Chapter 18 The Son of Heaven's Old and New Love

With Wu Mei entering the palace for the second time, the ambiguous and tortuous love affair between her and the emperor Li Zhi finally ended the underground state, and walked under the sun in a grandiose manner.At this moment, Wu Mei really has a sense of the vicissitudes of life after suffering and suffering. The first time she entered the palace, she was fourteen years old. Now, she is twenty-seven years old. On the surface, fate has made a big circle, as if it has returned to the original starting point.However, Wu Mei knew that this was definitely a brand new starting point. Because, although the imperial palace is still the imperial palace of that year, Wu Mei is no longer the same Wu Mei.

Seeing that the emperor knows nothing is a blessing? If it is said that Wu Mei's hazy longing for the love of the emperor was purely out of a gambler's mentality of hitting luck, then today's Wu Mei can undoubtedly proudly declare that the love of the emperor is already in my palm! Yes, Wu Mei is full of confidence in this. She believes that the emperor Li Zhi loves her more than any other woman in the world. She can see this in Li Zhi's eyes. However, Wu Mei has to admit that even though she has the love of the emperor, she has no status at all, even worse than when she first entered the palace thirteen years ago.At that time, she was at least a fifth-grade talent, but now she is just a little maid beside the queen.

In this sense, her current starting point is even lower than in the past. Therefore, Wu Mei knew that she had to hide all her sharpness deeply. In other words, she must be more humble, more cautious, more low-key, and more low-key than ever before.And the most important thing is - she must be obedient to the queen and serve her comfortably, so as to gain her absolute trust. (Volume 199: "The Wu family is ingenious and intelligent, with many powers. When he first entered the palace, he humbly resigned and condescended to be an afterthought.") Some people say that the so-called obedience is the unusual patience shown before some ulterior purpose is not completed.

That's exactly what Wu Mei did at this time. Because she knew that only in this way could the king and queen be replaced in the end. In all fairness, Queen Wang is actually an unfortunate woman. Although she was born in a famous family, was born with beauty, and was a queen and mother of the world, she seemed to have everything a woman could have, but in fact her happiness index was very low, even worse than that of an ordinary folk woman. Because she has never been loved by her husband. What could be more unfortunate than this for a woman? From the day when she became the concubine of Jin, to becoming the crown princess, and now being the empress, so many years have passed. She has given Li Zhi the most beautiful and precious time in a woman's life, but she In exchange for ten years of neglect and indifference.

Her status is getting more noble day by day, but her sense of loss is also getting deeper day by day. She is very beautiful in front of people, but she is like an abandoned wife behind her. In her memory, the number of times that the emperor slept with her was very few, so after so many years, her stomach was always as flat and empty as ever - not even love, let alone the crystallization of love? It is undoubtedly a great irony for a queen to have neither the love of the emperor nor her own heir, but also a great crisis. In Queen Wang's view, the reason why her situation is so unbearable is that concubine Xiao Shu is the culprit!

This woman surnamed Xiao seemed destined to be her natural enemy. Regardless of her family background, or her appearance and talent, this Concubine Xiao Shu was on par with Queen Wang.Empress Wang was born in the northern family - the Taiyuan Wang family; while Concubine Xiao Shu was born in the Southern Dynasty family - the Xiao family in Lanling, a descendant of Prince Zhaoming of Liang, who was a descendant of the post-Liang imperial family. There is also Xiao Yu, the founding hero of the Tang Dynasty. Therefore, his family background and talent and learning are not inferior to the queen.

In addition, as early as the Eastern Palace era, Xiao's status has always been next to Wang's.When the Wang family was canonized as the crown princess, Xiao's identity was Xiao Liangdi (the position of the imperial concubine in the East Palace); after the Wang family was promoted to the empress, the Xiao family was promoted to the concubine Shu (the first-rank concubine second only to the queen, There are four posts: Concubine Gui, Concubine Shu, Concubine De, Concubine Xian). What made the Queen Wang jealous the most was that Concubine Xiao Shu seemed to have occupied all the love of the emperor Li Zhi from the very beginning, so she gave birth to a son and two daughters in just a few years-Li Sujie, the king of Yong in the 20th year of Zhenguan. Princess Yiyang was born later, and Princess Xuancheng was born in the 23rd year of Zhenguan.

Seeing that this woman has grown fruitful under the emperor's intensive cultivation, while her own field is barren and barren, the queen almost wants to go crazy, and at the same time feels a strong sense of anxiety. It is said that mothers are more valuable than their sons, and with this son and two daughters, Concubine Xiao Shu not only has a guarantee of prosperity and wealth for the rest of her life, but also has the qualifications to challenge the queen.In other words, Concubine Xiao Shu, who is only one step away from the queen's throne, may step over at any time and replace the queen!

Fortunately, she played Wu Mei's card, which made Queen Wang quite proud and gratified that Wu Mei did not live up to her expectations.As soon as she entered the palace, she firmly locked the emperor's favor, which caused the favor of Concubine Xiao Shu to decline sharply.In addition, Wu Mei is smart, well-behaved, and considerate, and her words and deeds always make the Queen feel satisfied.For this reason, Queen Wang repeatedly spoke good words for Wu Mei in front of the emperor, hoping to further help her improve her status so as to completely destroy Concubine Xiao Shu. Under the patronage and help of the "noble person" Queen Wang, Wu Mei finally ushered in the first glory in her life-about July of the third year of Yonghui (AD 652), she was established as the second rank Zhaoyi was the first among the nine concubines, second only to the empress and the fourth concubine.

What a double blessing. A few months after becoming Zhaoyi, Wu Mei gave birth to her eldest son, Li Hong.Emperor Li Zhi's joy was beyond words, and his love for Wu Mei continued unabated.In contrast, the fate of Concubine Xiao Shu, who once monopolized the love of the emperor, plummeted and was almost forgotten by the emperor. All the pain, loss and jealousy that Queen Wang once tasted, and now Concubine Xiao Shu has to experience them one by one.Whenever she saw Concubine Xiao Shu's increasingly haggard face and dim eyes, Queen Wang's heart was always bright with sunshine. But Queen Wang also knew that although Concubine Xiao Shu was powerless to pose a threat to her, she had to take precautions before they happened.God knows, in this harem full of beauties, will there be another vixen who will seduce the emperor one day and become the second concubine Xiao Shu?Therefore, she had to do one thing in order to ensure her position as queen and the glory and wealth of the rest of her life.

What Queen Wang has to do is to recognize the eldest son of the emperor Chen Wang Li Zhong as his adopted son, and then help him to the position of prince. In fact, this idea was not thought up by Queen Wang herself, but her uncle Liu Shi (shi) helped her out. Liu Shi was the imperial court's Zhongshu Ling at that time, with a high position and authority, but he often felt worried.Because although the niece is a queen, she is not favored by the emperor and has no heirs of her own. This situation puts her in danger of being deposed at any time.And if she is really abolished one day, Liu Shi's official career will come to an end.Therefore, out of the consideration of all prosperity and all losses, Liu Shi has been secretly helping the queen to plan the establishment of an heir. There are two reasons why Liu Shi locked Chen Wang Li Zhong as the heir: First, he is the eldest son of Emperor Gaozong and has the qualifications of the crown prince.Second, although Chen Wang Li Zhong is the eldest son, he is a concubine, and his biological mother Liu is just a humble court lady, so he needs a solid backer, and the Queen Wang is just such a backer.Once accepted by the empress as the adoptive son, Chen Wang Li Zhong would not only be the eldest son, but also a direct descendant, so he would naturally be the best candidate for the crown prince. Therefore, both Queen Wang and Li Zhong need each other - one needs an heir to keep the queen's position, and the other needs a status to enter the East Palace. In order to successfully achieve this win-win situation, Liu Shi was active in the court, contacted Sun Wuji, a minister with deep friendship with him, and others.Gaozong Lizhi disagreed at first, but under the pressure of a group of prime ministers, he finally had to nod.Therefore, in July of the third year of Yonghui (AD 652), almost at the same time as Wu Meili became Zhaoyi, Chen Wang Li Zhong was officially registered as the crown prince, and the queen finally got her wish. In those days, the king and queen, who had everything going well, finally had a sense of elation and happiness. Concubine Xiao Shu, her love rival, has fallen out of favor, and her adopted son Li Zhong has entered the East Palace. The haze in her life has been swept away, and she no longer needs to worry and fear as before. However, things are not as simple as Queen Wang imagined. Because, although the old opponent Xiao Shufei fell, the new and more powerful opponent rose at an unusual speed. This new opponent is Wu Zhaoyi, the old love and new love of Emperor Li Zhi. Queen Wang absolutely did not expect that this girl Ni Wu Mei who was rescued by her from the predicament, this maid Wu Mei who was raised by her single-handedly turned her gun at the moment she just won the victory, and transformed into her life. The most powerful enemy ever! When Queen Wang was completely unprepared, this once docile and well-behaved Wu Mei, who seemed to pose no threat at all, actually brought her iron whip, her iron hammer, and her dagger to face her... He walked towards the queen's throne, and then smiled and threw a declaration of war to the queen. The queen, who was caught off guard, had no time to think about all this, so she was forced to join forces with her former enemy Concubine Xiao Shu, bit the bullet and rushed into battle.