The Crown Prince only left after seeing her to the gate of the Government Office. Ji Yingying followed her superior Tang Anyan inside.
The interior resembled an elementary school classroom, with each person having their own desk piled high with memorials.
“Everyone, this is Little Lord Ji. Jiang Haoxuan and Ji Li, from now on you’ll be working under Little Lord Ji.”
“Yes.”
“Greetings, Little Lord Ji!”
“Hehe… hello!”
[Both these young men are from noble families. Jiang Haoxuan is the second son of the Jiang family, an Illegitimate Son who’s often bullied by the legal wife. His birth mother seems to have been killed by the legal wife. He’s another poor soul who’s been hiding his intelligence since childhood. If not for his father being decent enough to secure him a position, he’d probably rot away in the Jiang residence.]
[As for this Ji Li… he’s from a poor family with good character. He didn’t abandon his wife of humble origins after becoming an official. Not bad, not bad. Though he does have some quirks, like collecting women’s items and cosmetics. But that’s no big deal – to each their own!]
After hearing her thoughts, Tang Anyan couldn’t help but sigh in relief. Thankfully, she didn’t expose any of his secrets, or he’d be too embarrassed as her superior.
“Little Lord Ji, this is your desk.”
“Ah, good, good. You all carry on with your work, I’ll just stay here by myself.”
After sending them away, Ji Yingying sat down obediently, glanced around, and sighed helplessly: [Work is just like prison. Well, since I’m in prison, I might as well act like it – time to slack off~]
The three who hadn’t gone far all turned to look at the person in the room. Who would think like that?
“You two should handle more work from now on. As you can see, Little Lord Ji was just placed here by the Emperor to monitor officials. You should read those memorials whenever possible, and only consult me if you can’t make a decision.”
“Yes.”
Watching Tang Anyan leave, they sighed and returned to their positions to work.
Ji Yingying left as soon as her slacking time was up. During this period, she came up with another storybook titled: The CEO’s Darling!
She even inserted herself into the story, feeling quite pleased~
Unbeknownst to her, that very night the storybook was delivered to the Emperor.
After reading it, the Emperor snorted: “She’s still just a young girl. But this immortal is too tragic – chasing after his wife only to end up in a crematorium. Fortunately, he’s an immortal, otherwise he would have reincarnated countless times.”
“Have you posted guards around Little Ji Qing?”
“Your Majesty, a team has been dispatched to protect Little Lord Ji in secret.”
“Good. Rong Yi, move your team to open protection and form a… Capital Guard Division. While protecting Little Ji Qing, immediately arrest anyone who commits the crimes she thinks about!”
“Yes.” Originally, the Emperor had sent Rong Yi’s team to protect Ji Yingying in secret, but now there was a perfect excuse to stay by her side.
…
When Ji Yingying returned home from the office, she encountered her neighbors moving out. She simply squatted by her doorway to watch.
It wasn’t until she saw the nanny who doted on her son that Ji Yingying realized this family was preparing to move away.
I wonder what happened?
[Oh~ so the head of this household was murdered. Without a patriarch, of course the whole family would move back to their hometown. Let me see who exactly killed their family head.]
“Damn, the Jiang family, Jiang Haoxuan’s elder brother, he likes older men. The head of the household next door was somewhat good-looking, so he set a trap to bring him back and forced himself on him. After the assault, he killed him just because the man wouldn’t submit. The body hasn’t even gone cold yet, and this family is already being driven away—all because they offended the Jiang family.”
“The Jiang family produced a consort, and the whole family relies on this consort to do evil. I wonder if that damn Emperor is happy about it? Marrying so many wives—this wife’s family leverages a bit of influence, that wife’s family leverages a bit of influence—and then he gets labeled a tyrant. After he’s killed, the whole nation goes wild celebrating, cheering that there’s one less scourge in the world!”
“What a pity, he was just dragged down by these consorts’ families. Oh my, the coffin’s come out. Are they planning to transport the coffin back too? Wait, no—the head of the household really had it rough. The wife was his, but the son wasn’t. Even the lover came to help carry the coffin. Wonder if he’d be so angry he’d jump out of the coffin? But it doesn’t matter anymore. The firstborn son isn’t his, but the illegitimate son is. Look at that illegitimate son—quite handsome, but too bad he’ll be sent away to a separate branch of the family after returning home and will have a hard life from now on.”
“Whatever, no sweat off my back. Hardship builds character—their business is none of my concern~”
“Son, why didn’t you come inside after returning?”
“Mom, I was watching the neighbors move. Want to come see?”
“Mom’s not coming. And Mom’s not old.”
“Uh-huh, my mom is the youngest! Let’s go back and eat, I’m hungry!”
As soon as she entered, Rong Yi immediately delivered these Inner Thoughts to the palace and simultaneously arrested the Jiang eldest young master into the Summoning Prison.
The Jiang family cried to the heavens, shouting their innocence, and even contacted their consort in the palace. But because of their actions, their esteemed lady was directly demoted to the cold palace.
It would be difficult to see her from now on.
“Crown Prince, do you think I was wrong? My late father urged me on his deathbed to have more children, but…” Half of them weren’t even his bloodline, and two or three were constantly eyeing his position.
They wanted him dead!
What’s worse, these palace consorts were so cunning—they actually let their maternal families borrow his influence to throw their weight around!
“Your son…” Ning Qingran didn’t know what to say either. In any case, he only had one Crown Princess, and that was enough.
“Enough. Investigate who else is using my name to abuse power.”
“Yes.”
After Ning Qingran withdrew, he immediately arranged for people to investigate. In the following days, many people disappeared from the rear palace—who knew whether it was for better or worse!
The next day, as dawn approached the east
Ji Yingying was carried into the carriage by Nanny Xia.
“Son, you need to get used to this. There will be many more court sessions in the future!”
“Dad, do we get weekends off?”
Hearing “weekends,” Ji Cailiang’s old face flushed red as he scolded, “Nonsense! Don’t talk recklessly outside from now on.”
“No, I mean rest days! Two days of rest, abbreviated as ‘weekends.’ I don’t want to attend court all year round—I’m tired! Dad~”
“Yes, there are. In two more days, you can have one day of rest.”
Hearing there was time off, Ji Yingying became delighted, her eyes widening enormously as she ate faster.
Arriving at the Hall of Diligent Governance, she happily surveyed the great hall.
“Wow, last time I came too early and didn’t get to see this hall. Never thought it’d be so beautiful! The imperial palace is gorgeous too.”
“The Emperor has so many consorts—I wonder what the palace intrigue is like? Is there poisoning, saffron hiding, causing miscarriages, that kind of thing? I heard there are even dried-up wells in the rear palace with hundreds of hidden corpses. Suddenly I really want to see some palace scheming!”
【After all, palace intrigue on television simply can’t compare to the real thing! Was the Emperor being used as a pawn? What about the Empress Dowager? And the Empress? Wait, the Empress is a good person who entered the palace for the Crown Prince’s sake—otherwise she would have eloped with her beloved long ago.】
【With the Empress ruled out, what about the Empress Dowager? Could she be trying to strengthen her own clan by aggressively arranging for girls from her family to enter the palace and compete with the consorts? Now this is a grand drama—I’d love to watch it, absolutely love to!】