When the Malicious Imperial Consort Decides to Slack Off - Chapter 3

Chapter 3

The moment those words were spoken, Ziyuan cut in before I could say anything.

“Crown Prince, please don’t be angry. Tell me what you would like to eat, and this servant will make it for you. The Noble Consort may be sharp-tongued, but her heart is soft.”

After being comforted like that, the Little Crown Prince recovered a little of his nerve. He turned his face away and refused to look at me, silently protesting my evil deeds.

The scene remained deadlocked for a while.

When Ziyuan saw that I still had no intention of speaking, she gently tugged at my sleeve and shot me a look, signaling for me to coax the Little Crown Prince.

Me: “…”

I stared at the boy before me, his little face drawn tight. Unbidden, the events in the book flashed through my mind-how I had bent over backward to please him, only to end up despised by him in the end. For a moment, I felt numb.

In the book, shouldn’t Yuan Chenxi have given a cold snort and swept off with a flick of his sleeves by now? Why was he standing here throwing a child’s stubborn tantrum at me?

But that was none of my concern.

I turned away. “Go ahead and complain, then. I’m not the one going hungry, and I’m not the one who burned down the kitchen.”

Besides, my father was the Chief Minister, and my brother was a general. What did I have to be afraid of?

It wasn’t time for the Wang Family to fall just yet.

Little Crown Prince: “…”

He had probably never expected me to be this impossible to reason with. He froze, his ash-smudged little face looking somewhat blank. It took him a long while to come back to his senses. Then he gave me a long, hard look and forced out through gritted teeth, “Fine. If I have to make it myself, then I will! I will have to trouble the Noble Consort to offer me some guidance!”

The moment he said that, I was not the only one stunned. Even Ziyuan’s eyes went wide, to say nothing of the eunuchs and palace maids around us, who had been trying very hard to pretend they had seen and heard nothing.

And so, in just one night, the news spread throughout the entire imperial palace.

Everyone knew that on the Crown Prince’s very first night in Changchun Palace, he had been forced to cook his own dinner.

That was not the most important part.

The most important part was that the Crown Prince had not gone crying to His Majesty about it. He had actually accepted it obediently!

After that, the consorts who came to pay their respects to me each behaved better than the last. The contempt was gone from their faces, though most of their eyes still glittered with schadenfreude.

“Who would have thought the Noble Consort had such methods?”

“Isn’t that the truth? But if this reaches His Majesty’s ears, who knows how he will punish her? This is the Empress’s legitimate son. How could she be allowed to torment him like that?”

“…”

Yet no matter how they whispered and gossiped, the gifts sent to Changchun Palace only increased.

“Noble Consort, that move of yours was brilliant. The Crown Prince is still a child, after all. A little goading was all it took,” Ziyuan said with a smile as she poured tea for me.

At the entrance, chest after chest of gifts was being carried in, all sent by consorts trying to get on my good side.

But…

I really hadn’t planned any of this.

I took a sip of tea to calm my nerves. Considering how deeply the Emperor loved the Empress, he probably would not find out that I was treating his son badly anytime soon, right?

Right.

Only then did something suddenly occur to me.

The premise of “killing with kindness” was the “kindness” part. In other words, I had to treat the Little Crown Prince very well.

But even after doing that, I still ended up banished to the cold palace.

Now that I was not even bothering with that bit of surface-level effort, wouldn’t my banishment to the cold palace be put on the agenda ahead of schedule?

With that thought in mind, I turned back and gave the order. “Ziyuan, have the Crown Prince move out tonight.”

I could not afford to raise such a precious ancestor, but I could certainly send him away.

What I did not expect was that as soon as I finished speaking, two figures-one tall and one short-appeared at the entrance and strolled in. At the same time, a eunuch’s announcement rang out:

“His Majesty arrives-”

I looked up and saw the little brat cast me a lofty glance.

Well, well.

So he really had gone to complain about me?