The beauty of the lady

Chapter 316
Back at the palace at night, Ye Yu took the crown prince to the imperial study because of something else, while Zhou Mei coaxed her daughter to sleep and was ready to rest. She was popular a few days ago, but her temper is a little grumpy now. No cold face.

"Miss, Eunuch Wei is out to see you." Chunqin came in and whispered.

"What's the matter so late? Let him in." Wet a handkerchief with warm water and wiped it on his face to wake himself up.

Not long after, Wei Qing came in, leaned forward and said in a low voice: "Your Majesty, Empress Dowager Chen is critically ill, and now she is bedridden. Before she died, she said that she wanted to see her."

She froze slightly, critically ill?Empress Dowager Chen is just 40 years old this year. Even though the life in Yongxiang is a bit boring, she has never treated the former emperor and queen mother badly for food and clothing.
"What kind of illness can the imperial doctor say?" She didn't want to see the Empress Dowager Chen, since she was about to die, what's the use of seeing her?

"The little eunuch who came to pass on the message said that it was caused by a difficult mood and melancholy all day long. It was a heart disease, and the imperial doctor could not prescribe the right medicine."

She stood where she was, thought for a while, and then said to Chunqin and the two court ladies, "Change clothes."

"Yes!"

After changing her clothes, she took the three girls and Wei Qing to Yongxiang.

Yongxiang is in the northwest corner of the imperial palace. There is a very long alley there. There are houses in the alley. The houses are not very good. They are just composed of small courtyards, but both sides are blocked with high strength of more than ten meters. It's hard to fly with your wings, there is a tall and heavy wooden door on the east and west sides, and there are more than a dozen people guarding the outside.

The scenery here is very desolate. You can only see three or five prosperous locust trees or other old trees planted in the yard. At the beginning of the new year, they are still old and dying, but in summer, they will be full of greenery.

Seeing Zhou Mei coming in a fine attire, the guard hurriedly knelt down and shouted: "Your servant sees the empress."

"Everyone get up, open the door, and Bengong go in and have a look."

"Yes, ma'am, please." The chief guard waved his hand, and the eight guards stepped forward and jointly pushed the two heavy doors open, and the depression and mild musty smell came to the face.

She stepped in without changing her expression, while Wei Qing bowed slightly to lead the way.

"Your Majesty, this is the residence of Empress Dowager Chen." They stopped in front of one of the doors, Wei Qing knocked on the door twice, and then poked out a head, it was a woman.

"Hey, isn't this Eunuch Wei?" The head eunuch next to Emperor Rongkang, it's hard not to know him or not.

"Don't be so playful, I didn't see the Empress here, so I don't want your head?" Wei Qing sternly shouted.

The old woman came back to her senses immediately, and seeing the woman in the gorgeous dress standing behind Wei Qing under the night, she hurried out and knelt down on the ground: "Your servant didn't know that the empress was coming, so I lost my composure just now, and I ask the empress to make amends."

"Wei Qing, let's go in." She ignored the woman and walked in over the high threshold.

The yard is not big, but it is much bigger than the place where Zhou Mei used to live in Yuzhou Mansion. There is a well and a few dead trees in the yard. Under the night, there is a faint halo of light from one of the rooms, which can be heard faintly. to talking and coughing.

"The empress is here." Wei Qing shouted loudly from outside.

After that, I heard a rustling sound coming from inside, and then a woman ran out, seeing Zhou Mei hurriedly knelt down to pay her respects.

This woman Zhou Mei didn't feel strange, she was Cui Shi, the aunt who was in charge of Empress Dowager Chen.

"The Empress Dowager Chen is unwell, but did you invite the imperial physician?" She looked down at Cui Shi who was lying on the ground.

Cui nodded: "Going back to Empress Dowager, the Empress Dowager's body is no longer in a day or two. Although the imperial doctor comes several times a month, it still hasn't improved, and now it's even more..."

"Get up, Wei Qing, send someone to guard outside, and I will go in by myself."

"Your Majesty, you can't, your body is a thousand pieces of gold..." In case something happens, how can he explain it to the emperor.

"nothing."

The room is very simple, there is only a bed, a wardrobe, a square table and four stools, and there is a desk next to the window. On the desk are the Four Treasures of the Study and a few books, and there is a high-necked Dendrobium in the corner. , there are two plum blossoms inserted in it, and now the petals are a little drooping, and they are no longer fresh.

Sensing someone coming in, Empress Dowager Chen struggled to open her eyes, and looked at the eyes in front of her eyes, looking a little dazed under the dim candlelight.

"Empress Chen, what is your business with me?" Zhou Mei asked lightly.

Empress Dowager Chen laughed when she heard that, and although she didn't make a sound, it still made her cough. There was a charcoal stove in the room, which logically would be impossible in the cold palace, but Zhou Mei didn't treat them harshly on such trivial matters.

The Empress Dowager Chen looked at the more delicate, calmer and domineering woman, thinking that she had never been a queen before, and went directly from the crown princess to the position of the queen mother. Now she is not even the queen mother, and her destiny has never been determined. When she was not in her own hands, in her father's hands when she was not married, in her husband's hands after marriage, on the one hand, she wanted to control herself as a queen mother, but on the other hand, she had to work hard to maintain the relationship with her son. After a lifetime of camping, but ended up in this end, and this woman seems to be able to get it without hard work, how unfair the fate is.

"Empress, we haven't seen each other for many years." She tried her best to prop herself up and leaned against the somewhat old big pillow.

"So what if we don't see each other? Anyway, seeing each other is disgusting, why bother to meet and make myself unhappy."

Empress Dowager Chen was taken aback for a moment, then smiled: "No wonder, the empress dowagers rarely come to the palace banquets in the past, that's why."

She turned her head to look at the depressed Empress Dowager Chen, her voice was cold and cold: "Just tell me if you have something to do, I can promise you something simple, but if you want to use death to arouse my sympathy, then it's okay, my lord." Compassion isn't that cheap."

"As a queen, it's not necessarily a good thing if you don't even do superficial work." Empress Dowager Chen laughed.

"It doesn't matter, Ye Zhen doesn't care at all." She swept the chair with her sleeves and sat down.

Empress Dowager Chen knew that it was indeed the case when she heard this sentence, otherwise no empress would dare to call the emperor by his name.

"To put it bluntly, you don't like to hear it. You ended up like this because you love to do superficial things too much. Ye Zhen returned the government to Ye Yi, making you feel that the whole world belongs to your mother and son, right? You don't even think about it, When Emperor Hongyuan was in his prime, he was able to hold the government in his hands. What is a Ye Yi plus a woman? If you could tear your face apart, Qingxia would have solved it earlier, and the matter would not have developed to this day. , self-inflicted."

(End of this chapter)