Chapter 76

After spring, the soil in the ground began to thaw and the dormant plants gradually recovered. In order to survive the winter, flowers in the orchid garden, which cannot tolerate cold temperatures, have to be moved inside the house, and then moved back to the orchid garden one by one after the days get warmer. Every year at this time, Zong Zi Heng will always be busy for quite some time at the flowerbed.

Under Zong Zi Heng's command, the chambermaids of Qinghui Pavilion moved the various colors of orchids, pot by pot, to the Orchid Garden.

When a servant girl passed by Zong Zi Heng carrying a flowerpot, he suddenly called out to her, "Wait, put this pot down first."

The servant girl put down the flower pot and went to carry the others.

Zong Zi Heng frowned at the thin branch that had just sprouted.

In order for the plant to hibernate, it had to be pruned before winter, such as this pot of Cymbidium in front of him. Compared to the exuberance and delicacy of its flowering, the bare appearance of this pot was really like two very different flowers. It has just awakened and sprouted, but the roots of the small, supposedly green buds are tinged with some red.

He has been raising orchids for more than ten years and knows all about common species like this Cymbidium. How could this flower have grown red buds when it had not been cultivated with any mixed colors?

Unless there was something wrong with the soil and had been dyed.

He poked the soil in the pot with his finger, which was his usual black soil, and there was nothing unusual about it. He hesitated, wanting to take a shovel and turn over the soil to see.

"Heng Er." Shen Shi Yao came in at some point, her gaze sullen as she looked at her son.

Zong Zi Heng was stunned for a moment. There seemed to be dark currents under his mother's calm and silent eyes. His heart chamber trembled, looked down at the pot of flowers and a chill went straight up his spine.

"Don't you want to move the flowers? Go now, don't delay dinner time." Shen Shi Yao walked over step by step.

Zong Zi Heng looked at the flower and gazed at his mother again.

Shen Shi Yao raised her chin slightly and said in a gentle yet forceful tone, "Go now." She called out to a chamberlain, "Carry this pot out too."

The chamberlain was about to come over and carry the flower when Zong Zi Heng said in a deep voice, "Get out."

The chamberlain was startled and looked at Shen Shi Yao in a helpless manner. In his impression, His Highness was as gentle as a jade, even if he was a subordinate, he would not be shouted at for no reason.

"All of you, go out." Zong Zi Heng's gloomy gaze swept over all the palace staff.

The crowd retreated in a line and closed the door.

"What are you doing?"

Zong Zi Heng suddenly lifted his hand and pushed the red clay flower pot to the ground, breaking it in pieces with a "pop", scattering flowers and soil all over the floor. Among the black soil, there was clearly some red soil mixed with it, more blinding and sinful than blood.

Zong Zi Heng had the illusion that the sky was falling. He staggered a step back, looking at his mother in horror.

Shen Shi Yao reached out and formed a seal, laying down a soundproof boundary: "Heng Er, listen to mother."

"You killed second brother?" The words rushed out, but his voice shook beyond recognition.

Shen Shi Yao lowered her head, pondered for a moment, and said softly, "I did it for ..."

"Stop saying you're doing it for me!" Zong Zi Heng howled, his white-glazed face was now red. His eyes were rounded, and his description became hideous.

"But I'm doing it for you." Shen Shi Yao covered her heart with her hand, "I'm your mother, if I don't do it for you, who will?”

"You're crazy, you're crazy." Zong Zi Heng avoided her, as if avoiding fierce floods and savage beasts, his face twisted with fear and pain, "You harmed Miss Hua and poisoned second brother to death? You ... how could you be so vicious!?"

"Because Li Xiang Tong forced me to!" Shen Shi Yao roared shrilly, "She forced me again and again, and you sympathize with her son? Has she ever given us any sympathy? What kind of life have we lived in the palace these past twenty years as mother and son? Do you want to be trampled underfoot for the rest of your life?"

"And for that, you want to kill someone?!"

"I originally didn't want to kill him, it was Li Xiang Tong who didn't give us a chance to live." Shen Shi Yao's expression was a little bit crazy, "I originally thought that if you married Hua Yu Xin, you could leave Daming and have your own world, so I could have peace of mind, but she wouldn't let us have our wish. She's so vicious, she can't see anything good in you. Now that Hua Yu Xin is dead and your last chance has been ruined by Li Xiang Tong, what else can I do?"

"You ... are simply crazy and ridiculous, you are crazy and ridiculous!" Zong Zi Heng felt that he too had gone mad. He didn't know how to face all this. How to face the fact that his father was a demonic cultivator who ate human cores and his mother had poisoned and killed his own brother.

Crazy, they are all crazy.

Maybe what he was living in was not a human realm, maybe it was all a nightmare. Who could take him away from here?

Shen Shi Yao said with tears in her eyes, "Yes, I'm mad, I'm insane. As long as I can make you the Human Emperor, I'm willing to risk my life."

"Human, Emperor?" Zong Zi Heng glared at her viciously, "What else do you want to do?"

"Heng Er." Shen Shi Yao grabbed Zong Zi Heng's sleeve and pleaded, "Zong Zi Mo is dead, Zong Zi Xiao is still young, now is your chance ah, if you ..."

Zong Zi Heng shook off her hand, his eyes bloodshot, "I don't want to be the Human Emperor, much less through fratricide. Do you think there is no karma in the world? The evil you have done will only doom us forever!”

"As long as you are the Human Emperor, no one under the sky will be able to harm us!"

"Shut up!" Zong Zi Heng clenched his fists and felt his blood flowing backwards. He was dying to destroy everything in front of him. Perhaps only by making the surroundings more chaotic could he find a trace of clarity, "You are crazy. You have committed such a crime. How do you want me to be a human?"

"Why can't you think of Mother? If I hadn't been driven to desperation, why would I have done this? My safety doesn’t matter, I just want you to be well ah."

"Is that so, were you forced?" Zong Zi Heng's eyes almost dripped blood as he pointed tremblingly at the red soil on the ground, "This stuff, to be used in medicine, requires a very large amount. You can't leave the palace, and you don't have any trusted helpers. They are extracted from rouge, right? If you buy a lot of rouge at one time, you are bound to be discovered, but buying it all year round will not arouse any suspicion. How many years have you been saving it up? How many years have you been planning to have these Chizhi that are enough to poison people to death!?"

Shen Shi Yao stared at Zong Zi Heng in a daze.

Zong Zi Heng's face was already full of tears.

Shen Shi Yao took out a silk handkerchief and gently wiped away her tears. She still had that soft and weak look, but the words she said were gut-wrenching, "Thirteen years, I have saved up for thirteen years." She said softly, "Do you still remember when you were nine years old? You had a serious illness. Your fever was to the point of delirium. Zong Ming He checked Zong Zi Mo's homework every day, went to see the newborn Zong Zi Xiao every day, but never even came to see you. My heart died completely from that day onwards."

Zong Zi Heng was silent.

Shen Shi Yao wrapped her arms around herself, her slim body like a small tree swaying in the wind: "At first, he was the one who said he liked me and wanted to marry me, but in order to please the Wuliang Sect’s daughter, he instead blamed me for giving birth to you first and let him be controlled by Li Xiang Tong for the rest of his life because of this matter. When I was young and proud, I was not willing to be a concubine at all. I was gifted and expected to make a career in the immortal path so that my Shen family line could be passed on. But with a few words of flattery, Zong Ming He ruined my whole life. My whole life ah, is already over, and I will definitely not let them ruin my son again."

Zong Zi Heng said in a hoarse voice: "You just want to use me to take revenge."

"So what?" Shen Shi Yao glared at Zong Zi Heng, her gaze stern, "Shouldn't I take revenge? Shouldn't you take revenge? Don't you hate it? Don't you hate it!?"

"I hate it, but I won't kill innocent people indiscriminately." Zong Zi Heng choked out, "I don’t even think of being like you, swayed by hatred for the rest of my life."

"No one is innocent." Shen Shi Yao sneered, "Li Xiang Tong's son, is never innocent. She deserves to die, Zong Ming He deserves to die, and their son deserves to die as well. From that day thirteen years ago, I have made up my mind to make them pay one by one!"

Zong Zi Heng took a deep breath, his heart and lungs still aching like they were about to explode. He didn't know what to do. The person in front of him was his own mother. The poor woman he remembered as a gentle and loving woman who lived with him, how could she have become like this?

"Heng Er, Mother will tell you a secret." Shen Shi Yao revealed a sly smile, "There is another reason why Li Xiang Tong hates us so much, and I have never told you."

"... What is the secret?"

"When you were still young, Zong Ming He once recruited a hermit expert into the palace, and he had a magical weapon called the Luo Shui Jade Armor. According to rumors, it was the magical weapon of King Zhou Wen, taken from the back armor of the Luo Shui divine tortoise, and could foresee all things." A wild light flashed in Shen Shi Yao's eyes, "That man foresaw that Zong Ming He would have nine children, but the only one with an imperial destiny was you."

"You believe in the words of such a charlatan?"

Shen Shi Yao smiled, "Zong Ming He and Li Xiang Tong also treated him as a charlatan and kicked him out, but I believed him. He recognized me as your mother on the way out of the palace and told me about it using a voice transmission. But before that, we had never known each other. Heng Er, from the day you were born, Mother believed that you had an imperial destiny and that you were destined to be the Human Emperor."

"You must not do wrong things again and again." Zong Zi Heng said with pain, "What else do you want to do? You killed second brother. Do you still want to kill Xiao Jiu?"

"I won't kill him. He is your beloved brother. He's different from Zong Zi Mo."

"What exactly do you want to do?" Zong Zi Heng came closer to Shen Shi Yao, "Mother, don't force me. Whatever you want to do, I will stop you. Don't you force me."

"You want to stop me, how are you going to stop me?" Shen Shi Yao tilted her head and looked at her son, "Are you going to kill me?"

"I ..."

Shen Shi Yao caressed Zong Zi Heng's cheek, "I am your mother. We are the closest people in this world. Everything I do is for your own good. If you don't appreciate me, do you want to turn against me? How do you want to stop me? Are you going to denounce me, or kill me?"

Zong Zi Heng took a step backwards, too stiff to speak.

Shen Shi Yao smiled with satisfaction, "My son should be the Human Emperor."

----

Edited on 2 Apr. 21 (Emzie)

 

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