Xing who was admiring the Tians.h.i.+ Emperor in her heart was met with the accusing glare of Consort Shu,"Do you know how blessed you are to be wanted by the G.o.ds?", she asked Xing.
Xing looked at her like she was an innocent lamb who thinks the butcher"s shop is a picnic spot for him, Truly pitiful!
"Your Majesty, I"ll take my leave", she stood up. She didn"t even want to answer her for the sake of the Emperor who she bieved liked her enough to make her Empress.
Xing could feel Consort Shu was very angered but she had no obligations to care for her.
"Mingxia, the envoys we sent were killed by the Earth Kingdom soldiers right at the borders", the Emperor informed her hurriedly.
The Emperor knew she was the one who advised Rijun about trading salt for food products. They made the necessary preparations and this happened. The Emperor wanted to talk to her about it as he is the only one who can talk to her freely for now because she is in the inner palace but decided against it as it would create another rumour.
"So what? Should I go next?",, Xing asked sarcastically and turned to leave. Why should I do anything?
"Do you have no respect for anybody? Do you think of yourself as superior to everyone and everything?", Consort Shu was now mad.
How could she refuse G.o.ds and the Emperor? Who gave her the authority? And even if she is this arrogant, why does the G.o.ds prefer her and not me who is willing to do anything for them? Consort Shu was fuming.
She had been trying to find the G.o.ds and have a good relations.h.i.+p with them right from the childhood like most of her ancestors did, especially women. Women who had pledged themselves to the G.o.ds and spent their entire life serving them. The power and authority they held and their status was higher than that of the Empress. She always wanted to have all that.
Xing turned back and banged the table, "How am I superior to anybody when I cannot be with the one person I want to be with now and had to be in this place that is filled to the brim with spirits? Right now, your Majesty! There is a three year old boy who looks exactly you beside you ", she pointed to the right side of the Emperor and he gasped and looked to his right but he could not see anyone and he suddenly felt cold and scared.
" Consort Shu", Xing continued, "Tell them, I am not even moving my little finger for them until I get my man back! And if they try to play more games with me, then they"ll see what I can actually do! Threatening me to stay here.... That"s how far their threats will work", Xing told in a confident tone bordering on arrogance and her eyes were sharp and focused.
Xing was sure of it, she cannot let them take a mile after she gave an inch! Shengli is her baseline and no one not even the G.o.ds are allowed to touch him.
Even the Emperor was surprised to see her like this and he noticed her expression suddenly mellowing out but her eyes held that deep scrutiny. The Emperor looked in the direction she was looking and saw Eunuch Xin approaching towards them.
This is the second time he had noticed her looking at that Eunuch like that! The Emperor knew something was fishy. But she didn"t mention about Eunuch Xin even to her brother or his brother too. Why? But he realised she didn"t want to stay here any longer.
"Consort Huang", Consort Shu raised her voice but the Emperor stopped her, "Enough, Shu Rouran", he looked at Xing, "Mingxia! You can leave", his tone with Xing was much softer making Consort Shu disappointed.
Xing left them and went back to her courtyard. That night she could not sleep thinking about the spell around the palace. The G.o.ds knew about this and they still wanted her inside, why? Who actually put the spell? What do they want me to do?
But Xing had a feeling that the Tians.h.i.+ Emperor must have got do do something about it and she knew everything about him will be in the Archives of the Imperial Library Tower. Rijun had told her that only the Emperors are allowed in twice a year and they stored personal journals of themselves there.
So Xing decided to pay a visit to this highly guarded, forbidden Library which is said to contain a lot of secrets of the past Emperors.
It is easy to find that Library because it is the one building that has a big tower... Well! For anybody but not Xing, who still gets lost inside her courtyard.
But, Xing is not an ordinary girl! She had recently acquired the skill of..... Floating.... Yes! She could levitate and walk in thin air. She doesn"t have to walk through those tedious pathways to find that big tall tower but she can walk straight to the tower through the air without bothering about other buildings or pathways in the way. She has the shortcut!
So that night after hours, Xing inspired by Shengli, wore white, long, smooth silk robes with long fluttering sleeves and let her hair down with half of her hair held by a single hairpin and got to the roof of her courtyard to get the general idea of the position of that big, tall tower Library.
One has to be comfortably dressed to read properly, right?
The cold autumn wind blew making Xing"s clothes and her golden hair fluttering and if anyone would have seen her face they would have thought of her as a celestial maiden descending on earth.
But no one saw her face!
Xing walked from the roof of one building to another by crossing the s.p.a.ce in between them by walking through thin air. A couple of una.s.suming night duty guards looked at the figure illuminated by the half moon, clad in white and her golden hair fluttering and more importantly the long robes made it look like there were no feet for that figure and....They Fainted.
Well! Xing didn"t know about that! She just wanted to read books! Even if she knew, she"d have mocked them! How can she be compared to a ghost? Where can they find a ghost who just wants to read, right?
So, that day Xing went in through the small window in the tower and entered the forbidden library, to find a lot of books and journals.
There was an old man with long white beard and dragon whiskers moustache. Even his eyebrows were long making Xing want to laugh. But she asked permission to that old librarian and he didn"t mind. Apparently he doesn"t take care of the admittance process but it is his duty to a.s.sist those who are in.
So Xing with the help of a lantern picked up a few journals that belonged to the previous Emperor and sat in a desk that had carved dragons all over and read about him.
Xing had heard somewhere that marrying relatives is not good because most times the children would be twisted or r.e.t.a.r.ded. Well! This one is a perfect example! Too bad she cannot openly state this because then she"ll be executed.
This Emperor, that is the father of the current Emperor had written how fun it was to send away his bedmate who got pregnant because of him away saying she cheated on him. And there were more and more informations more like his own bragging of how immoral he was.
Xing wondered how could this sc.u.m have made someone like the Emperor who is the exact opposite of him! Shengli... , well, she could imagine a lot of things the previous Emperor did being done by Shengli without remorse. But the Emperor.... If Xing could not see blood relations, she"d have declared with certainty that the Emperor is not his father"s son. But well, accidents happen and a Saint can emerge from a sinner.
Xing felt corrupted reading the thoughts of the previous emperor, so she decide to try and find out about Tians.h.i.+ Emperor but realised it was already morning and she left back to her courtyard to rest.
But Xing didn"t knew she had created a big mystery. The mystery of the ghost who is later identified as the ghost of the late Empress Shu who is on a mission to find out her killer responsible for her untimely and unfair death and eliminate his entire nine generations.
But Xing just had a peaceful rest!