C155

As expected, Qing You was still waiting at the edge of the forest. But after waiting for a long time, she was finally worried for Zhuang Li. Now that she had finally seen Zhuang Li and the other two come out, she almost cheered out loud.

Zhuang Li originally thought that she would directly return to the palace, but at this time, Yun Duan actually turned his horse around and said to himself,

"Return to the palace."

Because Zhuang Li's body was stained with a lot of blood stains during her fight with the assassin, she now looked like a ghost. In reality, her body was covered in bruises caused by tree branches while she was walking through the forest.

The city gate was already closed. Yun Duan took out his order badge and shouted to the people on the city wall. Although the sky had already turned dark, the lights of the city were still on. The night was just beginning, and a group of people were walking along the streets of the capital with blood flowing from their mouths. The people around them were all scared out of their wits, afraid that they would be implicated by some disaster.

Yun Duan's golden plate was especially useful, with it, it was as if there was no one else in the palace as the gates of the palace obediently opened one after another. But Yun Duan immediately went to the Imperial Study area, as if he had already known that the emperor was there.

When he raised his head, he saw Zhuang Li, whose body was covered in bloodstains. Zhuang Li couldn't help but run over, and check if Zhuang Li was alright.

"This man must have some weight to him. I brought him back, and ran away with two. I'm sure the empress dowager hasn't received any news yet."

His gaze swept across the assassin's face. That fear made everyone in the room tremble in fear, probably the assassin never would have thought that other than Yun Duan's methods, there was actually an even more terrifying and unbearable rage.

As Yun Duan said this, he took out a silver badge from his hand. Zhuang Li was unable to see it clearly, and could roughly guess that there was a phoenix on it.

Phoenix? empress? The person who sent the killer to kill him turned out to be the empress? The empress had always hated him, but she had always understood the logic of protecting oneself by protecting one's own mind.

Furthermore, she had been living in the Xinggong Palace for so long. She had only seen the emperor here once, and it was the emperor who had secretly come to see her. Did she know about this?

Wang Su received the command tablet and coldly glanced at it, then let Eunuch Li take Zhuang Li and Qing You to hide for a bit, then inform the empress right away.

Zhuang Li was brought out of the Imperial Study by the Eunuch Li, and went around the Qiankun Palace. The Opposite Moon House on the west side stayed there, and before leaving, the Eunuch Li even instructed Zhuang Li to stay here peacefully. Perhaps, for a very long period of time, she would not be able to see the Emperor.

Zhuang Li didn't know how much the Empress hated her. She was clearly good enough, but the Emperor still couldn't see her. If she was going to get it, she would have to take a path that was relatively risky. But who would have thought that the Emperor was already prepared? He had made another set of preparations without considering the consequences.

Opposite Moon House were especially quiet, and it was just right in front of the window that the Imperial Study could be seen. It was just that on the second day, Eunuch Li came over to deliver food, telling her that she could already stay in the palace.

The rest of the palace seemed to have quietly changed. The Queen's Huhe Palace had now become a real cold palace.

On the tenth day, the Eunuch Li brought a old nanny over. She said that she wanted to explain some rules to Zhuang Li, but her current identity was that of a porcelain concubine … Zhuang Li was first stunned, and did not react to it. It was only at this moment that she remembered that the emperor had always thought that she was Zhao Ci.

Do you want to give me back the right name?

She did feel a bit concerned, but afterwards, she felt even more weighed down by matters of the heart. She was not Zhao Ci, she was Zhuang Li …

The empress seemed to have been placed under house arrest, but it wasn't just because she had murdered innocent people, it was also probably because of some imperial court matters. Once a person lost too much power, they would immediately become the topic of discussion within the palace. The current Empress was in such a situation, and Zhuang Li felt that it was truly a pity in her heart.

This was because the women of the imperial harem had too many rights and interests involved. However, for a woman who only wants to marry a good husband, this is extremely unfair.

Although the empress wanted to kill her, she felt that the empress loved Wang Su very much. How much did she love him?

His identity was not known to anyone, it was only that the outside world knew that the Emperor had newly bestowed a concubine, and that his mother was probably related to the Prime Minister Zhao in some way.

It's just that the Empress' family has always had a rather high position in terms of imperial court, and each colluded with the other. The Emperor had long wanted to take care of this matter, but he had never found the right opportunity.

Wang Su had already been managing the imperial court for many years, so he naturally had his own base of influence and capable backers. He had fostered a group of his most trusted aides. With this, the authority on the imperial court began to unify. Most probably, aside from the part of the Lord Yin Tai that was unshakable, the rest had already successfully become the emperor's subordinate.

Just that after the authority was transferred over, Wang Su was even busier. Ever since Zhuang Li entered the palace, he had never gone to the Opposite Moon House even once. But if the Emperor is not free, Zhuang Li can go to the Imperial Study instead.

Perhaps that was what Wang Su had planned from the start. He had arranged for Zhuang Li to stay at the Opposite Moon House and not enter the imperial harem.

Furthermore, even though Zhuang Li was already a legitimate porcelain concubine, it wasn't convenient for her to walk around the imperial harem. The imperial harem's relationship was complicated, and Eunuch Li wasn't able to manage the servants either. After all, there were still many people waiting for the Emperor to make a mistake so that they could dig out the old debts of the Imperial Noble Lady Ya.

The location of the Opposite Moon House was rather awkward for the harem. It was controlled by the harem but it wasn't built within the harem, so there was only a single wall separating the location of the Opposite Moon House. On the wall, a small door had already been built according to the emperor's wishes …

It was just that Zhuang Li came over to the teahouse and served a cup of tea to the emperor.

Wang Su was indeed very busy, he almost did not have time to speak, after all, the imperial court of the next dynasty was still very noisy, but compared to before, it was much better, after all, the people arguing with each other were all his own people, they all wanted to do more for the citizens, and place this matter at the top of their list.

So, no matter what, they were able to achieve a result that the commoners were satisfied with.

Zhuang Li's Imperial Study's time was basically at night. During the day, there were too many people gathered there, and most of them had a deep impression of her, this extremely beautiful female officer who served tea. Thus, it was not easy for her to show her face, so as to not let others who harbored ill intentions see her.

The summer was over, and the autumn wind was blowing. A few months ago, Qing You was still in the small courtyard outside the Imperial Study, playing with a bird on a tree together with the young eunuch.

In the summer, the small pomegranate that Zhuang Li had been thinking about everyday had already been moved away, and a lot of osmanthus trees had been transplanted here. They were opened extremely well, and practically covered the entire courtyard's floor, Zhuang Li brought Qing You and the young eunuch who was attending to him from the Imperial Study to take a small dustpan.

She remembered that when she was young, there were many osmanthus trees in her mother's yard. In the fall, when they were a hundred meters away from the house, they would smell the osmanthus flowers, and all the aunties would come to the yard to pick up the osmanthus flowers and go back to make osmanthus cakes.

His mother's osmanthus cake was especially fragrant. When he was young, his mother went to work, leaving Zhuang Li alone at home.

Zhuang Li sat at the door as she ate osmanthus cake and waited for her mother's return. At that time, she felt that this was the best snack in the world.

When the cinnamon cake was finished, she went alone to the yard to pick up the osmanthus flowers, picking them up one by one from the ground and placing them in the small purse. When her mother came home, she took out all the fruits from her small purse and held them in front of her mother with both hands, as if she gave her the most beautiful thing in the world.

Afterwards, when she went out to university, her mother would still cook osmanthus cake at home every year, allowing Zhuang Li to pack them into her lunch box one by one and take them to school to share with her classmates. She seemed to be sharing the love and concern of a foreign land.

So when Zhuang Li saw the osmanthus flowers that covered the ground in the Imperial Study courtyard, she couldn't help but to pick them up. One after another, exactly like the osmanthus flowers she picked up for her mother when she was young. It was as if she was in the process of picking them up, picking up all the memories from her previous life as well.

But there was no mother here.

She picked up a basket full of osmanthus flowers and carried it to the entrance of Imperial Study's teahouse. Watching the sunset. I wonder if my mother will also make osmanthus cake this year. If she does, who should she give it to?

Her eyes were slightly blurred. But the tears did not fall.

She sometimes felt that so much time had passed that her mother might have forgotten the pain of losing her. Even though she clearly knew in her heart that she couldn't do it, even if she used all of her strength, she still couldn't do it.

Therefore, she could only bite her lip and not cry. She thought that the child had to grow up and the mother had to grow old.

Even if nothing happened, the last two would still be different.

In front of him was a figure that had just walked out of the house. Wang Su had been busy for a very long time, and only after seeing that Zhuang Li was sitting at the door without moving, did he decide to take a breather.

Zhuang Li knew who the person in front of him was. She knew who she loved. She held out the basket of osmanthus flowers in front of Wang Su. It was as if this was the taste borne by the feelings of a lifetime.