A wicked mother swaps her son and sucks his blood? The true legitimate daughter is reborn and goes o

"No, not dead?"

Xie Yuzhen thought she had misheard. "I clearly..."

"You clearly heard your people tell you that he drank that bowl of medicine, didn't you?"

Consort Hui looked down at her with a cold smile.

Seeing Xie Yuzhen nod, Consort Hui's smile widened. "The information you received is correct. He did drink medicine, but it wasn't the medicine you added with strychnine; it was something else."

Xie Yuzhen was processing her words.

Suddenly, a loud boom echoed in my mind, as if something had exploded. "You knew all along..."

"Yes, I knew it all along. I know you too well, Princess Yuzhen. In your eyes, other people's lives are like ants. Your mother regarded Liu'er as an ant, and so do you."

"You'll take Liu'er's life sooner or later. We just pushed you to do it today." Consort Hui pulled up a dilapidated chair and sat down.

She looked at Xie Yuzhen's astonished face.

Everything that happened yesterday flooded Xie Yuzhen's mind. Shock in her eyes gradually turned into anger. "You, and Song Qingning..."

Only then did she realize that she had been led by the nose by Song Qingning throughout yesterday's events.

It all started the moment Song Qingning supported Xie Lian's body and protected him.

They were certain they would clash with Song Qingning; they would make sure Song Qingning couldn't protect the people she was protecting.

After that, Song Qingning angered her, and then there was Song Qingning...

Xie Yuzhen suddenly remembered Song Qingning offering her tea, and the image froze on Song Qingning's smiling face.

Xie Yuzhen's anger froze.

Song Qingning wouldn't show her respect for no reason, unless...

"That tea..."

Xie Yuzhen stared at Consort Hui. Even though there was nothing in her throat, she felt as if tea was sliding down her throat and into her stomach.

She saw her "mother" after drinking the tea.

Everything is clear.

"Yes, you guessed right, but not entirely right." Consort Hui's lips curled slightly.

The person who once groveled at Consort Shen's feet, begging for a chance to live like a dog, has now become the master of someone else.

Xie Yuzhen paused, pondering the meaning behind her words.

Consort Hui's voice echoed in the empty room:

"That tea contains hallucinogenic drugs that can awaken a person's inner demons."

"Yuzhen, I know about your nightmares. I've known them for a long time."

"You pretended to have amnesia and fooled your mother. If she truly loved and cared for you, even if she had stayed with you while you slept for just one night, you would have been exposed long ago. It is precisely because she never accompanied you or watched over you while you were asleep that she never knew until her death that you had never forgotten that past."

"Princess Yuzhen, how many nights have I spent with you?"

"I watch your nightmares, I listen to your sleep talking, ha... I know everything."

"You..." Xie Yuzhen gritted her teeth.

She knew she was having nightmares, but she never knew she was talking in her sleep.

She was never wary of Consort Hui; no, not that she wasn't wary, but that she disdained to be.

"Actually, you were originally a pitiful person too, but so what?"

"Your personality is twisted because of your mother, but that's no excuse for harming others, and you certainly shouldn't be bullying my son!"

"You don't deserve the word 'pitiful'."

Consort Hui's voice was unhurried, yet it carried an endless chill.

Xie Yuzhen's fear intensified.

She was even more afraid than when her father had stabbed her with a sword yesterday.

She never took Consort Hui seriously; for so many years, she had underestimated Consort Hui.

She hated her mother so much, and she hated herself so much, so what was her purpose in saving her?

Xie Yuzhen dared not think about it, yet had no choice but to face it: "What are you going to do? Kill me? Torture me?"

Consort Hui raised an eyebrow and smiled, but did not answer her immediately.

The more this happened, the more uneasy Xie Yuzhen became.

Finally, Consort Hui spoke, "Yuzhen, I said you guessed right, but not entirely. You guessed correctly that the medicine in the tea would allow you to 'meet your mother,' but what you didn't guess was..."

"There's more than one kind of medicine in that tea."

More than one...

Xie Yuzhen pondered the meaning behind her words, her eyes suddenly widening, "What else did you do to me...?"

"Guess," Consort Hui said with a smile to Xie Yuzhen.

That smile radiated kindness.

That was Liu'er's hope, so she naturally smiled lovingly.

But Xie Yuzhen felt a chill run down her spine.

Xie Yuzhen could die, but she was unwilling to endure such fear.

In that instant, Xie Yuzhen had the thought of dying together with Consort Hui.

Xie Yuzhen tried to get up, but found that she couldn't muster any strength while lying on the ground.

"I……"

Xie Yuzhen realized something was amiss and looked at Consort Hui again.

Her smile had a strange quality to it.

She wanted to question her again about what she had done to her and what she was going to do to her, but before she could ask, she felt pain spreading through her limbs.

It felt like something was gnawing inside my body.

"Ah..." The scream echoed in the room.

The Cold Palace was very remote; the sound traveled a distance before being swallowed up by the cold wind.

The screams continued for an unknown amount of time. Xie Yuzhen was covered in sweat. The firelight outside the door shone on her, and she could vaguely see something writhing and thrashing about under the skin of the back of her hand.

What is that?

Xie Yuzhen was unaware.

The less you know, the more afraid you are.

Just as those things were about to burst her blood vessels, Consort Hui got up.

Xie Yuzhen saw that she was holding a dagger and a jade bowl.

The dagger was sharp, and the jade bowl was snow-white.

Consort Hui squatted beside Xie Yuzhen, a sharp dagger slicing across her wrist, the fluid surging in her veins dripping into the jade bowl along with the blood.

Soon, the bowl was full.

The blood in the jade bowl had no bloody smell, but rather a strange, subtle fragrance.

The pain seemed to be carried away with the blood.

Xie Yuzhen, however, remained immersed in the pain and fear that had just crushed her.

Consort Hui took some gauze and bandaged her wound to stop the bleeding.

Her delicate and meticulous manner made her seem like a precious treasure that could not be harmed.

But Xie Yuzhen knew that she was not a treasure.

Xie Yuzhen lay helplessly on the ground, her voice trembling, "Consort Hui, you might as well kill me."

"Kill you? If I kill you, how will I save my sixth son?" Consort Hui sneered. "Yuzhen, don't worry, you won't die, at least not now."

"I volunteered to be sent to the cold palace so that I could take good care of you."

"You shouldn't even think about escaping. Do you see the fire outside? The Emperor burned down the Imperial Concubine's palace, and your brother is probably too busy to take care of himself. As a princess, your path forward and your path back are both completely blocked."

Xie Yuzhen looked at the firelight and suddenly laughed sarcastically.

The laughter was maniacal.

She felt a strange sense of satisfaction when her father burned down her mother's palace.

It was amidst that maniacal laughter that Consort Hui looked down at her from her high position.

At this moment, her gaze was no different from that of the former Consort Shen, as if she were looking at ants.

After a long pause, she suddenly decided, out of a sense of compassion, to tell Xie Yuzhen another secret that had never been known to anyone else:

"Back then, it was me..."