Chapter 892
Relief
Chapter 892 Relief
The Empress Dowager's expression changed drastically. She reached out and swung her hand at Pan Yun, who immediately stood up straight, while the Empress Dowager fell to the ground in a disheveled state.
Pan Jun looked down at her coldly.
The Empress Dowager's eyes were bloodshot, and she gritted her teeth, saying, "You're so smug! What are you so smug about? My son doesn't like you, but the Prince of Cheng, who likes you, became emperor and appointed you as the Imperial Preceptor?"
Pan Yun: "The death of the late emperor is a pain for the entire Ming Dynasty, but the Empress Dowager should be glad that the late emperor died. Otherwise, how many things would he have done that would have harmed the Ming Dynasty? The pride of the Zhu family and the backbone of our Ming Dynasty were all destroyed by his hands!"
Pan Yun laid bare the issues that the Empress Dowager had been avoiding, tearing away the fig leaf she had been holding up. The Empress Dowager couldn't accept it for a moment, shaking her head frantically: "How dare you! How dare you slander the late Emperor!"
Seeing the madness in her eyes instead of calm, Pan Yun knew that arguing with her now was useless, so he simply said, "Empress Dowager, the late Emperor was able to receive the posthumous title of Emperor Yingzong because the new emperor abolished the practice of burying people alive with the dead in his name. From now on, no one in the Han Palace will be buried alive with the dead. If you want the late Emperor to be cursed for all eternity and to have no merits to be praised in his life, then just kill him!"
Empress Dowager Sun made two "heh heh" sounds, her fingers gripping the stone slab tightly, her fingernails scratching the cracks in the stone, blood dripping continuously from her fingertips.
Pan Yun looked on expressionlessly.
"Wait a minute..." Empress Dowager Sun called out to her in a hoarse voice, and asked, "What did he say that day?"
Pan Yun stopped and turned back to look at her. Seeing her lying on the ground, he lowered his eyes and thought for a moment before saying, "He didn't have time to say anything before he laid a trap. We can't take him away. He didn't want to implicate us and kept telling us to leave. We were able to get out alive entirely because the late emperor sacrificed himself to protect us."
The Empress Dowager laughed, but large tears fell onto the stone slab.
She had already read those reports, and she had even met with the scouts and the Imperial Guards separately.
If only I had known what happened that day.
She knew her son well, and from what he had done since his capture, the Empress Dowager knew that he refused to leave because he felt he could not escape alive.
He genuinely wanted Pan Yun and the others to leave alive;
Pan Yun and the others were genuinely willing to die for Zhu Qizhen;
Unfortunately, they wanted to die on the battlefield with the emperor, but the emperor refused. In the end, he died a miserable death on the battlefield, not in battle.
Instead, they perished, they perished...
The Empress Dowager thought of how she had retreated again and again for the sake of his posthumous reputation, and in the end she couldn't even send him a servant. She burst into tears.
Pan Yun paused for a long time before turning back to squat in front of the Empress Dowager and whispering in her ear to comfort her: "Your Majesty, you should be glad. Everyone who dies is equal in the underworld. Everyone will seek revenge for their grudges and grievances."
Empress Dowager Sun raised her tear-streaked face and looked at her with a bewildered expression.
Pan Jun gently wiped away her tears and said softly, "Your Majesty, you don't think that I'm still a servant after I die, and an emperor is still an emperor after he dies, do you? All beings are equal, whether in life or in death. You should be glad that when the other emperors woke up after their deaths, they were faced with countless wronged souls and vengeful ghosts. Only the late emperor had no wronged souls sleeping beside him. He was at peace."
Empress Dowager Sun shivered three times and looked at Pan Yun with a look of horror.
Pan Jun smiled slightly at her, and seeing that she had really stopped crying, he stood up with satisfaction.
Sure enough, her words of comfort were effective.
As soon as Pan Yun left, Empress Dowager Sun looked at the old female official lying on the ground, staring at her in terror, and didn't even have the courage to silence her.
If all beings are truly equal in the underworld after death, wouldn't that mean that these wronged and vengeful spirits will be waiting for her underground forever?
Miaozhen was still stargazing on the rooftop, jotting down her observations in her notebook, when she looked down and saw her junior uncle returning with a beaming smile. She asked, "Is there some good news?"
Pan Yun: "I just finished comforting the Empress Dowager."
Knowing the whole story, Pan Xiaohei quietly entered behind her and rolled his eyes upon hearing this: "Is that comforting? It's clearly intimidation."
Deep within the palace, Zhang Zijin, who had kept his eyes closed, chuckled and swept the letters off the table.
A dozen or so letters fell to the ground, spontaneously combusting just before hitting the earth. Flames rolled upwards, burning the letters to ashes. Zhang Zijin watched quietly, then closed his eyes again to cultivate after a long while.
Young people are great, but they're too righteous and quick to anger.
Pan Yun also came to her senses and pulled Miao Zhen back to the room to rest: "I'll put you in the Imperial Observatory another day. You can use whatever you want on the observatory. You won't have to stay up all night looking at the stars with your naked eyes every day."
Miaozhen was taken aback: "Aren't I going back to Sanqing Mountain?"
“We’re not going back,” Pan Yun said. “Let Second Senior Brother go back; you all stay.”
After going through this ordeal, Pan Yun had come to terms with it. Since there was no way to avoid it, she might as well keep people under her watchful eye and protect as many as she could.
Miao Zhen was unaware of the details, but seeing that her junior uncle seemed happier and more carefree than in the past few days, she happily agreed.
As for Empress Dowager Sun, whether it was comforting or intimidating her, the effect was still very good.
The next day, Pan Jun sent Pan Xiaohei to check on Sui Shu and learned that she was alright.
The Empress Dowager bestowed upon her a bunch of random things and had the imperial physician treat her. To prevent her from being afraid of death and committing suicide, the Empress Dowager also had an old female official hint to Sui Shu that she would find an excuse to let her leave the palace after the late emperor was buried.
Sui Shu was already thirty-two years old. In the Ming Dynasty, palace maids who grew old were generally sent to the Laundry Bureau or Jing Le Hall to do hard labor such as washing and sweeping. Only palace maids who were particularly favored by their masters would be allowed to leave the palace under the pretext of marriage or being given away.
Apart from that, it was only possible to leave the palace by special imperial decree.
Sui Shu never imagined that she would ever be able to leave the palace in her lifetime.
Although she didn't know whether the Empress Dowager's promise was true or false, or whether it was another form of silencing or forced suicide, she was willing to try.
She entered the palace at the age of twelve and has been there for twenty years. She has witnessed three mass suicides and this is the fourth.
Each time left a deep impression on her; among them were her former mentors, her close friends, and even people she had a good impression of.
They were all put on the list because of a single glance from their superiors, and their lives were lost without a trace.
After they die, the imperial decree will be bestowed upon the families who sold them into the palace, and then they will become dust, remembered by no one except her.
As she grew older, she found herself slowly forgetting them.
She was terrified; how could she forget them?
Will many more people die silently in this palace in the future, never to be remembered again?
Based on this, she boldly stepped forward to stop Empress Qian when she realized that she was determined to die.
She knew that Empress Qian was a good person, and that if her death would prevent the abolition of the practice of funerary sacrifice and cause the deaths of many people in the future, she would definitely not die.
As expected, Empress Qian did not die.
After two days of waiting, the new emperor ascended the throne and issued an edict to hold a funeral for the late emperor, suspending court for three days to keep vigil for the new emperor. All civil and military officials were required to enter the palace to mourn.
Sui Shu finally found an opportunity to visit Pan Yun when the late emperor was about to be buried.
She had come to express her gratitude to Pan Yun, but Pan Yun glanced at her and then said behind the screen, "Your Majesty, I just said I wanted to find someone with spiritual insight to offer incense for you, and here he is."
(End of this chapter)