Luo Tiantian ignored her.
She knelt on the ground, clutching Madam Su’s cold hand. Those calloused hands hung limp, devoid of any strength.
“Mother… Mother, please wake up…”
Madam Su heard her call, but her eyelids were too heavy to open.
‘I’m fine,’ she wanted to say, but her throat felt blocked, and she could not make a sound.
“My Lady, Madam’s complexion is off…” Xiao Tao knelt down, using the oil lamp to carefully examine Madam Su’s face. “Look at her lips!”
Luo Tiantian looked down.
Under the dim light, Madam Su’s lips were tinged with an unnatural, sickly purple.
Luo Tiantian whipped her head around, staring intensely at Consort Zheng.
“Consort Zheng, I will ask you one last time. Where were you from evening until nightfall, what were you doing, and do you have any witnesses?”
“I… I was dining in my Consort’s Residence, then I spoke with my maids for a while, and then…”
“Why did you happen to appear at this exact time?”
“I came here to clear things up,” Consort Zheng said, nearly driven to tears by anxiety. “I heard about the wall collapsing and feared you would misunderstand, so I specifically came to explain. If I really had poisoned her, why would I come here in person? Wouldn’t that be walking straight into a trap?”
Luo Tiantian stared into her eyes, but Consort Zheng showed only frantic fear and indignation.
“Summon a physician.”
Luo Tiantian released Madam Su’s hand and stood up. “Xiao Tao, find a trustworthy physician from the Imperial Academy of Medicine.”
She looked at Consort Zheng, who wanted to leave but didn’t dare.
“My Lady, please stay until the physician arrives.”
Consort Zheng opened her mouth, let out a cold snort, and turned her head away.
***
The physician on duty was a man named Physician Sun. He was about fifty years old with graying hair and a beard, a veteran of the palace.
He arrived out of breath, having been practically dragged there by Xiao Tao.
Physician Sun first checked her breathing, then inspected her eyelids, and finally took her pulse.
After a long silence, Physician Sun released her hand, his brow furrowed deeply.
“May I ask if this Madam has had anything unusual in her diet recently?” He was addressing Xiao Cui.
Xiao Cui, who had long since lost her composure, stammered in response, “No, there was nothing… Madam eats food prepared by the Small Kitchen… It’s just, we only moved to these new quarters this evening and haven’t had time to start the fire in the Small Kitchen yet. We were still eating the leftovers sent from the previous cold palace…”
“Physician Sun, what kind of poison has my mother been given?” Luo Tiantian asked anxiously.
Physician Sun did not answer immediately.
He looked at Luo Tiantian, then at Consort Zheng and the others peeking in from the doorway. He lowered his voice and said, “My Lady, this is not a convenient place for a detailed discussion. Might I ask you to step aside so I may speak with this Madam privately for a few moments?”
Privately?
Luo Tiantian bit her lip.
She did not want to leave Madam Su’s side, but the physician’s expression told her that some things were not meant for so many ears.
“… Fine.” She leaned down and whispered into Madam Su’s ear, “Mother, I will be right back.”
Madam Su’s eyelids flickered, and her fingertips curled slightly as if she didn’t want her to go, but she ultimately lacked the strength to open her eyes.
Hardening her heart, Luo Tiantian stood up and walked out of the room.
Inside, only Physician Sun and Madam Su remained.
Physician Sun sighed and took a Silver Needle from his medicine chest, gently pricking Madam Su’s fingertip.
The droplet of blood that emerged was dark and appeared a murky purple under the lamplight.
“As I suspected,” he murmured to himself.
Madam Su’s consciousness had remained blurry, but she was not entirely senseless. She could hear the arguments outside and feel the trembling warmth of Luo Tiantian’s hand.
After the blood was drawn, she managed to open her eyes.
She was met by Physician Sun’s white beard and solemn face.
“Physician… my daughter… has she left?”
“Consort Bao Si is waiting in the outer room.”
Physician Sun lowered his eyes as he took her pulse again. “You need not worry, Madam. This poison acts slowly, and it has not yet invaded your internal organs. I will prescribe a few detoxifying formulas, and with some rest, you should be fine.”
Madam Su listened but did not respond immediately.
She looked into Physician Sun’s eyes.
Her gaze was such that the physician was forced to look away.
“Physician,” Madam Su said slowly, “you just said this wasn’t a convenient place for a detailed discussion and sent everyone away. I imagine what you have to say is more than just about a prescription and rest.”
“Alas, you are perceptive, Madam. I shall venture to ask — do you know where this poison came from?”
Madam Su could likely guess.
Xiao Cui said it was leftovers from the cold palace. In her memory, she had lived in that cold palace for nearly six months without anyone paying her any mind. The food had been coarse, but never poisoned.
Yet, on her very first day moving out of the cold palace, those leftovers were poisoned.
“It is because of Si’er,” Madam Su said.
Physician Sun did not deny it.
He looked at the aged, gasping woman before him. He suddenly remembered many years ago, when he was still an apprentice at the Imperial Academy of Medicine, he had seen a mother just like this. Her daughter had been sent to the palace as a consort, while she was held in a separate courtyard. She had become ill from worry but dared not let her daughter know, fearing it would affect her daughter’s future.
She eventually died of grief, still weeping until the end, saying she could rest easy as long as her daughter lived well.
But if that were true, why did she die crying?
“Madam, when you were in the cold palace, no one cared for you. Though you were a disgraced woman, you were safe. Now that you have moved out, although it is by the King’s grace, you have caught the eyes of those with hidden agendas.”
Madam Su listened quietly.
“You are Consort Bao Si’s biological mother, and the Consort is currently the person the King treasures most. Some people do not dare to move against the Consort directly. However, if some misfortune were to happen to those close to her — such as a relative falling ill, becoming mentally unstable, or requiring her to serve or mourn — then it would be natural… And being natural, no one would be held responsible.”
Madam Su understood.
Naturally, no one would be held responsible.
“So this poison,” Madam Su said slowly, “is not meant to kill me instantly. It is meant to make me slowly waste away, dragging out my illness to drain Si’er’s energy. It will keep her too busy to accompany the King until she loses his favor. When I finally die then, it will be the logical conclusion.”
Physician Sun did not answer.
His silence was a form of admission.
Madam Su closed her eyes, feeling a sense of distress.
She had entered this game initially just to understand the world her daughter, Xiao Xiao, lived in and to repair their distant relationship.
Later, she met Luo Tiantian and learned that she was Bao Si — the girl struggling to survive in the game to pay for her boyfriend’s medical bills. She wanted to help her, to protect her.
But now, this game was telling her: Your protection and your proximity have instead become her weakness.
If she were still that disgraced woman in the cold palace whom no one cared about, no one would bother to poison her.
If she were still that old woman who might die in a woodshed at any moment, no one would view her as a nail that needed to be pulled.
It was the care she received that gave her daughter another vulnerability.
‘Is it the same for Xiao Xiao?’
‘Is my concern truly a mistake?’
‘Have I been such a failure as a mother?’
Her heart ached with bitterness.
“Physician, you said earlier that this poison can be cured.”
“Yes.”
“And after it is cured? What about the next time?”
Physician Sun fell silent once again.
The next time might be poisonous smoke in the charcoal, a cold substance added to her medicinal soup, an accidental fall into a pond, or a stumble down the stairs.
As long as she was Bao Si’s mother, as long as she remained a weakness that could be used to harm Bao Si, there would be a next time, and a time after that.
Unless…
Madam Su’s eyelashes trembled slightly.