Chapter 20: Remembering Her Past
Two days later in the Royal Prison
"Brother! Brother ! wake up!"
The sound of the lovely voice woke him up from his long and incessant slumber. He had been longing for the voice for such a long time. How long was it? He did not remember. Being locked in this special cell, he lost count of days and nights he spent here.
Gao Wang opened his eyes and the first thing that he saw was the beautiful face of Her Majesty….no Mo Chou!
"Mo Chou.." he called out for her.
Concubine Rong's tears welled up once she heard his frail voice. She reached out for his hand and brought his cold palm to her cheek.
"Yes. I'm here brother. I'm here…" she could not stand it anymore. The tears rolled down her eyes.
" How are you doing?"
"Why are you asking me? You are the one who trapped in this stinky place. You don't have to worry about me. I'm fine" she tried to smile to assure him that she was in good condition.
"I have no doubt about it. I know he wouldn't hurt you. He love you too much to do that"
Concubine was struck by he brother's words. She had to swallowed a big lump that was formed in her throat as soon as he heard the words.
"So, they were right? I was the former empress and you are not my brother?" she quietly mumbled the words under her breath. "But how? Why?"
"Back in the fateful night. You knew that your reign came to an end when the prince consort managed to sneak out of the palace and on his way to the finance minister's house." Gao Wang stop for a while to take a deep breath. He had anticipated this day when she tried to help him to escape not long ago. This farce of life had came to an end.
"You summoned me and Meng that night and instructed us to bring the fatal poison that you had kept with you all the time. We were all anticipated that the day would come and the prince consort would rebel against you. You knew that your father had been making his own plan behind your back"
Gao Wang had to stop talking as he suddenly cough incessantly. Concubine Rong began to rub his chest in order to ease his discomfort. He - however- held back and stop her from doing so.
"This lowly servant did not deserved your attention Your Majesty."
They way he changed the way he addressing both of them shook Concubine Rong. She did not know how to react to this situation. There was a brief and awkward silent ensued afterward.
"Nevertheless…" Gao Wang broke the silent. " the three of us did not expect that it would THAT early. I refused to accept that you had to die young to stop the suffering that you had been facing since young. Therefore, I decided to give you the White Bell drug instead. Meng agreed to take your place in order to buy sometime for us to leave the place. I sneaked out of the a palace with Your Majesty's unconscious self and made my way to the borders in short amount of time. I made up a new identity for both of us and resume to live like one of the villagers in the town"
"Why are you doing this?"
"Why?" taking his eyes away from her, he directed them toward the ceiling. His eyebrow formed a frown signaling that he was trying to remember the reason himself
"I don't know. Probably because I knew that you were suffering since you were young it was not fair for you to die miserably So I gave you the White Bell drug so that you could start anew"
"Brother Gao…"
"I'm not your brother"
"But to me you are my brother" she insisted.
Gao Wang gathered all the strength left in his body and slowly raised his upper body so that he can leveled his eyes with hers.
"Your Majesty-"
"Mo Chou!"
"You..ahhh alright. Listen Mo Chou. Our life as villagers has ended. You have to accept the reality. You are no ordinary peasant girl. You belonged to this place. The emperor is your husband. Both of you are about to have a child. Think about the child"
"I can't" she stubbornly shed her tears. She refused to acknowledge the past that she didn't even knew existed!
" Mo Chou! Listen to me. You need to own your past. There were a lot of unresolved issues between you and the emperor. I know it was my fault that you lost your memories. But I really hope that both of you would cooperate and find the best solution for this problem. I would like to see my niece to grow up in loving household"
"How do you know it's going to be a girl?"
"Instinct" he flashed her a smug smile.
She laughed when she saw how confident he was predicting about the gender of her baby. It was reliving to see that her brother is making witty comment despite being locked in prison cell for three years.
Her relief however, was replaced with horrifying scream as Gao Wang suddenly coughing out blood out of his mouth.
"Zheng Er! Called for doctor!" Concubine Rong screamed at Zheng Er who was standing outside of the cell. The woman immediately ran out of the section with the guards in search for help.
"Why? Why are you coughing blood? Are you sick?"
"No…." he said with a shaky voice. " When I saw you came for explanation…..I knew my time has come…." he was coughing out more blood. Concubine Rong's palm can no longer hold the amount of blood that came out of his mouth. They began to seeped out of her hands.
"Hence….I decided to swallowed the poison that I keep with me…." he was struggling to breath.
"Why?!!" she screamed her lungs out. Why did he do that?!
"Mo Chou….." he reached out for her cheek. "For the last 10 years, I was happy to be your brother. Forgive me for sounding bold…..but….I really enjoy our time pretending to be siblings in Peony town…..I hope I had time to say proper goodbye to that place."
"We will go there. If you survive this, we will definitely go there together. I promised you. Please don't die!!" her agonizing scream filled the cell.
Zheng Er emerged from the alleyway with a doctor in tow. The doctor tried to find for his pulse but to no avail.
He shook his head and put down Gao wang's hand on the floor. Concubine Rong once again screamed as loud as she could. She was still hugging Gao Wang's head close to her chest when a searing pain gnawed over her stomach.
Her scream slowly turned into unintelligible guttural sound. She tried her might to suppressed the pain but it was becoming too unbearable for her to do so.
"Concubine Rong! You are bleeding!" Zheng Er was shocked to see red blood seeping through the concubine's dress.
Sweat began to embedded on her forehead. Her face turned pale and her lips slowly changed into blue colour. The doctor hastily reached for her hand to read the pulse.
"This is bad!" he exclaimed. " The concubine is going into labour!"
"Huh?! isn't too early for that?" Zheng Er tried to refute. If something horrible happened to the concubine, she would be loosing her head!
"I think the shock from this event is too much for the concubine too handle" the doctor tried to explain. The more time they were wasting in the cell, the dangerous it would be for the Concubine.
"Then … called for the guard to carry the concubine back to her room! Someone!!" Zheng Er hurriedly called for the guards.
Everything went blurry for Concubine Rong. She was in so much pain she did not even realized that she was already moved from the prison back to her room.
She was enduring the greatest pain she had ever faced in her life. The pain was sharp and vicious. The pain kept on occurring repeatedly, it drained the energy out of her body.
"My Lady, be strong! You cannot loose your consciousness or it will be bad for both you and the baby" the midwife instructed. This was a risky labour. The mother was weak and the baby was too young to come out. Even if she managed to gave birth to the fetus, it would likely not survived for more than one day!
Concubine Rong could not bother with any instruction that was shoved into her ears. She was suffering a great pain and all she needs was a good and long rest.
Yes! Rest sounds good!
Her breath started to slow down as her her eyes closing inch by inch.
The pain did not feel bad either when she was 'resting'.
Resting is good. I could be resting forever if I wanted too.
Concubine Rong's consciousness drifted away as the midwife was yelling to her assistant to bring strong incense to her.
*******
"Your Highness, that was the man I was talking about yesterday. Information from my informant tells that he was the perfect candidate for this plan" Gao Wang whispered to her ear.
*They were sitting in the capital's most popular tea house under the pretense to enjoy scrumptious and hefty lunch in this place. *
However, their real intention was to spy the Duke of Shen's first son who was also having his lunch in the same premise.
" How reliable this informant of yours?" Liu Shi was sceptical. She never heard or saw this informant Gao Wang was interacting with. This informant could be a charlatan.
"Very much Your Highness. He was a person from high society, I could not say his name or he wouldn't help us in the future" he elaborated.
"Hmpphhh.." she let out a heavy sigh. The calculative Liu Shi dislike making business with someone who she had no idea of. But they had no other choice.
"He looks soft. How can a person like that worth a dime for my plan?" the more she scrutinized the young man, the more she was not convince of this plan.
"Let's changed our pl…."
"Your Highness the man is about to catch a glimpse of you. Look away! Pretend that you haven't ogle him for the past few hours" Meng instructed.
Princess Liu Shi automatically turned her head away slightly from his direction. She cursed herself for obeying Meng's instruction. Why would I do that if I have no intention to follow through this plan?
Princess Liu Shi tried to sneaked a glance at the man. To her surprise, she caught the man gazing affectionately at her from his seat.
Without her realizing, she was blushing until her face turned as red as tomato. She turned her head away to hide embarrassment.
What is this? What is this warmth creeping into her chest?
*******
Princess Liu Shi was exhausted. Walking ceaselessly in a crowded street drained her energy. This man who was leading their way, looked adamant to help her 'finding' her two servants. If she knew that this man is this naive, she would instruct both of them to appear earlier than they had initially plan.
Now both of them are going to squeeze between throngs of people to get a spot at the bridge. She was at her limit right now. She might as well slapped his head for being tirelessly naive and optimist about things on this world.
Fortunately, Princess Liu Shi tripped on her own dress and slowly fell onto the ground. She has no time to get angry at him as she was about to kiss the ground right now. The Princess closed her eyes and waited for her body to hit the hard ground.
She slowly opened her eyes as she realized someone was holding her tight. Her hand instinctively went to grab the person's cloth in order to prevent her body from slipping to the ground.
She could see Xiao Song was looking at her intently. She could not help but feel the same warmth that she felt at the tea house once again creeping into her chest.
What is this ?!
********
It had been a few months and things had been going smoothly according to her plan. She had been exchanging letters with Xiao Song as frequent as once a week.
*Through the letters, she learned a lot about the other side of him than took her by surprise. Despite appeared to be a gentle man with no political ambition, Xiao Song definitely had vision for the empire and could be considered as a precious talent in the royal court. *
But a wise man is a threat for her plan. She was planning to use his position and not his intellect. In fact , curiosity from his side would only hindered her plan even more.
Princess Liu Shi put down her brushed and folded the letter that she just received from Xiao Song.
Why did she was so happy to discover that he was much more than the Duke of Shen's son? His perspectives toward what should be done to uplift this crumbling empire should matter not for her plan!
*********
Princess Liu Shi was still standing at the boarding house's front gate as she was watching the carriage that was carrying Xiao Song moving away from her.
She wiped the tears that suddenly running down her cheek without her expecting it. She did not even know what was the meaning of these tears.
"Why are you crying Your Highness?" Gao Wang who suddenly appeared from behind offered a handkerchief to the princess.
Taking the handkerchief from his hand. Princess Liu Shi tried to masked her face with her usual stoic face.
"I don't know. Probably because I was loosing an important piece of chess for my plan. Now I have to start from the beginning" she shrugged her shoulders.
Was it?
Gao Wang seemed sceptic with her explanation. Nevertheless, they have no time to mourned over a losing piece as they need to regroup and build a new plan.
But for the time being....he took a glimpse at Princess Liu Shi who had been vigorously wiping the tears on her face by using the handkerchief.
Gao Wang began to realized something unexpected was going to hinder their plan. He clenched his fist tightly.
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