RPAGF Chapter 371 1 Speechless
Chapter 371 1 Speechless
After nightfall, the sky became darker and darker, and thick gloomy clouds pressed on the roof, as if the sky was about to collapse, revealing an indescribable feeling of oppression.
Two hours had passed since Taoist Yuan Rong was imprisoned in the dungeon after Yun Zhen and Liu Guang stripped him of his magical powers. All the magical instruments set up by Taoist Yuan Rong in the palace were taken down, especially in the Queen Mother's Palace, where a thorough search was carried out to ensure that no items related to Taoist Yuan Rong were left behind.
Without the protection of the magic weapon, the Queen Mother's Palace seemed a bit gloomy. The maids walking on the corridor all subconsciously walked very fast, as if they were afraid of being caught up by something terrible.
The Queen Mother lay in bed restlessly, staring at the golden gauze curtain hanging above her head with wide eyes, not wanting to sleep at all. Recalling the words of Taoist Yuan Rong, Liu Guang, and Princess Tianning's strange look, she always felt that something important had been overlooked. Things didn't seem to be over yet, and her restless heartbeat was foreshadowing that something big was about to happen.
Suddenly, there was a crisp sound from the door curtain, and the Queen Mother's tense nerves almost broke. She sat up from the bed with a "swoosh" and shouted, "Who?"
"Mother..." A gentle and familiar voice came.
The Queen Mother was relieved at this moment. She lifted the veil, looked at the person who came, Princess Tianning, and asked, "Tianning, what's wrong?"
Princess Tianning's hair had long been undone and hung down on her shoulders. She was wearing a thin layer of clothes and looked as if she had just crawled out of bed after sleeping.
"Tianning, come here quickly. Why are you wearing such thin clothes? Aren't you afraid of catching a cold..." The Queen Mother opened her arms, motioning Princess Tianning to come into her arms quickly.
"Mother, I... I can't sleep..." Tian Ning sat on the edge of the bed like a spoiled child, leaning into the empress dowager's arms.
"Why can't you sleep?" The Queen Mother gently stroked Tianning's hair and whispered in her ear.
"I don't know, but I just can't sleep, mother... can I, can I sleep with you?" Princess Tianning raised her head and begged the queen dowager to take her in for a night with a pitiful expression.
"Silly child..." The Queen Mother chuckled and hugged Princess Tianning tighter. Needless to say, this affectionate gesture meant that she had agreed to Princess Tianning's request. In fact, the Queen Mother herself was tossing and turning in bed tonight, unable to fall asleep, so she could fully understand Princess Tianning's anxiety.
The mother and daughter lay on the bed facing each other, and Princess Tianning curled up in the Queen Mother's arms like a puppy.
Each other's company soothed the anxiety in each other's hearts. As the night deepened, the two people's even breathing sounded harmoniously in this gloomy night.
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Tianning, Tianning... The Queen Mother smelled the fragrance of Tianning's hair, and her dream became very peaceful.
The child whom I had waited for for thirteen years was now getting married. But what lingered in my memory were the bits and pieces of her childhood. She was babbling, crawling and walking... I held her in my arms, teased her, listened to her calling me, and watched her tightly grasp my clothes.
However, there was no man appearing in these fragments of memories, as if Tianning had never had a father.
Tianning... The Queen Mother, immersed in her dream, subconsciously hugged Tianning tighter.
Because she is her only family, she is everything to her.
It doesn't matter if that man is not there, as long as there are mother and daughter, as long as they are the two of them, they can enjoy all the pleasure and happiness in this world.
The dream was so deep that the queen mother could hardly wake up. But at this moment, a piercing scream of "Ah" suddenly came from the beautiful dream.
The dream was shattered into pieces, and the Queen Mother suddenly woke up. In the darkness, she saw a scary shadow beside the bed. And the person who had just screamed was Princess Tianning beside her.
"Tianning!" The Queen Mother subconsciously hugged Tianning, but at this moment, Tianning was lifted off the bed by a terrible force.
With the help of moonlight, the dark shadow beside the bed finally revealed his true face, turning out to be an assassin covered in black veil.
The assassin held a gleaming green dagger in his hand, and a huge knife hole had been pierced on the pillow where Princess Tianning had slept.
As soon as the Queen Mother took a glance at the hole, she was so frightened that she trembled all over and broke out in a cold sweat. It is conceivable that if Princess Tianning had not dodged quickly just now, the hole would have been on Princess Tianning's head.
There was no time to be afraid. Princess Tianning's panicked cry immediately brought the empress dowager back to reality. The empress dowager saw the black-clad assassin drag Tianning off the bed, throw her to the ground like a pile of cargo, and then raise the dagger in his hand high and stab Princess Tianning's neck.
Princess Tianning was so frightened that she dodged backwards, and the dagger missed her target and hit the floor with a clang.
"Someone come, there's an assassin! There's an assassin!" The Queen Mother, who had just reacted, immediately jumped off the bed and pounced on Princess Tianning who was lying on the ground.
But no matter how the Queen Mother called out, not a single guard came running after hearing her calls.
The assassin lifted Princess Tianning up from the ground by the front of her clothes. In a hurry, the Queen Mother rushed over and hugged the assassin's hand, biting her wrist. In an instant, blood flowed, staining the Queen Mother's mouth red. The assassin grimaced in pain, but did not dare to cry out. He finally pulled his hand out of the Queen Mother's mouth, only to find that it had been bitten to a bloody mess and numb to the point of losing consciousness.
The Queen Mother took advantage of this opportunity to quickly block Princess Tianning behind her and shouted at the assassin, "Who are you? Who sent you?"
The assassin covered his wound and said fiercely: "I am here to save Taoist Yuan Rong and kill this evil creature!"
The word "bastard" obviously refers to Princess Tianning. The Queen Mother glared at the assassin with hatred and asked again, "Are you an assassin sent by the Anti-Imperial Society?"
Only the Anti-Imperial Society would sneak into the palace to rescue Taoist Yuan Rong, and only the Anti-Imperial Society would target Princess Tianning's life.
The assassin did not comment, but rushed forward, pushed the Queen Mother away, lifted Princess Tianning from behind her, and threw her against the wall. The Queen Mother was a woman, and in terms of strength, she was no match for the well-trained assassin. After being pushed away, she fell to the ground, her bones aching so much that they seemed to be falling apart, and she could no longer get up to save the princess.
Seeing the assassin raising his knife to stab Princess Tianning again, the Queen Mother dared not watch any longer. She squatted on the ground with her head in her hands and cried, "Don't kill her! She is not the daughter of the late emperor at all!"
These words echoed in the empty room, like the loud bell of an ancient temple, spreading far and wide to every corner, enveloping all three people present in its deep echo.
The assassin's dagger did not stab down, but stopped less than half an inch away from Princess Tianning's throat.
"Don't kill her, don't kill her..." The Queen Mother still didn't dare to raise her head. She just hugged her head tightly, buried it on the ground, and kept murmuring over and over again like chanting a sutra.
The assassin let go of Princess Tianning, lowered the dagger in his hand, turned to look at the Queen Mother and said, "Say it again."
Hearing this, the Queen Mother slowly raised her head, staring at the assassin across from her with tears in her eyes, and repeated slowly in a trembling voice: "She is not at all...not at all...the daughter of the late emperor, so, so...don't kill her. Even if you kill her, you can't appease the anger of the gods, so...so, don't kill her..."
The Queen Mother's voice became lower and lower, as if she was on the verge of collapse.
Princess Tianning fell softly to the ground, and there was a hint of coquettishness in her eyes as she looked at the Queen Mother - that was Yan Niang's eyes.
The assassin said nothing more, but unexpectedly suddenly pulled off the black veil covering his face, revealing his true face to the Queen Mother.
The moment she saw the assassin's face clearly, the Queen Mother's heart seemed to be crushed. She could never have imagined that the assassin who almost took Princess Tianning's life was actually the Imperial Palace Captain Liu Guang.
Liuguang put the dagger back into the scabbard, covered the wound on his wrist that was still bleeding, and shouted to the outside of the door: "What are you waiting for? Isn't the truth out?"
Just as he finished speaking, footsteps finally sounded in the silent corridor outside the door. There was not just one person coming, but a whole group of people.
The group of people lined up neatly in front of the bewildered Queen Mother, looking silently at the mess in the room and the Queen Mother's tearful expression of surprise.
It was not until this moment that the Queen Mother realized that she had been set up. The other party set up this trap to force her to say what she had just said, to force her to admit that Princess Tianning was not the daughter of the late emperor.
"Haha, haha..." The Queen Mother laughed crazily intermittently, and her cold eyes slowly swept across the faces of the group of people lined up at the door.
She wanted to see each of these faces clearly, and she wanted to remember all of these people who had framed her.
The first person she saw was the An family's old enemy, the general. Next to the general stood his beloved son, Kang Xiaorong, Princess Tianning's fiancé.
The next one was the Emperor Long Mohan, followed by Shuntian Prefecture Governor Yang Jingtian, Yun Zhen’s father, and the last one…
The last one... When the Queen Mother saw the man's face clearly, her brain went blank.
Her lips, so pale that the blood had faded, trembled slightly, and she couldn't believe that she actually saw him.
You, it’s actually you… The Queen Mother’s choked throat could not make any sound, but her resentful eyes had already clearly conveyed the question in her heart, piercing deeply into the ears and heart of the last person.
The Kang, Liu, and Yang families had always been in a group and were irreconcilable with the An family, so the Queen Mother was not surprised to see them. But this last person was the one the Queen Mother loved and hated the most, the one she trusted the most and the one she was most distant from - Minister Bao.
Baoer's father is also Princess Tianning's biological father.