Chapter 892: Relief

The Empress Dowager's face changed drastically; she reached out and struck at Pan Yun, but Pan Yun stood up straight in a flash, and the Empress Dowager tumbled to the ground in a sorry heap.

Pan Yun looked down at her from above, watching coldly.

The Empress Dowager's eyes were blood-red; she ground her teeth and said, "You're gloating, what are you gloating about? My son didn't like you. The Prince of Cheng who liked you became Emperor and made you National Preceptor?"

Pan Yun said, "The late Emperor's misfortune is the grief of all Great Ming, but the Empress Dowager should be grateful for the late Emperor's misfortune—otherwise, how many acts damaging to Great Ming would he have committed? The Zhu family's proud backbone, the spine of our Great Ming, would all have been destroyed by his hand!"

Pan Yun laid bare the question the Empress Dowager had always evaded, tearing away the fig leaf she had been holding up; unable to accept it all at once, she shook her head with a crazed look: "How dare you! You dare to slander the late Emperor!"

Seeing no composure in her eyes—only madness—Pan Yun knew arguing with her at this moment was useless, and simply said outright: "Empress Dowager, the reason the late Emperor received the posthumous title of Ying Sect is that the new Emperor, in his name, abolished the burial sacrifice system. From now on, no one in the Han palace will be buried alive. If you want the late Emperor to be cursed for ten thousand generations, with not a single meritorious deed to his name in his whole life, then go ahead and kill!"

Empress Dowager Sun let out two "heh-heh" sounds, her fingers gripping the stone slab tightly, nails scraping along the cracks, blood dripping ceaselessly from her fingertips.

Pan Yun watched with an expressionless face.

"Wait a moment…" Empress Dowager Sun called out to her in a hoarse voice, asking: "Then what happened?"

Pan Yun paused her steps, turned her head slightly to look back at her, saw her sprawled on the ground, lowered her eyes to think for a moment, then said: "He didn't have time to say anything, yet he had already laid out a net of heaven and earth. We couldn't take him with us. He, he was unwilling to implicate us, and kept urging us to leave. The reason we made it out alive was entirely because the late Emperor shielded us with his own body."

The Empress Dowager let out a laugh, yet her tears smashed down onto the stone slab in great drops.

She had long since read those reports; she had even met separately with the scouts and the Brocaded Guards.

She had long known what happened that day.

She understood her own son; combined with what he had done since being captured, the Empress Dowager knew that his refusal to leave was because he felt he could not escape alive;

He had truly wanted Pan Yun and the others to leave alive; and Pan Yun and the others had also been truly willing to die in battle for Zhu Qizhen;

Unfortunately, they had wanted to fight to the death on the battlefield with the Emperor, but the Emperor was unwilling; and in the end, he died a wronged death on the battlefield, but not in combat.

Rather, he met with misfortune, met with misfortune…

The Empress Dowager thought of how she had retreated again and again for the sake of his posthumous reputation, until in the end she couldn't even send a single attendant to attend him, and suddenly burst into anguished weeping.

After a long pause, Pan Yun still turned back, crouched before the Empress Dowager, and softly comforted her by her ear: "Your Highness, you should be grateful. Every person who has died, once they reach the netherworld, is equal. All settle their debts of blood and grievances."

Empress Dowager Sun raised her tear-streaked face, looking at her in blank bewilderment.

Pan Yun gently wiped the tears from her face, and said softly: "Your Highness, you don't think that after death this servant is still a servant, and an emperor who died is still an emperor, do you? All beings are equal; in life and in death, nothing is more equal. You should be grateful—after the other several emperors died and came to their senses, what faced them were countless vengeful ghosts. Only the late Emperor had no vengeful ghosts sleeping at his side; he is at peace."

Empress Dowager Sun shivered three times in succession, looking at Pan Yun with a face full of terror.

Pan Yun gave her a slight smile; seeing that she truly had stopped crying, she stood up contentedly.

Indeed, her comfort had been effective after all.

The moment Pan Yun left, Empress Dowager Sun looked at the old female official who had fallen to the ground and was staring at her in terror; she no longer even had the courage to silence her.

If after death people truly become equal in the netherworld, wouldn't that mean these vengeful ghosts would be waiting for her underground all along? Seeing Miao Zhen was still on the rooftop observing the stars, just finishing recording tonight's stargazing insights in her notebook, when she lowered her head and saw her little martial-aunt returning with a delighted look, she asked: "Is there some happy news?"

Pan Yun: "I just finished comforting Her Highness the Empress Dowager."

Pan Xiaohei, who knew the entire process, slipped in soundlessly behind her; hearing this, she rolled her eyes: "Was that comfort? Clearly it was intimidation."

Deep within the palace, Zhang Zijin, who had kept his eyes closed all along, also gave a snort of laughter, and raised his hand to sweep the letters off the table.

Over a dozen letters fell; just as they were about to hit the ground, they ignited without fire, tongues of flame rolling upward, burning the dozen-plus letters to ash.

Zhang Zijin watched in silence; after a long while, he closed his eyes again and resumed cultivating.

Young people are fine, just too righteous, too fiery.

And Pan Yun had also thought it through; pulling Seeing Miao Zhen back inside to rest, she said: "I'll squeeze you into the Imperial Astronomical Bureau some other day. The things on the observation platform are yours to use as you like—no more staying up every night straining your naked eyes to watch the stars."

Seeing Miao Zhen was startled: "Aren't we going back to Mount Sanqing?"

"We're not going back," Pan Yun said: "Let Second Senior Martial Brother go back. You all stay."

After this whole trip, Pan Yun had finally come to terms with it. Since avoidance was impossible, she might as well keep the people right under her own eyes—save as many as she could.

Seeing Miao Zhen didn't know the inside story, but seeing that her little martial-aunt was happier and more at ease than in recent days, she happily agreed.

And as for Empress Dowager Sun, whether it was comfort or intimidation, the effect was still very good.

The next day, Pan Yun sent Pan Xiaohei to check on Sui Shu, and learned she was fine.

The Empress Dowager had rewarded her with a pile of miscellaneous things, and also had the imperial physician treat her. To prevent her from dying of fear or committing suicide, the Empress Dowager also had the old female official hint to Sui Shu that once the late Emperor was interred, she would find an excuse to release her from the palace.

Sui Shu was already thirty-two. In Great Ming, palace maids who aged were generally sent to the Laundry Bureau or the Pure Joy Hall to do hard labor like washing and sweeping; only maids who had especially won their master's favor would be released from the palace under pretexts such as marriage or being gifted away;

Beyond that, only a special imperial edict could possibly get one out of the palace.

Sui Shu had never imagined that in this lifetime she could still leave the palace.

Whether the Empress Dowager's promise was true or false, or another form of silencing her or burying her alive, she was willing to try.

She had entered the palace at twelve, and had been inside for twenty years; she had personally witnessed three great burial sacrifices, and this was the fourth.

Each one had left a deep impression on her. Among them were the senior maids who had mentored her, her once-close sworn sisters, and even someone she had taken quite a fancy to.

They had all, because of a single glance from those above, been recorded in the registers and quietly lost their lives.

After death, imperial favors would be bestowed upon the family members who had sold them into the palace, and then they became a handful of earth—besides her, no one remembered them anymore.

And as the years passed, she found that she too was gradually forgetting them.

She was deeply uneasy—how could she forget them?

In the future, would there still be many more people who would quietly die in this imperial palace, remembered by no one?

Based on this, when she detected that Empress Qian had the will to die, she had boldly stepped forward to stop her.

She knew Empress Qian was a good person; if her death would prevent the abolition of the burial sacrifice system and in the future cause the deaths of many people, she certainly would not have died.

Sure enough, Empress Qian did not die.

Sui Shu quietly waited two days. After the new Emperor ascended the throne, he issued an edict to arrange the late Emperor's funeral, suspending court for three days to keep vigil for the Emperor, requiring all civil and military officials to enter the palace to mourn.

Sui Shu waited until the late Emperor was about to be interred before finding a chance to seek out Pan Yun.

She had come to thank Pan Yun, but Pan Yun only glanced at her, then said toward the screen behind her: "Your Majesty, I was just saying we needed to find someone with spiritual sensibility to hold the incense for you—hasn't that person just arrived?"