Chapter 1578: I Won't Kill You—I'm Just Passing By, Curious to Take a Look

"How long must we endure?" Eunuch Shen was irritable and aggrieved, seething with pent-up fury.

Consort Jing said angrily, "What can we do but endure? Even Noble Consort Xiao and her four sons are enduring. Don't tell me you think I have more cards to play than Noble Consort Xiao and her sons. Xiao Xiao Changsheng has been thrown into the imperial prison, and the three Prince Ning brothers don't dare to make a peep—they're all behaving themselves and keeping their heads down. If not for the people at Zhengshitang holding them back, the three Prince Ning brothers would have already been stripped of their titles and reduced to commoners, or even exiled to Xizhou. We're only being given a hard time—be grateful!"

She rubbed her brow, equally seething, her heart unbearably restless.

"Being alive is already a blessing. Don't ask for too much! If not for me shielding you, you'd have been beaten to death by now!"

Eunuch Shen went deathly pale, as though recalling certain scenes that made his blood run cold, and gave a full-body shudder.

He drew a deep breath. "I only worry that if we keep enduring like this, in the end we'll just lose our heads."

"We won't." Consort Jing denied it instinctively, though in truth her own heart was drumming with uncertainty. But she couldn't panic alongside her brother; she couldn't let that breath of resolve escape.

She was now the backbone of the Wang Fu, the stabilizing anchor for everyone.

If she panicked and lost that breath of resolve, the Wang Fu would truly be finished, and the children likely wouldn't live to grow up.

She drew a deep breath and said with ringing conviction, "With the late Emperor's final edict, the Emperor absolutely will not execute us mother and son. He still has his pride!"

She was cheering everyone on—was she not also cheering herself on, building up her own confidence?

In just these few short days, she had been utterly exhausted. Her advantage was her youth; her beauty had not diminished in the slightest, and had even gained a certain fragile quality, making her all the more captivating.

"Just because he wants his face now doesn't mean he'll still care about it five or ten years from now. When the late Emperor executed Prince Jin, it only took about two years."

"Stop talking! What do you want me to do? Panic alongside you day after day with no end in sight? Apart from passively accepting, what can we do? Do you think you're Prince Ning? Prince Ning still has a chance to strike back. We have nothing but a single edict."

Consort Jing was thoroughly annoyed with her brother—always complaining, always pouring out grievances. All he ever did was make trouble for her.

What she needed were solutions, not complaints.

Eunuch Shen was stunned for a moment, then sighed. "Enough! Saying all this won't change anything. You're right—apart from enduring, we can do nothing. We can't even build the Wang Fu; we can only watch helplessly as the Wang Fu stays a mess."

"Arrange for a wall to be built, to separate the two sides. Out of sight, out of mind!" Consort Jing said through gritted teeth. "I'll allocate five hundred taels to you—can you get it done?"

"Five hundred taels is enough. Don't go through the Ministry of Works—hire craftsmen from outside, buy bricks and stone from outside. Won't even need five hundred taels."

Consort Jing immediately gave him the tally, instructing him to withdraw five hundred taels of silver from the accounts office to build the wall, splitting the Wang Fu into two halves. So she wouldn't have to look at the stalled construction site every day and grow restless and furious.

The room fell quiet. Consort Jing sat in her chair without moving, too listless to even flip through the account books. Her heart was heavy with worry!

She poured herself a cup of wine, to drown her sorrows.

Chen Chen Guanlou stepped out from the shadows.

"Who are you?"

Consort Jing watched a stranger appear in the room, not flustered in the slightest, and even took the time to finish the wine in her cup.

"Are you an assassin sent by the Emperor to kill us mother and son?" Consort Jing asked very calmly. "If you've come to kill us mother and son, could you let us die together? The child is too young, can't be parted from his mother. I have a few pieces of jewelry here, worth quite a lot of money—should be enough for your trouble. What do you say?"

This performance was worthy of a former favored consort who had seen the great world.

Chen Chen Guanlou stared at her and, going along with her words, asked, "Aren't you afraid?"

Consort Jing lowered her head and laughed, laughing out loud.

"From the day the late Emperor passed, I had already prepared myself to be poisoned to death. Too many people want me dead—the Emperor is certainly one of them, and Empress Dowager Sun won't let me off either. Die early, die late, it's all death, it doesn't matter. Scratching out a living until now has been exhausting; dying wouldn't be bad either. How will you do it? A white silk cord, poisoned wine, or a direct stab? I suggest the white silk—no blood, and the scene looks nicer."

Consort Jing spoke as though discussing someone else's business, showing not a trace of panic, and was even in the mood to discuss and suggest which method of death would be more presentable.

This kind of mental fortitude surpassed ninety-nine percent of convicted officials.

That lot of convicted officials talked a good game—said they weren't afraid of death, what was there to fear from dying. But the moment they actually reached the execution ground, each one was more pathetic than the last. Far inferior to Consort Jing's calm, self-possessed, and serene composure in facing life and death.

"Truly not afraid of death?" Chen Chen Guanlou was quite impressed, and also curious how a woman could face life and death with such composure.

Consort Jing smiled—a smile full of self-satisfaction, and radiant.

She said in a calm tone, "If you've come to kill me, you should have looked into my background. I came from the Jiaofang Si. I fought my way out of that place—how could I possibly fear death? If I feared death, I would never have survived until today, let alone climbed onto the late Emperor's dragon couch. Do you know what price I paid just to meet the late Emperor?

I told those people long ago: just let me see the Emperor, and I will never go back to the Jiaofang Si. I did it! I changed my own fate, and I changed my children's fate.

If I were still in the Jiaofang Si, when my child was born—a girl would be a slave, a servant, a concubine; a boy would inevitably be castrated and sent into the palace as a eunuch, just like my brother.

But look at things now. My child is honored as a first-rank Prince of the Blood, enjoying the court's stipend. I can't guarantee anything else, but a lifetime of wealth and honor I can guarantee. He can grow up normally, marry, have children. The Shen family, because of my one gamble, has shed its slave status forever and from now on can attend school, take the examinations, sit for the imperial exams, even become an official. I've already achieved my original goal—so what is there to fear in dying now?"

Chen Chen Guanlou asked, without a flicker of expression, "If your son dies, everything is lost—aren't you afraid?"

Consort Jing shook her head. "Not afraid! Even if we mother and son die, we'll be buried with the status of a Tai Fei and a Prince! That's far better than being a slave girl from the Jiaofang Si thrown into a mass grave. After death, we'll have people burning incense and making offerings year after year—what more could one ask for?"

After speaking, Consort Jing gave a self-mocking smile.

"The only thing that doesn't satisfy is that the time was a bit short. Another three to five years would have been even better!"

She sighed.

The child was still a nursing baby, hadn't properly seen this world yet, hadn't begun to enjoy life, and was about to die—to say there was no regret would be a lie.

She hoped the child could live.

Yet she knew very well: once she died, the child certainly couldn't survive.

She was the child's mother, and even more the child's armor, the wall that held back the enemies.

Once the wall collapses, a little nursing baby—no need for any targeted attack, just a cold-water bath would do the job.

Sigh!

"I'm not here to kill you!" Chen Chen Guanlou spoke up.

Consort Jing's face was full of confusion—disbelief, incomprehension!

"I'm not an assassin." Chen Chen Guanlou said with a smile. "I was just curious, passing by, and came in to take a look."