Chapter 73 Complacency

The palace was quiet at midnight. Groups of soldiers were patrolling like ghosts, expressionless, uniform, and heartless.

The Empress was sitting in her room with a diary in front of her. She looked out of the window. There was a pear tree whose huge branches stretched peacefully in the darkness. The Empress couldn’t calm down. She took a deep breath and told Sha, “Has Ling gone out of the palace?”

Sha nodded. She was not talkative and preferred body language to oral one. She was as composed and cold as one-thousand-year-old iceberg.

“I want to go out for a walk. Come with me.” Then the Empress stood up and went out. Sha glanced at the diary on the table and wanted to remind the Empress, but she said nothing at last.

Outside the Weiyang Palace, the night breeze blew gently and fluttered the Empress’s wide robe. The whole palace was like a sleeping beast that closed its bloodshot eyes and was not aggressive anymore. However, some people were making a shady deal in the palace at night.

In the pavilion before the Weiyang palace, Shen Zhongbai picked up a cherry from the table and put it into Shen Qiangwei’s mouth. Looking at her lips as red and attractive as the cherry, he couldn’t help kissing her.

Shen Qiangwei pulled away shyly, lowered her head, and said embarrassedly, “Your Majesty, we have stayed at the gate of the Weiyang Palace for several days, but the Empress hasn’t come out. Doesn’t she know?”

Shen Zhongbai turned his face away from her to look at the Weiyang Palace. What was that woman thinking about? She used to follow him like his tail and was eager to see him anytime. However, she didn’t care about him at all now.

It had been many days since she badgered him last time, so he wanted to appear before her to provoke her. But unexpectedly, she didn’t come out.

Shen Zhongbai took his hands away from Shen Qiangwei. He was in no mood to do anything. Turning around, he saw the Empress come out of the Weiyang Palace, followed by a different servant girl. Though the former one was not very pretty, he always thought of her eyes.

It was dangerous to have such a clever servant girl. Either the Empress was too ambitious, or she was an incurable fool.

Of course, Shen Qiangwei saw the Empress immediately. She squinted and was determined to make the woman heartbroken.

The stories of the Empress and the Emperor sounded very romantic and moving. She loved him sincerely and they managed to climb up to their positions together. However, such a great couple ended up in this unexpected way. Looking at Shen Zhongbai who was staring at the Empress coldly, Shen Qiangwei sneered secretly. Could happiness and sufferings both be shared? Only sufferings could be shared in this world, and happiness couldn’t.

Followed by Sha, the Empress saw two people in the pavilion. She was familiar with one of them. She was so familiar with him that she even could accurately tell his smell.

So what? The Empress felt disgusted to recall that now.

Sha plucked at the Empress’s clothes corner and whispered, “Your Highness…”

Before she finished, the Empress shook her head almost imperceptibly.

Sha nodded and didn’t say anything more. They walked straight towards the center of the back garden.

Shen Zhongbai took his eyesight back from the Empress and reached out his hand to touch Shen Qiangwei’s face. But he used more strength suddenly. She was enjoying his stroke originally. His sudden change made her shiver in pain and want to struggle. However, his cold eyes scared her, and she refrained from struggling.

“Let’s go!” Shen Zhongbai stood up, disregarding Shen Qiangwei’s head was pillowing on his legs. She fell to the ground and screamed in pain, but he went far.

Servant girls helped Shen Qiangwei stand up hurriedly, but she shrugged them away and said indignantly, “Damn! I will avenge myself on them one day!”

Then she walked towards her palace. The Weiyang Palace was empty now.

Su Ge jumped down from the wall, turned around cautiously, and snapped his fingers as quietly as a bird flew at night.

Shen Qianshan was hiding behind the wall in black and integrated with the darkness, so he was invisible. Su Ge moved close to him and whispered, “The Empress went out just now. The Emperor left with Consort Shen, too. If you want to look for evidence, …”

Shen Qianshan had flown into the main hall of the Weiyang Palace before Su Ge was done.

The Empress withdrew all guards from the Weiyang Palace ten days ago. The servant girls were sleeping. Therefore, the palace was so quiet that footsteps echoed.

Su Ge criticized his master secretly. Of course, the duke was omnipotent, but he couldn’t be so reckless. If he was found, it would be difficult to explain.

Then Su Ge flew down, too. The duke was weird. He determined to come to the Weiyang Palace to look for evidence that the Empress plotted against him.

Shen Qianshan trusted his brother. They had years of brotherhood. But his brother changed his side in such a short time. It proved that the Empress spoke ill of him.

He slipped into the Empress’s bedroom like a night cat. The diary was put on the table. Shen Qianshan sat down.

Su Ge lifted the bead curtain and was greeted by a faint fragrance. He had seldom entered a woman’s bedroom. When he put down the curtain, his face was flushed.

“Your…Your Highness…it’s improper to enter the Empress’s bedroom like this, isn’t it? If the Emperor comes, your relationship with the Empress will be misunderstood.” Su Ge was ill at ease and had no idea what to do with his hands.

Shen Qianshan turned around and glowered at Su Ge, “Shut up!”

Su Ge sat down on a chair obediently and looked at Shen Qianshan with a grievance.

The diary looked the same as common ones. A line of characters was visible on the open page.

“I’m honored to be granted the title of an infanta and named Luoping. Are you all right?”

Shen Qianshan was confused. Infanta Luoping? No infanta had the name in the country. Besides Infanta Ziyan, the other infanta was young and clever, but she usually lived in the mountains. She couldn’t be this infanta in the diary. Who was this one?

The Empress was not an infanta. Weren’t the characters written by the Empress?

Shen Qianshan’s hand shook, and the diary was thrown onto the table. The atmosphere seemed weird. He turned around to look at Su Ge, who was playing with the beads and didn’t care about it at all.

Shen Qianshan calmed down. Looking at the paper again, he couldn’t believe it.

Characters appeared slowly one by one on the paper.

He even could smell the ink: My brother is fine.

Was his eyesight dim? Or was the diary magic?

Shen Qianshan couldn’t help writing on the paper: Who are you?

After writing, he came to his sense. Looking at his elegant handwriting, he felt scared and had no idea what he was doing.

Was he foolish? What if the diary was very important to the Empress? What if he got no reply? It was obvious. He couldn’t understand why he talked with a dairy. He felt his back was cold. That was because the sweat on his back was blown by the wind.

Nothing more appeared on the paper during the following minutes.

In the other world connected to the diary, Gu Qiang was awake. She wanted to test if the Empress could talk with her. After writing down the sentences slowly, she was confused about what appeared on the paper.

The Empress had never asked such a question because she knew they were the same person. It was a meaningless question for the Empress. She was so smart and arrogant. How could she waste time on it?

Or was there anything wrong with her? With such a guess, Gu Qiang wrote on the paper, “We are the same person. I am you, living in the past, but…”

The handwriting seemed to pause, and then Shen Qianshan replied tremblingly: What?

Shen Qianshan, who used to be calm, turned around to call Su Ge.

Su Ge was considering that he might get a good price for the beads in the Empress’s bedroom if he sold them. At the next moment, he was scared by Shen Qianshan’s facial expression. He had never seen Shen Qianshan like this.

He walked over and looked at the diary pointed by Shen Qianshan. He was familiar with Shen Qianshan’s handwriting, but the other one was not familiar to him.

Su Ge felt strange because he didn’t know what Shen Qianshan implied. Shen Qianshan’s voice trembled, “It was answering me.”

Su Ge looked closely and broke out in a cold sweat instantly. He stepped back with fear. It was impossible. He had been working for Shen Qianshan since he was younger than ten years old and was very experienced. He had never been so scared. However, he was indeed scared now.

They stared at each other in astonishment when a clear and domineering voice came from the door, “What are you doing?”

It was the Empress. Shen Qianshan and Su Ge turned around only to see the Empress standing at the door in a black robe. Sha was ready to attack them anytime behind her.

Su Ge was worried. They were caught peeping at something in the Empress’s bedroom. If it was known by others, the reputations of the Empress and Shen Qianshan would be contaminated.

Perhaps just because of that, Shen Qianshan was composed.