Chapter 473: Chapter 473: The Dust Settles

Qi Jingchun fell asleep and dreamed, returning to a time before she was married.

It was a fine spring day in March. She sat by the lake, weeping in utter despair, even contemplating death.

Mrs. Qi Sr. was forcing her to enter the palace as a consort, but she had already pledged her heart to King Shu.

Shen Siyi came to her side and comforted her gently, "Don’t be sad. Why don’t you leave with King Shu? Mrs. Qi Sr. won’t be able to do anything to you."

"How could I do that? I’ve studied the rules of etiquette since I was a child. I know that leaving with King Shu would be eloping. I’d be scorned and shamed for the rest of my life." Qi Jingchun cried sorrowfully, finally slumping onto Shen Siyi’s shoulder.

She sobbed helplessly, "Sister, what should I do? I just want to die... Besides, King Shu and I... we’ve already consummated our relationship. If I enter the palace, I’ll be impure. That would be the crime of deceiving the Emperor!"

Shen Siyi was quite surprised. "You and King Shu have already gone that far? Then why didn’t you tell Mrs. Qi Sr.!"

"How could I dare? If I told her, I’m afraid she would beat me to death." Qi Jingchun subconsciously touched her lower abdomen. Shen Siyi, anxious about her predicament, failed to notice the gesture.

Perhaps it was because she seemed truly pitiful, or perhaps it was out of a sense of compassion.

Shen Siyi came from the future. She valued freedom, but she could also understand that women of this era often had no control over their own fates.

Just as Qi Jingchun was about to faint from crying, Shen Siyi placed a Jade Pendant in her hand.

"What... is this?" Qi Jingchun asked, looking at it in a daze.

Shen Siyi pressed her pink lips together and lowered her voice. "This is something that can save your life. If you really do enter the palace, and the Emperor discovers you’ve deceived him, then use this to beg him to spare you."

Only later did Qi Jingchun realize that Shen Siyi had given her a treasure!

In her eyes, it was as if Shen Siyi had given her a divine power—the power to control the weather!

If she wanted it to rain, she would just silently pray for rain to the Jade Pendant.

On the night she was to serve the Emperor, a huge thunderstorm raged. But as she attended to him, the storm suddenly dissipated, revealing a bright, glorious moon.

The Emperor was a great believer in fate and fortune. He immediately concluded that Qi Jingchun was a woman who brought auspicious signs. That night, Qi Jingchun coaxed the Emperor into drinking a great deal of wine, and just as she’d hoped, he never discovered her impurity.

Having mastered such a Jade Pendant, Qi Jingchun lived with growing confidence.

She began to use all sorts of celestial phenomena to win the Emperor’s favor and blessings.

Unconsciously, her ambition swelled. When she was pregnant with the Ninth Prince, she even wanted to use the Jade Pendant to create an auspicious omen for her unborn child.

But the Jade Pendant couldn’t create auspicious signs; it could only manipulate a ceaseless stream of disasters.

With no other choice, Qi Jingchun thought to ask Shen Siyi for help.

’Since Sister has a Jade Pendant that can control natural disasters, she must have something that can bring good fortune, too!’

There were many Concubines in the palace. Using the excuse that she needed someone to look after her, she invited Shen Siyi to the palace to help her through her pregnancy.

Unexpectedly, Shen Siyi discovered that the child in her womb was not the Emperor’s, but King Shu’s.

Corrupting the Emperor’s bloodline... Shen Siyi was consumed with guilt, reflecting on how she should never have helped Qi Jingchun.

The two parted on bad terms. Shen Siyi had wanted to force Qi Jingchun to have an abortion, but Qi Jingchun knelt on the ground and begged her not to. At the time, Qi Jingchun was already four months pregnant, and in the end, Shen Siyi couldn’t bring herself to harm the life in her womb.

After Shen Siyi left, Qi Jingchun was naturally unwilling to let the matter rest.

She summoned a drought, plunging all of Cangyun Country into despair.

When she returned home to visit her family, Shen Siyi demanded she return the Jade Pendant. To her surprise, Qi Jingchun refused.

The two had a fierce argument, which was overheard by Mrs. Qi, who was standing outside the room.

Qi Jingchun was utterly selfish. She actually suggested that Shen Siyi marry King Shu. If Shen Siyi agreed, she would secretly send the child, once born, to the Shu Royal Mansion to be raised as Shen Siyi’s child with the king.

How could Shen Siyi agree to such a plan? Not only did they part on bad terms again, but Mrs. Qi Sr. also began to pressure Shen Siyi to associate with the rich and powerful, strengthening her resolve to leave the Qi Family.

After leaving the Qi Mansion, Shen Siyi married Xie Suzhi.

After her marriage, she tried several times to destroy the Natural Disaster System, but she always relented whenever Qi Jingchun pleaded with her.

At that time, Consort Li was highly favored in the palace, and Qi Jingchun felt like she was walking on thin ice. She wrote to Shen Siyi several times, mentioning her own difficult life.

In her letters, she also promised that once the Ninth Prince was grown, she would definitely return the Jade Pendant. Pitying her difficult situation, Shen Siyi endured it time and again.

Finally, Shen Siyi’s younger daughter, Yuan Ning, was born. She then implanted the material space chip, which represented hope, into her daughter.

Unsurprisingly, Qi Jingchun went back on her word. Not only did she refuse to return the Jade Pendant, but she also made the drought even more severe, using it to build an image of herself as a compassionate, devout Buddhist and solidify her favor with the Emperor.

Later, her young daughter was lost, and Shen Siyi’s mental state deteriorated, becoming muddled and unstable.

The last time Shen Siyi met with Qi Jingchun was the night something happened to Second Master Xie.

When Second Master Xie learned that Second Madam Xie had plotted against him, he suddenly vomited blood. Panicked, Xie Suzhi rushed to the second courtyard to check on his younger brother.

It was on that same occasion that Qi Jingchun secretly met with Shen Siyi.

She admitted that she had been deceiving Shen Siyi all along.

She also said, "Your daughter’s disappearance had something to do with me, too. But who can I blame? You’re my sister, yet you kept pushing me to return the Jade Pendant. My life in the palace is so hard, but you don’t feel sorry for me at all! You’re just like Mother—you’ve both ruined me!"

Only then did Shen Siyi realize that everything the Xie Mansion had suffered, every single incident, was Qi Jingchun’s doing.

Ruining the marriage between Second Master Xie and Fang Qingdai was to get revenge on Shen Siyi.

Conspiring with the State Preceptor to have someone steal her child was to get revenge on Shen Siyi.

And it was also Qi Jingchun who, at that critical moment, exposed Second Madam Xie for harming Second Master Xie, luring Xie Suzhi away.

Shen Siyi was overcome with rage, coughing up blood incessantly.

Qi Jingchun forced her to hand over the other "system."

Because Shen Siyi had once revealed that the Natural Disaster System could be destroyed.

Shen Siyi hadn’t given her the truly good thing.

However, on the verge of death, Shen Siyi just sneered.

"You’ve brought this on yourself. Your days are numbered."

Qi Jingchun ordered her men to drown her in the pond. By the time Xie Suzhi rushed back, all he saw was Shen Siyi’s cold corpse.

The Xie family’s disasters, it turned out, had been deliberately orchestrated from the very beginning.

Qi Jingchun awoke from her dream, her body reeking of acrid smoke. She hadn’t been struck dead by lightning, but a hoarse, rasping sound came from her throat.

"Just one more step... I was just one step away from..." ...killing the Emperor, and Shen Ningning.

With King Shu captured, Qi Jingchun confessed to everything she had done.

This included instigating Xie Yuanjiu and bribing the Divine Woman.

The dust finally settled.

Three days later, the Emperor recounted Qi Jingchun’s many wicked deeds before the Imperial Court, declaring that even flaying her and pulling out her tendons would be too lenient a punishment.

And so, Xie Suzhi finally learned that the wife he had mourned for so many years had been murdered!

The truth had come to light, a decade too late!

In the end, Qi Jingchun was sentenced to be drawn and quartered by five horses. King Shu was charged with treason, and everyone in his Prince Mansion involved in the plot, except for the Princess Consort and Mo Zhirou, was executed.

The Emperor rooted out King Shu’s faction, purging the Imperial Court with blood.

Because of Princess Consort Qi’s downfall, the Liang Family proactively broke off their engagement with Qi Xiuwei. She was the only one who found a blessing in disguise.

「A clear and breezy autumn afternoon.」

Xie Suzhi brought his son and daughter, along with Second Master Xie and Fang Qingdai, to pay respects at Shen Siyi’s grave.

"The villain who murdered you has been brought to justice. My wife, if you can hear me in the afterlife, you can finally rest in peace." With reddened eyes, Xie Suzhi knelt before his wife’s tomb and poured out a cup of clear wine.

Tears streamed down Shen Ningning’s pale, rosy face.

’So that’s what Mother refused to reveal, even in death. She left the material space, full of life and hope, to me, her daughter.’

’She was afraid of Qi Jingchun’s retaliation, so she refused to speak of it until the very end.’

Shen Ningning hadn’t grown up by her mother’s side, but it turned out her mother had been loving and protecting her for many, many years.

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