Princess In The Palace

12. The Hard Truth

Chapter 12.

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Recap: in the previous chapter, Yì Rán saw Second Prince secretly looking at Concubine Huā. The latter saw the girl and dragged her away, warning her not to tell anyone. As he thought that they were both in the same boat, he told her to be careful and not to get too close to First Prince as it was a palace taboo. Yì Rán later learned about the previous Crown Prince who was led to downfall by his Mistress and she began to hate on the people involved with the Crown Prince, including Crown Princess and Empress Hán. Empress Yáng began to pay more attention to Yì Rán as she did not want First Prince to repeat the history of Crown Prince Liú Zhōng.

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She stared at the paintings spread out on the low redwood table. They were all the paintings of her younger self, when she was still in her prime age, her time when she was the most beautiful. She smiled at those paintings and looked to her left where she let her young servant have a look.

"Your Highness...was really beautiful." Yì Rán lifted her hand to touch the painting, but retracted it, remembering how precious these things could be.

"Go ahead. It is okay. These faces are yours too anyway." Empress Dowager smiled, brushing her fingers past the silk. Her eyes were particularly set on a painting of her in white dresses holding a white umbrella, her favourite colour during her youthful times. Her eyes softened remembering those times, those times when her heart was still free of stain and sin. When she averted her gaze to other paintings, she saw her smile in those paintings hardened, just like how her mind had hardened with time as she spent more time in the palace.

"This painting looks like me most." Yì Rán pointed at the very same painting she looked at earlier. Her heart was shaken by the fact that this girl still looked like the youthful her. She was touched, so touched that she almost felt tears coming out of her eyes. However, she then remembered how her tears seemed to have dried for she no longer cried. She gazed at the little girl, feeling waves of nostalgia rushing past her mind. She wanted that girl to remain as pure as she was.

"Of course. This was painted when I was around your age too."

"Really? But Your Highness still look beautiful even today. Can I even look like Your Highness when I reach that age?"

"What are you saying? It is fate that we share the same face. Of course you would too."

"Hmm..." Yì Rán let her eyes wander back to the paintings and one particular painting caught her attention. She pointed at the little boy in the painting standing right next to Empress Dowager.

"This should be...His Majesty?" The little boy had a determined eyes just like the current Emperor.

"Yes."

"Does His Majesty have any other siblings?" She was taken aback by that question, does he have any siblings? She had been asking that question herself, what should she answer? Of course she could only reply one particular answer, but what about the other? Would she ever say that?

"Of course. He had other half siblings, but they were bad people," she continued, repeating the same words she used to tell her grandchildren. She was already used to telling the same kind of story over and over again that she was no longer surprised by how she could recite her story word for word.

"How? Did they give Your Highness a hard time?"

"Yes. They were always trying to harm us, but now His Majesty only exiled them. It was the lightest form of punishment considering what they had done." She swept her fingers across the lips of her tea cup, she felt the warmth of the liquid inside serenading the summer heat. She lifted the cup with the tip of her fingers to avoid the warmer part of the cup and sipped the fragrant content bit by bit.