Your Majesty is Poisonous – Chapter 20
by Little PandaThe Empress Dowager is Terrifying
Thump! Something slammed into Yao Xi’s rear, and she stumbled forward, nearly falling flat on her face.
“Aiya! You should watch where you’re going! The things in this chest belong to our Beauty Yu. If they’re broken, you couldn’t afford to repay it with your life,” the young palace maid squawked, seizing the initiative by blaming Yao Xi first. She pointed at the chest on the ground and wouldn’t stop jabbering.
Yao Xi had been standing by the door waiting for Hanqiu and hadn’t moved an inch. Who had bumped into whom, exactly? And looking at the palace maid’s awkwardly theatrical expression… What, does running a frame-up scam1 not require any acting skills these days?
“Palace Maid-jiejie, please look carefully. I’ve been standing here by the wall the whole time without moving. The path is so wide. If you hadn’t insisted on bumping into me, how could we possibly have run into each other?” Yao Xi recalled how the young palace maid had just asked for her help carrying the chest, and it suddenly dawned on her. She was being extorted! The fatal part was that there were two of them; they could act as false witnesses for each other. The person at the gate of Concubine Li’s palace had already gone inside to fetch Hanqiu for her, so there was no fourth person present.
As expected. She wouldn’t be able to clear her name even if she jumped into the Yellow River.2
“Nonsense. You were clearly walking in the middle of the path and got knocked into the corner by the chest,” the maid called Qin’er chimed in.
“Ah! This jiejie saw it clearly. It was the chest that hit me, right? It’s fine, I’m not hurt. You two jiejie should get back to your business.” Yao Xi seized the loophole in the maid’s words and neatly absolved herself of the matter. Although she had never served in the inner palace, she had a general impression of the various consorts and ladies from hearsay.
How to evaluate this Beauty Yu… In short, she was a much, much, much, much, much weaker version of the Empress Dowager. This “weaker,” of course, referred to her power, not her temper. In any case, her reputation wasn’t very good. A truly good master was one who had a good reputation among the servants. There was one called Noble Lady Lan, for example; Yao Xi had heard many people talk about how good she was, but unfortunately, it seemed she had been sent to the Cold Palace for some reason.
Noble Lady Lan’s case also proved that in the palace, good people didn’t necessarily have good endings.
As the saying goes: good people don’t live long, while a scourge lasts a thousand years. Yao Xi felt this saying was truly accurate. Just look at the Empress Dowager—so much trouble had occurred in Ning’an Palace, yet she hadn’t lost a single strand of hair.
“It’s useless for you to argue. The two of us saw it with our own four eyes. You’re the one who bumped into the chest.” The two palace maids were relentless. The smaller one spoke again, “Qin’er-jiejie, let’s not waste our breath on him. I’ll go tell the Beauty right now. This eunuch broke the Beauty’s things and is trying to deny it. You grab him and don’t let him run away.”
Those words served as a reminder to Yao Xi. Staying here would get her nowhere. Running first was the best policy!
She had only taken two steps before the maid named Qin’er dragged her back. It was all the fault of this useless, injured leg! If her legs were in good shape, she could run ten kilometers in one go.
“I knew you’d try to run. You think you can escape from the gates of our Yixiu Palace?” Seeing that the eunuch was a cripple, Qin’er felt a trace of guilt. This person was a pitiful one; of his three legs, two were crippled.3 But if no one took the blame, she would have to suffer Beauty Yu’s punishment. Beauty Yu’s punishments were severe; if you didn’t die, you’d be paralyzed for several months. Qin’er could only harden her heart and see the extortion through to the end.
Yao Xi stared at the palace maid and demanded, “You and I both know what’s really going on. Doesn’t your conscience hurt for framing an innocent person?”
Qin’er glanced at the entrance of Yixiu Palace and, seeing no one coming out, said, “It hurts. It’s like my heart is being cut by a knife. But it’s much better than being beaten until my skin splits open and my flesh bursts, and losing my life to the Yellow Springs,4 wouldn’t you agree, gonggong?”
When Beauty Yu heard that the Son-granting Fortune Pagoda she had gone to such trouble to invite into the palace had been broken by a passing little eunuch, she stormed out in a fury. She was counting on this pagoda to conceive an imperial heir. The pagoda being destroyed was an inauspicious omen! Beauty Yu’s expression was as despairing as if an imperial physician had just told her that her monthly bleeding had stopped for good.
Seeing Beauty Yu emerge surrounded by her attendants, Qin’er quickly dragged Yao Xi over. “Reporting to Master, this is the slave who did it.”
Without distinguishing right from wrong,5 Beauty Yu strode forward and gave Yao Xi a slap across the face. “You blind thing! Do you have any idea what you hit?” Beauty Yu wanted to kill this dog slave. This slave hadn’t just knocked over a stone pagoda, but the little imperial prince who had not yet been reincarnated as her son!
A buzzing sound rang in Yao Xi’s struck ear, and her face burned with a fiery pain.
Wan Bi hadn’t slept well last night.
She had amused herself with that little castrated donkey for two nights in a row, and suddenly having nothing to do left her feeling a bit lonely.
Fortunately, Zhu Xiangchang, the Zai County Magistrate, and some others involved in the Zai County dock affair had sent the silver over before dawn and were waiting outside the palace. As soon as the palace gates opened, Zhu Xiangchang personally cleared the way for the carriages to transport the goods into the palace. However, the inner palace was a restricted area, and outside men were forbidden from entering without a decree. Zhu Xiangchang could only stop the carriages at Shangde Gate, which was adjacent to Ning’an Palace, and wait for someone from Ning’an Palace to receive them.
Wan Bi had taken her people to the top of Shangde Gate’s wall early in the morning, just to see what kind of expression Lord State Uncle would have after losing three million taels. Wan Bi arrived early and personally watched as the carriages slowly approached Shangde Gate, one after another. Lord State Uncle stepped down from the first carriage and explained something to the people from Ning’an Palace, his face an indescribable shade of ugly.
“Take the State Uncle’s three million taels to the Emperor. Bring the remaining one million-plus taels back to Ning’an Palace,” Wan Bi commanded from the wall, waving down at Zhu Xiangchang below. When Zhu Xiangchang looked up and saw Wan Bi waving at him, he could only force a smile and bow in salute. Only after Wan Bi turned and left the wall, flushed with success, did Zhu Xiangchang dare to get back into his carriage and head back.
Rarely in such a good mood, Wan Bi was struck with the urge to tour the gardens. She wanted to enjoy the spring scenery while her spirits were high and was in no hurry to return to Ning’an Palace. There was nothing to do back there anyway. She wasn’t a miser and had little interest in the million-plus taels of silver being sent back to Ning’an Palace. But she couldn’t give all the silver to the Emperor at once. She would first deposit it into her private treasury. Later, when the Emperor encountered difficulties, she could take out this sum of money, and the Emperor would owe her two favors. If she handed over all the silver today, he would only owe her one.
Not a good deal.
As Wan Bi was strolling idly, a familiar voice drifted into her ears from a distance. “This matter has nothing to do with this slave. Whether Beauty Yu believes it or not, that is the truth.”
Wasn’t that aggrieved voice none other than that little castrated donkey, Yao Xi?
Judging by the little donkey’s words, he had offended Beauty Yu?
Wan Bi couldn’t help but laugh out loud. She knew it. With that little castrated donkey’s reckless nature, it was only a matter of time before he got himself into trouble.
Wan Bi rarely bothered with palace affairs, whether it was masters punishing servants or consorts fighting amongst themselves.
But today, she suddenly felt like getting involved.
She had found Beauty Yu displeasing for a long time but had always been too lazy to deal with her. For one, the Emperor liked her. For another, Beauty Yu and the Empress were as incompatible as water and fire, and Wan Bi enjoyed watching the drama from the sidelines.
“Let’s go. We’ll take a look.” Wan Bi smiled and walked toward the commotion. As she walked, she said to Yuanqian, “This bereaved one feels it’s about time Our Emperor found a better woman to dote on.”
The author has something to say:
Alright, Eunuch Yao’s days of suffering end here.
Tomorrow it will be VIP access, with three chapters combined into one, so there won’t be a second update! Thank you all for your support~ Bows, scatters flowers, mwah mwah (=ˇωˇ=)
Footnotes
- “To touch porcelain” (pengci) is modern slang for staging a fake accident to frame someone and extort them for compensation.
- An idiom for being hopelessly incriminated. The Yellow River is famously laden with silt, so jumping in would only make one dirtier.
- A cruel joke. The ‘third leg’ is a common euphemism for the penis. The maid is thinking that Yao Xi is doubly crippled—in his leg and in his manhood.
- The Yellow Springs (Huangquan) is the mythical Chinese underworld. To ‘lose one’s life to the Yellow Springs’ is an idiom for dying.
- The original idiom is ‘not distinguishing blue, red, soap, and white’ (不分青红皂白), meaning to act indiscriminately without determining the facts of a situation.
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