Detective Ghost Empress

94 Coward

” You go too far, my queen!” Zhai Tianyu couldn’t stay silent when he heard Liu Hui Ying ask him to kneel in front of her. Who does she think she was? How can she ask the Emperor to kneel in front of her? The Emperor of a country wouldn’t even kneel in front of his mother, why would he do so for his wife?

” Who started it, your majesty?” Liu Hui Ying arced a brow as she looked at Zhai Tianyu with a smile. ” You are the one who is asking me to go against heaven’s will and heal your sweetheart. Why should I do something like that and for whom?”

Zhai Tianyu pursed his lips and clenched his fingers, he could feel his anger reaching its peak point but he knew that Liu Hui Ying was the only one who could help Ji Yu. So, even if his pride was shouting at him to turn around and leave, he stayed where he was and then looked at Liu Hui Ying with a calm expression as he finished taking calming breaths. “You will be saving the life of an innocent woman is that not enough for you? As a member of the royal family, we should have a broader mindset, protecting the innocents is our responsibility... I too am working hard to protect the innocent people of my country.”

” Well hurrah for you,” Liu Hui Ying said as she picked up her chopsticks and started looking for what she wanted to eat then added fluently, ” You might have a big heart but I don’t, your majesty. I am a petty-hearted and vengeful woman, and in your words, I am the same devil spawned from the blood of the Liu family, sooo....” She spread her hands helplessly. ” There is nothing that I can do for you.”

“But why!” Zhai Tianyu couldn’t help but ask. ” You can save her, right? You ...you have the power to do so, then why aren’t you saving her? This is something that you can do right.”

” I am doing this for my own greater good, your esteemed majesty,” replied Liu Hui Ying with a smile as she looked at Zhai Tianyu with crinkled eyes. ” Like you killed this woman for the greater good as per your opinion, I am choosing to keep my hands off the matter of concubine Ji. You are right, I can save her and I do have the powers to make her womb all healthy and nice but ... she is someone from the Ji family, if I help her then I will be losing the protection of the Liu family. Concubine Ji can survive because she has you but what about me? Can you promise me that you can protect me? That you will keep your prejudices aside and let me go? That even if the Liu family turns their backs on me, you wouldn’t ?”

Zhai Tianyu did not say anything and Liu Hui Ying popped a piece of chicken in her mouth. She nodded and pointed at him with her chopsticks before saying, ” You see that ...you know it yourself that you don’t have any desire to protect me, you will be grateful to me yeah...but you will sacrifice me willingly for the greater good of yours,” she quoted the words ‘greater good’ with her fingers. ” I am not an agent of god who will let you take advantage of me and then let you have my life in your hands, I am no fool, your majesty. If I am going down, I am taking a hundred people together with me.”

” I only killed Liu Hui Ying because that was what I thought was for the best! We can not have an empress from the Liu family—”

” Aren’t they just excuses?” Before Zhai Tianyu could finish speaking, Liu Hui Ying smiled at him mockingly. ” You might have told yourself this excuse a hundred times but the reason you watched Liu Hui Ying die silently is that you hated her for the blood that was running in her veins.”

.....

She slammed her chopsticks on the table as she heatedly said, ” You killed her because she was the easiest of all, you are afraid of facing the Liu family and you know that you can not take them down with your strength. So you killed Liu Hui Ying, don’t let your empty morals blind you, your majesty. The truth is that you are a coward! Liu Hui Ying was just as innocent as Ji Yu, why didn’t your heart ache for her when she was dying? When she thought that everything in her world was gone? You stayed silent because you didn’t care about her, you didn’t save her because she was no one to you! Then why should my heart ache for Concubine Ji Yu? She is nothing to me and I don’t care for her!”

Zhai Tianyu’s breathing turned heavy as he lowered his head and bit down on his lips hard from screaming ‘shut up,’ to Liu Hui Ying.

Seeing that he was breathing harshly, Liu Hui Ying sniggered. “It’s hurt, doesn’t it? When you realise that not everything will go according to your will, do you your majesty? You need to understand that if you are willing to respect others’ passion, and the people that they care about then they will be willing to respect yours back as well. Stop thinking that you are so important that you can be disdainful of the lives of those and their loved ones when you don’t care about them but it should be reversed in your case. That everyone should take your loved ones seriously when you aren’t. It’s bizarre and disgusting.”

Zhai Tianyu closed his eyes and then turned around to leave because he was enraged he didn’t even close the door behind him instead he simply stormed outside, his face livid as his golden robes billowed behind him.

” Argh that man,” Liu Hui Ying spat in the spitting bowl and picked up a cup of refreshing tea and took a sip as she scoffed. ” He makes my mouth taste disgusting every time he comes to see me.”

—————