The Legend of the Concubine in the Harem

The imperial city is on alert everywhere.

Concubine Xu tried her best to maintain the operation of the inner palace. During this period, palace servants kept coming to her in fear, saying that they wanted to leave the palace.

Concubine Xu did not blame them for their behavior. Instead, she comforted them with kind words and then let them go. Using this incident as an introduction, she proposed cutting down on redundant staff in each palace and released palace servants who were suspected to be spies from various parties. She also sent in a few of her own secret agents to secretly plant more spies.

"Fortunately, before my sister left, she left me the key and authority to open His Majesty's inner treasury. Otherwise, it would be difficult to support all the people in this palace." Concubine Xu had to deal with Princess Rong Le and others on the one hand, and maintain order in the palace on the other. The little time she squeezed out had to pay attention to the movements in the cold palace, and she was too busy to split herself.

"Has the people outside looked for Shen again? Why is she still acting crazy and refusing to go out?" Concubine Xu asked her trusted female official Shuangyi.

Shuangyi was already past the age to leave the palace, but she decided to stay to accompany the imperial concubine and combed her hair herself: "Yes, your majesty, I don't know what those guys are thinking. They just keep targeting Shen..." She lowered her voice, "Your majesty, Shen and that so-and-so leader obviously have a grudge, so why is that guy pretending to rescue Shen from the cold palace? But if he wants to rescue her, he has been in and out several times, but he just persuaded her with words, without any practical action..."

"Shen has a grudge against him. I'm afraid his actions are just because of what Shen has in her hands." Concubine Xu said, "I don't know what Shen told Princess Shou'an before she left the capital, and I don't know what Princess Shou'an revealed to the Hongyang Sect that made him act so repetitively and behave so abnormally."

"It doesn't matter what they do. I just need to take care of the lives of everyone in the inner palace and wait for my sister to come back." Concubine Xu waved her hand and was about to give some more instructions.

But then the palace servants reported that Concubine Li Shu was coming.

Concubine Xu winked at Shuangyi, then stood up and walked to the door to greet her in person: "Sister Miaoduan, how come you have time to come to my place?"

Nowadays, there is chaos both inside and outside the capital. Because Xie Yu really took the initiative to make arrangements, the inner palace is still relatively calm. Although Concubine Li Shu sometimes has a bad temper, most of the time she behaves like a typical lady from a noble family. When the emperor and empress are not in the capital, she stays in her own palace and takes care of the accounts.

If Princess Yongtai was here, Concubine Li would have had some time to make trouble with her own daughter. Since Princess Yongtai left Beijing, she rarely even left the palace. Therefore, although Concubine Li could vaguely sense that the atmosphere in the palace seemed a little unusual, she could not perceive more than that. After a brief thought, she regarded this abnormality as a chain reaction caused by the absence of the emperor and empress.

Normal, normal.

When she was a child, her father and brother were away, leaving only the children at home, and the elders were also extremely careful.

"This is terrible. The calico cat left behind by Princess Yuyi somehow managed to run into the Cining Palace this morning!" Concubine Li Shu shouted first, then she grabbed Concubine Xu's hand, pulled her inside, and told several palace maids around her to go down.

Then she whispered with fear on her face: "The servants were afraid of disturbing the Empress Dowager's rest, so they didn't dare to break in and catch the cat without permission, so they told me about it. But I... I took people to the Cining Palace, and I only saw Madam Guo, who served the Empress Dowager, come out and say that the Empress Dowager missed her granddaughter, so she kept the cat."

"Isn't this normal?"

"How can this be normal? Although the Empress Dowager is old, she has always been in good health. Every time I went to see her, she would receive me. But this time, the Chonghua Palace staff failed to keep a close watch on her, so Sanhua escaped. I thought about asking the Empress Dowager for forgiveness, but Nanny Guo didn't even ask for permission and directly refused!"

Concubine Li Shufei is not young, but apart from her ability to settle accounts faster and faster, she has made no progress in other aspects. She is reckless and timid. She is timid because she doesn't dare to act rashly when she thinks something is wrong in the Cining Palace, but she is reckless because she comes directly to Concubine Xu to complain.

Concubine Xu was very clear about the situation in the Cining Palace.

Empress Dowager Hu was not in the Cining Palace at all.

Although the old lady was over ninety years old, she was still very strong. When she learned that her son and daughter-in-law were going to cause trouble again, she took her confidants out of the palace to play before the two of them left Beijing.

However, Concubine Xu did not dare to tell Concubine Li Shu, so she just gently comforted her: "Sister Miaoduan, don't worry. It's almost time for the Queen Mother to take a nap. She is not in good spirits. Seeing the cat makes her think of her granddaughter. I'm afraid that the old lady is sad and told Madam Guo that it is not convenient for her to meet you. If you are worried, I will go there in person later."

Concubine Li Shu believed it as she listened. She blushed and apologized, "It's also my fault. Yongtai has never left my side for so long. I've been worried day and night. Everything I see feels wrong."

"Sister, you have a loving mother's heart. His Highness Yongtai is by your Majesty's side. What else do you have to worry about?"

After being persuaded by Concubine Xu with just a few words, Concubine Li Shu patted her chest and said goodbye as she left her palace.

As the accounts for this month had been settled and she had nothing else to do, and it was a rare opportunity for her to leave the palace, Concubine Li Shu wanted to take people for a walk. She wandered around aimlessly, only to see fewer and fewer palace servants, and the scenery seemed to be getting more and more desolate.

This aroused some melancholy, and she couldn't help but say to Ruyi, who also had her hair done and stayed in the palace as a female official, "Alas, I am getting older and older, and my brain is getting more and more confused. Why don't you pull me along?"

Ruyi sighed: "My Lady, think about it carefully again, did I not stop you?"

Concubine Li Shu choked and said, "Well, you, this fellow, should have been kicked out of the palace, so that you wouldn't have to stay in the palace and annoy me every day."

"Okay, okay, my dear queen, Ruyi can't leave you and doesn't want to leave the palace. Please take a break and don't be angry." The tone was like coaxing a child, and Concubine Li Shu was very pleased.

Or maybe she was never angry at all: "That's sensible, I'm telling you..."

"Oh no!!!"

Before she could say anything, she heard a sharp scream.

Concubine Li Shu lifted her skirt without thinking: "What's going on? Come on, let's go over and take a look. Don't tell me something has happened!"

"Your Majesty and the Queen are not in the palace. If something serious happens, won't this palace and the Imperial Concubine be in trouble?!"

The scream came from a young palace maid.

When Li Shufei and others arrived, they saw that half of her body was splattered with blood, and she shouted in horror: "Murder!"