After the Empress O Got Pregnant - Chapter 2

The evening lamps had just been lit, and the Dragon Saliva incense inside the palace burned thicker. The lamplight stretched the shadows of the dragons on the golden pillars, casting a hazy play of light and shadow across the floor.

The woman sitting squarely in the primary seat was dressed in a dark crimson robe. Beneath her slender, fair neck, a scattering of red plum-like marks bloomed, ambiguous and dissolute. Her amber eyes fell listlessly upon the woman standing at the foot of the steps in an official’s bright red robe.

Her gaze paused slightly when it caught sight of a face that was six parts similar to the one from the previous night.

“Is there a mosquito in Your Majesty’s palace?” the woman asked softly, as if inquiring offhand.

Pei Yu half-lifted her eyes, a smile that didn’t quite reach her lips curving at the corners of her mouth.

She hadn’t seen a mosquito, but there was a mad dog, for sure.

In the years since ascending the throne, Pei Yu had never once set foot in the inner harem. Yet even without experience, she knew that a mianshou was the lowest and humblest position in the inner harem, the sort kept casually and discarded at any moment.

A mere consort actually dared to bite her all over. When not allowed to suck, that stupid dog had dared to rub against her neck, taking advantage of her momentary trance to leave a full body of marks.

Should she call her brainless, or simply so accustomed to unbridled indulgence that she thought her maternal family’s influence was great enough to overstep bounds right in front of the sovereign?

However, Pei Yu had no intention of dealing with her just yet.

When Jiang Wu was born, Pei Yu was already old enough to remember things. She knew that in that year, the Prime Minister’s wife had gone to a temple to pray for blessings, encountered assassins, and fallen off a cliff to her accidental death.

Within the first month of his wife’s passing, Cheng Jin was discovered to be pregnant.

Due to the complications of later development, it was exceptionally difficult for an alpha to carry an heir. Even if conception occurred, it was hard to sustain, and even if carried to term, most infants did not survive.

Cheng Jin had spent heaven knows how much wealth and material resources searching everywhere for medicine, tortured to the point where, a few weeks before giving birth, she begged the late emperor to entrust the child to her care. Only after coming close to death several times did she barely manage to bring Jiang Wu into the world.

She hadn’t expected that the Prime Minister, who usually carried herself like a detached immortal fairy, would actually be the one underneath, submitting herself to her wife.

The child took the deceased wife’s surname and was the youngest, as well as the only one born directly from Cheng Jin’s own womb, cherished a hundredfold since childhood.

It was said that Jiang Wu always cried when she was little, so Cheng Jin offered a huge reward across the land for miracle doctors to come and treat her. After goodness knows how much commotion, the conclusion was reached: the child wasn’t sick, nor was anything uncomfortable; she just loved to cry.

Yet the Prime Minister was left behind by the late emperor. Although Pei Yu had been steadily expanding her own power over the years, and the old ministers left by the late emperor turned a blind eye, that did not mean she could already contend with them.

Previously, Cheng Jin would submit a small memorial every three days and a large one every five, taking the lead in agitating those officials to urge her not to neglect the inner harem.

Ever since Jiang Wu entered the palace, such voices had completely vanished from the imperial court.

If a consort failed to receive the sovereign’s summons for three years, they were permitted to leave the palace of their own accord.

Cheng Jin presumably did not want the child she cherished so dearly to waste their life away in the deep palace.

Regarding the red marks, Cheng Jin asked no further questions. As long as they weren’t left by her own child, the female emperor was grown up; there was no need to fuss over every single detail like she used to do when she was little.

She lowered her gaze, and when she spoke again, her voice carried a trace of vague heaviness. “Does Your Majesty have other plans in mind for keeping the two princesses in the palace?”

Pei Yu’s two older sisters, Pei Zhao and Pei Cheng, were the only two among the late emperor’s numerous offspring who had been personally mothered by the empress of the primary palace.

If the two of them hadn’t conspired to poison their biological mother, commit incest, and dally together, the imperial throne would never have fallen to Pei Yu.

Cheng Jin’s meaning was clear: long nights bring many dreams; it would be better to banish them both to the borderlands early on, or quietly assassinate them.

Pei Yu waved a hand, signaling that she understood.

Last night, that stupid Alpha had tormented her all night; now, her Prime Minister was up at the crack of dawn to impeach her.

These mother and daughter must have been sent to plague her.

Pei Yu lacked all interest, so Cheng Jin said no more. Her gaze fell upon the candlelight not far away, her frost-like eyes seemingly somewhat thawed by the fire.

With rare hesitation, she parted her lips: “Your Majesty, my young daughter, she…”

“She is fine; the Prime Minister need not worry.”

The woman spoke, cutting her off. Even as she spoke, she could still feel the soreness pulsing through the back of her neck and waist.

Anyone faring even a little bit worse wouldn’t have had that much energy.

Jiang Wu pinched the warm-textured imperial jade pendant in her hand, lowering her eyes. An “Yu” character was carved onto the jade with an extremely sharp knife stroke.

She could guess whose it was without even thinking.

Was the original owner insane? How dare she steal the female emperor’s personal jade pendant? The female emperor was already wary of her family; if this got discovered, she would be done for.

Besides, last night, that Omega who had drugged her could freely enter and leave the palace; she must be a high-ranking female official, quite possibly sent by the female emperor herself.

With the original owner’s brain, she certainly wouldn’t think of this angle. She would definitely take the jade pendant to the female emperor to curry favor, claiming she had found her lost pendant and demanding all sorts of rewards.

She was different; she was much smarter.

Jiang Wu immediately decided to bury this jade pendant.

Digging a hole, burying the item, filling it with soil, all done in one smooth motion.

She stood up, wiped the sweat from her brow with mud-stained hands, and just as she relaxed her nerves and turned around, she met a pair of eyes looking at her as if she were a moron.

What the hell?!

“Jiang Wu, whose straw doll are you burying this time?” The woman clutched a book, a trace of helplessness flashing through her pretty eyes.

“His Majesty hasn’t summoned a single person. Do you really need to manufacture so many imaginary enemies for yourself, suspecting this person and doubting that person every single day?”

Jiang Wu slowly straightened her back, rapidly flipping through the information of the person before her in her mind.

Zhang Lingzhou was the only child of the other surviving official among the two left behind by the late emperor.

Unlike Jiang Wu, Zhang Lingzhou had displayed startling talent and political insight from childhood. Everyone assumed she would enter the court as an official when she grew up to assist the new emperor.

That was until an imperial edict just before the late emperor’s death betrothed her to Pei Yu as a consort, on one hand, perhaps eyeing her superior genes; on the other hand, to keep Pei Yu in check.

There were a total of five consorts in Pei Yu’s inner harem. Aside from the two of them with illustrious family backgrounds, the rest were mostly children from fourth- or fifth-rank official households sent over just to make up numbers.

Those officials were staunch supporters of the new emperor, and their children had been influenced from a young age to forever back the female emperor, maintaining distance from the daughters of the late emperor’s legacy ministers.

Thus, the current inner harem consisted of three consorts isolating the original owner and Zhang Lingzhou, the original owner isolating everyone else, and Zhang Lingzhou being isolated by everyone.

Zhang Lingzhou’s gaze fell upon the Alpha’s mud-stained fingertips and cheeks. The person who used to only stutter out denials and tell others not to talk nonsense suddenly cast a curious and pitiful look at her.

Then, a gentle and bright tone flowed softly past.

“Not at all. I’m planting something this time.”

“Planting what?” Young Miss Zhang asked, half-convinced.

“Lychees, of course. They’re super sweet. You can come over to my place tomorrow night, and I’ll treat you.”

Jiang Wu spoke offhandedly, her mind already on the ten points the system had just gifted her and the shop unlocked by those points.

A single point could exchange for a whole box of lychees!

Zhang Lingzhou didn’t need to dig up what Jiang Wu had buried to look. Even if she knew it was the female emperor’s jade pendant, given her personality, she would only have silently buried it deeper.

The other consorts could leave after three years, but she couldn’t; she was summoned by the late emperor’s decree. In the predetermined ending, she would be trapped within the high walls of the deep palace until her death.

The night gradually fell. The woman behind her gripped the long scroll in her hand, gazing far away at that moon-white figure.

She actually envied Jiang Wu quite a bit.

Able to live so carelessly.

“Can’t you really swap it for ten boxes of lychees?” The person sitting in the chair lowered her eyelashes, her pretty phoenix eyes drooping slightly to reveal the damp eyes within.

“You can trade for one box, and the rest must be saved for the missions!”

“What mission? You haven’t even assigned one.”

The system fell into an eerie silence, its mechanical voice glitching for a long time before slowly lighting up again.

“The host was simply too absorbed and didn’t hear. The mission target was bound last night. You need to fulfill the mission target’s wishes and redeem her before you can return to reality and win a two hundred million cash prize.”

“How, how much?!”

Two hundred million?!

With two hundred million, she wouldn’t even need her graduation certificate, forget about credits, comprehensive evaluations, guaranteed postgraduate admissions, academic competitions, social practice, volunteer hours, or CET-4 and CET-6.

Ordinary people are easily struck dizzy by pleasant surprises, but Jiang Wu was different. She was a very peculiar person; she had lacked a sense of security since childhood, and the more abundant things were, the more anxious they made her.

Calming down, she still decided to exchange for ten boxes of lychees.

Right until she firmly clicked the exchange button, suffered a system electric shock that left her entire body numb and tingling, saw the world before her eyes spin and darken inch by inch, and collapsed onto the ground.

Right before fainting, she heard the system mutter softly:

“Don’t you know eating too many lychees gives you internal heat? I told you not to look for ordinary undergraduate girls in yuri fiction when doing missions.”

She hated academic discrimination.

In the end, she only exchanged for one box. April and May were the season for lychees, and the ones the system gave her seemed to be from the Liangguang region during this time of year, very sweet and delicious.

It was just that room-temperature ones lost a lot of flavor.

Ice was sold in the palace; a small bucket translated into modern currency would cost about thirty-odd yuan. Resting her chin in her hand, she debated all day whether to go buy some ice cubes.

By dusk, the person who had finally decided to treat herself better stood at the doorway, staring face-to-face with the woman who had no idea how long she had been standing there.

“Zhang Lingzhou?” Jiang Wu took a step back, her nose brushed by the faint scent of ink and books lingering around the woman.

“You invited me last night.” Zhang Lingzhou lifted her eyes, shaking the two jars of wine she was carrying in her hand.

She had brought things; she didn’t come empty-handed.

This was Jiang Wu’s first time inviting her. Although growing lychees overnight was absurd, she wasn’t going to bicker with a freeloader who lived off others.

The excuse for the invitation was so clumsy; she figured Jiang Wu must feel lonely in the deep palace and wanted to make friends with her.

Whose straw doll Jiang Wu wanted to bury was none of her business either; she wasn’t a gentleman, nor did she believe in ghosts and gods.

If they really were birds of a feather, let alone burying wooden dolls, even if the Alpha wanted to bury them in person, she would probably just stand guard on the side and help shovel the dirt.

She liked people who looked pretty, and coincidentally, Jiang Wu was the prettiest one in the palace.

The moon-white figure fluttered, those upturned, alluring phoenix eyes fixing on her, blinking and gradually blooming into a smile, much like a puppy’s tail wagging faster and faster behind it.

“Zhang Lingzhou, how much of your living allowance do you have left this month? I mean, your monthly stipend.”

“Still have half.” Zhang Lingzhou usually spent very little. Her desires of the palate weren’t heavy, and she had no need to make friends, buy wine, or gather for meals. If she hadn’t bought these two jars of wine, she would have at least two-thirds left.

Looking at those curved, sparkling eyes, she added, “I’ve saved ten taels.”

“Zhang Lingzhou, you’re amazing!”

“Then would you be willing to contribute a bucket of ice to our gathering?”

Losing all self-control under the praise of the frantically tail-wagging pretty puppy, Zhang Lingzhou went straight and fetched two buckets of ice.

Dragging them to the door, she stood in silence for a moment before belatedly turning her head to eye the Alpha chomping on a blade of grass and swaying nearby.

“Did you really grow lychees?”

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