Faling Temple was the nunnery that did the fortune-telling for Empress Dowager Yang last time. Hearing the Abbess’ arrival, the crowd stepped aside to open the way, and Cheng Yujin also raised her hand, signaling Du Ruo to help her rise.
After the Abbess of Faling Temple entered the inner hall, she first greeted the Emperor and the Empress, then folded her hands together to greet the rest of the imperial clan members. Empress Yang looked anxious and hurriedly said, “Abbess, you don’t have to bother with these etiquettes. Come quickly and see the Empress Dowager first.”
“This poor nun obeys the order.” The old nun bowed to Empress and began to make some hand gestures toward Empress Dowager Yang. After a while, she looked closely at Empress Dowager Yang’s face and finally sighed, “This poor nun is helpless.”
Everyone was shocked upon hearing this. Empress Yang frowned and asked, “Abbess, what do you mean? Didn’t you say last time that Empress Dowager is alright? It’s only a few days; why do you suddenly say you are helpless?”
The old nun closed her eyes, showing apathetic compassion: “The last time this poor nun came, although the Empress Dowager was sick, the wood element is still connected and alive, so there was still vitality. But when this poor nun looks again just now, the metal element has gotten sharper, cutting the wood by its roots. Now, only the roots are left, struggling to stay alive. If this goes on for a few more days, the wood element in the imperial palace would be totally overpowered and die, and because Empress Dowager Yang’s natural disposition is wood and soil, it will be very difficult for her illness to get better ever again.”
Everyone looked at each other, and no one spoke for a while. Yang Empress glanced slightly at Cheng Yujin and then asked the Abbess again, “Then, in Abbess’ opinion, what can we do to overcome this situation?”
“As this poor nun said last time, the five elements mutually generate and mutually restrict each other. If the metal element is too strong, it is only natural that the wood element, which it restricts, becomes weaker. When the wood’s vitality is exhausted, the five elements will be missing one element, causing the cycle to break. To prevent this from happening and to improve Empress Dowager’s condition, the only way is to let the person with too strong metal element temporarily move out of the palace. Only then will the wood element slowly recover by gathering the energy between heaven and earth. Once the flow of the five elements returns to normal, Empress Dowager will naturally get better, and the person with the metal element can return to the palace.”
The Abbess’ explanation was easy for a layman to understand and also sounded very logical by clearly explaining the causal and the effect. The people in the inner hall nodded after listening, thinking that it was reasonable. Some people who were not good at restraining themselves secretly raised their eyes to look at Cheng Yujin. res
A rumor had been circulating in the palace for some time now, saying that the child in Cheng Yujin’s belly was blessed with too heavy luck and a strong metal element, which clashed with the Empress Dowager and even disturbed the harmony of other elements in the imperial palace. Seeing Cheng Yujin’s silence during this period and the increasingly serious condition of Empress Dowager Yang, it seemed that everything was very consistent with the Abess’ explanation.
Cheng Yujin noticed many eyes were looking at her, but she didn’t flinch at all and still stood calmly and composedly. She appeared fearless on the outside, but inside, she couldn’t help but feel powerless.
She was not afraid of conspiracies or even being aimed at by secret arrows behind her back, but in this situation, she couldn’t find a way to prove otherwise.
She once heard about some villages that burned alive people they thought to be ominous, but she never expected such a ridiculous and tragic thing to also happen within the confine of the imperial palace. She could prove her innocence or show her ability, but what could she do to prove that the child in her womb was not ominous?
This kind of thing was entirely illusory and insubstantial, but once a revered master opened their mouth and some people seeking self-interest incited the mass, they could push a person to death for no reason.
The Emperor was also silent at the moment. In fact, he had some doubts because his health was also not good recently.
Water, fire, earth, wood, and metal — the five elements generated and restricted each other. If the wood element in the palace was restricted by the metal to the point of dying, this also explains the reason why he had been in poor health recently.
Cheng Yujin looked at the Emperor and fell into desperation upon seeing his silence. The Emperor could even tell her to drown the weaker one if she gave birth to two boys as a matter of course, so how could she expect him to protect her and her children to the detriment of his interest? Cheng Yujin was about to speak in self-defense when a shrill voice suddenly rang from outside, “The Crown Prince has arrived.”
The Crown Prince? Everyone in the hall was shocked. The Crown Prince is back?
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