“You are not allowed to enter!”
“Let us pass, we are looking for the Consort, what have you done to the Consort?”
“This is This Princess’s bedroom, how dare you!”
“If anything happens to our Consort, the Lu Clan will not let you off!”
The area outside was in an uproar, with the Guards guarding the door in a Confrontation with the Consort’s retinue.
They cannot enter This Princess’s bedroom, but the Consort has been inside for so long and hasn’t come out, so they are very worried.
If This Princess attempted to seduce him and was rejected, it is not impossible that she would be furious and drug him.
Inside, Hong Yue was applying medicine to Lu Yanzhi to stop the bleeding. Seeing Xiao Li’s calm composure as if she hadn’t heard, she couldn’t help but feel anxious: “This Princess, the Consort is still unconscious, what should we do?”
The Consort’s people worried that This Princess had taken advantage of him, but they didn’t know that this Consort almost lost his life.
The Consort has two deep wounds, one on his forehead and one on the back of his head, and is still lying on the floor, barely alive.
This Princess is out of control, and something big is about to happen in the Princess Manor!
Xiao Li lay on her side on the bed, propping her head up with one hand, looking relaxed and languid: “He’s just unconscious, not dead, what’s the rush?”
Hong Yue couldn’t bear to hear the word ‘dead’ right now. She didn’t dare imagine what people would say about This Princess if two corpses were carried out of this room tonight.
Xiao Li looked at the crumpled little face and couldn’t help but laugh. This Hong Yue was a treacherous, vicious, opportunistic, and ruthless lackey in the book, doing many evil deeds for the mad Princess Xuanyang, poisoning, kidnapping, framing, and harming people in countless ways, described as the most loyal dogleg by the villainous female supporting character.
But looking at her pitiful little face now, she doesn’t look like a villain at all, she’s quite cute.
Xiao Li glanced at the man lying on the floor, only regretting that this world didn’t have a camera, otherwise she could take a few more pictures of Lu Yanzhi, and use the broken and devastated look of him lying in blood as an illustration in the book, which would surely satisfy many people’s tastes.
“Throw him out.”
Lu Yanzhi was helped out, and as expected, several people outside exclaimed in disbelief.
“Consort! What have you done to our Consort?”
“Princess, come out!”
Daring to shout at a Princess directly, they were truly giving them face.
Even if the Original Body wasn’t favored, she was still a Princess of the Imperial Family, and trespassing in the Princess’s residence and shouting at her was enough to be charged with the crime of overstepping one’s station.
Among those people outside, she didn’t even need to think to know that Lu Qi and Lu Shu, the Consort’s most loyal personal guards, must be among them. They were selected from distant branches of the Lu Clan and had been serving Lu Yanzhi closely since childhood, and were the most loyal.
They loved what Lu Yanzhi loved and hated what Lu Yanzhi hated.
The Original Body was kind to the Consort and polite to them, but they, along with Lu Yanzhi, hated the Original Body and, taking advantage of Lu Yanzhi’s status, never took the Princess seriously.
Hmph.
She can’t touch Lu Yanzhi, but can’t she deal with these lackeys?
“Give each of those people thirty lashes, and give the one who shouted the loudest thirty lashes on his mouth.”
Yang Jun felt embarrassed when he heard the order and came forward, wanting to dissuade her: “Princess, they are the Consort’s personal attendants.”
“So what?” Xiao Li interrupted him coldly: “Can This Princess not punish the Consort’s people?”
Thinking that the Original Body, although a Princess, actually had no real power, she added another sentence: “You just follow orders, This Princess will take responsibility, as long as you are loyal enough, This Princess will not die, and no one will be able to touch you.”
It was an explanation, and a promise.
Yang Jun suddenly looked up at Xiao Li, and suddenly felt that today’s Princess was very different.
Killing people, beating the Consort, and now punishing the Consort’s people.
But this was very good. The Princess had always been flattering the Consort, causing those ministers loyal to the Princess to be unable to hold their heads high in front of the Consort’s people.
It was time to give them a lesson.
“Subordinate obeys!”
Yang Jun strode out, and soon someone took the Consort’s people away.
Fortunately, Lu Yanzhi didn’t feel any sense of belonging to the Princess Manor, and only brought a few personal attendants to serve him. Yang Jun took action, and they had no support, and could only be beaten.
Thirty lashes, Yang Jun held back, so after being released, these people were still able to carry Lu Yanzhi away.
They fled the Princess Manor as if fleeing a fierce beast.
After eating, Xiao Li leisurely had people serve her as she dressed.
“This is too plain, this one looks like mourning clothes, it’s inauspicious!”
She picked and chose among a pile of clothes, and finally picked up a flowing skirt with a gradient of red and white. The color looked quite well-behaved: “This one.”
Qian Momo stood quietly on the side, waiting for Xiao Li to choose, seemingly having finally accepted the fact that the Princess she had raised had killed someone, and proactively stepped forward to help Xiao Li dress.
“This Princess has been wronged, the Consort deserves to die, but the Lu Clan is powerful, and even Your Majesty is wary of them. If this gets to the Emperor’s presence, what will happen?”
It was also her fault for being useless, she was frightened just now, otherwise she would definitely have advised the Princess, how could she beat the Consort?
Now things were in trouble.
Xiao Li was too lazy to explain, they would find out soon enough.
Before noon, someone came from the Palace.
The Empress Dowager summoned Princess Xuanyang to the Palace.
The Original Body was fostered under the Empress, who is now the Empress Dowager, and although they had a mother-daughter title, they were not close.
It wasn’t written in the story, but the Original Body’s memory was full of being reprimanded, slapped, pinched, and forced to kneel by the Empress Dowager.
The Empress Dowager would not pamper a foster daughter, and the Emperor treated this younger sister as a pawn, so the palace servants around the Empress Dowager would not be respectful to the Original Body, and the messenger’s attitude was even more arrogant than that of a Princess.
Xiao Li boarded the palanquin and looked ahead nonchalantly, flipping through the Original Body’s memories.
Princess Xuanyang’s birth mother was not a palace maid, but her grandfather was just a County Magistrate, with no support or power in this palace, and was probably worse off than that palace maid.
Gentle, virtuous, and kind were all good qualities, but in this man-eating Imperial Palace, without favor and a little scheming, there was only one outcome.
She died when Princess Xuanyang was seven years old, and the Original Body’s memory only held a vague but warm shadow.
Qian Momo and the others came to take care of her after the Original Body went to live with the Empress.
Qian Momo and the others were loyal and considerate of the Original Body, but they were just servants.
The Empress’s scolding and punishment, the Imperial Brother’s rejection, and the bullying and isolation from the Princes and Princesses, who could help her?
In the end, she learned to swallow her anger, to live cautiously, fearfully, becoming more and more numb, more and more obedient, letting others control her.
Marrying a man as outstanding as Lu Yanzhi rekindled the long-dead heart with a renewed longing for love and the future.
She never acted like a Princess, and always placed herself in the position of Lu Yanzhi’s wife.
She obeyed him, flattered him, admired him, wanting to be a normal husband and wife with him.
But it was all just her wishful thinking, Lu Yanzhi didn’t love her, and it was destined to be a tragedy.
And she went mad later, only because she knew everything was hopeless, and life was ruined.
She wanted to live a good life but couldn’t, she didn’t want to die but couldn’t bear it, so she collapsed.
Xiao Li could understand her, but she wasn’t her!
The most powerful forces in this world that unite people are not blood relation or affection: they are power, wealth, and interests.
So what if this Imperial Palace is a dragon’s den and a tiger’s lair? As long as there are people, there will always be something she can use.
At worst, she’ll overturn this chessboard, and no one will be happy.