Lady Meilin is seduced by her green tea brother-in-law everyday-Chapter 277: Secrets of the dead Empress.

The conversation with her mother did not go anywhere and it ended quickly. Mei Mei left the music room and returned with a quilt which she used to cover Jingzhe. Slowly, she backed out of the room and closed the door. It was her hope that the death of the Empress was not the thing that was weighing heavy on his mind.

She was on her way to the kitchen when royal agents entered the house. On seeing them, she turned and walked back to peek towards the doorway. 𝒻𝘳ℯℯ𝑤ℯ𝒷𝘯ℴ𝓋ℯ𝘭.𝑐ℴ𝑚

Ji Waning pointed her to the dining room and she took bold quick steps there only to come upon the emperor sitting down at the table, drinking wine and watching a hologram projected from his phone. It was news coverage of the explosion.

Wine was not the only thing on the table, an assortment of baked and deep fried meat whose intoxicating smell called to her stomach and taste buds.

Sliding into a chair next to him, Mei Mei helped herself to some orange chicken as Waning poured her a glass of freshly squeezed juice from a jug that madam Feng had left in the fridge.

"Where should I begin?" She asked as she picked up a deep fried lamb skewer. "I saw the news, you have my condolences."

Junjie did not respond immediately. He did not want to hear those words from her because they were a lie. They both knew the marriage was a farce. The likelihood of the explosion being an accident was more unbelievable.

"Do you by any chance know who did it?" He asked her.

Mei Mei frowned. Hadn’t Junjie been read in on the plan to erase his wife? Surely he had a clue! "Why would you even ask me that? I was at work all day just as I have been all week. If you think that I have information then you are looking in the wrong place. I think it was the smart mirror company or anyone else she pissed off with her anti-tech talk. What was she thinking?"

Mei Mei controlled her breath, a thing that she had learned to do following all the truth tests her grandma Chi had put her through. She had no plans of sharing what she knew. If the Empress Mother had kept Junjie out, it was for a reason.

Maybe it was to help him to maintain a good relationship with his children. If someday in the future they found out that their grandmother was involved in the death of their mother, they would lay the blame at her feet and that was where it would end. Junjie would remain a good father in their eyes.

"Why are you here?" She asked him. "Everyone went to the royal palace to comfort you but you are in my house. You are drinking wine by yourself, drowning in thoughts I cannot begin to guess."

Junjie picked up a glass and slowly drunk the contents. He knew that Mei Mei was lying. They had grown up together, he could always tell when she was holding back and she was. He also knew that he could torture her and she would not give up what she knew. He placed the glass on the table and Waning topped it off.

Honestly, he was not sad that she was dead. He was just surprised. He was not in the mood to fake sadness and watch his family members attempt to beautify the unpleasant memories of his dead wife.

"She was a liar." Junjie said.

Waning looked at the agents in the dining room and gestured for them to step out. He also left, giving Mei Mei and Junjie complete privacy.

"Every word that came out of her mouth was a lie." he continued. "Every smile on her face was a lie." He took another sip of wine. "It was not even her face to begin with." He mumbled.

Mei Mei knew what he meant. The pictures of the deceased Empress’s before and after surgery pictures had once been leaked on the internet. It was almost as if she had changed her entire face. She did not comment on this, letting Junjie vent as he wished.

"Do you know that she got pregnant within the first two months of our marriage?" He asked.

Before she could reply, he laughed and continued. "I got the injection six months before we were wed, the male birth control shot which lasts a year. I did not mention this to her when we married and I made it clear that we would not be having children for a half a year."

"Fudge!!" Mei Mei exclaimed.

The implications of what Junjie was saying were great. It meant the Empress had been unfaithful during their marriage and at the very beginning.

"Wait, so it wasn’t yours!" She exclaimed again.

Jingzhe nodded. "I thought maybe the shot was had failed but when I went to the hospital, they checked and confirmed that it was working perfectly. So I had my secretary pretend that she was making a phone call during which she accidentally let slip that fact that I was on birth control.

My dearly departed wife was in the bathroom at the time and she overheard the conversation. She went out that night and when she returned, she was no longer pregnant. Instead, she had a stomach bug and a cough which kept her in isolation for two weeks. Out of isolation, she took a vacation for three weeks and returned to the empire after making a full recovery."

"Shit." Mei Mei whispered. She abandoned the juice for wine because this conversation was one that required alcohol.

Junjie had been keeping many secrets. Secrets that only a handful of people knew and she was now part of the handful. Mei Mei reached for a roasted chicken leg and looked at her friend. His mood was dark, his eyes heavy and his aura dim.

"Do you know who the father was?" She asked.

Junjie had been expecting that question. It was the same question that he had asked his secretary the day he found out that the pregnancy was not his doing. That very day, he wanted to dethrone the Empress and throw her out but political tensions between his empire and the Indian empire had been escalating.

He had chosen not to add personal issues to the escalating boarder disputes and trade war which was sprouting.

By the time these issues were settled, she was pregnant again and this time the pregnancy was his. He had done six secret DNA tests on Long Wen from different countries to confirm this. One had even been done in another empire.

Junjie nodded. "Oh yes, how can I not know? You know Hui Zhenting, right?"

Hui Zhenting was the supervisor of the central division of the Black Command Unit which handled terrorism, hostage rescues and riot control in the capital. He was also a three time Olympic winner in pistol shooting. He had two silver medals and one gold.

He was famous--heroic kind of famous and a beloved individual in the empire.

Mei Mei’s eyes widened. What shocked her was not the "who" but rather "who he was to the dead empress!!"

"No way!! Isn’t he her cousin, brother, uncle or something!!!" She screamed.