Detective Ghost Empress

304 The grand dowager empress is sick

At this moment, Zhai Tianyu was in the courtyard of the Grand Dowager Empress. He watched the imperial physician Shao apply some medicinal paste on the forehead of his grandmother causing the scent of herbs and medicine to fill the room before sighing, he should have known that this was going to happen, even though he was not someone who would pick faults with his grandmother since the latter had done a lot for him but at this moment he wanted to ask his grandmother whether she was tired or not.

But he knew he could not do it, he was supposed to be the perfect puppet Emperor, one who only listened to his officials and his grandmother, one who did not use his own head and was easily controllable. This was not the time for him to make the Ji family suspicious of him especially not when he had so much to investigate including the death of his father.

” How is imperial grandmother, physician Shao?” Thus Zhai Tianyu even though he was annoyed he had to play the role of a filial grandson no matter what, he was supposed to arrive at the Liu family’s funeral ceremony with the Empress but before he could leave his courtyard, he received word from the Grand Dowager Empress mammy that the latter had fallen ill.

Apparently, what the mammy told him was that the Grand Dowager Empress was sick because she lost too grand nephews of hers in one night. She even further went on to mention that she felt guilty towards Ji Xianglan and his father who were punished for no reason, the mammy then further told him that last night Grand Dowager Empress got a nightmare where she was scolded by her husband for not paying good attention to the imperial palace and causing such a mess.

Zhai Tianyu was no fool, even though he pretended to be one, now that he was no longer just biased towards the Ji family he could see that this was nothing less than a stupid scheme that was well thought out by his grandmother and her mammy to stop him from going to the funeral ceremony of the Liu family.

The reason for this small play was simple, the Ji family has set the same ceremony for Ji Xianglan as Liu Fei Fei making sure that the ceremony will clash with the Liu family. His grandmother must have wanted him to only attend the Ji family’s ceremony instead of the Liu family’s ceremony with Ji Yu, this way at least she will be able to save the face of the Ji family in front of others.

They must have thought of this ploy after the sudden decline in the popularity of the Ji family, in the past, the Ji family was unfairly and without any reason or norm supported by him and his father. Not once the two of them ever considered the Ji family as a threat to the throne and treated them like their loyal aides, this gave the Ji family unanimous power over the other officials who did not belong to the Ji or the Liu family.

But after what happened with Ji Xianglan and Ji Meng, Zhai Tianyu had created a line between himself and the Ji family, he even allowed Ji Xianglan to be killed by Liu Dong Ming and not once mentioned an investigation.

These actions of his might have made the Ji family panic they must have thought that if this goes on then they will lose their footing in the court and what was more even the people in the court were slowly clearing themselves from the Ji family and supporting the Liu family nowadays.

.....

His grandmother must have heard about the changes in the court from Ji Yang which was why she deliberately fell sick and then forced him to come here such that he will miss the timings and let Liu Hui Ying leave on her own instead of going to the ceremony with her.

And once he was here, she make a fuss and send him to the Ji family’s house with Ji Yu such that everyone will know that the Ji family was still being supported by the Emperor without any change.

” Her majesty is overstressed,” Even though imperial physician Shao could see that her majesty was not sick at all, he knew that he couldn’t say it out loud much less tell his majesty that the Grand Dowager Empress was feigning it after all, his family was still under the claws of the grand dowager Empress.

He has to do what she asked him to do!

” I believe that she needs a lot of rest and care, your majesty, the Emperor,” he relayed everything that the mammy of the Grand Dowager Empress had told him to say to Zhai Tianyu without a single mistake.

” I see,” Zhai Tianyu looked at the man in front of him who had his head lowered and seemed to be replying to him quite honestly and then clicked his tongue inwardly. He thought that the imperial physician Shao was not a good actor but after being caught by him the last time, this man seemed to have learned some new skills. He was actually lying in front of the Emperor without even batting an eye! What wonderful actors he had in his court, one was pretending to be sick and the other was helping her as a supporting actor.

Awesome.

If they were not in the imperial palace, he was sure that his family could have made a fortune with their skills as play-actors!

He did not call out the imperial physician Shao instead he turned to look at Ji Yu who was wiping the grand Dowager Empress’s forehead and pursed his lips. So was Ji Yu in this act as well or was she like him? Who knew what was going on but had no choice but to go along with her majesty’s antics?

Zhai Tianyu did not want to lump Ji Yu together with the Ji family since she has been nothing but kind to him all their childhood but what was he supposed to do with the what if that was circulating in his head?

—————–