Chapter 39.
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Hello~
I've tried my best to cut down this chapter's length, but I couldn't... Other chapters contain around 2000words, while this chapter has nearly 3000. But this is because I can't move some scenes to the next chapter, because I've to follow the timeline. Anyway, I think this length is still acceptable. Read on :D
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Recap: in the previous chapter, the Emperor fell sick and everyone was anxious, the court was getting tensed. Crown Prince misunderstood Jade and Third Prince's relationship and their relationship turned worse. Consort Shine seemed to be scheming something with High Minister Harv.
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How many years have we been separated? It has been so long that I have lost count. Please wait for a while more, I will find you. It is my turn to find you now. Remember to wait for me, alright? I have always been sorry for leaving you. If...if you are not waiting for me there...it is okay. I do not blame you. Let me repent for my sins then, and return all that I have owed you in our next lives.
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Dead silent as usual her quarters are, dust has started to collect around the corners. Its gleaming surfaces of the wooden floors have long become a history. At least it is now not as cold as the owner's heart, for the spring has arrived, mountains have greened and skies have blued. Birds are chirping, welcoming the new warm season, a season full of love, or so it should have been.
"I have not seen you for very long." She for the first time actually tries to look into Jade's eyes, without trying to avert her gaze from time to time. Maybe now it is already once and for all.
"Ye-yes...Mother Empress."
"How have you been?" That is a question that certainly takes her aback, for she has never expected the Empress to show her some care, because power is blinding. Materialism has taken over those who are high on the social caste, in fact is has been deeply rooted in everyone's deepest heart. However, it still may not explain Empress' favouritism towards Crown Princess Shana. She is after all from the Wales family, the family with strong ties with her Harv family.
"I...I have been very healthy. Thank you Mother Empress for your deepest care."
"I heard that Crown Prince visited you recently." Still, she is merciless, ruthless and straight to the point. Jade has already expected this the moment the Empress steps into her quarters.
"Yes..."
"Crown Princess is pregnant. She needs the utmost care and love from Crown Prince during these times. You have failed to produce a child for the Crown Prince, hence you should not try to monopolise him again."
"...." Actually she has never done such thing called monopolising the Crown Prince, or having him all to herself. It was Crown Prince who willingly go to her. She too, wishes for someone to empathise with her loss. She may still question the reason as to why Autumn turned back on her, and attempted to kill her. She may still hold grudges for she is still a human, and was a mother-to-be. However, she has never witnessed such cruelty of Crown Prince. How could she ever ask for him to return?
"I believe that I have always been tolerant with you. However, now I will not. To tell the truth, I have never agreed to Crown Prince taking you as his Mistress, for I know who you really are. It was the Imperial Decree that allowed you to marry him. Your fake family is unable to provide any support to Crown Prince securing his ascension to the throne. Shana is different. Wales family is different. They are one of the strongest families in our Empire. Thus she must not be humiliated, or they may not accept the fact that Crown Prince favours a woman from a useless family over the one from a powerful family." Jade tries her best, putting in all her effort into digesting Empress' words. However, it may be too hard for her to comprehend politics, still, for she is not educated in that matter.
"Lis, bring it in." The doors that were kept shut slowly creak open, revealing the Empress' lady-in-waiting who is holding a tray, with a bowl on it. She carefully places the bowl onto the table that separates Jade and Empress, before retreating back outside and closing the doors again for their privacy.
"This is tonic soup," the Empress pauses for a mere moment before she continues again, with completely no expression on her face, "that contains very little amount of poison." She may have not been able to understand the politics. She may not be very educated, she may not be intelligent at all. However, she surely understands that one word, poison.
"Because of you, many ministers are unwilling to support Crown Prince as they perceive him as someone easily swayed, especially by women like you, who have no status and power." And especially women who are power-hungry, Empress finishes her sentence in her heart, perhaps because she too still has that little bit of conscience left and knows not to mention some things.
"I give you two choices. Leave the palace, or take this everyday. No one will suspect your death, for they will just think that you are sick after miscarriage."
Surprised is an understatement. Needless to say, if she refuses both, she may not even be able to see the sun anymore tomorrow, and Rowena may even be dragged in the troubles she has gotten into.
I want to live. Those words keep repeating in her head. She is hiding her trembling fingers behind her sleeves, hoping that the Empress will not notice, though she must have noticed Jade's eyes that have reddened and turned glassy. She is biting back her inner cheeks, trying her best not to cry.
She wants to live, but she too does not want to leave Crown Prince. She cannot stop asking, what is wrong with our love? Why is it so hard? Why is it so painful?
Because if anyone wants to live in the palace, one of the many things that he has to sacrifice is his feelings, for that will surely be the reason of his downfall.
"I...I will take...the poison..." It takes her so much courage to force the words she is unwilling to say out. She is willing to try, for she thinks that there is no reason to live if she leaves the palace with so much regrets and sadness swelling up in her heart. It definitely will be so much better to die happily beside Crown Prince, she thinks, naively.
"Very well. I will ask Lis to send it to you everyday. And she will make sure that you drink it all. This bowl...you may choose not to drink it, for this is the first." Empress hastily rises from her seat, flipping her hands to collect back her long sleeves and put them back in place while she adjusts the her posture. Then she leaves, without batting an eyelash at Jade, leaving that girl in the cold and silent room.
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From behind the wood partitions, Consort Lana emerges without uttering a single word. She cannot hide the anger showing on her face, her heavy breathing, her glaring and her reddening face. She is holding back her urge to slap her, the woman who is sitting on her position like a stone, not moving, not batting an eyelash.
"Why?!" She can only scream her question out. She feels that every single word coming out of her throat will only be screams. She is too dumbfounded, too speechless and angered by the fact that Jade chooses to drink the poison that will slowly kill her.
"Why are you so foolish?!" Jade's only response is that single drop of tear that escapes her eyelid. It slides down her cheeks, dripping onto her sleeves. She makes no effort to wipe it off. Perhaps she is too tired to resist anymore. She has given in to life, to the cruel grasp of destiny.
"Just leave! Why did you not leave?! I will prepare a small house for you in the East Mountains, just like your promise to Empress Dowager! You can consider your promise to the Empress Dowager done! Just leave!" There is a silence breaking the tensed atmosphere in the room, before Jade replies, with words that hit Consort Lana right at her weakest spot.
"If my heart is here, how can my body go?"
Right there and then, Consort Lana breaks down. She wails, she sobs, she weeps for her memories of her friend, her long-gone beloved friend.
"You are just like Consort Para." She speaks in between her sobs. Consort Para was always giving in to the Emperor's wishes, giving in to his words, so much that she gave in to fighting for his love and let him have his forbidden unknown romance with Magnolia.
However, she never tells Jade about how much she resembles herself too. How Empress Dowager made her drink the soup that caused her miscarriage, how she actually took it in order to be able to spend more time with the Emperor, who has never looked her way. How her sacrifices have all turned out to be in vain. Perhaps that is the reason why people give up on their love for power instead, because loving is too painful for them.
She has already thought of Jade as someone like a friend, like her student, someone pleasant to talk to, just like the late Consort Para. She does not wish for history to repeat itself again, she does not want to have to shed tears over the loss of a precious someone. However, what else can she do other than respecting their choices? The people she thought of as friends have all always been too weak to live inside the palace. Their hearts have been too clean, so clean that once they are tainted with the blood of the lavish prison, they die.
She can foresee how Jade will turn out to be like her as well in years to come, living alone without the love of her husband. And worse, Jade will forever be stuck with her low rank while Consort Lana at least has a dignified rank with the help of the Lana family. It is better for her to leave than to live a bitter life in the palace, although she may not live long enough with the poison sent to her everyday.
"Dying would have definitely been so much better. At least it is once and for all. To live forever drowning in sadness, is that not simply a torture?"
"Dying a life you have always been holding onto for a man, is that worth it?"
"...I do not know... At least...I can leave this tiring world, maybe..."
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She has taken the herbal soup that contains little amount of poison everyday, for almost a month already. Her complexion has paled. She has grown so much weaker, she has thinned yet Crown Prince knows none of it. He has never visited her, not even once, while she is holding onto that little amount of hope that he will visit her, willingly and voluntarily like how they used to be. It is amazing how relationships change, people who used to love each other now no longer even talk.
So she finally makes up her mind after days and days of pondering to visit Crown Prince herself. She is hoping that he will notice the secrets she has been keeping to herself for so long, how the Empress has been pushing her, although it may be impossible for it is her who wants him to know nothing and not feel responsible for it.
After moments of dressing up and makeup, Jade is still unable to hide that sorrow from her face. Her complexion may have looked more lively due to the makeup, however who does not know that it is all a mask? Maybe Crown Prince does not. Her cheeks are rosy and her lips are tinted red, her eyebrows done and hair pulled up and fastened with her most beautiful pins. She assumes that, maybe he will come back to her again if she is to look beautiful.
She makes sure that Rowena does not forget to bring along the lotus seed cake, Crown Prince's favourite. His palace is not too far from hers, just a short walk and she will be there, right in front of the doors to his palace. Her heart beats a hundred times faster as nervousness kicks in quickly and immediately the moment the doors come in sight. When she is still staring on the ground, wondering if she should visit him, the doors creak open and Crown Princess Shana appears, with her belly round and looking like the baby is growing healthily. They both stare at each other awkwardly, but Crown Princess notices the amount of makeup Jade puts on, which hides the faint look of a sickly person. In that instant moment guilt takes over her heart, for she thinks that she is the one who made the then favoured Mistress like this.
Jade forces herself to a deep curtsy, with her weak knees and legs. Crown Princess is too surprised by her actions, that she may have forgotten to let the sick person rise. She hastily takes a thousand steps past her, but not before whispering a short phrase to her.
"I am sorry."
Jade catches her faint voice, but she pays no heed to it. Instead she asks Rowena to help her regain her energy and stand up again. She carries her last hope of hers which may turn his heart back, for the last time. The least she is asking is his sympathy.
She enters his quarters without informing him, for she wants to see his reaction to her being there. She takes her steps patiently and quietly and she stands still when he comes into view. It does not take long for Crown Prince to notice her there. Indeed, as a man, he is unable to notice what she is hiding behind those unusually thick makeup of hers. He only finds her looking like those women who seduce men for wealth. He cannot believe how much his beloved Mistress have changed during the times he is not present.
"It is so rare for you to come here yourself." Crown Prince retracts his hand and puts down his brush, focusing his attention on Jade. He notices how she is taking her time to walk right in front of him and sits on the cushion, he notices that small package of sweet-smelling thing she has in her hands.
"What brings you here?" He too is curious about her reason to want to personally and initiatively find him. There should be a reason. Instead, Jade places that package of lotus-seed cakes on his table. She unties the knot of the cloth and removes the lid of the box.
"I remember you like these." Crown Prince is only staring at the cakes and he is able to immediately know that she is not the one who makes the cakes. The ones she make have lighter shade. Still, he regains his composure and chooses the one on the top and puts it into his mouth, savouring the sweet taste of the cake. Too sweet, it is unlike the ones she makes. Then, he knows that she does not have the sincerity to make the cakes herself to reconcile. He guesses that she may just have been rejected by Third Prince, regrets her choice and is trying to win him back by putting on so much makeup.
What he does not know is her deteriorating health.
"What? Did Third Brother leave you? So you are coming back to me?" Those words come at her like sharp blades slashing her heart and daggers stabbing at her heart. It has been bleeding, but now the blood is only pouring out even more. Is hate and despise really the only feelings that is left?
Right there, she feels a sharp throb of pain right at her heart. She wants to give up bearing the pain, for it is too torturing to put on the facade that she is healthy, that she is fine, but she still does.
"Why? Why are you not saying anything?" What can she say when all Crown Prince does is to pick on however he can make her feel guilty and sorry, though she does not feel that way. She only feel wronged, so innocently wronged that she has no any other way to save her innocence but to keep quiet at all times. At least she will not speak the wrong words.
"To tell the truth, I no longer like lotus seed cakes." That leaves Jade wonder, how long really they have been apart from each other that Crown Prince's preferences have changed? What is he doing during those times? They are all the same questions that Crown Prince once asked himself.
Maybe there is really no way back, she thinks. The reason she chooses the poison is because she believes that Crown Prince will go back to her again, at least, for the last moments of her life. However, she is wrong. Now, ironically, she is only sure of how there is no way back to those spring times of their love. Their love is like the season. Spring is when their love was blooming, when happiness was the only thing ever existed. Summer is when Jade lost her child, when there was only tensions between the couple. Autumn represents the times Jade refused to talk to Crown Prince, for she needed the time to be alone and lastly, winter is now, when the words they hurl at each other only carve deep wounds inside their hearts.
Jade's eyes turn towards the pen brush lying on his table and she daringly, without his permission, reaches out for that dark-wood thin writing material, holding it in her hand as though it is as fragile as a porcelain.
"I want to leave the palace."
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Anyway did you all watch Scarlet Heart Ryeo? OMG I finished it 😭 but the ending is quite disappointing. I kind of prefer the Chinese Scarlet Heart where the girl remembers everything about them the moment she wakes up.
See you in the next chapter! :)