Shakiness of the Ages
Flowing Cloud Pavilion...
The Emperor and his aides arrived and they were shaken at how horrible the place was.
'Its really a shack...'
'They've got brass gonads for making a Princess live here!'
The Eunuchs choked out as they looked around, and nervous regarding their Emperor's rage as they headed to the residence where Beiyue should be and they hear voices in a few minutes.
'So that's how it's done.' a young girl's voice can be heard. Her voice is like tinkling bells.
'That equation is so hard miss...it'll take me a few days to remember that~'
'Well, there's a reason Arithmetic is mostly a men's course in school, but I don't believe that bullshit at all. Anyone can do it if they try.'
They went inside to see what Linghuo saw.
Two girls studying.
And Beiyue indeed, wore a strange fashion(a plain light green yukata with a thin obi, but with sleeves of the current culture).
And they stared at the newcomers.
'Beiyue...you really...live here?' the Emperor was ashen-white in horror as atmosphere plunged.
'Aiya, it took two years for that to be found out?' Beiyue's voice was pleasant, and sure, she's smiling, but her eyes say it all. She's pissed.
'What happened...how on earth did this happen?!' the Emperor cried in a pained voice. He gave his sister and niece everything! How can she be here?!
Beiyue eyed the Emperor who looked at her despairingly.
They weren't...the eyes of scorn and ridicule? Why?
'Why?'
'W-why what?'
'The whole country scorns and holds me in contempt for what was never my fault since birth. I know full well what this country thinks of me.' said Beiyue coldly. 'Yet you, the Emperor care for me. I don't understand?'
Those very words horrified the men present. She cannot comprehend family caring for her? How did that happen?!
'You're family! Why wouldn't I care for you?!' the Emperor sputtered out. 'But what's going on? Why do you live in a shack?! I gifted this mansion to you and your mother!' he cried in disbelief.
'Dongling, tea.' said Beiyue succinctly and Dongling quickly scampered for tea, nervous at the tension brewing. 'As for when and how? Let's begin about...mere days after mother's death.' she told him. 'I'm sure you know that the whole estate is ill?' she smiled darkly. 'Fufufu...this is the price to pay for two years of our suffering. I was just as ill as them for two years and my mind fogged up...I was so ill that they deemed me contagious...and sent me to this shack.' she said. 'Not only that, their bullshit claims of holding regency for Qinghe and Miyang were so they enjoyed MY money, and left me with nothing!' she growled angrily. 'All of mother's things, sold off!' that was to the Emperor's horror.
'Dongling was able to sneak away mother's most precious things, the small things she could carry...but since I never even see a coin from my fortune, we lived in poverty...and even she was forced to sell them so we can live. Because every time she asks for food from the kitchens, she gets bullied and given trash or scraps for us to eat.' and Beiyue could see the Emperor looked shocked...before slowly going red in anger.
'It was around last winter my mind cleared up and I looked back.' Beiyue continued as Dongling put out tea in good-quality teaset. 'I got really angry...so I began sneaking out. Sure I cannot cultivate, that didn't mean mother didn't compensate for my sake. She trained my body hard and taught me skills.' she quipped. 'I got up to see what kind of medicine I usually get from Concubine Xue yet I never got any better nor improvement? I began suspecting. Sooo I cut myself, and then made the medicine drop on my blood on the table...it was no medicine. I was poisoned.' the Emperor and his aides let out sharp gasps. 'I got really angry and snuck into Glistening Lake Pavilion, my former home. And since my illness, Concubine Xue and her brats are enjoying what they stole from me, and that bitch dares to sleep on mother's bed.'
'But to my luck, she wasn't home that night...probably spread her legs to that adulterer.' Beiyue chuckled scornfully. 'I was able to find her Lam Card...and a jar of poison pills, and a wine jar containing the crap she feeds me every day.' she smirked at the reactions of the men present that the Emperor looked ready to blow up while his aides nervously looked at him in fear of his anger. 'There's absolutely no way they're not gonna pay for their crimes...so I took six pills in total. Three of them, I mixed into a tub of water, and dunked all diningware, pots and pans in that mix. Every day I did it for about two weeks, so they receive twenty times daily the trace poison I get, just so they will reach my current physical state in a matter of days.' she purred in vicious glee. 'Oh, and I took a bit of my money back. I took a hundred thousand gold coins, enough for me and Dongling to live for five years in comfort while training.'
Dongling knew she left some truths out or she'll get in trouble thus she wisely stayed quiet.
'But you seem well now?' the Emperor stammered in relief. 'Goodness knows that bastard comes to work looking like a damn corpse!'
'I have my ways to save myself, because no one ever will as no one ever showed me kindness nor the decency of a human being since I was six years old. This whole country is my enemy. So if war ever happens, I won't even save a single infant.' that notion horrified the Emperor and his aides. Has his people hurt her so thoroughly that their homeland, she deems her enemy?! 'Not only that, I also hunted down the Charlatans who were bribed to say that I cannot be cured and won't live past my eighteenth birthday...and did the same to them. That was what the other three pills were for.'
'As for my revenge, I will happily watch them suffer the same illness I suffered. And they won't live long. There's a price to pay for stealing from me and throwing mother's things out and it's through an agonizing short life, is my idea of revenge.' she chuckled. 'The fun part? When I looked it up in a book, there's no cure for that poison~ not even that guy can save them now!' she laughed cruelly.
It was a vicious revenge, from a girl who gained a vicious bone from the injustices she suffered.
What the Emperor did?
He took her to the palace and put her and Dongling into Princess Royal's former quarters. He would not allow the girls to wear cheap rags and summoned the royal tailor to outfit the pair, and had a meeting with the Buji'er Clan Head's Sai Si. He arranged for Qinghe and Miyang's annual income to go into new Lam Cards for Beiyue to get, and left a mere pittance in the Lam Cards of Xiao's Concubines by taking the money in there, and put them in Beiyue's new Lam Cards after telling the man what had happened...and agreed with Beiyue's revenge. He too, wanted them to suffer for their crimes. Though he asked her to dose them some more.
He also began suspecting about the truth about his sister's death.
xxx
Lunch break...
'Linghuo, what have you got?' Zhanye asked his summon.
'Well...'
The flaming bird told him everything going on, that Zhanye was glad he was alone at the moment.
The truth got him shaken.
Beiyue harbored hatred and contempt with good reason, and his father got Beiyue out and gave her, her mother's former quarters, and decided to watch the entire Xiao Family slowly die just like how they planned her death, after using her up and her gold for their cultivation. His father and cousin ensured they'll never enjoy their ill-gotten gains ever again!
She sees everyone but her only maid who stayed by her as her enemy.
She is not in a forgiving mood she happily declared she'll abandon an infant to its doom if disaster ever happens as long as it's a Nanyi Citizen.
It horrified him and he wondered what to do.
xxx
Princess Royal's quarters...
'...this is our home now miss...I remember two years ago that we were here...on the night Princess Royal sent us away while she just died during the night we're gone.' said Dongling softly. Beiyue wore a dark look about that memory. 'His majesty thinks that something about this stinks. What do you think?'
'I think so too but we need proof.' said Beiyue. 'But we need to act soon.' and she took out a pink pill out of her ring. 'Dongling, water and a porcelain bottle enough for this little one. I'm going to search Xue's room.'
'Yes!'
And so...
Beiyue released the fumes of the sleeping drug, and controlled it with her ki just to direct it inside Xue's nose.
Upon emptying the bottle into her nose, she searched Xue's room...
...and found letters even under the sleeping woman's bed mattress!
She took all the letters, and read them at home.
"Well, this should do the trick..." she arranged them in sets due to conversation, and in order. Not only that, she turned Xia Guang Hall, the Grandqueen's Chambers upside-down.
A dark look was on her face...and gave the letters to the Emperor and she contentedly watched the fallout, when his rage can be heard all over the palace that day.
"It seems he's a reliable relative." she thought, smiling in contentment. She never dreamed a family member here still cares for her and willing to do crazy stunts for her. It was just so hard to imagine.
Not since after Kanae-neesan and Kanao.
'Miss! The Emperor!' Dongling cried after getting back home from an errand.
'Fufu...I'm responsible for that one.' Beiyue smiled. Dongling would know of that anger and her miss may smile, but her real feelings are shown in her eyes. 'Let's just say...I found out interesting stuff while you're out buying us things.'
'Ehhh...'
'Now then, we can do what we want here too.' Beiyue smiled. 'Let's continue with Math lessons while the palace cleans up mother's quarters.' she said, taking out their schoolwork. 'Let's do a review of that formula until it sinks in your head.'
xxx
Gossip spread throughout the Palace by sundown.
The Emperor found out just what kind of life Princess Beiyue lived after Princess Royal's death, the when and hows, and how she got her revenge. Naturally, it reached the Army Barracks and Xiao Yuancheng found himself under intensive scrutiny of his colleagues.
Stealing from a royal?! He sure has balls of steel! And his wife Concubine Xue has the nerve to poison her to death!
However, little princess managed to cure herself using something she wouldn't tell and her condition is confirmed by Royal Doctors that she was fully-cured...and happily poisoned her evil family back, as well as the doctors whom they bribed with HER MONEY. She also got their families, too! She won't spare anybody involved in the scheme!
So her illness wasn't contagious all along, she poisoned her tormentors out of revenge and took great pleasure in watching her suffer as they did her!
He was horrified, especially as when Emperor said, 'I too, am satisfied with just watching them slowly die. A quick death is unfair, compared to what they've done to a child! She can do two years in such a state, let's see them last longer!' the poison Xue used has no known cure when he heard the name of the Pill. But there was a way to save oneself and only Princess Beiyue knew how that got the Palace amazed. And she wasn't telling nor sharing!
He knew that by nighttime, all of Linhua will know by now when the army goes home!
That, and?
'Oh yes, Royal Uncle, given how I see my world, I want any engagement arrangements that involve me fully-dissolved.' said Beiyue. 'I want nothing to do with any man born in Nanyi Country.' her request broke the man's heart, but anger was running in her blood from what she endured in silence for five years of her life that she doesn't care nor trust anyone. 'Oh I almost forgot, I have no Jade Pendant in my possession, whoever they are may have to ask Xiao Yuancheng where he and his pet whores sold it if they want it back. They did sell everything of mother's they can get their hands on!'
Naturally, that reached Anguo Gong Mansion.
While Beiyue has no clue who her fiancee is, her fiancee, Xue Che certainly knows she is his fiancee, but couldn't care less about the National Trash.
However, he finds himself the one who is dumped when his father got wind of it in court, when she made the request to his majesty who looked into files in the Marriage Arrangement Office, and found the Engagement Papers made by Princess Royal and his mother, Fan Mian who were good friends. Father thought its a good deal as its another step into more political power so he agreed, only to learn six years later she's useless and found himself unlucky. Once the files were found, his majesty and father annulled it.
However, this princess grew a vicious, vengeful bone as time went by, and her revenge was vicious and accomplished one thing nobody's done yet. A cure for an incurable poison and she's not sharing out of spite, and happily watch from afar her enemies slowly waste away like she once did.
However, an hour after after father signed his annulment and was about to leave the court, the Emperor exploded into a rage again and nobody knows why this time...they might know tomorrow maybe?
xxx
What happened?
After getting that bunch of letters from Beiyue, he barked orders.
For the Grandqueen to come home immediately regardless of what she had going on for a heinous crime that went under his nose!
His words horrified his aides who immediately sent out letters!
What, did the Grandqueen DO?!
That got the whole palace in an uproar.