Reborn as the Crippled King's Beloved
Chapter 436: They are like Ximen Qing and Pan Jinlian.

Chapter 436: Chapter 436: They are like Ximen Qing and Pan Jinlian.

The concubines of the Cold Palace scattered in disarray.

Even the palace maids and eunuchs uniformly withdrew.

The Emperor looked at Consort Jing trembling in the mud, his face full of corpulence, now only showing an authority that was cold to the extreme.

Consort Jing looked haggard; she had lost much weight, her cheeks could no longer hold flesh, and her once-fitting clothes had become loose. Over the past half a month, she suffered greatly.

Moreover, the despicable women of the Cold Palace would not let her sleep, frequently waking her up with cold water, fearing her death, they even force-fed her medicine.

Thus, although her face bore no injuries, due to insufficient sleep, her eye sockets had sunk deep, dark circles lay under her eyes, and heavy bags underscored them, making her appear as if she had aged two or three decades.

Consort Jing did not know that she no longer bore even a slight resemblance to the Empress Dowager.

She hadn’t seen herself in a mirror and had simply thought that her pitiable state would evoke the Emperor’s sympathy. But meeting the Emperor’s indifferent gaze, it was like he was looking at a vile stranger accused of heinous crimes.

She panicked.

These days, she had been consoling herself, thinking that for the Third Prince, the Emperor could not possibly kill her. Wasn’t the hardship she had already endured enough?

Even when she had once lived in a thatched hut and eaten wild roots, she had never suffered like this.

"Your Majesty..."

She began, trembling with fear.

The Emperor interrupted coldly, "I never thought you would be a murderer who could kill without batting an eye."

Consort Jing’s heart pounded like thunder; she shook her head and said, "This servant doesn’t understand what Your Majesty is talking about. Has Your Majesty been misled by someone? Everything said against this servant is false evidence, I am innocent, I wouldn’t even dare kill an ant."

She thought, she hadn’t lied; even if she had harmed someone, it was always through others.

Even if Su Jin had confessed something, what of it? She had never left behind any evidence or anything to incriminate herself.

Besides, the people she had harmed were all insignificant. She had never committed atrocities against the Crown Prince or high-ranking concubines like the former Empress had done.

So she did not understand why the Emperor brought this up, why he was so angry.

The Emperor himself, wasn’t he a ruthless being, who would kill at whim?

The Emperor sneered.

"Originally, I did not want to believe that you would poison me. The words you and your adulterous lover said, I never took them seriously. Over these years, you were obedient and had a semblance of Buddhist devotion, accompanying me, with not much merit but certainly much hardship."

"Yes, Your Majesty! How could I possibly harm you! I was framed; it was that actor who manipulated me into saying those horrendous words. They are not at all what I truly think!"

"Chen Honglian, you really think I am a foolish and ignorant fool to be deceived at this point? Still you seek to deceive me!"

"This servant is innocent, I have been wronged, Your Majesty!"

Consort Jing wailed piteously, fully displaying the misery of an innocent person.

However, the Emperor remained unmoved, looking on coldly.

After a long silence, he finally said, "You wanted to kill me to make the Third Prince Emperor and become the Empress Dowager yourself. At that point, you’d still be young enough to have everything you wanted, hence you intended to rekindle your relationship with your lover and relive the sweetness of former days. Do you think I have mistreated you? Chen Honglian, you truly are a heartless and cruel woman!"

"I truly did not harbor such thoughts, Your Majesty, you have been misled! It was Prince Ling, yes, it was him, he ousted me and the Third Prince, and since the Second Prince is incapacitated, he would benefit the most!"

Consort Jing finally managed to say the words she had not been able to voice before to the Emperor.

But times had changed, and she could not grasp why the Emperor was so furious and hateful.

The Emperor simply did not believe her rebuttals.

"I am in the prime of life, with many years left to live; this Crown Prince, I will not establish!"

Consort Jing suddenly looked up at him.

Not to establish a Crown Prince?

Wouldn’t she have to stay in the Cold Palace for many more years?

Consort Jing felt despair.

She cried out loudly, "Your Majesty, you personally taught the Third Prince! How can you not know how outstanding and filial he is? How can you listen to the slander of evildoers!"

"I fear that he carries the same venomous blood as you do, capable of regicide and patricide!"

Upon hearing this, Consort Jing felt a chill run through her body.

The Third Prince was the Emperor’s favorite son, raised from childhood as a successor. How could the Emperor say such a thing?

"Is it possible that Prince Ling and his supporters have done something or said something to you? Please do not believe it, Your Majesty! Do you not know what kind of person the Third Prince is?"

The Emperor, unmoved, scoffed coldly, "I have been with you for more than twenty years, yet I do not understand you, let alone others!"

"Your Majesty!"

"Enough!" the Emperor shouted angrily. "You are still in denial, unrepentant. I had already drafted the decree to make you Empress, fortunately, you could not control yourself and exposed your true intentions, otherwise, I would not even know how I died!"

He had already drafted the decree?

Consort Jing widened her eyes, full of resentment.

However, before she could speak, the Emperor continued, "Do you think your lover died simply to drag you down with him? It’s because you poisoned his parents! I gave you the choice to come with me willingly, but you killed them with poison! Do you know how they curse me now in Yangzhou? They say I forcefully took a common girl, conspired in adultery, and together we poisoned your man’s parents!"

Consort Jing stood frozen in place.

"No! Impossible!"

She refused to believe it.

"All I did was give them a sleeping potion to knock them out! How could they die!"

No wonder, no wonder Mei Yuzong and Prince Ling, alongside Princess Consort Ling, plotted against her, pushing her toward her death!

The things she could not understand these days became clear in a moment.

But she felt a chilling coldness seeping into her bones because she knew that she might truly be doomed.

"It really was you!"

The Emperor was furious, kicking out at her.

Yangzhou was far to the south, the Emperor high above, he felt powerless to deal with those spreading rumors about him.

Thinking about how the commoners viewed him and Chen Honglian as akin to Ximen Qing and Pan Jinlian, he wished he could strangle Chen Honglian to death.

The good reputation he had so painstakingly built was utterly destroyed by Chen Honglian, and even after his death, his ill repute would persist among the people.

How could the Emperor not hate this?

All the love he had was surely gone in such circumstances, replaced by hatred.

Not to mention his illusory love.

Unable to suppress the boiling public outrage, all he could do was vent his anger on Chen Honglian.

Moreover, to salvage his reputation, he could only make a public spectacle of executing Chen Honglian, proclaiming to all that he had been deceived.

Although this was not what the Emperor wished, it was the only way to reclaim his reputation and erase the insults.

The Third Prince, too, had his hard-earned reputation destroyed overnight because of Chen Honglian.

Consort Jing’s fingers dug into the soil, her nails breaking and bleeding.

All that filled her mind was the image of Mei Yuzong dying in front of her.

For more than twenty years, Mei Yuzong had harbored hatred and resentment against her!