Chapter 108 - Dalliance (1/2)
The Emperor went to sleep beside Lei Xing that night highly on edge. He kept jumping awake whenever he thought he heard a sound to check to see if she was awake, but was disappointed every time to find her quietly asleep.
The next morning, he went to court tired and highly irritable. When the ministers started having a disagreement, it set him off and he harshly scolded them for behaving like children and then stormed off. After that, he went to the royal study but found he was unable to concentrate and was feeling slightly agitated.
After a while, he got up and went back to Lei Xing's palace taking along his memorials. He met the head physician applying acupuncture on Lei Xing. He glanced at Lei Xing but not wanting to interrupt the treatment, went to sit on the side watching the head physician work on the unresponsive patient.
The Emperor watching him made the head physician feel nervous, so he turned to him and explained that the acupuncture is to help circulation and circulation will ensure proper healing. The Emperor did not say anything and simply looked down at the memorial in his hand.
The head physician gulped and went back to his work, feeling more stressed. He had not been able to rest for over twenty-four hours now trying to figure out the problem with the antidote. From his understanding, it should have worked. The pressure was immense and his head was on the line. He sighed and focused on the acupuncture.
Everyone in the palace was aware of Lei Xing's illness, not to mention the Emperor's irritable mood, and the Imperial physicians running around also created quite the chaotic scene. What's more, was the sensational rumor surrounding her illness that had been spreading around the palace.
The rumor went like this: Lei Xing and Prince Yi were secretly lovers before she entered the palace. Prince Yi wanted to marry her but Lei Xing refused and told him she would only marry someone who would be Emperor to fulfill her dream of becoming Empress.
Therefore, to gain his love Prince Yi suddenly changed his ways and started putting in effort in court to gain his father's trust in recent years, so he could become the Crown prince. Unfortunately for Prince Yi, upon his father's death, it was discovered that the Emperor had already secretly made an edict naming the fourth prince as crown prince. Thereby, crowning his younger brother as the next Emperor.
Lei Xing realizing she was with the wrong prince, subsequently dumped Prince Yi and changed her target to the new Emperor.
Poor Prince Yi lost his ambition and love. He was heartbroken and bitter and so picked on Lei Xing during the concubine selection to sabotage her either out of spite or in the hope that she would return to him. Unfortunately for him, Lei Xing had other ideas and used her brother, Lei Yong to persuade the Emperor into choosing her regardless. After entering the palace, she then used her beauty to trap the Emperor, but this apparently did not satisfy her.
Being at the flower field that day brought up fond memories for the two. It used to be their favorite meeting spot. Prince Yi still loved her despite her betrayal and could not help himself when she made advances towards him. So the two had run off to ”roll around” amongst the flowers like usual but chose the wrong spot that day, and rolled on some flowers that resulted in their illness.
Poor Prince Yi is now on his death bed because of her, following her to suffer Heaven's wrath at her disrespect and disregard for the Emperor. And the poor Emperor, not knowing of her treacherous behavior worriedly watches over her while wearing a bright green hat.
The rumor obviously painted Lei Xing as a conniving seductress, an evil woman with no restraint or respect. The moment Eunuch Li found out, he went to inform the already irritable Emperor, who became even outraged and ordered for people to investigate and find the dead person who started this rubbish.
While the Emperor was still fuming over the rumors, with the added fact that Lei Xing was still unconscious, his mother arrived to further add to his irritation. The Empress dowager apparently came out of hibernation after hearing the rumors.
The Emperor begrudgingly went to meet her at Lei Xing's reception hall. As soon as he walked in, the Empress dowager scolded, ”Don't you have respect for yourself?!”
The Emperor ignored her question and went to sit down and then asked, ”Why are you here?”