Beijing.
The first snow came as promised, and it was dense and concentrated. It fell for two days and two nights, and the entire palace was covered with snow.
As soon as it gets dark, the lamps in each palace are lit up one after another, making them as bright as day.
Only the middle palace was unlit, and the entire palace was swallowed up by darkness in the wind and snow.
Queen Meng Zhiyan has been ill for two days and two nights.
Yesterday evening, someone in the palace lit a lamp, but Meng Zhiyan struggled to stop it.
After one night, she was too sick to get out of bed. At dusk, she was still suffering from high fever and started talking nonsense.
Concubine Shao dressed up, stepped on the snow, followed by a group of palace attendants holding medicine and lanterns, and came to the middle palace step by step.
I heard that the Queen was seriously ill, so as a concubine, she naturally had to serve the Queen with decoctions.
When he arrived at the entrance of the middle palace, he was stopped by Sai Xue, the eldest maid next to the queen.
"As a concubine, it is my duty to serve the queen with soup and medicine. How dare you stop me." Concubine Shao scolded Sai Xue with a frown on her face.
Why don't you come to say hello to the queen on weekdays? But the queen just came because she was ill.
Just come and dress up.
Who doesn’t know your thoughts? I’m afraid that when the queen sees you, not only will she not feel well, but she will also get worse.
Of course, Sai Xue could only complain in her heart. As a slave, she could only say respectfully to Concubine Shao with a smile on her face: "Thank you very much for your trouble, but it's just the Queen's decree that no one is allowed to come close to serve you."
After hearing this, Concubine Shao frowned and said loudly: "You are the person who serves the Queen, and you should have the duty of admonishing me. The Queen is so ill, and you not only do not advise me, but you add fuel to the fire." .”
"The Queen is just sick, not confused, and does not need to be persuaded by my servants." Sai Xue said without being soft or hard.
"You..." Concubine Shao was speechless.
"The Queen is very ill now. You slaves must have used her instructions to plot against the palace." Mian Si, the maid next to Concubine Shao, took up Concubine Shao's words.
"That's right."
Concubine Shao said as she was about to break into the palace with the palace people around her. Sai Xue and other palace people in the middle palace stopped her, causing a mess in front of the palace gate.
Attracted the surrounding Imperial Guards.
"What's going on here?"
Accompanied by a majestic voice, a group of people came through the snow with lanterns in hand.
The bright yellow color walking in front was actually very dazzling under the palace lantern.
The palace people knelt down one after another.
"Your Majesty!" Concubine Shao looked shocked, and then ran to the emperor's side delicately.
"Why did you get to the Queen's Palace so well?" The emperor asked, his dark eyes showing no emotion in the snowy night.
"I heard that my sister was ill, so I came here to serve her with decoction." Concubine Shao said, the two pearls on her head reflecting the color of the snow, shining brightly.
"The imperial concubine has been busy with the affairs of the harem all day long. I feel very sorry for you. There is no need to come to serve the empress with soup and medicine," the emperor said.
Concubine Shao was very disappointed.
She deliberately put the Dongzhu rewarded by the emperor on her head, just to let the queen see with her own eyes how much the emperor loved her, and to add fuel to her illness.
It would be best for such a fine palace to be replaced by a more suitable owner.
The Queen didn't go out every day, so she finally took the opportunity to cause trouble for the Queen, and she didn't even step into the middle palace gate. She was very unhappy.
"Why, you don't want to?" The emperor stroked the snow on Concubine Shao's head and said with a smile, "Look, you are covered in snow. You will have a headache again when you look back."
Concubine Shao finally saw the slightest hint of distress in the emperor's eyes.
"...Send the imperial concubine back to the palace and go to the warehouse to bring the white fox fur that General Meng gave me to the imperial concubine." The emperor ordered the palace attendants around him.
Concubine Shao felt happy. The emperor really felt sorry for her.
Knowing that she couldn't stand the cold and would get a headache when exposed to the cold, he rewarded her with General Meng's white fox fur. This was a slap in Meng Zhiyan's face.
The emperor only came to see Meng Zhiyan because she was a favor to the palace. If General Meng hadn't been needed for the border war, he would probably have been too lazy to do so.
Meng Zhiyan is so smart that she can definitely figure this out.
When the emperor goes to see her, it stimulates her even more than when he goes to see her.
Concubine Shao happily thanked her and left.
The emperor walked into the queen's bedroom.
There was only one lamp in the huge dormitory, and the entire dormitory was very dim. With the cold wind outside, it became even more desolate.
The queen slept quietly on the bed, as if she would never wake up.
Zhang Yangjing, who followed the emperor, took the queen's pulse, observed the queen's face, sighed inwardly, and asked the palace attendants to cook the medicine.
"Your Majesty, whether the Queen will wake up depends on tonight..." Zhang Yangjing said solemnly.
The emperor did not say whether he would be buried with the hospital if he could not be cured, but just nodded.
The palace servants brought the medicine, and the emperor opened the queen's mouth himself and fed her one spoonful at a time.
The palace people looked frightened.
After doing all this, the emperor drove away all the palace people and sat alone by Meng Zhiyan's bed.
The Queen was lying on the bed quietly without any sign of waking up.
"Meng Zhiyan, are you deliberately retaliating against me? Let me tell you, I am more petty than you. If you die, your son will never come back from Huaicheng." The emperor punched the tent hook, and the hook made a clanging sound. The sound was extremely harsh.
The queen made no response.
The emperor forgot that the queen was unwilling to look at him even if she was awake, let alone speak to him.
Since the death of her daughter, the queen has completely ignored him.
The temperature suddenly dropped sharply the day before yesterday. The queen asked the palace people to send a message to him, saying that she felt that she would not survive this winter. If she died, she was asked to burn her and put her in a box. She asked her brother to take her to the border and scatter her in the snow.
His heart was filled with grief.
They grew up together on the border, and it was he who brought her from the border to the palace.
The bright girl who galloped in the wind and snow on the border, her smile became less and less in this deep palace, and she became more and more estranged from him as she got older. She watched helplessly as his concubine Li had other children, until her daughter died and she was completely separated from him. break.
She would rather die and be scattered on the border than share a cave with him.
Through the dim candlelight, the emperor saw the little tiger and wind chimes beside the queen's pillow.
Knowing that she was thinking about her son in Huaicheng and her daughter who died in infancy.
I felt a sharp pain in my heart.
Their son A Zhen from Huaicheng was walking through the snow to the Bai family yard after finishing the hot pot. He felt a pain in his heart for no reason, and he staggered and almost slipped.
"Brother Azhen, be careful where you step." Xiao Fuyuan held him back.
A Zhen faced the wind and snow, put his forehead against Xiao Fuyuan, and murmured: "I heard that the capital is particularly cold this winter. I wonder how my mother's illness is? I miss my mother!"
Xiao Fuyuan touched A Zhen's head like an adult and comforted: "Your mother will be fine, she will be fine!"
The snow continues to fall outside.
It's already midnight, and the queen still hasn't woken up.
The emperor stared at the queen on the bed with splitting eyes.
"If you don't wake up, your son will live in Huaicheng all his life and will never come back, and your brother will never come back from the border. If you want to leave me and go back to the border, don't even think about it!"