"Your Lordship, here is the Will," Eunuch Jiu entered the main hall and handed the wooden case to him.
"Now leave!" Prime Minister Xuan Wei took it and rudely commanded. Eunuch Jiu gritted his teeth and left helplessly. He wanted to blame his master, Xuan Cheng for not speaking up, but he understood why she didn't.
How he wished, he wouldn't understand her and could blame her for being a coward. But he knew what she had been through, he knew it better than anyone else.
"Hmph...it's only written how she wants to be buried next to her husband, my father, and nothing else, even in her last moment, she didn't think of me or anyone of us," he sighed deeply putting the scroll back in the wooden case.
"Why would she write this in her last Will? Well, she was going to be buried beside him according to the secret decree..." Xuan Wu questioned suspiciously.
"How do you know about it?" Xuan Wei questioned his son.
"I have a friend in the Ministry of Rites, he didn't tell me anything, but he gave me a few hints about it," Xuan Wu replied to his father feeling extremely proud of himself.
"I see... I guess she was too selfish to write about anything else," he passed a casual comment.
....
The sun had not shown a single ray of light, yet people had gathered before the mansion of the late princess, to bid her coffin the last farewell, almost all of them had never seen her face in the last twenty years, and many of them weren't even born then.
However, they were still gathered to gain the opportunity to see and talk to the high-ranking officials, Prime Minister Xuan, and his son.
Sitting at the center seats of the main hall, the son and the father side by side, waiting for the servants to report if everything was set. Just then, Xuan Wu's guard ran in and whispered something in his ear that made his jaw drop.
"What's wrong? son?" Prime Minister Xuan asked, Mama Li who was attending them, exchanged a glance with other loyal maids perplexed.
"Father...Do you know Xuan Cheng is involved in corruption?" he inquired knowing his father didn't know about it. What Xuan Wei hated the most was filthy money; it was one of the reasons he was blinded with hate and left her mother to be locked in her house.
"That brat? Are you sure?" he asked dumbfounded, he remember his eight-year-old daughter that must be grown up now. He had absolutely forgotten about her existence.
"Mama Li, what is this about?" he questioned angrily.
"There is no such thing, your lordship, someone must be trying to frame her," she immediately explained, anxiously.
"Frame her? Who can do that? She never steps out of the house, who can she offend anyone? Unless she 'did' go out against the Imperial Order," Xuan Wu barked at the old maid, and she was terrified by his loud voice.
"Go bring her here!
How can she behave so rudely?
We have been here since yesterday morning and she didn't even show us her shadow.
She should have greeted us and attended to us," Xuan Wu yelled again.
Mama Li was speechless; she hurried to leave and ran straight to Xuan Cheng's courtyard. Lying in her bed with her eyes wide open, silently shedding tears, she didn't move at all.
"Your Highness, please go meet His Lordships, someone is accusing you of corruption," she reported panicking.
Xuan Cheng rose from her bed and looked at her in utter shock, she had not expected anyone to attack her out of the blue.
"Who said so and why?" she asked, her eyebrows furrowed.
"I don't know some guard working under your brother reported something secretly and then he started howling in anger," she was shaking terribly because she knew it was a capital offense to be involved in corruption.
"I am still stuck in this storm, and behind me is a tsunami waiting to swallow me," she clicked her tongue, annoyed. She thought her brother and father would leave quietly with the coffin, but they had to make things hard for her.
Xuan Cheng grabbed her outer robe, made of hemp, for the funeral of her grandmother, Maid Huan entered the room gasping, "Your Highness, Madam Dowager, and Duchess Wan are in the main hall, His Lordships are accusing them of helping you build up some shady business," she reported, trying to catch her breath.
...
A ceramic cream cup came flying from the main hall and shattered before Xuan Cheng, it scared her, she flinched back, and patted her heart, trying to calm herself down.
"Where is that ungrateful wench!" She heard an unfamiliar voice, seemingly belonging to a young man, who is assumed to be her brother.
"You Highness, what are you planning to do?" Eunuch Jiu appeared behind her and asked, it sounded more rigid and full of resentment, it was a hint that he was holding a grudge for last night's incident.
"Li Jiu...I guess I have spoiled you too much. You can't even bear this, are you more offended than I am?" she turned to him and glared at him, for she could see through people because of their aura.
"I only seek justice on Her Majesty's behalf..." he immediately regained his senses and defended himself.
"Justice? it's only for people with power and people with no power, unlike us, stuck in the middle, for us, there is no justice but patience," she lectured him.
Just then another bowl smashed against the pillar and scattered around at the entrance of the main hall, however, this time, she wasn't scared, a smirk appeared on her face confusing the servants.
She took her shoes off and pushed them behind, which Huan picked up, completely clueless about her Master's plan.
.....
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