The Imperial Palace, a couple of weeks ago.

The Empress Mother's chambers were shrouded in the darkness and silence of the deep midnight when a servant announced quietly from the other side of the door. "Your Majesty, General Shao is here to see you." 

The Empress Mother rustled in the layers of her blankets and furrowed her eyebrows at the sudden visit. "Let him in." She ordered weakly as she sat up, her sleep-bleary eyes focusing rapidly.

The door creaked open. General Shao stepped in and bowed.

Without getting up, the Empress Mother spoke with her back ramrod straight. Even without her full regalia and with her hair down, she looked as if she was sitting on her throne in the throne hall. "Gang Rui, what brings you here at this hour?"

General Shao didn't reply immediately but made himself comfortable by sitting beside the Empress Mother on her bed. Her eyes followed his movement as he settled in beside her. General Shao then reached a hand out and provocatively swept the back of his hand over the side of the Empress Mother's face down her neck before resting his palm on her shoulder. The man then held his face close to her ears and breathed in his gruff voice. "I'm here for the final stage of my plan."

The Empress Mother tensed and her head whipped towards General Shao. "What plan?"

General Shao sneered coldly before murmuring in his low voice. "My plan to usurp the throne."

The Empress Mother shot up from her bed. The sudden movement made her vision sway. But she gritted her teeth and ordered the servants outside to leave before hissing her words to the general. "What are you talking about? Is this some sort of joke?"

General Shao snickered as he stood back up. "I bet you wish it was a joke." 

"Explain." The Empress Mother's voice hardened.

General Shao sighed. "I wanted this to be over as soon as possible. But, well. I might as well indulge you one last time."

The Empress Mother only stared at him.

General Shao started to pace around the enormous room. "Well, to give you a better picture, I'll need to tell the story from the beginning." General Shao started. "For one, I'm adopted. My original surname was Lee. Not Shao."

The Empress Mother froze. Lee was not a common surname and it was almost exclusively reserved for the relatives of the Great Emperor Lee Gang.

Noting her reaction, the ugly sneer on the general's face grew wider. "Yes, it's a surname that you're well accustomed to, isn't it? I was born Lee Rui, the biological younger brother of your beloved late husband Lee Gang."

The Empress Mother's eyes widened at the revelation, but General Shao continued. "As you may have known, Lee Gang was a heartless bastard. But when I was still young and naïve, he was always a hero in my eyes. Until the day he decided to condemn me to death just so that there won't be anyone to contest his throne. He was twenty at the time and I was six. "

General Shao scoffed. "But then again, I guess you and him are two peas of a pod. I know what you did with your sons. Not only did you make one of your sons live in the shadows of the other, but you sent another son away to die, didn't you?"

The Empress Mother's eyes went wild at the accusation. The red veins crisscrossing the whites of her eyeballs stood out in their starkness.

"You didn't just give birth to twins all those years ago. Oh, no.. In fact, you had triplets." General Shao hissed the end of the sentence like a snake ready to take down its prey.

The Empress Mother's eyes flared. "How did you-"

"How did I know?" General Shao cut her off. "Well, it's only fair that the truth eventually comes out, isn't it? That has always been and will always be the nature of truth."

That comment silenced the Empress Mother.

With a smug look on his face, General Shao continued. "Anyway, where was I? Oh, yes. Your third, and actually your eldest son. Do you know that despite being sent down the river on that cold, winter day, he survived?"

The Empress Mother's heart caught in her ribs at the information. She didn't know. 

General Shao snorted. "Well, that's a reaction I would like to have drawn on a portrait." 

The Empress Mother's lips trembled as she tried to swallow the emotions that she had buried deep inside her core all these years. "Is he- Is he still alive?"

"Oh, no. Unfortunately for both of us, he died a long time ago. It would probably have made things easier for me if he hadn't since rumor has it that his face was almost the exact copy of your other two sons."

The Empress Mother was once again silenced. This time by how much General Shao knew. She never thought there would come a day when her deepest, darkest secret would come undone.

"But.." General Shao held his tongue in suspense before completing his sentence with malicious glee in his eyes. "He did have a son."

"I have.. Another grandchild?" The Empress Mother breathed as her eyes lost focus.

He gave out a sly grin before giving more details. "A male descendant of the late Great Emperor Lee Gang's firstborn would be better suited for the throne than his female cousin, don't you think?"

"W-what do you mean?"

"Oh, don't act coy. I know Ye An is actually a young woman. Thank goodness I came upon that information early. Or else she would've been a useless pawn in my plan. Do you know that the rebellion twenty-two years ago was also one of my many handiworks? I did all of my homework and successfully roped Lee Han in for my scheme. And quite easily too, thanks to your shadow emperor ploy. But your dear son just had to ruin everything. Do you know what the reason was? It was because of love." General Shao waved his arms in disgust. "How romantic. And how tragic because the one he loved was the late Empress who was betrothed to his brother!" General Shao leered drily.

"Do you want to know what else I've found out?" General Shao waited for a while in anticipation of the Empress Mother's response. "No? Doesn't matter, I'll just let you in on this juicy bit. Ye An was never even Lee Hwi's daughter. She was the fruit of love between Lee Han and the late Empress. How interesting is this love story?? Right???" General Shao's gaze grew more and more demented as he spilled everything that he had gathered over the years.

"I've waited for so long. And even built a network with the Northerners for this. And finally. Finally, things will go according to plan. I will ruin this country Lee Gang abandoned me for."

"You imbecile-" The Empress Mother who was shocked by everything that she had learned suddenly clutched at her chest, the intervals between her breaths rapidly shortening as she stared at General Shao with rage. Once she realized that the sharp pain in her chest was not subsiding and that her breath was not returning to normal, panic swiftly roiled into the Empress Mother's eyes. She didn't even get the chance to yell out for help before her body slumped on the bed.

General Shao's cold eyes observed the Empress Mother's folded body coolly before he started to spread her body out and even covered the blanket over her. He placed a finger right under the Empress Mother's nose before a sinister smile slowly plastered his face. "Well, that was less messy than I thought it would be."

Back to the present, Ye An was silent for some time. She then asked the grand eunuch without a change in emotion as if nothing could ever faze her anymore, "Then is it true that there was a third son? That my.. Father and the late Emperor Lee Hwi had an elder brother?"

The grand eunuch paused before picking his words carefully. "I-I believe so."

"You believe so or you know so?" Ye An continued to press. As he mentioned himself, the grand eunuch had been of service to the imperial family for a long time. If anyone else knew the full truth of what had happened almost fifty years ago, he would be the one.

The grand eunuch took in a deep breath and swallowed before answering, knowing that there weren't any loopholes to steer the conversation away. "I know so."

"And the Empress Mother ordered for him to be left to die in the wild?" Ye An's voice was flat.

The grand eunuch swallowed as he sensed the mood in the room shifting. All these years working for the imperial family had sharpened his perception of every minute change in the emotions of the members of the imperial family, and that included Ye An. "Yes."

Ye An only gave out a short cold laugh. Why was she not even surprised anymore?

The grand eunuch quickly added. "But Her Majesty had no choice!"

"Hah! That's some nonsense." Ye An waved a hand dismissively.

"Your Imperial Majesty, if I may, the late Great Emperor Lee Gang was cold, calculated, and ruthless. All of these qualities make him a great conqueror, and an asset in uniting the nation that we currently live in right now. However, those are not the qualities of a family-oriented man. If what General Shao told the Empress Mother regarding his relationship with the late Great Emperor Lee Gang was true, which I do think is true based on how he was when he was still alive, how do you think he would react to the news that he had not one, not two, but three sons? What would someone like him do? Someone who thought that his own six-year-old brother was a threat to his power?"

The grand eunuch took another deep breath before continuing. "Believe me when I say that the late Empress Mother fought hard to keep all three of them. That was why she proposed the idea of a shadow emperor. It was to appeal to the late Great Emperor Lee Gang. Just so that she could keep her own children."

"She tried to keep the third son as well. But the late Great Emperor Lee Gang wouldn't have any of it. And unfortunately, he was also a very superstitious man. To him, three (三，sān) sounded too much like dissolution (散，sân). As in the dissolution of everything he had worked so hard for. Yes, you might think that was illogical and irrational, but he wasn't a rational man when it comes to superstitions." The grand eunuch stopped as if he had other memories that reinforced the impression that he had of the late Great Emperor Lee Gang. "And it didn't help that the third son had a weak disposition even though he was technically the eldest out of the three. The firstborn son of both the late Great Emperor Lee Gang and the Empress Mother. However, the sequence of birth didn't matter to someone who treated people like chess pieces. It was a clear decision for him. The child was a weak link and the late Great Emperor Lee Gang would always go out of his way to personally cut off any weak links. No exceptions. Not even for his own blood."

"I was there when he made the decision. The late Empress Mother was utterly heartbroken. After sending the baby away, she even closed herself off from everyone for months. What was worse was the fact that the late Great Emperor Lee Gang didn't even waver from his decision after sending his own son to his early death and continued his day-to-day life as if it was nothing."

When the grand eunuch ended the story, Ye An swept her eyes across the room until they met Xi Chen's. He gave her a tiny nod, letting her know that he thought that the grand eunuch was telling the truth.

So there was another son and not just any son, a firstborn son. Besides that, General Shao was looking to rebel against the imperial family by bringing back the supposed grandson of the Great Emperor Lee Gang, the child of the late Great Emperor Lee Gang's firstborn son. Not only that, but the general also knew that she wasn't a man all along. Ye An suddenly felt a heavy throbbing in her temples.

Just then, a pigeon that looks a little too ruffled flew in through one of the open windows. The pigeon flopped itself on the table, all of its energy drained from its small body. It was from Ah Lin.

"The North is invading the border. Please send help."

More words were written on the other side of the small piece of paper.

"Be quick. There are too many of them. We've had too many casualties on our side and General Shao is nowhere to be found. We might not be able to hold the fort any longer."