The harem is too complicated; the empress, a lazy bum, wins by doing nothing.

Chapter 279 Rhetoric
Shen Qingwan: ? ? ?

"If Your Majesty finds today's dishes delicious, it is because the Imperial Kitchen chefs have done a good job. Even if the dishes I ordered are excellent, if the Imperial Kitchen cannot make them taste to Your Majesty's liking, Your Majesty will still not find them good."

Emperor Yuanwu paused slightly upon hearing her words, then turned to Wu Jixiang behind him and said, "Since the Empress has spoken, all the chefs in the Imperial Kitchen who prepared the meals for Kunning Palace today will be richly rewarded."

Shen Qingwan: ...

She really did work hard, only to benefit someone else.

"The Empress thought it was good, so I rewarded her as well. But why does the Empress not seem very happy?" Emperor Yuanwu smiled meaningfully. "Or was the Empress's remark just now not a compliment to the imperial kitchen chefs, but something more pointed?"

Shen Qingwan was taken aback. She was unhappy simply because Emperor Yuanwu had taken her food, but unfortunately, this man was scheming.

Since he has already made up his mind, and she is unhappy about something else, she might as well go with the flow and explain Xiao Ling's matter properly, so that he will not always have doubts in his mind and think that she is going to do something in the harem.

"There was no hidden meaning in it. It's just that when the Emperor came in just now, he heard Su Tianhe and I talking, so he assumed that we were having some kind of private conversation." Shen Qingwan's voice remained gentle.

After Emperor Yuanwu finished eating, his mood seemed to have improved considerably. When he saw Zhen'er bring him tea, he happily took a sip and said, "Let me hear what the Empress just said to the servants."

"This is a long story," Shen Qingwan deliberately kept everyone in suspense, "I'm just afraid the Emperor won't have the patience to listen to my rambling."

"Sigh." Emperor Yuanwu drawled, lifting the tea lid and flicking the tea leaves off the surface. "I'm full and need to digest. It won't hurt for me to listen to something."

Seeing that Emperor Yuanwu seemed genuinely patient enough to listen, Shen Qingwan slowly began to speak, “Actually, it’s nothing major. It’s just that one of my former palace maids left the palace with the other maids who had reached a certain age.”

"Is it that you don't want to serve anymore, or that you're not serving well enough?" Emperor Yuanwu asked curiously.

"That's not it. It's just that this palace maid's mother fell seriously ill, and she passed away not long after she left the palace," Shen Qingwan said with a helpless sigh.

"In that case, the Empress has done a good deed, allowing the mother and daughter to see each other one last time before the mother's death. So what does the Empress have to worry about?" Emperor Yuanwu asked, puzzled.

"It's because of this palace maid. After her mother passed away, she was left all alone and had to enter the palace to serve at a young age. Now she's all alone outside the palace and doesn't know how she's going to survive. She sent word that she wants to return to Kunning Palace to continue serving, but the harem has its own rules. She's currently in mourning, so how can she easily enter the palace? If I set such a precedent in the palace, everyone will follow suit. Whoever has a family matter can leave the palace and come back after the matter is settled. Wouldn't the harem become a marketplace where anyone can come and go as they please? Even servants can do the same. What about those concubines who haven't seen their families for a whole year since entering the palace?"

Shen Qingwan's words made sense, and Emperor Yuanwu was momentarily at a loss.

"Then don't let her enter the palace. She's just a servant. The Empress doesn't need to worry about her."

"I just thought that a teenager wouldn't want to enter the palace to serve others unless she really had no other choice. Although palace maids come from humble backgrounds, they are still living human beings. It's better than my Xiao Cui in the palace, who lost her life as soon as she left the palace."

As Shen Qingwan spoke, she glanced at Emperor Yuanwu, and in that single glance, she easily caught the fleeting glint of something unusual in his eyes. "So I was thinking, if she truly has nowhere else to go outside the palace, returning would be against the rules, but serving doesn't necessarily have to be confined to the palace. If she's willing, I'll have someone arrange for her to go to the temporary palace. The temporary palace has always been short-staffed, and with the recent departure of palace maids of retirement age, there are even fewer people to serve there. Perhaps we could let her serve there first, and after the mourning period, she can return to Kunning Palace to serve." Shen Qingwan paused, "Then it will all depend on her own will. Perhaps if she's happy at the temporary palace, she won't want to return to the palace."

Emperor Yuanwu's expression softened slightly upon hearing her words. "Besides these, does the Empress have anything else to say?"

Something else?

Shen Qingwan's brow twitched.

If she had heard what they were saying when he came in, she would now tell him everything.

Since Emperor Yuanwu asked that question, there must have been no reason for it. In the end, the biggest incident in the harem was the matter of Consort Xian.

Could it be that Emperor Yuanwu was referring to this?
"No." Shen Qingwan shook her head firmly. "What does Your Majesty mean?"

Emperor Yuanwu couldn't help but purse his lips deeply. "It's nothing."

"Oh."

Shen Qingwan nodded firmly. Since he said it was nothing, then it must be nothing.

Emperor Yuanwu:...

In fact, she felt that after the Emperor thoroughly investigated the various crimes committed by the Pang clan, not only was Consort Xian not implicated, but she was also promoted in rank. So the only possibility was that he wanted to lure the remaining members of the Pang clan who had not been caught into his trap.

Emperor Yuanwu had long been wary of General Pang Da's immense power in the court. General Pang Da had served in the court for so long that he had long since developed his own power base. He was easy to eliminate openly. Nine out of ten officials are corrupt, and it was doubtful that any of the civil and military officials in the court could withstand investigation. Emperor Yuanwu was not unaware of these things, but in order to balance the power of various parties, he could only turn a blind eye until it came to taking action against a particular person.

Behind the Pang clan, many generals held military power, which is why Emperor Yuanwu hesitated to take action against them.

Now that General Pang is dead, and his death is suspicious and cannot withstand close investigation, if someone really wants to avenge General Pang or colludes with someone to seize an opportunity, then they must have a pretext to get General Pang's former subordinates to join in the rebellion.

And the one who gave the best explanation was Consort Xian.

After all, although General Pang died not on the battlefield, he was assassinated in his tent. In the hearts of many soldiers, those who killed their generals deserved to pay with their blood. Even if General Pang had done something wrong before, he had also made military achievements, which could offset his merits and demerits. We cannot let his bravery and skill in battle be wiped out just because he made one mistake.

At this time, promoting her to the rank of Imperial Concubine served two purposes: firstly, to stabilize morale among some of the troops, and secondly...