Peasant Woman's Decreed Life as a Wife

Chapter 2168: Chapter 2165: The Dowager Empress Falls Ill

The Cining Palace was utterly silent.

Even the imperial consorts who came to see the Dowager Empress stayed quietly in the guest palace, not daring to make a sound for fear of disturbing her.

The Empress personally attended to the Dowager Empress’s illness in her chamber.

Therefore, when Emperor Xuanming entered, the first thing he saw was the Empress half-kneeling by the bedside, feeding medicine to the Dowager Empress.

He merely glanced at her before withdrawing his gaze and quickly stepping forward.

"Mother, are you feeling any better? How did you faint?" Emperor Xuanming strode forward.

A palace attendant promptly brought over a stool to his side.

The palace attendants in the room knelt down all over the room.

Even the Empress knelt down to pay her respects.

"Palace attendants, wait outside. You may rise as well, Empress," Emperor Xuanming said with a stern tone to the attendants in the room. While he did not speak of punishment, their faces turned a shade paler, and they withdrew nervously without a sound.

To the Empress, though his voice wasn’t particularly gentle, his tone was at least calm.

"Thank you, Your Majesty." The Empress then stood up.

The Dowager Empress patted the Empress’s hand in reassurance and said, "Empress, why don’t you take a rest, too? You’ve been taking care of me for several days. I wanted to spare you from this labor today, but who would have expected this body to betray me and faint unexpectedly."

The Emperor discerned that the Dowager Empress was offering an explanation for the Empress. Upon hearing that the Empress had been caring for the Dowager Empress these past few days, his expression indeed softened somewhat.

No matter what, the Imperial Harem is under the Empress’s management. If things aren’t managed well, naturally it reflects a lack of capability, and questioning her would be justified.

The Emperor didn’t think his expectations were excessively high at all.

He has always appreciated talent and naturally imposed such requirements on the Empress overseeing the harem.

However, he never voiced these expectations.

If any issues arose in the harem, it would inevitably lead to some blame falling on the Empress as well.

Over the years, the Empress long understood that there was no affection in the Emperor’s heart for her, only duty. Besides, she entered the palace initially to take care of her nephew. She even harmed her health back then to ensure her nephew’s safety, rendering herself unable to bear children, which earned her some sympathy.

Perhaps at the beginning when entering the palace, she held onto the hope of securing favor to protect her nephew.

But over the years, she has long ceased to be the naive young woman and holds no expectations for the Emperor; at this point, she is strictly businesslike.

After comforting the Dowager Empress, she waited by the side.

Emperor Xuanming slightly furrowed his brows as he looked at the Dowager Empress. Seeing her pale face, he couldn’t help but ask, "Mother, why did you not let anyone inform me of your illness? If you hadn’t fainted today, I fear I wouldn’t have known about your poor health."

"Even if the affairs of the court are busy recently, they don’t prevent me from fulfilling my filial duties."

"I know you are filial," the Dowager Empress said with a gentle smile, patting his hand: "It’s just that initially, it wasn’t that severe, just like when the seasons change, with a light cough. It wasn’t serious, and the Imperial Physician had looked in on me."

"Fainting today was purely accidental. I heard that the further north one goes, the colder it gets, and many people die each winter in the Northern Region. So I thought of praying to the gods, hoping it won’t snow heavily this year. Who knew I would light too much incense and be suffocated by the smoke, causing me to faint."

"You see, once the Imperial Physician came and administered an acupuncture, I revived." The Dowager Empress genuinely believed it was an accident.

Therefore, she didn’t reprimand anyone in the palace.

After all, she hadn’t anticipated being unable to tolerate that incense. When there was no cold, she hadn’t encountered such an incident.