.

Fate had favored Noble Consort Jing for decades, giving her a top-tier family background and beauty. Finally, it seemed to favor her a bit too, allowing her to conceive at the same time as Noble Consort Jing.

Noble Consort Jing's coldness was all an act. In reality, she was the naive and innocent one. The Late Emperor had asked her to act high and cold in the palace, not to interact with anyone except him, and not to give her heart to anyone.

But if she just waited for the Late Emperor to visit her, the long and lonely life in the palace would be too boring.

So Noble Consort Jing treated the Dowager Empress as her best friend, allowing her to freely enter her palace.

This gave the Dowager Empress the opportunity to bribe the old maid.

Too much time had passed, and the Dowager Empress couldn’t remember the maid’s name anymore. Anyway, the grass on her grave should be quite tall by now.

The maid was sent by the Internal Affairs Department. At the time, she wrote to the Wu family, asking them to investigate all the servants around Noble Consort Jing, find their weaknesses, and use them to blackmail or bribe.

That maid had a son who had developed a gambling addiction. The Wu family set a trap to make him even more addicted, then tricked him into borrowing money from a loan shark.

The interest compounded, reaching an amount that was impossible to repay. The Wu family then stepped in to pay off the debt, but without letting them know, the condition for repaying was for the loan shark to write a threatening letter and cut off the maid’s son’s finger, which was secretly brought into the palace.

The maid had only one son, and she hadn’t seen him in the palace for many years. She only remembered that her son’s index finger had a black mole, and the severed finger had one too.

She had no choice but to follow the Dowager Empress’s instructions and inform her when Noble Consort Jing showed signs of labor.

At first, the Dowager Empress planned that if both of them gave birth to sons, she would swap the two princes. Because the Late Emperor was waiting for Noble Consort Jing to give birth to a crown prince before making her empress.

After swapping the children, she could “carefully” raise Noble Consort Jing’s son, making him blindly loyal and willing to serve her own son.

When her son grew to six or seven years old, she would secretly meet him and tell him his true identity. Mother and son were connected by heart, and in the future, the world would still be theirs.

But she had given birth to a princess!

Why could Noble Consort Jing give birth to a son, while she could only give birth to a useless girl?

Fate was still on Noble Consort Jing’s side.

But she absolutely could not let this opportunity pass. Otherwise, she would forever be beneath Noble Consort Jing.

So, to make Noble Consort Jing grieve excessively after childbirth, she not only had to swap the children but also give her a dead infant.

Luckily, her brother had used urgent palace affairs to keep the Late Emperor busy that day, giving the maid time to switch the babies.

Noble Consort Jing’s palace had no suspicions of her, and the Dowager Empress’s trusted aides were helping at Noble Consort Jing’s bedside, working with a few eunuchs to quickly swap the babies.

When Noble Consort Jing saw that her little princess, born after nine deaths and one life, had died, she indeed suffered a postpartum hemorrhage on the spot.

By the time the Late Emperor arrived, Noble Consort Jing had already died from the hemorrhage.

The Late Emperor was devastated and had no mind to care about what the Dowager Empress had given birth to.

With the major task incomplete, the Dowager Empress went into hiding, becoming a transparent figure in the harem.

It wasn’t until all the Late Emperor’s sons had died that she reappeared, and by then, the emperor was already three years old.

She thought her latter half of life would be filled with power and freedom.

Ha!

After all, Shen Ye was not her biological son. He was an ungrateful wretch, with a completely different temperament from Noble Consort Jing, but just like the Late Emperor.

It was Jiang Xinyue… all because of Jiang Xinyue…

She had disrupted all her plans after entering the palace…

Bitch… bitch…

“Your Majesty! Your Majesty!”

Wang Dequan had to interrupt the emperor’s private time with the Imperial Noble Consort, running into the hall: “The one in the punishment room… is gone.”

He didn’t know how to address the Dowager Empress, fearing the emperor would be displeased.

The emperor’s face showed a hint of sadness: “The Dowager Empress has also contributed greatly to Great Yan. Posthumously honor her as the Shou Kang Fu Shun Empress Dowager and bury her in the imperial mausoleum… and also posthumously honor the Late Emperor’s Noble Consort Jing as the Ci Ning Xian De Empress Dowager, and have her buried with the Late Emperor.”

One was buried in the imperial mausoleum, the other with the Late Emperor.

One was titled Shou Kang Fu Shun, the other Ci Ning Xian De.

Could the difference be any clearer?