Chapter 141 - The Fox Is Told A Decade-old Secret

Chu Yun couldn't take her tortured display any longer. "Enough," he told Gu Wei with a hiss. "Make her stop."

Gu Wei had no reaction beyond smiling at Concubine Qin. "Sister should get ready, his Majesty is going to pay her a visit today."

Just like that, Concubine Qin's face brightened immediately. "He is? Of course he is!"

She scrambled out of the bed ungainly, and only then did Chu Yun notice the thin silver chain attached to her ankle. It seemed to be long enough to allow her to move around the room freely but go no further than that. She sat in front of the low vanity overlooking the window, and started trying to comb through her matted hair.

Chu Yun watched her with extreme discomfort. After some time she started humming a tune while looking at her reflection in the gold mirror, her gaze completely unfocused.

"The Princess Consort was an ambitious woman, not unlike Concubine Qin," Gu Wei said. Picking up his tale where he'd left off. "She started paying visits to Qin Ming, and somehow found out it was me who reduced her to this state," he hugged the high back of his chair and looked up at Chu Yun. "She was smart, so she knew that more useful than getting into the King's bed, was giving him something he'd always wanted."

"Dirt on you?" Chu Yun guessed.

Gu Wei smirked derisively. "Xiao Yuan's...shall we call them, 'affections', for me have always been a point of extreme vexation for him, as has the matter of A-Xiang's paternity," here his smile fell, "even so, it bought us some breathing room, me and Xiao Zai both. He might be King, but the rules of Zui, as well of the court bind him as much as they do all of us concubines. He couldn't have me killed just because he wanted to, not with me being the dam of an alpha son."

Chu Yun understood what Gu Wei wasn't saying. The very idea that he'd been raped by Xiao Yuan offered him some leverage. If Gu Wei formally accused Xiao Yuan, with Xiao Zai no doubt testifying in his favour, there was only so much the King could do to prevent the court from trying the case. Even if Xiao Yuan was cleared of all suspicion, that kind of accusation would immensely weaken the King's position.

It would mean the King was unable of, not only, disciplining his harem, but his heir as well. 

Most people couldn't stomach serving a weak master. Even the greediest of ministers would turn against him in time, if only because they would lose all respect for him. Everything that made Xiao Yuan unfit to rule would apply to the King by association as well.

For now there were only rumours, scandalous gossip people were happy to pass around while only half-believing it. 

"Part of our agreement is that I can never discuss A-Xiang with Xiao Yuan," Gu Wei smiled as if this brought him great amusement. "The official account is that the King is her sire, of course, but that she must live away due to her frail health. If you ask me she is safer there than she'd ever be in the royal palace."

Despite his words there was a tightness around his lips that betrayed inner pain. Gu Wei wasn't being honest. The truth was that he probably wished he he'd never ended up in his current situation at all.

"So the Crown Princess found out and threatened you?"

Gu Wei shook his head. "Like I said, she was smart. She didn't threaten me, she went to the King directly and told him."

Chu Yun sucked on a breath. That must have sucked.

Gu Wei laughed at the look on his face. "Nothing I couldn't handle."

Which probably meant a violent, and brutal beating. Chu Yun chanced a quick look backwards at the guard by the door. His expression was unchanged, but his hands were tightly balled into fists at his side.

He was the lover after all.

Gu Wei sighed and stretched his legs over the end of Concubine Qin's bed, crossing them at the ankle. 

"Anyway, he'd long suspected it, and had sent people to investigate her for years, trying to get something useful out of her." He looked over his shoulder at where Qin Ming was still brushing her hair. "Most of the time she's catatonic. She only reacts when I'm here, it's extremely hard to get her to talk otherwise. The Princess Consort was persistent."

Chu Yun imagined it was all the free time from having none of Xiao Yuan's attention.

"She got her answers, enough for the King to believe her, but he wanted proof. After all these years, it would be extremely suspicious if he accused me with nothing to show for it," Gu Wei clicked his tongue, "it was just too bad that the King couldn't resist rubbing it in my face just how close I was to certain death."

"She died at the hunt before she could find anything," Chu Yun concluded.

Gu Wei nodded. "She was smart, but I'm an old hand."

The King must have been furious, more so when he found out about Chu Yun's pregnancy. It was not surprising that he'd beaten Gu Wei badly and dragged him along when he dropped in to gloat that he'd found out about the pregnancy. He wanted to punish Gu Wei for ruining his plans, yet again.

He was probably still punishing him.

Gu Wei looked well, the bruises on his face were healed, but there was no telling if something else had happened, and he wasn't about to tell Chu Yun either.

"I know why you killed the Crown Princess now," Chu Yun said, "but why do this to her?" he nodded towards Concubine Qin. "Wasn't it easier to just kill her?" 

Chu Yun didn't have much stomach for torture. Sometimes killing someone was a necessity, a "you or them" situation. Chu Yun could be pragmatic about death, about murder. But torture...it turned his stomach. It reminded him of the memories he most wanted to forget.

Gu Wei didn't seem to share his sentiment. His expression darkened and he shot Chu Yun an unimpressed look. 

"She killed the only friend I had in the palace, the first person to show me any measure of comfort.. Believe me, she is lucky I didn't do much worse."