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Perhaps she realized that she didn't have much time left, or perhaps she had no way to deal with the emperor and empress's tough attitude, the Empress Dowager did not continue with the issue of taking a concubine.

Instead, he changed the subject and said, "Your Majesty, before the Royal Grandmother dies, I beg you for a favor."

Ling Moxiao stepped forward, held her hand, and whispered, "Grandmother, please speak."

The Empress Dowager was confused by his attitude and thought he was going to agree, so she hurriedly said, "Lu family, I hope the emperor will take care of us."

Ling Moxiao smiled gently, but the smile did not reach his eyes. His tone was still gentle, but every word he said was very heartbreaking:

"Grandmother, have you forgotten that there is no one left in the Lu family's direct lineage?"

The Empress Dowager's eyes widened instantly, and she took a deep breath, obviously wanting to tear her face off and start cursing. At the very least, she wanted the censors outside to hear how unfilial the emperor was!

But before she could speak, Shen Dongsu strode forward and said loudly:

"It's time for the Imperial Grandmother to rest. Your Majesty, you have been serving the Imperial Grandmother for many days. There are many memorials sent from Youzhou that need your review urgently. Please let me serve you here!"

This interruption made the Empress Dowager's words sink back into her throat. Then the imperial physician brought the medicine, and Dong Su fed her the medicine himself. He watched her stare at him unwillingly, and then fell into a deep sleep.

The Empress Dowager lasted one day longer than the imperial physician expected. During these three days, Dong Su brought the children to pay her respects every morning and evening, and she followed the palace rules without any mistakes, so the powerful people in Chang'an could not find any fault with her.

Whenever she was awake, she would say two things. One was to persuade the emperor to take a concubine, saying that the royal family had few offspring and she was ashamed to face her ancestors.

The second is to ask the emperor to take care of the Lu family. The Lu family is her maternal family and they have made contributions to the Daxia kingdom.

Until her last breath, these two wishes were still not fulfilled.

She died at midnight. There was only one imperial physician by her side at the time. When Ling Moxiao arrived, she had already passed away.

Ling Moxiao asked the imperial physician in front of the censors whether the Empress Dowager had given any instructions before her death.

The imperial physician said respectfully, "The Empress Dowager wishes to be buried in the Western Imperial Mausoleum, and has no other instructions."

Ling Moxiao looked at the imperial physician with satisfaction and recognized him as one of the imperial physicians who had gone to the Chang'an restricted area with Dong Su.

The censor carefully wrote down the Empress Dowager's last words, and did not write down a single word of the words he occasionally heard in the past few days, asking the Emperor to take a concubine and take care of the Lu family.

The funeral of the Empress Dowager was very grand. After all, a lot of things had happened to the royal family in recent years. The deposed crown prince and Queen Chen died unclearly, and the late emperor died at the hands of the former deposed emperor.

The former deposed emperor was fighting for the world with the new emperor... In short, these royal events in just a few years could be made into hundreds of episodes of a palace drama about power struggles in later generations.

Therefore, the royal family needed a big event to restore their reputation. This was also the reason why this southern tour was arranged. In this era where filial piety is the most important thing, the royal family also needed to rely on filial piety to restore their reputation.

Only because the Grand Empress Dowager was in Chang'an would the Emperor and Empress bring their children to travel thousands of miles here. Now that the Grand Empress Dowager has passed away, the Emperor and Empress fulfilled their filial duties before her death and gave her a grand funeral, thus earning the reputation of being "filial".

The powerful people in Chang'an were afraid that the emperor would investigate the cause of the Empress Dowager's death. No matter whether it was the "magic pill" or the precious ingredients they sent, they would not be able to escape responsibility if the matter was really investigated.

Now that the emperor has decided not to pursue the matter, how dare they find fault with the funeral again!

There were some minor incidents as well. The noble ladies who accompanied the Empress Dowager in the palace had realized a reality in the past few days, that was that the Emperor would not take a concubine.

But their families did not agree with this result! Ever since they were brought into the palace, in their families' minds, they were already the emperor's women.

Now that the Empress Dowager is dead, you tell me that the Emperor doesn't want to marry them, who can accept that?

Ling Moxiao laughed out of anger and said, "In that case, I will issue an edict to have all these women go to the imperial mausoleum to mourn for the Empress Dowager!"

Dong Su is a soft-hearted person. She always feels that women should not be embarrassed. They are just tools of the family, just like Xie Qingzhi, Chen Luoxue and others.

Furthermore, since this is a matter concerning a noble lady, the Emperor should not be troubled by it. It should be the responsibility of her as the Queen.

She summoned these noble ladies and their mothers and asked them directly whether they would like to take them home and arrange marriages after the national mourning, or let them go to the imperial mausoleum or imperial temple to pray for the Empress Dowager.

What Dong Su had not expected was that she had underestimated the arrogance and stupidity of the noble ladies in Chang'an. Instead of regarding this as the Queen's kindness, they saw it as oppression and contempt.

They believed that it was the jealous empress who did not allow the emperor to take a concubine, and that the emperor, who was born a peasant girl, was jealous of their noble daughters and did not give them the opportunity to appear in front of the emperor.

All in all, it was an extremely unpleasant meeting, and the ladies' rude behavior soon reached Ling Moxiao's ears.

But before Ling Moxiao came to punish them, Dong Su herself ordered that all the noble ladies be sent to the imperial mausoleum to pray for the Empress Dowager for three years, and they could only return home after three years.

The noble ladies were greatly humiliated and went home to try to unite their husbands, fathers and brothers, and ask the censors and imperial inspectors to expose the queen's jealous and immoral nature.

As a result, some of them were forced by their husbands to apologize to the Queen, while others, who would rather die than apologize, had their titles stripped by Ling Moxiao and were demoted to commoners.

Of course, he did not demote the noble lady to a commoner just because she was disrespectful to the queen. The evidence of the crimes of these powerful people was delivered to him by Chen Xingyao.

Ling Moxiao believed that it was because he was too lenient towards the powerful people in Chang'an that these women dared to bully the queen.

Although Dong Su didn't feel that she was bullied, Ling Moxiao felt that she was wronged.

The little incident during the funeral passed quickly, and after three days of rest, the body was buried in the imperial mausoleum, officially beginning the one-year national mourning period.

But the emperor specially ordered that Chen Xingyao and Xie Qingzhi get married during the national mourning period, because their marriage had already been reported to the Empress Dowager, who had even put some makeup on Xie Qingzhi.

So it is not considered a violation of the rules, it’s just that music cannot be played at the wedding.

Dong Su felt that Xie Qingzhi was too wronged, so she specially brought her to the palace to ask her what she thought. If she felt that the wedding was too hasty, we could wait until after the national mourning period.

There was no need to be so anxious. She didn't understand why Chen Xingyao was so anxious. He hadn't mentioned getting married for so many years, but now he was going to get married and the wedding was only a few months away.

Unexpectedly, Xie Qingzhi didn't have any objections. She joked that she hoped the wedding would be simpler, as it was the Xie family who wanted a grand wedding.

Dong Su understood instantly that Xie Qingzhi and her sister-in-law had the same worries and just wanted to get married as soon as possible to escape the control of the Xie family.

Even if the two of them had already been established as female households, that's just how women are. It's simply impossible for them to draw a clear line with their original families before they get married.

She also asked Xie Qingzhi, after the marriage, Mr. Chen would be transferred to Beijiang County by the emperor, did she want to go with him? Did she want to stay in Chang'an?

Xie Qingzhi asked hurriedly, "Are there any female officials in Beijiang County? Are there any banks? Are there any hospitals?"

Dong Susan shook his head. Beijiang County hadn't even built a decent official road. Apart from the medical staff accompanying the army, none of the institutions under the Queen's jurisdiction had moved in.

Of course, many caravans went there, and the Ministry of Agriculture also sent officials to investigate.

Xie Qingzhi's eyes lit up instantly, and she immediately expressed her willingness to go to Beijiang County and set up a local female official organization from scratch.

Dong Su instantly thought of the reason why she came to Chang'an in the first place. No other female officials were willing to come to Chang'an because they all felt that this place was controlled by the powerful and the gentry, and it would be difficult for a female official agency to develop.

This is indeed the case. Thanks to Xie Qingzhi's unremitting efforts, the female official agency in Chang'an now has a place. Not only businessmen, but also many dignitaries and gentry are clients of the bank.

Dong Su fell into more distant memories. It was this girl who first proposed opening milk tea and snack shops in the northern states.

Yes, Xie Qingzhi has always liked to challenge difficulties and complete tasks that others consider impossible.

She herself said that her favorite job when she was young was untangling the embroidery threads. The more tangled the threads were, the happier she was at untangling them.

Girls of her age often got so angry that they started crying while untying the threads and simply stuffed the threads into the stove and burned them.

Xie Qingzhi is a very cheerful, challenging, energetic and sincere girl. People around her can't help but get close to her.

Dong Su gave her a lot of dowry, because she knew that the Xie family would not prepare a dowry for her carefully, and after marriage she would have to live and work in the bitter and cold Beijiang County.

Like an older sister, she would first look at Xie Qingzhi's dowry booklet and add whatever she needed. When the time came, she would use a camel team to transport everything to Beijiang County to ensure that her daily life would not be wronged at all.

When Chen Xingyao heard that the Queen had seen Xie Qingzhi's dowry book, he hurriedly asked the female official to send his betrothal gift book to the Queen as well.

Dong Su read the whole story critically with the attitude of Xie Qingzhi's family, and finally found that there was nothing to find, that is, Chen Xingyao really valued Xie Qingzhi.

The betrothal gift was divided into two parts, one part was taken to the Xie family, and the other part was directly added to Xie Qingzhi's dowry book.

Duke Chen also returned from the Taoist temple to attend the funeral of the Empress Dowager, and then attended his son's wedding.

The wedding was held on the second day of August. On the fifteenth day of August, Ling Moxiao held a grand water and land ceremony for the Empress Dowager, and then issued several decrees in succession.

Chen Xingyao and his wife set out on August 18 to serve as the Jiedushi of Beijiang County, in charge of the military, finance, and administration of the entire Beijiang region.

At the same time, he also received a secret order from Ling Moxiao, asking him to go to Liangzhou on the way to discuss with General Xie and prepare to officially send troops to conquer the Tibetans in March next year.

Dong Su found it strange that Ling Moxiao seemed to both dislike and distrust Chen Xingyao before, but his attitude changed immediately after the Empress Dowager died and Chen Xingyao got married.

He trusted Chen Xingyao very much and handed over the entire Beijiang County to him, and asked him to cooperate with General Xie in the expedition against the Tibetans.

Of course, she didn't ask Ling Moxiao the reason. Perhaps it was the emperor's intention to suppress and test a court official before employing him.

When the couple went to the palace to say goodbye, Dong Su specially brought Xie Qingzhi to the harem and said a few intimate words to her, including who could help her if she encountered difficulties in Beijiang County.

She was also given a detailed map of Beijiang County. Also, if she was wronged or bullied by Chen Xingyao, she must be told in time.

In short, remember that the Queen will always be your backstage and your greatest support.

Xie Qingzhi was so moved that she went forward and hugged her. Only Xie Qingzhi would do this. Even if it was her sister-in-law Chen Luoxue, she would at most just hold her hand.

Dong Su patted her on the back and his eyes became red. In this era, separation is measured in years, and it is unknown when they will meet again.

Xie Qingzhi cried until her eyes were red. She said to Xiaobao, "Princess, don't forget Aunt Zhi!"

Xiaobao comforted her like a little adult: "I already remember everything, and I will never forget Aunt Zhi."