This Lady Is Trying to Kill Me

Chapter 72: Fire Bathing Picture (1)

Translator: Atlas Studios Editor: Atlas Studios

Ting!

Ting!

The city bell resounded throughout Yun’an, and the palace gates opened one after another.

The Great Wei empress usually came to court once every five days. There was no morning court meeting today, so there was no scene of civil and military officials entering the palace gates. There were only some officials waiting to be summoned in the Phoenix Perching Pavilion on the side of the Hall of the Supreme Principle.

Outside the imperial study at the back of the Hall of the Supreme Principle, eunuchs and palace maids stood quietly and solemnly. There were only a few incense sticks lit in the resplendent and spacious study.

The empress, who was wearing a red dress, was leaning on a chaise longue with a stack of memorials on the small table beside her. She was holding a golden brush and reading them seriously.

Behind the desk not far away, Dongfang Liren, who was dressed in her python robe, was sitting upright on a chair, reading a book seriously.

The cover of the book was very simple. The content of the writing was relatively subtle, but it was accompanied by many illustrations and explanations of postures…

There was some strangeness between Dongfang Liren’s brows. When she encountered an illustration, she quickly flipped the page.

Rustle…

The imperial study was silent except for the soft sound of paper turning.

The empress approved a few memorials and found that Dongfang Liren’s frequency of flipping through the book was wrong. She asked gently, “Liren, what are you looking at?”

Tears of a Heroine… After hearing what Ye Jingtang said, Dongfang Liren became interested in this book that was famous in Jianghu, so she had specially found it to take a look and see if it was full of emotions.

In the end, after reading it all night, she found that it was indeed about the relationship between a man and a woman. But the accompanying illustrations were a little too detailed, and even the intercourse scenes were vividly drawn. The strange way of making love almost shattered her worldview.

But this book was indeed interesting, so she just sat here and read it early in the morning.

Seeing her sister getting suspicious, Dongfang Liren slowly closed the book. “Just some trivial matters organized by the people below. There’s nothing important.”

For the empress to sit in her current position, how could it be easy to deceive her? She had grown up with her sister. Just by looking at the subtle differences in Dongfang Liren’s actions, she knew that the book wasn’t as simple as trivial matters.

But facing her sister, the empress was still very tolerant. Instead, she asked, “Are you still angry at me?”

Hearing her sister bring up the matter again, Dongfang Liren looked unhappy. “You still know? I’ve only known Ye Jingtang for a few days. I just admire his talent and want to put him in an important position. In the end, you tricked me and him into the Bright Yang Pool without any explanation, causing me to… Is this something an elder sister should do?”

The empress supported the side of her face with her hand and looked at her playfully. “You just want to put him in an important position?”

Dongfang Liren said solemnly, “Ye Jingtang protected me. I do appreciate him and remember his kindness. But if he can be my consort like this, what will the guards of the Black Office think? It’s a lifelong event, and I’m still considering if I should interact more with Ye Jingtang. But you added fuel to the fire and made a mess of things, causing the matter to reach this point…”

The empress raised her hand slightly and stopped her sister’s words. “Alright, just take it that I took matters into my own hands and interfered in your private matters. Take your time to consider this matter. I won’t interfere again. Ye Jingtang has an extraordinary bone structure and is a great talent in martial arts. Regardless of whether you like him or not, don’t push him aside, lest you raise a tiger and another troublesome thorn like the Pacifying Heaven Cult Master appears.”

Dongfang Liren was slightly surprised. “Ye Jingtang has the potential to be on par with Xue Bai jin?”

The empress blinked. “It seems that I was indeed too hasty. You really don’t know Ye Jingtang well.”

“Do you understand?”

“Just the punch he threw at you that day at the Great Blessing Palace gave me a rough idea. It’s all talent.”

Dongfang Liren thought about it and said with a solemn expression, “Is that so?”

The empress put down a memorial and picked up her teacup to take a sip. Her eyes were helpless as she said, “Forget it. It’s really tiring to talk to you about this. You’d better continue reading.”

n 11

Dongfang Liren could sense her sister’s attitude of ‘you can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear’. Her clothes bulged, and she wanted to retort, but she didn’t dare. In the end, she simply put away the book and left with a flick of her sleeve.

“Where are you going?”

“To see the empress dowager.”

In the northwest of the Imperial City, in the empress dowager’s bedchamber…

Cicadas chirped on the summer day. Most of the palace maids who had nothing to do were resting in the corridors. The empress dowager, who slept late and got up late all year round, was still in her bedchamber.

She went to bed late because she lived in a secluded palace, had no one to rely on, and couldn’t sleep. But getting up late was not because she hadn’t woken up yet but because she stayed in bed.

In the main hall, the palace maid Hongyu was leaning against the door, flipping through a book in her hand.

In the bedchamber, all the items were neatly tidied up, and there was even a painting that the empress dowager had just finished on the wall. It was a person carrying a fat chicken, and he seemed to be a vendor selling chickens in the market…

The empress dowager, who was wearing a gauze nightgown, was sitting cross-legged on her gorgeous phoenix bed. Her head was level, her body upright, her mouth was closed, her tongue was against the roof of her mouth, her eyes were closed, and her hands were naturally placed on her lap.

This meditation posture was much more standard than Ye Jingtang’s blind thinking. As a result, the already beautiful and charming empress dowager actually exuded a trace of an otherworldly aura.

The empress dowager was born into the Qin family, a family of generals in Jiang Province. She had also practiced martial arts when she was young. Her mother had doted on her very much and specially brought her to learn martial arts from Lu Taiqing, one of the Two Sages.

She had learned these Daoist meditation techniques back then, and it was also during this period that she got to know Daoist Xuanji, her bosom friend.

Unfortunately, in the end, Lu Taiqing said that her mortal heart was too heavy and didn’t let her become a Daoist nun. Not long after she left Void Jade Mountain, she was chosen by the Imperial Court and became the empress of Great Wei.

But on the way to the capital, the former emperor passed away. In order to win over the aristocratic families of Jiang Province and consolidate the imperial power, the crown prince even respected her, who had never even seen the late emperor, as the empress dowager.

Not long after, the Qin family contributed to the empress when she forced her brother to abdicate and usurped the throne. Therefore, when the empress ascended the throne, she still respected her as the empress dowager. She could be said to have lived through multiple emperors and solidified her position as the mother of the country..