Meanwhile, the palace was having its own troubles.
Why?
Because the empress was furious.
And when the empress was furious the people must suffer. The empress had ears and eyes everywhere, even the officials in court were wary much less those poor women in the harem. The most arrogant and favoured of concubines who gave birth to eligible princes didn't dare make any waves at this time and were all cowering in small groups on the pretence of having tea together.
Concubine Li, mother of the fifth and sixth prince: "Motherfucker, which one of your sons dared to attack Eunuch Shi. They're either crazy or ready to revolt right?"
Concubine Hua, mother of the second prince: "Peh! My son is a literati, he has no interest in fighting in such an underhanded way."
Concubine Liang, mother of the seventh prince: "Heh, he's only practising poetry, not Buddhism, quit acting like he's above material things and mortal greed we all know he wants the throne as much as the others."
Concubine Hua: "At least he has the fucking standards to be seriously considered a candidate, unlike some people's son."
Concubine Liang: "Oh, you're right~ your son is really a serious candidate- on being a complete joke! Peh!"
Concubine Li massages her forehead as she watches Concubine Hua and Liang spit insults at each other. The harem was a hard life, even though it looked good on the outside they all had to fight for one man in order for not only themselves to live well but even their families. It was hard to find allies and even harder to find friends.
Fortunately, the emperor was fairly generous, albeit very biased toward the empress, and the women who entered the harem generally had no delusions of true love toward the emperor. This is especially so during the later years so the harem was now full of older women and the atmosphere was much more laid back than before.
Well. It was laidback until the emperor became ill. Then it was time for all the mothers with sons to step up their game and fight.
Unfortunately, it wasn't like you could immediately win at life the moment you pop out a little human with a penis from your vagina. Maybe if she hadn't entered the imperial harem it would've been okay but she did and she had to fight against other women with sons and worst of all, her son was a complete waste.
Well her first son, the fifth prince, was. He had always been bad at a lot of things and eventually became a lecherous playboy that shamed the emperor with his antics.
Concubine Li felt some hope when she gave birth to her second son, the sixth prince, but that boy turned out to not only be mediocre in everything but had a cowardly crybaby demeanour as well.
On the sixth prince's thirteenth birthday, not only did the fifth prince get caught sleeping with a maid, but it was also the maid the sixth prince apparently had a crush on and he burst into tears and fainted. That was the day all Concubine Li's ambitions shattered and she despaired for a month before finally getting over the blow.
Concubine Hua and Concubine Liang were in a similar situation however they were reluctant to admit it. Concubine Hua's second prince was actually very outstanding in literary talent and studies however he was the epitome of pretentious literati who rather admire the flowers than participate in any real government work.
Many people secretly scorn him since he's essentially hiding his laziness under a facade of an intellectual, albeit a very talented one. It is unknown if he wants to fight for the crown but his vague wait and see attitude was quite annoying, both for the people who wanted to support him and the people who wanted to see if he's worth the resources to bring down.
In contrast Concubine Liang's son, the seventh prince, was both a muscle head and a religious fanatic. It would be alright if his religion was normal like Taoism or Buddhism but Concubine Liang's son was only interested in dragon gods and fighting. When he was five he proclaimed he wished to be the ultimate warrior that will be acknowledged by the heavens and grant him into the domain of dragons.
Everyone thought it was cute however when he hit fifteen and showed no signs of changing his attitude the cuteness quickly became determined as craziness. It was a pity because the boy could actually have been a genius if he had applied himself.
So in the end, Concubine Li, Hua and Liang ended up becoming friends solely bonded by the uselessness of their sons. It was really a fucking plastic friendship.
Their main thing was to bitch, complain and gossip about what was happening around them in order to ignore their own problems. Ironically it may be because they weren't a threat nor did they bother to keep up the pretences anymore, the empress actually liked them a lot and their living situation was, in reality, more stable than the others who were ambitious and willing to fight and be the next empress dowager.
"But for real ah," Concubine Hua cleaned her ear absentmindedly with her pinky, completely devoid of any manners that a beautiful noblewomen like her was supposed to have, "Which fool did this? The third prince lost a lot of military power after General Duan Mengyao passed away on a mission, now all that's left are ruffians that are no better than bandits. I heard they've been making trouble with the commoners and the emperor already gave him a stern warning. He should be laying low right now."
"The crown prince shouldn't have done it either though." Concubine Li points out as she pours more tea for everyone, "There's no reason to undermine the empress even though everyone's scared of her. His position is so favourable he can't be that stupid to blow it like this."
Concubine Liang snorts, "He's pretty stupid though, it's his green tea bitch mother who's pulling the strings and trying to keep him in check. I wouldn't be surprised if he did something behind her back though, little white eyed wolf." Grabbing the cup of tea she downs it all despite how steaming hot it was, "However Concubine Chen is very controlling these days it's probably not the crown prince."
"So. The Crown prince is an unlikely possibility," Concubine Hua huffs as she starts counting with her fingers, 'the third prince's schemes are quite deep so maybe, my second prince doesn't have the perseverance to carry out a long term plan that he would deign beneath himself to do, the fourth prince hasn't done much so who knows, Concubine Li's fifth and sixth princes wouldn't be emperor even in the very unlikely event they killed all of us-"
Concubine Li: "Fucking bitch."
"-Concubine Liang's seventh prince in contrast actually might be able to become emperor if he finally snaps and kills all of us-"
Concubine Liang: "You whore."
"-the eighth prince is a cripple and dead, and finally the coquettish ninth prince is well-liked by the empress so he wouldn't have reaped many benefits from this either." Concubine Hua finally concludes. "Therefore I think it's the third or fifth prince who's done this to sabotage one of the others. Or maybe Concubine Chen's finally snapped, she's crazy that one, still stupidly in love with the emperor believes she still has a chance since she had his firstborn son, like, damn, I wouldn't be surprised."
"Tsk, all the concubines with eligible princes have gone mad with ambition ah." Concubine Liang disses disdainfully. "They pop out a little dragon son and suddenly they feel like they can topple the empress and become the emperor's beloved little fairy. Hah, pathetic."
Concubine Li and Concubine Hua: '…' Weren't they all like that until they realized their sons were wastes with no future on the throne?
Never mind. Never mind. It's best not to remember their chuuni pasts.
They all silently sipped their tea in unison and internally shed tears about their lost hopes and dreams.
…
While the subjects in the palace were suffering the emperor was too.
He had only fallen ill for a month or two and everyone was already treating him as a dead man. Most of his eligible sons were fighting. The concubines were scheming. The ministers and officials were bickering. It was already very depressing.
Then he got news about what happened to Eunuch Shi.
Don't get him wrong, there are no better informants than the emperor's. He knew Eunuch Shi was hale and hearty but what scared him was that someone tried to target him in the first place. The emperor once again scolded whichever damn dog was behind such a daring move.
The empress was furious with him for letting such a thing happen. After all, he vetted the young doctor himself and felt he was safe for the silly Eunuch Shi.
Who knew the doctor would break and be bribed so fast right after taking on the job? It should be known that the doctor's background was thoroughly inspected beforehand and it had only been a week since he started to personally work for Eunuch Shi.
Even as an emperor who had to fight with his brothers and sisters and aunties in order to grasp the throne with his bloodied hands, he was speechless at the stupid and complete lack of loyalty there. Fucking hell man, you're a doctor can you not break your moral code so quickly? Are you even human???
The only reason she probably hadn't throttled him in his sleep is because 1. Eunuch Shi is actually safe and sound, 2. He was very ill and she did care about his him and 3. It would probably be considered too much of a hassle. And yes, this was probably in order of importance in the empress' heart.
Emperor: '…Aiyah it's so difficult.'
And then there was the message sent to the empress.
The one which confirmed the existence of a real dragon and a dragon saintess who was also a proper medical genius.
The one which confirmed the empress' favourite eunuch personally met a dragon.
Before himself.
The dragon emperor.
Dragon emperor: ….Wuwuwuwu.
After hearing the news he had immediately wanted to summon them and see the dragon for himself but he hesitated.
There must be a reason why they didn't go request an audience with himself right?
But… why?
The emperor was facing a dilemma similar to a modern teenager overthinking why the attractive person they were interested in didn't text them first despite the fact the other party clearly had their number and could communicate with them anytime.
If it was anyone else he would've been angry and demanded the guards to bring the people here by all means necessary. After all, he was the dragon emperor.
But the thing is he may be the dragon emperor, but the other party was a real-life dragon!
Dragon!
People were always the type to, on some level, worship the strong and bully the weak. As the dragon emperor, he should be on the pinnacle of the social pyramid and was allowed to be arrogant. However, now that he realised there was something above the title of emperor, he had now fallen back to his bad habits of fretting and anxiety.
If he summoned the dragon rearing lady doctor didn't that make it look like he was the desperate one? Was it too presumptuous? Was he supposed to do something specific to summon them? What if they thought he wasn't a good emperor? Too hasty and impatient? Rude? Would she look down on him? Would the dragon look down on him? Oh my god, what if the dragon just wasn't interested in him? Is that why they haven't come here yet? It's because he's ill, isn't it? Or maybe because he's not handling the recent droughts well? Was he an unattractive dragon emperor?
Ahhhhhhh why wasn't there any rules from his ancestors about dragon etiquette????
Jia Hyson did not know the emperor had become a nervous wreck thinking about the best way to meet Tang Muxin and himself. And what was worse was it was something nobody could really comfort him about as most people in the palace still didn't believe the whole dragon thing and even his sons and daughters were secretly dubious about their existence. Well except the seventh prince. But that boy is honestly this close to making his own cult and slaughtering the entire family in order to try to appease the dragon gods.
Needless to say, the emperor did not really want to deal with all of that.
Unable to decide what to do the emperor finally decided to go discuss with his legal wife Empress Cheng Meifeng. The one who was furious with him.
…Well, it really wasn't like she could get more mad anyway.
The empress was someone, truth be told, the emperor liked and trusted a lot. If not how could he just let her have so much power and allow her to throw such a big tantrum, the officials in the court were begging for him to calm her down?
While he had been conquering her, he even helped her gather up her own allies to better protect her beloved Eunuch Shi in order to move her heart better, which was more than a little inappropriate, not to mention a little heart-breaking. During that whole period, the emperor really felt like he was giving himself the biggest green hat in existence as he wooed the empress by taking care of another man for her.
But what could he do? Empress Cheng, or how he refers to her now, Meifeng was his first love.
This was simply because she helped him save face during a discussion of poetry in which he had been an embarrassingly poor student in. Not only did she help, but she also helped cleverly, subtly and a little humorously by miming out a scene that helped him jog his memory when he was forced to recite a certain poem.
He wasn't a very favoured prince back then but his emperor father pretended to dote on him in order to protect the son he liked the most meaning he had to endure a lot of hardship and targeting. He was not as smart nor strong as his best brothers but not as bad as his worst brothers either so there was dissatisfaction on both sides and nobody wanted to ally with him. Even the poetry reading was a trap to humiliate him. It was only Young Miss Cheng Meifeng who took the risk to help him and cause her own face to be lost which moved him greatly.
Therefore he wanted to cherish her and become strong enough to cherish her freely.
Unfortunately even after gaining the status of the supreme emperor he had realized there was probably no such thing as real freedom here. Whether it's his duties to the country and the people or the enemies and allies he had made along the way he was constrained and had to do things he didn't like, didn't want to do and things he really thought he didn't have to do.
Life as an emperor was never as good as one thinks. Similar to the life of a domineering CEO, do you think it's as easy as the brainless books say? No, the CEO's need to work hard to keep their place, to maintain their positions and to make sure the part of the company they're in charge of doesn't suddenly die under their hands, it's got a lot of rewards and power but theirs no denying how stressful and demanding the job is.
This is why the emperor didn't really care much about his sons or their ambitions to become emperor. Well that's not quite right. He liked all his sons, even the strange ones, and sure he had favourites, but the only one he wanted as emperor was someone capable and competent enough to take the position. Not someone like himself who came into this rather half-arsed with only the stupid ideal of entering in order to be powerful enough to protect a cute lady.
Unfortunately, as he tried not to show any large amount of favouritism to any one person, he was also not close to any of his children as a consequence. This meant while he had a good grasp of everyone's capabilities, it was impossible to have a proper in-depth understanding of their personalities and motivations with the information he had.
Also, he was suddenly and rather suspiciously ill. On one hand, it could just mean that it was merely his time to go, but on the other hand, the large paranoid part of him can't help but think someone was behind his 'unknown illness' and one of his good sons or wives would certainly be behind it.
The emperor grimaces. One problem at a time ah.
Reaching the empress' quarters, he knocks on the door.
...
Three weeks later Tang Muxin, Pan Shuchun, Ye Cheng, and two masked guards, as well as Jia Hyson and Da Gong, all stepped into the palace.