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When she pushed opened the door, there was no noise in the surroundings. Not a single sound of breathing could be heard from Zong Yue's room. After thinking for a while, she called Tie Cheng over and pointed towards Zong Yue's door. Tie Cheng nodded and went over, while Meng Fuyao sighed and stepped into the front courtyard.
She was greeted by the sight of wine jugs lying all over in the front courtyard. Zhangsun Wuji sat cross-legged under the tree, while Lord Yuan Bao guarded by him quietly. When she walked over, Lord Yuan Bao looked joyous, and he came over to pull her. Quickly, Meng Fuyao walked away in large strides.
Lord Yuan Bao stood stiffly, and he looked dumbfoundedly at Meng Fuyao's back as she left. He sucked his paw and looked back at Zhangsun Wuji, who slowly opened his eyes. Zhangsun Wuji calmly gazed at Meng Fuyao's leaving figure before he hugged Lord Yuan Bao back.
Gently, he caressed Lord Yuan Bao, and he looked quietly at the passing clouds in the sky. Without making a noise, Lord Yuan Bao buried his head into Zhangsun Wuji's arms.
Meng Fuyao secretly went to the Ninth Princess's residence.
As the situation had progressed to such a stage, she could no longer ignore it. Even if she never acknowledged the Feng clan as her family, she must take revenge for herself.
The biggest obstacle in the Xuanji Palace was Epsilon. To remove Epsilon, she must first get rid of the Empress.
However, judging by how closely Epsilon protected the Empress unless the Empress left the palace on her own, she would have no chance to remove her.
How would the Empress leave the palace under such a chaotic period?
Opportunities were created - this was a move that Meng Fuyao was an expert in.
That day, she and the Ninth Princess discussed for a long while. When she returned, she received a message from Zhan Beiye which read, ”Do you need me to send my army?”.
Meng Fuyao thought for a while, and she asked Ji Yu to reply, ”Wait and see.”
She, Zhangsun Wuji and Zong Yue still continued to live under the same roof. Zong Yue seemed to be very busy, and even as he recovered from his injury, he still did not forget to meet his subordinates in Xuanji. Though the Virtuous Guild's medicinal halls he had opened spanned the Five Regions Continent, Xuanji's base was the largest and most powerful. After many years of developing this base, help could be summoned at any moment. When Meng Fuyao and Zhangsun Wuji had been traveling from the northern borders, they had received significant help from this force.
Zong Yue seemed to have gone out once during this period, even though he had not fully recovered. When he came back, he seemed even weaker, but he gave Meng Fuyao an envelope that night. After reading the letter, Meng Fuyao was silent for a long while. It made her very confused, as they used to be such close friends, but their relationship seemed to have returned to the starting point. Even if they were leaving beside each other, they still had to communicate through letters. She could not help but smile, but as the corners of her lips lifted, the smile turned into a bitter one.
Zhangsun Wuji didn't leave the house at all. It seemed as though he and Zong Yue wanted to give Meng Fuyao some time to think through things carefully, or they were just holding back in. However, Meng Fuyao knew that they wouldn't stay inactive for long. The three of them were not the type to lament their sufferings after a minor setback. They were trampolines that would eventually bounce back to life after being pressed down.
After a few days, both the Ninth Princess and the Tenth Princess suddenly fell ill.
One was the youngest daughter of Noble Consort Rong, while the other was the eldest daughter of the Empress, and both were royal princesses who enjoyed noble statuses in Xuanji's court. However, they had never interacted with each other before, and it was purely coincidental that they fell sick at the same time. Because of the chaos in the city, the Ninth Princess had visited the temple to pray. When she had come back, she suddenly had a headache. Luckily, she had met the Tenth Princess on the way, and because they were siblings, the Tenth Princess had gone over to show her concern. However, she had only asked a few questions outside the curtain. She had been very careful and had not entered the carriage, but she had still fallen ill when she returned to her residence.
The symptoms they contracted were similar. They could not consume any food, and their faces became bright red. In the middle of the night, they would mumble outrageous remarks as though they had met with supernatural beings. The imperial doctors all gave up, and even after Noble Consort Rong and the Empress got civilian physicians to look at their illness, all of them said that the princesses were possessed.
The Empress immediately chided those sayings as nonsense. They were peerless beauties of the royal family, and they were supposedly the most resistant towards witchcraft. Why would they be possessed without any prior notice?
However, her tone was not very firm. The temple was located in the southwest corner of the palace. To return from the palace to the princesses' residences, carriages had to pass by the southwest corner, which was a place that palace servants would be thrown into after they committed crimes. There was nothing much there except for dead people.
Which palace would not be haunted by the souls of the innocent? Furthermore, the Xuanji palace which was ruled by this particular Empress? Compared to other countries, Xuanji may not be considered a major power in terms of the size of their territory or national strength. On the other hand, if there was a ranking of the number of dead people in the harem, Xuanji would definitely take the throne.
People would have a guilty conscience after killing too many people. Moreover, this Empress was known to be the number one killer of all harems. As she grew older, karma affected her more and more. She would not bother about praying to buddha or eating vegetarian food before, but now, she would do it once in a while. When the conclusion of the civilian physicians was known to her, she also became more concerned.
Though she wanted to fetch her daughter into the palace, getting bewitched was a taboo in the palace. She was also scared of landing into that situation.
As she watched Noble Consort Rong run towards the Ninth Princess' residence every day in sobs, exiting the palace in the morning with rare herbs and coming back at night with puffy and red eyes, she gradually became restless as well.
There were a few times that she wanted to leave the palace, but Epsilon disapproved. ”If you go to her residence, it's very hard for me to protect you because it won't be convenient for me to enter the rooms of women. Tenth Princess' residential location was chosen very carefully. It is a land of the 'Hidden Phoenix', which is very auspicious for females but slightly disadvantageous for people like me.”
As he was very adamant, the Empress gave up after trying to persuade him for a few times. Actually, she did not think much about the downsides. 'Isn't the Ninth Princess in a very bad state too? Isn't Noble Consort Rong still safe after traveling in and out of such a chaotic city? It could not be so coincidental as to target me,' she thought.