was silent for a long time, and it was the Queen Mother who spoke first.

"We two don't seem to have sat down and drank tea together for a long time."

The Queen Mother raised her hand to pick up the teapot, filled her teacup with tea, and poured another cup for Nangong Hongzhuo.

"This is, I personally picked and cooked the new tea a few days ago, and I tasted it, and it tasted good."

Nangong Hongzhuo did not respond to the Queen Mother's words, but also raised his hand and took a sip of tea from the teacup in front of him.

Looking at Nangong Hongzhuo who drank tea, Empress Dowager Chi's eyes softened a little, and she paused and said, "Time flies so fast."

"You've already started to grow gray hair, and mine is all white......" The Queen Mother said without a word, as if she was nostalgic for the past.

Nangong Hongzhuo neither responded nor interrupted, just sat calmly opposite her, listening to her sentence by sentence.

……

I don't know how long it took, so long that Grandpa Bai thought that this night would pass so peacefully.

The Queen Mother withdrew her look of reminiscence, and looked at the person sitting opposite her, with shame but pity in her eyes but no regrets.

The Queen Mother quietly watched Nangong Hongzhuo and didn't speak for a long time, and Nangong Hongzhuo didn't say anything for a long time, to be precise, he hasn't made a sound since he came in.

The atmosphere in the hall was so untemperate, and the people who boiled it were uncomfortable and didn't dare to move much.

"Why?"

Nangong Hongzhuo, who had been silent for a long time, finally asked.

He wondered why, why did she, as a mother, betray him?

Could it be that he is not filial enough?

Or was there something he had done to satisfy her?

He's her own son! The only biological son! Why do this to him?

Nangong Hongzhuo's short three words contain incomprehension, loss, distress and deep grievances, he is like an abandoned child.

He was asking, why abandon him?

Looking at the child in front of her, who was suddenly much older, and looking at his complaining eyes, the Queen Mother almost choked.

After a long silence, he said slowly: "There is no why, it's just a choice made by people between trade-offs." ”

"Heh~" Nangong Hongzhuo laughed at himself, this smile was bitter, and even a trace of despair.

"So, you chose your family and abandoned me."

It was a declarative sentence, the cruelest declarative sentence for him, and tears overflowed from the corners of his eyes.

And what about the emperor?

It's not that he's pitiful like a lonely wretch, the world makes him feel desolate.

"There will always be trade-offs in life" Empress Dowager Chi choked up several times, but she didn't let herself shed a single tear.

She has a lot of distress, guilt and reluctance in her heart, but she doesn't regret it, her son has no heirs, and the future throne is not inherited by his son's heirs, so why can't it be inherited by the Chi family?

She knew she did it, and it was her son who was hurt the most, but she had to.

It's true that she is his mother, but she is also the daughter of the Chi family, and if she had grandchildren, she would never do it.

But she didn't, so for the sake of the family's future, she decided to take a risk, even if it failed in the end.

"You gave up your son for the sake of your family."

"But you didn't expect it, in the end, you lost" Nangong Hongzhuo was already disheartened with his mother in front of him at this time.

Mother's tone is still so gentle, her face is still so kind, but she is no longer his mother.

Nangong Hongzhuo had no nostalgia anymore, and he absolutely got up and was about to leave.