CHAPTER 13

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"Your majesty, they also sent a letter to." The soldier said. Cao Zhi immediately took the letter and gave it to him.

He read the letter which contains a persuasion about letting the princess go back to their state because she is a princess of a northern state and it is only appropriate for them to punish her than in a foreign state.

He crumbles the paper and throws it. "Nonsense! That woman is married to me in public so basically, she had been a western state person. I'll go and fight with you at the border. I won't let anyone destroy my state just for a woman."

"Your majesty, you can't. Please send me there to fight with the enemy." His brother said.

"But—"

"I'll never let anyone destroy my nation too. Don't worry, brother, just stay here and be a good emperor while I do my job as a general."

He sighed and in the end, he approved his brother's request. He stayed in the palace and every hour, letters came to report everything that was happening on the border for him to be updated on the war.

He sent Cao Zhi to the border with his brother while Miss Lu Xi already went back to their sect since Nianian is already with him.

He feels bad whenever he reads how many casualties they had every hour until the war ended after three days and they won but his brother died on the battlefield.

He couldn't process the information and even denied it for how many days but when he personally saw his brother who had just arrived from the border, he accepted that his brother had already gone.

His brother has many wounds and a fatal shot of arrow on his chest was the one that made him die. He mourned for him for three days before they buried him.

Because he got so focused on mourning, someone already took out the princess in the dungeon and has been nowhere to be found.

As of now, it has been peaceful in the palace. His routine of going to the court every morning and reading memorials has been what he always did these past few days together with Nianian and Cao Zhi.

But today, he was just with Cao Zhi and Nianian is nowhere to be found. Where did she go?



Since it was peaceful in the palace, she decided to tour the palace secretly. That's why she didn't let the emperor know. Knowing that man, he'll cancel his morning meeting just to accompany her, which she doesn't want him to do.

She gets inside the late Empress palace. The palace looks like an abandoned place because no one has been living here since the late Empress' disappearance.

After a while, she decided to go out. She also walked towards the grand empress Dowager who she learned is sick and only staying at her room this year.  When she got inside the grand Empress' dowager's courtyard, only then did she know that it was so wide that there were also small houses not far from the gate. "Why is there a house there?" She asked herself and just didn't mind it and was about to leave when her ears heard something.

She looked around and the noise she heard came from the house she saw. She immediately goes there and expertly climbs the wall of the house. When she arrived at the house, she immediately got inside and saw someone crying.

She saw a tie on the door so she immediately followed it until she reached the bedroom and there she saw a woman who she heard was crying earlier. She's still crying and what made her confused is that the woman is tied from both of her hands.

"Who are you?" She asked and the woman immediately got up and looked at her.

The woman got up from lying on the bed and became agitated. "Who are you? Why are you here? Leave me alone!"

She tried to think if she met the woman in the past because she felt familiar. "I am Nianian. I won't hurt you. I just want to know why you are here and tied?"

"That woman! She killed my husband! She told me herself. I won't forgive her. I won't forgive her! She locked me here because I knew her plan and she didn't kill me because she wants to hold my son's neck when the time comes. Miss, leave now or she'll lock you here too! Go! Go now!"

She tried to hold the woman's shoulder who was shaking in fear. "Who is she?"

The woman stared at her. "It's— It's the grand empress Dowager." She got weak to what she heard. The grand empress Dowager? How come? Could it be that she is just pretending to be sick just to manipulate the people around her?

She looked at the woman. "Then you are?"

"I am the empress."

She covered her mouth in shock. The empress? The Emperor's mother? She thought the empress disappeared because of grief of losing her husband. She can't believe that the grand empress dowager kidnapped her and locked her up just beside her palace.

Why did the emperor not know this house anyways? It was just beside the grand empress dowager's palace.

"You are the empress, then you didn't die? How come?"

"I am not. I was here for the past years, crying and trying to escape but failed. I also attempted to just end my life but that old woman doesn't let me. This house is built as a sound proof and well-guarded. Only a highly skilled person can hear my crying and can go untraceable. That's why I already never attempted to shout or I will just tire myself out."

"So that's how it is. How about I help you get out of this house and bring you to your son?" She asked and touched the tie when an alarm set off. "This is bad. I'm sorry, I'll leave you first. I'll just go and get reinforcement." She said and immediately left the house before someone could see her.

While walk-running towards the Emperor's palace, she is already thinking of a way to make the emperor believe her words. But before she could get inside the Emperor's palace, she got knocked out by someone.

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