Chapter 1207: Chapter 1207: A Suspicious Clue Uncovered

Zhao Junqi looked at Xia Ruqing, her face seething with fury.

He couldn’t help but sigh inwardly.

So many years had passed, she had already borne four children, yet how could she still be this beautiful.

Back then, when he first saw her in the plum grove.

That spotlessly clean aura on her, that lively, ethereal figure, that clean, pure, innocent, sweet laughter.

Made him feel this woman was even more refreshing than the mountain spring, even purer than a fairy in the heavens.

She was like the most brilliant, beautiful sunlight in the sky, warm and seven-colored.

Piercing through layer upon layer of obstacles, just right to shine into the painful, dark, filthy, pitch-black depths of his heart.

He was shocked to the extreme, that in this world there could be such a pure, noble, warm and dazzling woman.

Just like a seedling living in a dark corner always turns toward the sun, just like a vine twisted around a great tree always struggles upward.

The kind of natural, soul-hooking beauty on her, that fatal attraction she held for him, was something he could not resist at all.

He fell for her in an instant, he longed to possess, he missed her like a madman.

Later, after a little inquiry, he found out she was actually one of Zhao Junyao’s women in the Harem.

In fact... he should have thought of that long ago.

Aside from women of the Harem, who else could appear so freely and easily in the Imperial Palace Royal Garden?

But at the moment he learned the news, he was still jealous, jealous to the point of madness.

Why?

Why, when they were all legitimate sons and grandsons of the Royal Family.

Zhao Junyao could taste all the beauties under heaven, monopolize all that was good in the world.

Yet the one woman he had finally come to like was already taken by him?!

Was he not even worthy of possessing that one trace of goodness?

Zhao Junqi collapsed!

All of this had originally belonged to him.

The Crown Prince the forefathers had favored was clearly his own father!

Why was it snatched away by them for no reason at all?

Why could they soar to the heavens in a single leap, high above everyone else!

While his father had to lie paralyzed for half his life, and in the end die a wretched death!

Why! Why!!

Zhao Junqi’s expression was a little distorted.

But Xia Ruqing had no mind for that; she gritted her teeth in hatred and slapped him with all her strength.

"You bastard!"

"You really... have gotten addicted to being a lapdog!"

"You beast, do you even know how many people you’ve killed!"

"On that mountain, it wasn’t only the people we brought, there were also your own people!"

"Those are lives!"

"They too were born of parents! What is your heart made of? Stone?!"

Xia Ruqing was hysterical.

Suddenly struck, Zhao Junqi’s gaze burst into a ruthless finality.

He suddenly grabbed her throat viciously, his eyes venomous, teeth gnashing.

"Their lives are lives, my father’s life is a life too!"

"Do you know how my father has spent all these years?"

"Do you know what it feels like for a good, whole man to suddenly be crippled, to become a useless wreck?"

"Do you know what it feels like to be guarded against like a thief?"

"Of course you wouldn’t know!"

Xia Ruqing gave a cold laugh.

"I know nothing!"

"But I just want to ask, if the Late Emperor hadn’t acted back then, the one paralyzed for half a lifetime would have been him, right!"

"If you don’t want people to know, don’t do it yourself!"

"It’s not that there is no retribution, only that the time has not yet come!"

Zhao Junqi’s expression twisted even more, and the strength of his hand increased; his eyes were bloodshot.

"Retribution? Hah!"

"If there really is retribution, then it should be falling on Zhao Junyao right now!"

"A dignified Emperor of a nation being stoned to death by flying rocks—once it spreads, he’ll be mocked by the people of the world for ten thousand generations!"

"Hahaha... retribution, it truly is retribution!"

Xia Ruqing only felt an endless chill spread through her.

"You really are shameless, heartless, cold-blooded to the extreme!"

Just how twisted must a person’s heart be to do something like this?

Granted that Prince Yan was indeed harmed by the Late Emperor, but was Prince Yan necessarily innocent?

The Late Emperor had been a wise ruler in this life.

He loved the people like his own children, was diligent in governance, and had never once shown so much as a hint of overstepping or muddle-headedness.

For him to be so ruthless as to show no mercy to his own younger brother.

It showed that this so‑called younger brother had never been favored by him in ordinary times.

Leaving aside the matter of tampering with the horse.

Could it be that Prince Yan had never done any other thing to harm his elder brother? Even she herself did not believe that!

After all, rivers and mountains may change, but a man’s nature does not!

So, the pitiful must have something hateful about them.

No matter how pitiful Prince Yan was, he did not deserve sympathy.

Zhao Junqi did not feel he was shameless at all.

He laughed wildly and arrogantly.

"I’m shameless! As if Zhao Junyao were so innocent!"

"All these years, you probably don’t know how he and his father have been squeezing us out!"

"But it’s fine, none of that matters anymore!"

"Very soon, I will be the only Emperor of this Great Chu!"

"What I lost will finally fall back into my hands!"

"And of course, that includes you!"

"Beautiful Qingqing, just wait to become my Empress!"

With that, Zhao Junqi let go and stormed off, flinging his sleeve.

Xia Ruqing, suffocated, coughed painfully a few times.

Her whole body collapsed limply onto the bed, she couldn’t even speak.

As for Zhao Junqi.

Only two words remained in her mind: twisted!

His whole person, his whole heart, had become twisted beyond cure!

...

Xia Ruqing lay weakly on the bed.

A faint, hard‑to‑detect sneer hung at the corner of her lips.

"Be the Emperor?"

"You don’t even piss and take a good look at yourself!"

"First, you have no benevolence; second, you lack the wisdom to scheme and strategize; third, you have no broad mind to love the people as your own and recruit the talented!"

"What right do you have to be Emperor—just that mean, sharp face of yours, and that ambition twisted to the extreme?"

"Compared with Zhao Junyao, you’re not even fit to carry his shoes!"

"And you want me to be your Empress? Heh!"

"This is the funniest joke she’s ever heard in her life!"

"If she has to be his Empress, she’d rather be dead!"

After Xia Ruqing finished mocking him.

She reached to touch the poison hidden close to her body in her undergarment.

It was still there, good!

A faint, bitter smile surfaced again on Xia Ruqing’s face.

’Who would’ve thought!’

’That the self who once clung to life, feared death, cherished her own life and took "a lousy life is better than a good death" as her creed’

’Would actually feel a sense of security because of a packet of lethal poison!’

’Sure enough, you never know what you’ll become ten or fifteen years down the line!’

’Sure enough, most words in life should never be spoken too absolutely!’

Xia Ruqing held her chest protectively with her hand, let out a long breath, and closed her eyes.

The opportunistic Maid saw Zhao Junqi storm off in a rage, and immediately stopped showing Xia Ruqing any pleasant face.

With a bang she flung the door open.

She slammed the medicine bowl and the food down on the table, gave a cold snort and cursed her for not knowing what was good for her, then flounced out as well.

Xia Ruqing glanced sideways at the food; she had no appetite and didn’t want to eat, and the medicine was too bitter, she didn’t want to drink it either.

She turned over to face the wall and went back to sleep.

...

In fact, calling it sleep, it was only that she closed her eyes. 𝒻𝑟𝘦𝘦𝘸ℯ𝒷𝑛𝘰𝓋ℯ𝘭.𝘤𝘰𝘮

Her emotions had just been too intense; how could she calm down so quickly.

She simply closed her eyes and slowly thought through everything that had happened these days.

From the Gunpowder, to the cave, and then to here.

Her mind was filled with Zhao Junyao’s every move, scene after scene.

Wait!

Xia Ruqing suddenly opened her eyes, as if she had made some astonishing discovery.