Splash!

Upon entering the water, Gu Qiang flailed desperately, struggling to survive. Soon, darkness overtook her, and the surrounding noises gradually faded into silence as she fell unconscious.

In the 7th year of Jianyuan, within the imperial capital built with red walls and glazed tiles, Gu Qiang was awakened by a shrill scream. She opened her eyes in bewilderment and observed the surroundings.

Didn’t she fall into the water?

Why was she here?

“No! Don’t!”

Gu Qiang looked in the direction of the voice and saw two sturdy maids brutally hauling a woman who was wearing a palace costume. The maids were clutching the woman's arms, prying open her mouth and forcing medicine into it.

“Empress, Your Majesty! I beg you, please don’t hurt my child!”

“Beg me?”

The chaos in the palace was starkly juxtaposed with the sight of a woman sitting elegantly in the main palace. She was wearing a phoenix coronet and a phoenix gown, draping luxuriously on the floor. Shrouded in shadows, she shrieked, “Shen Qiangwei! When my son was suffering from high fever for three continuous days before dying of poison, I begged you the same way you did. I begged you to spare my son’s life!”

She spoke despairingly between clenched teeth, as if she was dying to skin Shen Qiangwei’s alive and crush her bones for her son.

After hearing this,Gu Qiang felt a sudden pain in her chest. It was a piercing pain, as if her heart was sliced into pieces by a network of fine silver wires.

In that moment, she felt instinctively that the pain she was experiencing right now, was the heartache of the Empress.

“Shove it down! Don’t stop!”

Following the Empress's instructions, bowls of Safflower Soup were continuously shoved down Shen Qiangwei’s throat. Within seconds, the rusty odour of blood began to suffuse throughout the main palace. The palace dress beneath Consort Shen was dyed blood-red. She tried to touch it frantically, but to her despair, warm blood kept gushing out from the bottom of her body.

“My baby…My baby...”

Tears streamed down from her face continuously. She mustered all her strength and screamed, “It’s not me! I didn’t put poison in the pastry!”

“Not you?”

Step by step, the Empress approached her commandingly.

As the Empress came into her sight, Gu Qiang froze. She was completely dumbfounded by this scene.

This woman looked exactly like her!

No!

She could recognize the face and the familiar eyes. Apart from that viciousness and despair, it was irrefutably her!

How could this be possible?

While Gu Qiang was still dumbfounded, the Empress walked slowly toward her. At one point, half of the Empress’s body overlapped with half of Gu Qiang’s body before she continued forward.

In stupefaction, Gu Qiang tried to shove the Empress back, but her hands went through the Empress’s body.

The Empress stopped in front of Shen Qiangwei and looked at her coldly. “You have been shamelessly seducing the Emperor from the day you enter the palace. I’ve been putting up with you, but you took my patience for granted!”

The odour of blood was getting stronger in the palace. Shen Qiangwei placed her hand firmly on her stomach and finally blasted out wrathfully, “Seduce? Is that what Shen Zhongbai told you?”

“How dare you!”

The Empress frowned and reproved sternly, “How dare you say the name of the Emperor casually!”

“The Emperor?”

The beautiful woman on the floor burst into a desolate, resentful laugh, as if it was a joke. “What kind of b*stard Emperor is he? Do you think that he loves me sincerely? Do you think that I really want to oppose you? It’s all because of him. He is taking precautions against you, by using me as a pawn to control your family—the Gu Family!”

A pawn?

What did she mean by… a pawn to control her?

An ominous premonition crept into the Empress’s heart, but she defended loudly, “Shut up! You are a crap full of nonsense!”

“You have guessed it, haven’t you?”

Shen Qiangwei’s lips curved into a creepy smile. Since everything had come to this point, it seemed like she was venting all her grievance and hatred that she bottled up over the years. “Using a pregnant Consort to exchange for an Empress with a son, who do you think is the mastermind of this deal?”

The door of Weiyang Palace suddenly opened with a loud bang. Through the door, a black-feathered arrow shot straight into the throat of Shen Qiangwei at a lightning speed.

The shrill voice stopped abruptly and in the next second, the breathtakingly beautiful woman died on the spot. Her alluring eyes remained widely open even after her death.

“Such a pity.”

The sunlight was shining brightly outside the door. From two rows of Imperial Guards, Shen Zhongbai walked out slowly and lowered his bow. He glanced at the body of Shen Qiangwei on the floor and sighed in sorrow, while taking out a new black-feathered arrow from his back and fixing it on the full-stretched bow. “I've never liked people who talk much, haven't I, my dear Empress?”

His voice was soft and gentle, like a loving husband who cared for his wife. However, after witnessing everything, the Empress felt a shiver run down her spine. Instinctively, she took a step back.

Once again, Gu Qiang went through the Empress before they parted, as if she was a spirit. Her mind was completely blank, and she was shivering in fright. She was not in any better condition than the Empress.

Incomprehensible, the Empress asked with a trembling voice, “Why?”