The Empress Has No Will to Live - Chapter 3

Chapter 3

When I woke up again and saw the emperor in bright imperial yellow before my eyes, I knew my plan to jump into the river had failed.

My failure to successfully tie myself to an obstacle had greatly reduced the guards’ rescue workload, and their first-aid skills were practically professional. After someone fell into the water, CPR plus mouth-to-mouth seemed to be something carved into the genes of ancient people.

When it came time for mouth-to-mouth, the emperor actually did it himself. Before I even had a chance to struggle, he bit down hard on both my lips and forced a breath into me, as if showing off: I’m going to blow your lungs up.

If I had really drowned and lost all consciousness, that would have been one thing. But now that I hadn’t died, I could only cough up the water in my lungs while wiping the blood from my mouth, my mind filled with thoughts of water that had soaked a corpse. I suffered a massive blow both physically and psychologically.

Seeing that I had awakened, His Majesty immediately stepped back and demanded coldly, “Are you insane?”

This was the second time the emperor had asked me that, with the exact same tone and inflection. I even thought I might as well just admit it.

“How exactly have you been watching over the Empress?” His Majesty, seeing that I wasn’t answering, turned his fury on the young palace maid instead.

As expected of a master at shifting blame. I coughed violently a few times, then shot back at the emperor with righteous indignation, “Why did Your Majesty push me just now?”

The emperor stared at me in disbelief and flung his long sleeve. “You clearly pushed me first, then fell into the river yourself.”

Look at that. He was so anxious he even forgot to use his imperial self-address.

“Then Your Majesty was right beside me. Why didn’t you pull me up?”

“You…” The emperor abruptly stopped speaking. His brows furrowed as he looked back and forth between Noble Consort Yun and me, his gaze full of scrutiny.

“Sometimes, even what you see with your own eyes isn’t the whole truth.” I said it without waiting for anyone to respond, then passed out completely.

Pity this frail body. After suffering a miscarriage, it had been badly weakened by my repeated attempts to court death.

I lay in bed, drifting in and out of consciousness for several days. Sensing my body deteriorate day by day, I could hardly contain the sincere joy welling up inside me. My efforts hadn’t gone to waste. Quantitative change would eventually lead to qualitative change. Perhaps this time, my soul really would return home.

“Her Highness was already at death’s door back then. All the imperial physicians were helpless. Fortunately, Imperial Physician He stayed awake day and night to treat Her Highness and dragged Her Highness back from the gates of hell by sheer force.”

I sat at the head of the bed in excellent spirits, listening to the young palace maid describe everything that had happened with animated enthusiasm, yet I still couldn’t accept reality for a long time.

In this struggle against illness, I had won against my will. The center-part Barbie before me had contributed greatly, saving this body and strangling my beautiful dream.

She was still chattering on excitedly. “Oh, right. We still haven’t told Imperial Physician He that Her Highness has awakened. This servant will invite him over at once to examine Her Highness again…”

After receiving my permission, the Barbie Palace Maid called another fish-eyed palace maid to watch over me, then trotted out.

Imperial Physician He was the elderly imperial physician who had treated me before. So he was the true culprit. When he came later, I was definitely going to thank his ancestors for eight generations.

However, I waited and waited, and in the end, all I got was a palace maid with a deathly pale face. This time, she was genuinely the same shade as Barbie.

She found an excuse to dismiss the palace maids in the room, carefully shut the door, then walked to my bedside and whispered nervously, “This servant reports to Her Highness: the corpse at the bottom of the river has been discovered.”

I wasn’t surprised. I’d sunk that deep at the time. If the guards who saved me hadn’t discovered the body, how nearsighted would they have to be?

“I heard Imperial Physician He-oh no, the man impersonating Imperial Physician He-has already been thrown into the Imperial Prison for interrogation.” The palace maid twisted her fingers and paced back and forth.

Her words struck like a bolt of thunder. That corpse was actually Imperial Physician He! In other words, the person who had treated me before and saved my life several times was the Fake Imperial Physician?

No wonder the palace maid was this panicked. This was the equivalent of getting into a taxi and riding a long way out before realizing the driver was not only a criminal suspect but also driving without a license.

“Don’t be scared. I’m perfectly fine, aren’t I?” I comforted the palace maid out loud, but in my heart, I was extremely dejected. Although the Fake Imperial Physician had no real status, there was no questioning his medical skill. If it had been the real Imperial Physician He instead, maybe he would have treated me to death.

Alas. All I could say was that my luck was terrible.

The palace maid soon calmed down as well. “This servant will go replace the Soul-Calming Incense.”

The incense burning in the room now was the Soul-Calming Incense the Fake Imperial Physician had sent over that day. Since there was something wrong with his identity, this incense was probably unsafe too. But wasn’t that exactly what I wanted?

“No need. I quite like the scent. Leave it.” If it really was some kind of slow-acting poison, it could still send me on my way smoothly.

I thought this matter was just a minor interlude, and that any conspiracy theories had nothing to do with me. But a few days later, when the palace maid gleefully told me the follow-up, it actually did involve me.

“The Fake Imperial Physician confessed. He said he was only a wandering doctor, and he accused Noble Consort Yun of bribing him at a high price to impersonate Imperial Physician He and murder the Empress and the imperial heir. Noble Consort Yun has now been sent to the Cold Palace. Her Highness has succeeded!”

“…” Everything had happened so quickly. It was like watching only the first three episodes of a palace intrigue drama, then waking up after a nap to find it was already almost the finale.

“Did Noble Consort Yun admit it?” I had no fondness for that green-tea Noble Consort, but we couldn’t just let a villain say whatever he wanted and call it truth, could we?

The palace maid tilted her head, looking extremely pleased with herself. “That man hid all the evidence of his secret dealings with Noble Consort Yun in the prescriptions he wrote for Noble Consort Yun. Everything was just as Her Highness expected.”

My head buzzed. I couldn’t quite hear what came after. Because I knew too little, countless questions flooded my mind.

For example: Why would Noble Consort Yun take such a risk, going so far as to kill an imperial physician and find a wandering doctor to impersonate him?

Why had the Fake Imperial Physician acted so familiar with the original owner of this body?

And most importantly, why had he not only refrained from killing me despite so many opportunities, but even tried every possible way to treat me?

“Where is the Fake Imperial Physician now? What sentence has he received?”

The palace maid froze for a moment. “In the Imperial Prison. He will be beheaded in public at noon tomorrow.” She paused, then asked quietly, “Does Her Highness intend to…?”

“Mm. Just going to take a look.”

I didn’t actually have to uncover the truth. After all, this was the original owner’s life. No matter what ending I continued for her, it would be meaningless to her.

But I couldn’t understand it. How could some people look left and right even when committing suicide, timid and afraid of causing trouble for others, while others could carry three lives on their backs, their hands stained with blood, yet still laugh and chat and live with a clear conscience?

The Imperial Prison occupied a secluded corner on the outer edge of the palace. According to the palace maid, the tangled, scattered courtyards directly across from the Imperial Prison were the Cold Palace. Whether that was an ancient tradition or the emperor’s twisted sense of humor, I had no idea.

I’d seen plenty of Imperial Prisons in period dramas, but I never thought I’d set foot in one myself. The moment the heavy iron doors were pushed open, the stench of rust mixed with something raw and foul rushed into my face.

It was dark and damp inside. A torch hung before every cell door, the wavering flames casting great swaths of blackish red across the floor.

When I realized what it was, my stomach started churning again.

That rusty smell was blood. The dampness was blood evaporating into the air. Layer upon layer of blood had been laid over one another; some had dried in the wind, while some was still flowing. Together, they wove that black-red carpet across the ground.

I regretted coming. The sticky sensation under my feet sent goosebumps crawling up my skin in waves, and all I wanted was to flee this place at once.

The palace maid beside me tightened her grip on my arm. “Her Highness, why don’t we go back? You’ve only just started recovering. A place like this really isn’t suitable for you.”

I was just about to nod when I suddenly met a pair of dark, bright eyes.

They were very peculiar eyes. Deep-set, half-lidded, with pupils so black they seemed to take in everything around them without reflecting a single glimmer of light. It was as though he had been born with a gaze full of compassion for all living things, quietly observing the world and everything in it.

The strangest part was how completely out of place those eyes were with the rest of his face.

The man was all skin and bones, his complexion sickly pale, his lips an almost bewitching red. For a man, he was far too delicate, making me involuntarily think of those sickly beauties from television dramas.

After he saw me, the corners of his mouth lifted in a bright curve, yet his eyes remained as calm as the sea, without the slightest trace of a smile. So this was probably what people meant by smiling with the mouth but not the eyes.

“It seems your body is no longer in any danger.” His light, cheerful tone sounded terribly out of place in the Imperial Prison, where screams and groans echoed all around us.

Although I had already guessed as much, confirming that he was the man who had impersonated Imperial Physician He still made me marvel. Ancient disguise techniques were apparently a whole dimensional-foil level beyond modern plastic surgery.

I walked up to him, at a loss for what to say.

“To what do I owe the Empress’s esteemed visit?” The familiarity and ease in his words made it sound as if I had come to his house for tea, not to visit him in prison.

After thinking for a long time, I asked a very stupid question. “Was it you who killed Imperial Physician He and the fetus?”

He froze for a moment, then burst out laughing.

I also felt that question deserved to be laughed at. Why had I asked it like that? Did I subconsciously think he didn’t look like a murderer? Mm, but judging by those eyes, he really didn’t.

“It’s all in the confession. If Her Highness is interested, you may go take a look,” the man said with a teasing smile.

“Why didn’t you kill me?” If you took Noble Consort Yun’s money, then you should have done your job and come take my life. Where was your contractual spirit?

“Is Her Highness truly so deeply in love with His Majesty that you would rather sacrifice yourself than let him suffer even the slightest harm?” the man asked in return, staring straight at me.

Although every part of me was desperately denying this whole deeply-in-love business, he had said “sacrifice.”

Anyway, whether I carried one blame or two, I was still carrying blame.

Without the slightest hesitation, I nodded and declared with deep feeling, “If you wish to harm His Majesty, you will have to step over my corpse first!”

That hint was obvious enough, right? Whether this man was targeting Noble Consort Yun or the emperor, killing me first was clearly the optimal solution.

A flicker of surprise crossed the man’s face. He looked me up and down, his pitch-black, profound eyes like an X-ray machine, as though they could pierce straight through my skin and see what lay beneath.

“Heh.” The man let out a soft laugh. “It seems I underestimated you.”

I stared at him in utter confusion, then forced myself to keep going. “That’s right. You must never underestimate me. As long as I live, I will never let you have your way.”

So hurry up and find a chance to kill me. With your medical skills that can practically bring the dead back to life, any random poison should be enough to take me out.

This was my one chance. I deliberately walked very close to the iron bars to make it easier for him to strike.

But he merely leaned motionless against the base of the wall, his smile growing increasingly tragic. “Even if this commoner possessed heaven-defying abilities, I would never dare harm His Majesty. I was merely blinded by Noble Consort Yun and committed a grave mistake. I beg Her Highness to plead for me before His Majesty and grant me a cup of poisoned wine, so that this commoner may at least keep his corpse intact.”

“In your dreams,” I rejected him mercilessly.

I couldn’t even get a beheading, and here he was, on the brink of death, still trying to haggle. Comparisons really were infuriating.

The man said nothing more. He seemed badly injured, and his eyes lowered as he grew drowsy.

The young palace maid had been standing off to the side the whole time, keeping watch for me. Now she ran over nervously. “Her Highness, let’s go back. The guards are about to change shifts.”

“Mm, let’s go.” No point arguing with a dying man.

Just as I was about to leave, I looked back at him from afar. Those eyes still radiated a pure emptiness, as if he should not have been in the Imperial Prison at all, but sitting cross-legged in a Buddhist temple.

“What’s his name?” I asked the leading guard.

The moment I asked, even I wanted to laugh at myself. I didn’t even know the name of the body I was currently borrowing, yet here I was caring about the name of a death-row prisoner.

Immediately after, I heard the guard answer respectfully, “Replying to Her Highness, he calls himself Yin Jiu.”

My footsteps came to an abrupt halt, and a sense of stunned absurdity welled up inside me.

Well, wasn’t that a coincidence? This man, who had the exact same name as me, was going to die tomorrow. As for me, I both despised him and pitied him, and in the end, all I had left was envy.

“Someone, hurry! The Cold Palace is on fire!”

A shrill scream rang out. Not far away, wisps of white smoke curled up over the courtyard.

I turned to the guard with a grave expression. “Do me a favor.”

The guard had been about to go put out the fire, but at my words, he stopped and waited for my order.

I pointed at the Barbie Palace Maid beside me. “Knock her out. Quickly!”

As expected of a palace guard, his execution was first-rate. Before my words had even fully landed, his palm chopped down on the back of the palace maid’s neck. The maid didn’t even have time to react before she passed out.

I hurriedly caught the collapsing palace maid and, taking advantage of the motion, shoved her toward the guard. “Take her back to Xian’an Palace immediately. Then pretend you don’t know anything. If anything happens, I’ll take responsibility.” Xian’an Palace should be far enough from here, right? I hoped the emperor wouldn’t take his anger out on the two of them.

After tossing out that string of instructions, I ignored the guard’s attempts to stop me, kicked off my embroidered stilt shoes, and sprinted toward the smoke at the speed of a hundred-meter dash.

Perishing in a sea of flames counted as a perfect ending. If I could save someone along the way, I would be so happy I could go straight into the grave.

Even someone as mediocre as me could earn glory in life and after death, as long as I died for the right cause.