Chapter 168 - The Wolf Savours The Moment

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Xiao Zai addressed Peng Rui first. "And what were his Majesty's orders?"

She whipped her long neck towards him, "His Majesty asked Pen--," she cut herself off abruptly the moment her teary eyes focused on Xiao Zai and she realised what a blunder she'd made.

She sucked her lips into her mouth, biting down on them, as if she was trying to take back her words along with them.

The King glared down at her in abject fury, his expression twisted into a mask of rage so powerful, he scarcely looked like a person.

Peng Rui crawled across the polished wooden floor, resting her hands on the bottom step of the dais. She looked up at the King in supplication, and begged, "Your Majesty, please, Peng Rui swears she didn't kill her. It must have been someone else."

"Silence!" The King bellowed, slamming his fist down on the throne's armrest with a crack, his voice booming through the hall like thunder. "Foul woman! You dare come before me and implicate me in your crimes?"

Peng Rui shook her head furiously, tears streaming freely down her face.

Xiao Zai looked at Xiao Yuan. "Can his Royal Highness clarify what's happening here?"

Xiao Yuan straightened his shoulders. "Shortly after the Princess' Consort's death, another servant fell ill, in what looked like an unusual string of bad luck on my household. I asked the Second Prince for help in finding an adequate physician."

He paused and looked down at Peng Rui still prostrated pathetically on the floor. "In that time we uncovered that Concubine Peng terminated her own pregnancy to frame the Second Prince." He paused and turned to the King, whose eyes were almost bulging out in disbelief. "She did it under his Majesty's orders."

The look of betrayal on the King's face was almost comical. 

Xiao Zai wanted to ask him what did he expect. 

He'd spent the past two decades twisting Xiao Yuan into a mockery of a man, robbing him of all dignity, humiliating him at every turn, in the hope of driving out any figment of initiative and leaving behind only a puppet he could manipulate from the sidelines -- in the event of his growing unpopularity making it impossible for him to remain on the throne without suffering a coup.

But his father had forgotten that even a starving dog would one day grow desperate enough to bite at the foot that kicked it down. No creature was so wretched that it didn't revolt at its own abuse.

Xiao Zai wasn't sure if he could ever forgive Xiao Yuan. Gu Wei had hinted to him that maybe he should, but Xiao Zai couldn't even entertain the idea.

But perhaps this could mark a sort of understanding between them. Despite everything, Xiao Zai was willing to acknowledge that Xiao Yuan had been as much a victim of his father as himself.

The only person who had never suffered the same humiliations they did, looked down at the scene unravelling in front of her eyes with great consternation. Xiao Ziyi had a thin face, she probably longed to be back in the army barracks, away from the filth and ugliness of the court.

But that simple, straightforward existence had been denied Xiao Zai. He knew the only way he got to live a peaceful life was with the King gone. 

But the King wouldn't admit defeat so easily. He glared at Xiao Yuan, and at the Concubine hugging the first step of the dais. "I had nothing to do with that, anything this woman did she must have done of her own volition." He nodded towards one of the guards. "Take her away to the palace's holding cells for further questioning."

Peng Rui started screaming the moment the guards held her up, struggling to free herself of their hold with no success. She shot a few pleading looks at the King who looked resolutely away.

"I only did what his Majesty asked! I'm not guilty, I'm not guilty." Her pleas echoed through the quiet hall as she was dragged away unceremoniously. 

As soon as the hall's doors closed behind her, the King addressed Xiao Zai with a scowl. "Are we done with this farce now?"

He was trying to preserve his dignity by acting unaffected by what was going on but it was obvious that wasn't enough. Everyone around him looked more and more uneasy, the ministers had the glum expressions of people who had always known it was only a matter of time until something like this happened.

But some officials and judicial clerks looked genuinely horrified.

And they hadn't even heard the biggest revelation yet.

---

Chu Yun took a good look around the room, wondering if they had done enough to have the King deposed. It certainly looked like it.

But it was prudent to ensure the stakes were really hammered down. He was thinking about how to bring up the unrest in the border towns, when he heard the sound of beads clinking.

He looked behind the throne to the Queen Dowager's seat, just as she slid a knotted hand through the threads and pushed them to the side.

The Queen Dowager never showed her face in court, and remained hidden behind the beaded curtain at all times. Both because common people like ministers and officials weren't worthy of seeing her face, but also because of her enduring mourning for her late husband the King.

A deafening silence fell as the Queen Dowager got up from her brocade sofa and walked with great dignity towards the front of the dais, placing her hand over the back of the throne.

"This old widow has wronged the people of Zui for a long time," she said, her voice raspy but sure, and her eyes as clear and alert as if she were still a young girl, "but I beg you please understand, that a mother's heart is a tender thing, always inclined to see the best in her children."