My Princess and Crown Prince Are Revived
Chapter 267: The Secret of Chu Baihan’s Origins

Chapter 267: Chapter 267: The Secret of Chu Baihan’s Origins

"My son says that Mother suffered greatly while she was alive. You think you loved her, but she felt that this love was a burden. Just like how you treat Xiaobai now!"

Nan Li spoke coldly as he said these words.

"Your Majesty."

Seeing that Nan Shi was about to lose his balance, the eunuch wanted to come and support him.

But Nan Shi shook off their hands, "Let the Crown Prince continue."

"Father, you are not a good Emperor. If it had not been for Mother supporting you in those days, and later Xiaobai fighting battles for you in the south and the north, how could you have firmly held onto the throne? You are neither a good husband nor a good father," Nan Li sneered, hiding the bitterness in his eyes as he said all these harsh and sharp words.

Nan Shi clutched at his chest, tasting something sweet in his mouth.

He could not hold back and began to vomit blood.

"Your Majesty!"

"Crown Prince, please stop speaking. His Majesty has not rested well these past few days. Today, he just heard the news about the Sixth Princess and the Empress Dowager’s accident, and already vomited blood due to heartache once. Please don’t agitate him further," the eunuch hurriedly urged Nan Li.

"That’s right, Your Highness the Crown Prince. The Emperor has also been in pain all day long because the Eldest Princess was injured," they continued, looking desperate to persuade Nan Li.

But there wasn’t a ripple in Nan Li’s eyes.

"Father, I am not Mother, nor am I Xiaobai. Although Xiaobai has a decisive nature, she still inherited some of Mother’s soft-heartedness. My heart, however, is hard. You could lose a lot of blood, and I still wouldn’t pity you..."

"You think that your preferential treatment for her could make Xiaobai guard Nanduan Kingdom without reservation, obediently being your most well-behaved daughter? You’re truly base," Nan Li’s expression became more and more mocking.

The eunuchs lowered their heads, not daring to speak.

"I have never intended to hurt Hanhan; she is the only child your mother gave birth to. How could I possibly hurt her," Nan Shi said, clutching his chest and speaking with sorrow.

Had anyone else been there, they would be extremely shocked.

Because what Nan Shi said meant "the only child."

Chu Baihan was his and the Empress’s only child.

Hearing his words, Nan Shi and the two eunuchs, heads bowed low, showed no surprise.

Because they had long known the truth.

"Unharmed? From the day she was kidnapped to the misunderstandings between her and Yan Lin, do you still think you haven’t hurt her?" Nan Li looked at Nan Shi with a mix of sadness and anger.

Nan Shi’s body stiffened.

He clenched his fists and was silent for a long time.

"Mother was in pain all those years. You thought she regretted losing Xiaobai, but that wasn’t it. She was in pain because she knew Xiaobai had been sent away by you personally, yet she still had to pretend she knew nothing. Has anyone considered how much pain she was in?" Nan Li said angrily.

Anger caused him to gasp for breath.

Nan Shi’s face showed shock, and he suddenly looked up.

"Are you saying your mother knew the truth long ago?" he asked with a trembling voice.

"What do you think? Mother was the person who understood you best in this world. Did you really think the things you did could escape her eyes?"

Nan Li sneered, his gaze upon Nan Shi filled with pity.

Nan Shi’s heart stung painfully.

He kept murmuring in a low voice, "She knew all along, she knew all along. Yet she never spoke of these things to me."

"The suffering my mother must have endured over the years..."

Nan Li shook his head, his tone growing increasingly somber.

"How could this be, how could this be..."

Nan Shi kept shaking his head, unable to accept the truth that Nan Li had revealed.

"Yan Lin still believes that it was I who drugged him, causing him to lose his memory of Xiaobai. He doesn’t know that all this was your doing," Nan Li said, shaking his head with a complex expression.

He knew the truth but was unable to voice it.

"What I did, I did for Hanhan’s good," Nan Shi took a deep breath, his tone weary.

"For Xiaobai’s good? Is that all you can say? Do you truly believe that what you did was for Xiaobai’s good?" Nan Li clenched his fist, angrily questioning him.

So overcome with anger, he was even struggling to breathe.

"Lili."

"Crown Prince."

The eunuch was ready to rush over to support Nan Li.

But Nan Li shook them off, "Get away from me!"

Turning back, his eyes steadily fixed on Nan Shi, he then seemed to be lost in memories.

"If I hadn’t investigated some matters, I would never have known that Father Emperor had ulterior motives when he married Mother Empress..."

"You..." Nan Shi’s expression finally became extremely flustered.

But Nan Li showed no sign of stopping as he continued, "Mother Empress, including the Qiang Family, thought that it was because the Qiang Family had set a trap that you met Mother Empress and later developed feelings for her. But they didn’t know that you were the winner in this calculation, because you had wanted to marry Mother Empress all along."

"But the reason you wanted to marry her was not that you liked her, but because of her life’s fate. Before dying, each past emperor of Nanduan Kingdom would reveal a secret: the fortune of Nanduan Kingdom was dire. Without change, it would perish within three hundred years."

"Calculated up to now, there’s only one year left until the three hundredth anniversary of Nanduan Kingdom’s founding."

"The testament of our ancestors also said, to break this ominous predicament, one must find a woman capable of breaking the curse. This woman must be made Empress, and the child she bears should be made Crown Prince. Only then can Nanduan Kingdom step over this three-hundred-year deadly chess game."

"Mother Empress’s birth chart... she was that woman, wasn’t she? And Xiaobai was that Crown Prince capable of breaking the curse."

Hearing Nan Li’s words, Nan Shi knew that he could no longer hide his secret.

He shook his head as if deflated, admitting, "I confess, at first, I did have ulterior motives toward your mother. But as time passed, I truly cared for her, truly loved her."

Hearing his admission, there wasn’t much disturbance in Nan Li’s eyes.

Because the Mother Empress had already passed away, what was the use of holding onto whether the Father Emperor really loved her or not?

"After the Mother Empress became Empress, she was barren for many years. So you dispatched people to secretly search the common folk for a child who bore a slight resemblance to you. Then you had the Mother Empress pretend to be pregnant. That child... was me..."

"At first, I thought you wanted to deceive the heavens, using me as a tool to break the three-hundred-year curse. But later I realized..."

"That year, there were three children who resembled you, but you chose me, the weakest one. Therefore, I understood that you were confident the Mother Empress would bear a child. My existence would then shield that child from any danger..."

"And with my frailty, I could never contest the Empress’s true child for the throne. You were so painstakingly thorough."

Listening to Nan Li’s words, Nan Shi shook his head quickly, "Lili, I..."

"Father Emperor, there’s no need to say more. Regardless of the reason you adopted me, I cannot blame you for this. If it weren’t for your adoption and the numerous medicines keeping me alive, I would have likely died long ago."