The moon is like water, obliquely passing through Zhuhu.

There was silence in the dormitory of Jingshou Palace. Both in bed and under the bed knew that the other was not asleep.

After a long while, Qin Baozhu's voice sounded softly in the quiet night: "Can the people ask Your Majesty, why is Your Majesty a woman?" ”

Ye Qian thought for a while, and then smiled bitterly: "Everything is fate, and it is not up to anyone at all." ”

Ye Tianhuai talked about the past.

"The name Ye Tianhuai is actually not my name, but my imperial brother's. In the twenty-first year of Xingrui, I was born in the Liang Palace, when my father was only the crown prince and my mother was just a side concubine. Before I was born, it was when the He family was in the middle of the road. That year, my uncle went to Zhongzhou to supervise the repair of the river, and was involved in a case of embezzlement and imprisonment. The father cherished his reputation, although he did not degrade the position of the queen concubine, but because of this, he banned the queen mother. It can be said that at that time, the entire He family was crumbling, pointing at the child in the queen mother's womb to turn over. ”

"Aunt Fanghua said that it snowed on the day I was born, and it was the first snow after winter, and it fell very heavily. The winter was particularly cold, the emperor's grandfather was sick, his father moved into the palace to serve with him, and the queen mother gave birth to a pair of dragon and phoenix fetuses in the palace of King Liang. This was supposed to be a gratifying and congratulatory thing, but I didn't expect that the little emperor and grandson who came out first would die in his birth, and I was the only one who survived. ”

"The queen mother and uncle are also twin sons, and the two of them grew up together since childhood, and they have a very strong relationship. The queen mother was worried about her brother and her mother's family, so she made a terrible decision. She killed the midwife who delivered the baby that night, and announced to the public that it was her daughter who died and her son who survived. When the news reached the palace, the He family moved around again, and let the officials read a few folds, and the uncle was really released from prison unharmed, and he also found a guard in the palace to do it. ”

"Since I was born, my mother has taken strict care of me, it can be said that she never leaves an inch, she must bow down to everything, and she will not let others interfere in everything. When I was four years old, my father ascended the throne, and my mother divided the concubines, and after entering the palace, the princes all moved to live in Qianxi Palace, and only I have been living in the Yilan Palace of my mother. In the harem, it was said that the queen mother was very nervous about me, my 'son', because she experienced the pain of losing her daughter during childbirth. No one knows that the queen mother is afraid that someone will find out that I, the fourth prince, am a fake. ”

"When I was very young, the Queen Mother told me that I was different from my royal brothers. The royal brothers are real dragons, and I am just a shadow of the real dragon, and my identity and name are all stolen. Once the shadow sees the light, it will be doomed, so the queen mother never let me step out of the Yilan Palace. When I was a child, I thought that I would spend my whole life in this square yard. All my life, no one cared about it, and I was nameless, until I died silently like a fallen leaf in a corner of this palace, and became a down-and-out prince who was brushed off in the history books, carrying a name that did not belong to me. Ye Tianhuai paused, and her voice became a little lonely.

"When I first remembered, that is, the years when my father first ascended the throne, the queen mother really wanted to have another child, and she drank a lot of medicine for it. Unfortunately, it never got my way. Later, after my father's death, I heard from the front yard of the Tai Hospital that after my father ascended the throne, his body strained very quickly, and his spirit was not as good as before. It is true that after Qin Guifei gave birth to her sixth brother in the second year of Shunping, there was nothing left in the harem. The sixth brother was also born weak and died within a few years. ”

"Without the hope of having children, the queen mother can only pin her future on me. When I was six years old, I finally walked out of Yilan Palace, moved into Qianxi Palace, and began to live and study with my royal brothers. Aunt Fanghua has always been by my side, always telling me to be careful about my identity. That's when I came across two of my favorite things in my life – reading and drawing. So my vision for the future changed again. I looked forward to growing up to adulthood and passing the crown ceremony, so I asked myself to leave Beijing, enter Zongzheng Temple, ask for a title, and then take the queen mother to live a happy life in the fiefdom of a border town. ”

"I carried this secret and this thought for many years. It's a pity that the sky always doesn't fulfill people's wishes. When I was thirteen years old, the Renshen Palace Rebellion happened. ”

Ye Qianhuai sighed softly.

"I still remember that day. The fifth brother hadn't come to class for several days, and I was the only one in the entire Qianxi Palace. That night, when I was about to go to bed, my uncle suddenly came to the Qianxi Palace with a few guards to look for me, he was wearing armor and a helmet, and he looked panicked, saying that there was a change in the palace and asked me to go with him immediately. Then my uncle took me to Yilan Palace to find the queen mother, saying that the eldest brother had launched a palace mutiny and asked the queen mother to go back to Hefu with us for refuge. But the queen mother refused. The queen mother said that she was the concubine of her father, and she would die in this palace, and if she left the palace without permission, she would be immoral. Not only will I lose my reputation, but I will also be implicated. After hearing about the situation, I also decided to stay in Yilan Palace with my mother. ”

"Why?" Qin Baozhu suddenly interjected and asked.

"Because at that time, it seemed to me that there were only two possible outcomes of this palace change. The eldest brother of the emperor wins, or the crown prince wins. The eldest brother of the emperor is suspicious by nature, and he is a usurper of the palace, if he wins, he will not let me go no matter where I flee. I hid back in Hefu, I couldn't help but save my life, I was afraid that I would implicate the people of Hefu. And if I stay in the palace, the eldest brother of the emperor may be able to stay with the He family for a living. As for the crown prince, the second brother has a gentle temperament, does not want to be an enemy of others, and is a righteous son-in-law, there is no need to kill me and damage my reputation. If he wins, he will only drive me out of the capital. Therefore, I am safe wherever I am, and there is no need to hide out of the palace to provoke a mouthful of people. ”

Qin Baozhu didn't ask again. Although Ye Qianhuai always said that she had no intention of being in power and had no ambitions, she had such an accurate judgment of the situation and people's hearts when she was thirteen years old, which made Qin Baozhu couldn't help but admire.

"My uncle couldn't persuade me and my mother, so I had to leave a few guards under him to guard Yilan Palace, and I rushed to Jingshou Palace to protect my father. My mother and I didn't sleep all night in Yilan Palace, and outside the palace wall, we could hear the sound of short soldiers in the distance, and the battle was far away, but there were too many dead, and the smell of blood could be faintly smelled in Yilan Palace. I kept sitting in the courtyard at the door of the house staring at the closed gate of Yilan Palace, thinking about whether the next person to open the door would be the eldest brother or the second brother, whether it would be a head-cutting guillotine or an edict from Beijing. ”

After a whole day and a night, as the second night approached, the closed door of the palace was finally opened. But no one expected that the person who came was neither the eldest brother nor the second brother, but a eunuch with a raw face, and behind him was a group of warriors in neat formations with blood-stained armor. I can still remember the way the firelight was reflected in their eyes. Those people, just by looking at their eyes, know that each one is not afraid of death. Ye Qianhuai's eyes seemed to be in front of her, she was silent for a while, and continued, "The eunuch is here to read the holy decree, it is the holy decree of my father, and he wants to make me the crown prince. The decree is very short, only two sentences, and there are not even the lengthy expositions and praises that are usually found in the decrees. ”

Ye Tianhuai chuckled: "Hearing the will, four words suddenly popped out of my heart. Ye Tianhuai paused, her voice was suddenly as cold as the moonlight, and she said word by word, "Those who steal the country will be punished." ”