Chapter 324

Chapter 324

Upon hearing this, Su Yi responded with an open-minded smile, "That sounds wonderful. Since His Majesty is having breakfast, why not keep him company?" She then turned and smoothly withdrew her hand from Kangxi's grasp, covering her mouth as she let out a small yawn. "I've been awake all night and am rather exhausted. I won’t be joining you for breakfast."

Her eyes glistened with unshed tears, the fatigue she had been suppressing now surfacing. Though she forced herself to appear composed, it didn’t make her refusal any less firm.

"Your Majesty need not worry. I had a bite to eat not long ago and truly cannot eat another thing."

Not that he needed to worry—she was simply handing off the mess to him. Since he was here, why let him idle?

Thinking this, Su Yi acted accordingly. Her eyes gleamed like still autumn water, her coy smile betraying no hint of her eagerness to wash her hands of the matter.

Kangxi's reaction aside, the Eldest Prince was thrown for a loop by Rong Noble Consort’s sudden shift. He hadn’t forgotten how, before the Emperor arrived, she had seemed energetic enough to last through the day without a hint of drowsiness. Now she claimed to be tired—did he believe her? Not a chance.

Su Yi couldn’t care less whether the Eldest Prince believed her. After speaking, she rose and took her leave, her figure willowy and frail. She vanished like the wind, Qinxin jogging to keep up, barely managing to catch her.

No one could beat her exit speed.

Kangxi did not stop her. He sat alone in his chair, his hand lay empty on the table, fingers absently tracing the rim of his cup. His expression was calm, but his eyes darkened.

The tension was thick enough to cut after Rong Noble Consort’s departure.

Liang Jiugong felt the despair of having narrowly escaped disaster only to plunge headlong into another. Breakfast had lost all appeal. Just when he thought things were going smoothly, go figure—it was all a setup. One should never rejoice too soon—because without fail, disaster would strike.

The Eldest Prince’s scalp crawled with unease. The weight of Kangxi’s gaze was impossible to ignore, no matter how much he wished to pretend otherwise.

Beads of sweat—whether from pain or nerves—trickled down his forehead, along his jawline, and dripped to the floor. Yet he dared not wipe them away, rooted to the spot in dread.

He had assumed that once the Emperor arrived, it would be Rong Noble Consort’s turn to suffer. Who could have guessed she would simply walk away?

So, that woman had never intended to help him out of this mess. She had left him to fend for himself and walked off without a second thought!

"Insolent!" Kangxi suddenly snapped, sweeping the teacup from the table. It smashed into pieces on the floor, the sound sharp and final. The Eldest Prince paled and knelt, biting back the pain flaring in his legs.

"Your Majesty, please calm your anger. This son knows his wrongs." The Eldest Prince understood the source of his father’s fury and dared not argue, opting instead for immediate contrition.

His bandaged wounds split open anew, blood seeping through the gauze. But he knew better than to use his injuries to beg for mercy—it would only incense the Emperor further.

"You know your wrongs? What wrongs do you know?" Kangxi laughed, but this laughter bore no resemblance to his earlier mirth. There was no humor in it now.

"This son should not have acted impulsively, believing the words of others and thinking..." The Eldest Prince, who had once been so fervently convinced of his righteousness, now felt like a fool. He couldn’t even bring himself to voice his earlier thoughts.

"Oh, Noble Lady Hui raised a *fine* son," Kangxi remarked coldly, his tone eerily composed—which was precisely the problem.

A fine son for Noble Lady Hui, but not necessarily for him.

Given the current circumstances, shouldn’t the Eldest Prince have understood the situation and focused on recuperating? How could he be so easily swayed by servants into such stupidity? That he could be so easily manipulated infuriated Kangxi, who refused to believe his son was merely thick-headed.

Was this for Noble Lady Hui’s sake, or for the influence of her family? Were they already jockeying for position early, eyeing his throne before he was even old? And to extend their reach to the Mulan Hunting Grounds—did the Eldest Prince truly not realize the implications of proposing such a competition?

He had assumed it was mere sibling rivalry, never imagining someone would dare covet the Crown Prince’s position, inciting discord between brothers.

After all, if a son erred, it was because he had been led astray. Those who manipulated him deserved execution. But now, it wasn’t a matter of favoring one son over another—the Crown Prince came first.

The Eldest Prince panicked. "This matter is entirely this son’s fault! My mother had no part in this! Whatever punishment Your Majesty deems fit, this son will accept without complaint!"

Terrified that his impulsiveness would implicate his mother, and even more afraid that Kangxi might truly believe he harbored resentment, his forehead thudded against the floor as he kowtowed forcefully. But he paid it no mind, desperate to prove he held no disrespect toward the Emperor.

Kangxi gave no indication of whether he believed him. At the moment, he had no desire to keep the Eldest Prince in his sight any longer. With a wave of his hand, he ordered him removed. "Return and copy scriptures nightly until you’re healed. Don’t let me hear another peep out of you."

The First Prince's face was deathly pale, his eyes bloodshot from staying up all night, his breathing rapid. He could only hear a buzzing in his ears and the sound of his own ragged breaths. His throat was dry and hoarse as he rasped, "Your son hears and obeys."

Due to the intense emotional turmoil and the heavy blow he had suffered, his wound split open again, bleeding through the gauze. His vision darkened at the edges, and his body weakened. Clenching his teeth, he barely managed to keep himself from collapsing by bracing himself upright with both hands.

Kangxi's sternness extended even to his own son. In matters like these, the relationship of ruler and subject came first. "Those who failed to advise the First Prince properly shall each receive thirty strokes of the rod," he declared.

The palace servants tasked with caring for the First Prince also turned pale at these words. They had already been summoned by Consort Rong's attendants to witness the punishment and had knelt for nearly the entire night, watching helplessly as the two who had brought this misfortune upon them breathed their last. Their hearts were filled with indescribable torment.

When the Emperor arrived, they had hoped he would reprimand Consort Rong for her actions and the pageantry she had staged, standing up for the First Prince and sparing them. But to their surprise, Kangxi showed no intention of admonishing Consort Rong. Instead, the First Prince was the one who suffered the consequences.

However, with the two who had lost their lives as a warning—along with their families—the usual punishment for such mistakes would not have been so severe. Caught in this purge, the servants could only feel a sense of relief at their comparatively lighter sentence.

Su Yi dismissed Qinxin from attending her and went straight to her bedchamber, lying down on the small couch. Seeing that her mistress was truly exhausted and had already closed her eyes, Qinxin could only bring a light coverlet and drape it gently over her before quietly leaving.

Once Qinxin was gone, Su Yi, who had seemed fast asleep, suddenly opened her eyes. She flung the coverlet aside, propped herself up, and vomited a large amount of blood.

As if she had been holding it back for a long time, the blood continued to spill. Su Yi expressionlessly took out a handkerchief to catch it, the fabric soaking through in moments. The color drained from her face, her alabaster complexion even developing faint, flickering cracks that split and rapidly healed over and over again.

A deathly aura emanated from Su Yi. The handkerchief, now saturated with blood, was instantly incinerated by dancing cerulean fire, leaving not even ashes behind.

The cerulean flames slithered smoothly over Su Yi's face and the bloodstains scattered around, igniting and erasing every trace as if they had never existed.

The delicate balance she had maintained had been disrupted earlier, nearly causing her to collapse on the spot. If Su Yi hadn't suppressed it and left in time, she would have put on a shocking spectacle of uncontrollable bleeding.

Earlier, when facing Kangxi, Su Yi had tentatively tested her killing intent—only for her body to instantly stiffen, losing all control. The threat of death loomed, ready to eject her from her physical form in the next second, allowing the Thunder Tribulation to lock onto her immediately.

Though she had prepared for this before acting, the brief experiment still caught her off guard with the severity of the backlash.

This wasn't like the Heavenly Dao, where one could simply replace it with a new one if it was destroyed.

This path was impassable.

But asking Su Yi to simply wait—using the strategy of waiting until Kangxi's lifespan ran its course—was unthinkable.

Cultivation knew no time; decades in secluded cultivation passed in a blink, but that was only true for meditation.

If she had to treat the imperial harem as a training ground to cultivate in, spending decades here from the very start... The mere thought made Su Yi, who had just stopped vomiting blood, start again.

Since it wouldn't stop anytime soon, Su Yi simply lay back down, finding a more comfortable position to let the blood flow for a while. Once she felt slightly better, she used a purification art to tidy up. Her movements were practiced but carried a sense of resignation—as if she couldn't care less whether she lived or died. Yet, a dark fire burned in her eyes. Truly yielding without a fight? Not a chance.

"And what are you here for? Didn't we already agree on an equal division?" Su Yi's voice was languid, her movements sluggish. Though she looked like a sickly beauty, she rolled her eyes without hesitation.

A spectral figure had appeared silently at some point, living up to its reputation of being elusive—appearing and vanishing in the blink of an eye.

It had been a case of ambushing and stealing the kill, forcing the equal division.

So why was it back now? To watch her vomit blood in creative ways?

"Didn't catch them," the figure said with no inflection, its face hidden beneath a hood.

Su Yi slowly raised a questioning brow.

When she raised a questioning brow, it wasn't because she had a problem—it was because she thought you were the one with the problem!

Su Yi smiled sweetly. "You did that on purpose, didn't you?" But there was no room for negotiation in the killing intent that followed. Cerulean flames surged forward—only to find the spot empty. The figure had already vanished, clearly aware that staying would mean trouble. It had come without a sound and left just as swiftly.

Only a message remained: "Jiangnan (southern China)."

"Didn't catch them" was a lie. Letting them go on purpose was the truth. Should she even thank it for coming back to inform her instead of eliminating all witnesses to prevent future betrayal?

Su Yi extended her hand, and with a wave of it, a clean new handkerchief flew into her grasp. She absently wiped the trail of blood from the corner of her lips, muttering, "...Jiangnan, huh?"

Kangxi swiftly concluded his business, and breakfast was served shortly after. In the end, he was the only one eating, merely in a different location.

Yet the meal tasted bland. Kangxi ate with his usual calm expression, though his mind seemed elsewhere, lost in thought. Suddenly, as if struck by an idea, he paused mid-motion before abruptly setting down his chopsticks—sending the bowl toppling over.

The sudden movement startled the attendant serving the meal, causing the dish they were holding to clatter to the ground. Panicked by the mistake, they immediately dropped to their knees, ready to plead for forgiveness.

But His Majesty stood up abruptly, the chair scraping harshly against the floor as he strode away without a second glance at the kneeling servant.

Liang Jiugong was equally baffled by Kangxi’s sudden action, though he reflexively hurried after him. Judging by the direction, this wasn’t an angry departure—it was the same path Rong Noble Consort had taken earlier.

Could it be that His Majesty’s delayed fury over Rong Noble Consort’s abrupt departure had finally erupted?

Had His Majesty brooded on it and decided he was still too incensed to finish breakfast, determined to confront Rong Noble Consort directly?