On the fourteenth day of the eleventh month in the twenty-third year of the Kangxi reign, the imperial carriage departed Jiangning. Emperor Kangxi arrived at Feixian in the Tan Yi area, summoned Jin Fu, encouraged him to hasten the repair and regulation of the Yellow River so that success would be announced early, and bestowed on him the imperial poem *Poem on Viewing the River Embankments*.
On the seventeenth, he arrived at Qufu. The next day, he went to the Temple of Confucius and performed the three kneelings and nine prostrations ritual in the Dacheng Hall. He personally wrote the four characters “Teacher for the Ages” and ordered them hung in the Dacheng Hall. He also ordered that all land tax and grain levies for Qufu County in Kangxi’s twenty-fourth year be entirely remitted. That same day, he sent Prince Gong Changning and others to go and make offerings at the Temple of the Duke of Zhou.
On the twentieth, Kangxi set out from Dezhou and took a boat back to the capital.
On the deck at the very front of the dragon boat, Cao Yue stood in the wind in a moonlight-colored dress. Her sleeves and hems fluttered. From her back alone, one could see that her bearing was cold and detached, like a snow lotus on a high mountain, making people not dare to profane her.
Kangxi came out of the study and, seeing this scene, for some reason, felt a sudden wave of panic in his heart. He always felt that if he made even the slightest mistake, Consort Zhao would drift away with the wind.
He hurriedly lightened his steps and went forward, took off the cloak on his body and draped it over Cao Yue’s shoulders, then pulled her into his embrace: “How are the servants by your side taking care of you? The weather is so cold, and they don’t even know to add another layer for you.”
As he spoke, he touched Cao Yue’s hands, and his brows furrowed even more deeply. “Your hands are this cold too. Are you deliberately trying to make me feel heartache?”
Before Cao Yue could speak, An Ning hurriedly knelt down instead: “It was this servant girl’s oversight. This servant girl will go get a hand warmer for the young lady right now.”
How could she possibly not care about the young lady’s body? It was just that the young lady insisted on coming out like this, so she could only obey. Luckily, the emperor had not kept the young lady waiting too long before coming out, so the young lady had not been frozen for too long.
After saying that, An Ning got up from the ground and prepared to go fetch the hand warmer that had long since been prepared. But before she had even lifted a foot, she heard the emperor bark, “What young lady? Your mistress was already conferred by me as Consort Zhao. You should have changed how you address her long ago. If you can’t remember, then I’ll have someone properly teach you.”
An Ning’s body trembled, and she repeatedly said yes: “This servant girl, this servant girl understands.”
Seeing this, Cao Yue waved for An Ning to step down, then lowered her gaze and took Kangxi’s hand back in hers, softly and gently saying, “It’s only a small matter. Why must Your Majesty get angry? Your dignity is so weighty that my maid was almost frightened to death by you.”
Kangxi was very helpless. The hand around Cao Yue’s shoulders tightened a little more. “I know you have never cared about these things, but without rules there can be no order. And there are many rules in the palace. If you keep indulging them like this, then after we return to the palace, there will be plenty more things that give you a headache.”
After more than half a month of getting along, he, who had seen all kinds of people, naturally had some understanding of Consort Zhao.
Consort Zhao was different from all the other consorts in the palace, not only because of her appearance, but more importantly because she was detached. Detached from fame and profit, detached from gold and silver. She had never once smiled because whatever he gifted her was extremely precious, nor would she become smug and pampered just because he had conferred her the rank of consort from the very beginning.
No, saying detached did not seem entirely accurate. More accurately, she should be described as indifferent. Only what entered her eyes could occupy her attention. Things that did not interest her were completely ignored.
A woman with such a temperament, one who threw herself entirely at him and from the bottom of her heart treated him as her own man, naturally made him happy. But after the happiness came concern.
The palace could not accommodate someone so out of step with it.
Thinking of this, Kangxi felt a bit of a headache. He had wanted to continue lecturing her, but then he saw Cao Yue tilt up her face, her clear, limpid eyes full of confusion. “Why would I have a headache? Didn’t Your Majesty tell me that only I live in Jingren Palace? Then I can stay in the palace and not come out, and not interact with outsiders. Then nothing will happen that worries you.”
Kangxi was left speechless. The words in his mouth were blocked back by Cao Yue’s innocence. He let out a heavy sigh and stroked Cao Yue’s face. “Forget it. After we return to the palace, I’ll have Liang Jiugong take better care of Jingren Palace.”
Since she did not put her heart into it, he would have no choice but to spend more effort. In the end, it was he who insisted on bringing her into the palace.
Cao Yue smiled, like a snow lotus in bloom, making Kangxi’s gloom swept away and leaving him very pleased. “It’s cold outside. I’ll accompany you back to the room to rest for a bit.”
Cao Yue obediently let Kangxi embrace her back to the room. As they were about to step off the deck, Liang Jiugong, who followed behind them, caught a bit of conversation in the wind: “Tell me about the people in the palace, Your Majesty.”
“Oh? Isn’t Yue’er indifferent to these things?”
“If it’s just me, then of course I don’t care. But the sisters in the palace are all people who serve you, and some sisters have even borne your imperial heirs. I want to know…” The more Cao Yue spoke, the more sorrowful her voice became.
“Is that so…” Kangxi drew out the tone of his voice and began bargaining. “It’s not impossible for Yue’er to get news from me, but what can Yue’er give me?”
Cao Yue hesitated for a long time. “Then I’ll embroider another pouch for you?”
Kangxi chuckled softly twice, lowered his head, and his breath brushed against Cao Yue’s ear. His voice was very light. “I want the pouch, but what I want more is Yue’er.”
Since the day Consort Zhao first received his favor, because he had felt pity for her, he had never touched Consort Zhao’s body again.
Cao Yue’s face immediately went pale, fear in her eyes. “But I… it hurts very much…”
Once they entered the room, Kangxi led her to sit on the bed, opened his mouth and took Cao Yue’s earlobe into it, and said indistinctly, “Be good, I promise it won’t hurt anymore in the future.”
When An Ning went to get the hand warmer, the hand warmer that had been prepared earlier had long since lost its heat, so she had no choice but to go to the tea room to find An Ping and exchange for a few pieces of charcoal. Who would have thought that when she came back, she would see Liang Jiugong standing guard at the room door, and that the voice that had made faces go red earlier sounded again…
An hour later, water was called for in the room. After Kangxi was tidied up, he gently coaxed Cao Yue with a few words, left behind a sentence that he would come again at night, and then went back to the study.
After An Ning went in, she closed the door. Just like last time, she pressed hard a few times on Cao Yue’s lower abdomen, then wiped it clean with a handkerchief and took out medicinal ointment to apply it on those marks on Cao Yue’s body that Kangxi had made by using too much force:
“The emperor is really something. He doesn’t even know to cherish cu… Your Majesty.”
Cao Yue frowned and glanced at the finger marks on the soft flesh in front of her, then pulled the brocade quilt up a little higher, and said flatly, “If the emperor really cherished me and held back from touching me, then I would be the one worrying.”
Worrying whether I had no attraction to him anymore.
An Ning did not really understand these matters between men and women. She listened with only a rough understanding, and Cao Yue had no intention of explaining. Instead, she instructed, “You heard what the emperor said just now. Tomorrow find a mammy, and together with An Ping, learn the palace rules. There were still many omissions in what was learned in the residence.”
Hearing this, An Ning immediately replied, “This servant girl has remembered. These days An Ping and I have both been observing how the people serving at the imperial side do things and attend to people. If we then find a mammy to teach us privately for a few days, I think there will be no problem before entering the palace.”
“That would be good. Tomorrow have someone bring out the qipao and the elevated-platform shoes. It is time to get used to them.”
She had practiced dancing since childhood, and her sense of balance was good. It seemed she would also be able to get used to those high-soled shoes.
Exhausted, Cao Yue closed her eyes and, after a while, fell asleep.
An Ning turned her head to look at the incense burner that had no calming incense lit in it, and felt relieved in her heart. It seemed that having the emperor want the young lady to serve him in bed still had some benefits, at the very least the young lady no longer had to rely on calming incense to fall asleep.
Forbidden City, Chengqian Palace
Imperial Noble Consort Tong Jia sat upright in the center. She swept her gaze over the dense crowd of consorts below. Her heart was already irritated, and then she heard them talking about the emperor’s newly conferred Consort Zhao, Cao, and she slapped the square cushion at her side:
“Enough. This is Chengqian Palace, not the marketplace. You are imperial consorts, not those shrewish women from the countryside. Making such a racket, what kind of decorum is that?”
After mustering up her momentum and giving a round of scolding, the Imperial Noble Consort’s throat started to itch a little. She wanted to cough, but forcefully held it back.
The consorts in the hall were all startled and fell silent, though resentment still showed in their eyes.
At this time, only Consort Niohuru dared to face the Imperial Noble Consort’s anger. She lightly stroked her belly and pretended nothing was the matter as she spoke:
“Please calm your anger, Imperial Noble Consort. The younger sisters are only a little curious. After all, we only know that we will soon have another sister, but as for anything else, we know nothing at all. The emperor even wrote you a letter. In order to keep us from guessing wildly, may I ask whether Your Ladyship could tell us, so that you can also satisfy our curiosity?”
The Imperial Noble Consort very much wanted to give a cold laugh and sweep her sleeve away as she left, but she could not. If she did that, she would become the joke of the entire palace. If it reached the ears of the Grand Empress Dowager and the emperor, they might think she could not tolerate others.
But she was unwilling to go along with Niohuru Consort’s wishes either.
The gaze hidden in the Imperial Noble Consort’s eyes was as if it had been dipped in poison as she stared fixedly at Niohuru Consort’s belly. After a long while, she gritted her teeth, suppressed her anger, and smiled. “Since Consort Sister wants to know, this palace does not mind saying it. In any case, the sisters will know sooner or later.”
After she finished speaking, the Imperial Noble Consort deliberately paused. Seeing that the consorts in the hall were all eagerly waiting for her to continue, she suddenly felt somewhat smug.
Look at this. Even if she was only an Imperial Noble Consort and not the Empress, so what? Whenever there was something, hadn’t cousin still only written her a family letter?
Putting away the smugness in her eyes, the Imperial Noble Consort slowly sipped a mouthful of ginseng tea before leisurely saying, “The news from the sisters is correct. We really do have one more sister who can speak with us, and it is said that this younger sister is from the Cao family of Jiangning. Not only was she conferred the rank of consort upon initial investiture, the emperor also specifically instructed this palace to tidy up Jingren Palace for Consort Zhao to live in.”
As soon as the exact news came out, there was an uproar in the hall. Someone sucked in a breath. “Jingren Palace? Isn’t that the former residence of the Tong Jia Empress Dowager?”
Hearing this, the dissatisfaction in the Imperial Noble Consort’s eyes flashed by. How could she not know that Jingren Palace was her aunt’s residence, and that Jingren Palace held extraordinary meaning for her cousin?
Back when she entered the palace, she had repeatedly asked her cousin for Jingren Palace in secret, but her cousin had always glossed it over. Now it had been bestowed upon a lowly servant girl from the Booi Aha class.
She cast a cold glance at the De Consort sitting off to the side with lowered brows and eyes, sipping tea, and only felt a dull pain in her chest. In this life, she could not compare to the Heseri clan and the Niohuru clan. Could it be that she could not even compare to those group of lowly Booi Aha servant girls?
Consort Hui was first among the four consorts and also an old hand in the palace. She had long since not been much favored, so she did not feel uncomfortable at this time. What she did have was curiosity. “For the emperor to reopen Jingren Palace, this Consort Zhao must surely be a beauty.”
Consort Yi stroked the new step shake she had only worn out today, making her features appear even more bright and beautiful. She looked at Shufei Wei, who was standing behind Consort Hui timidly, and sneered lightly, “Maybe Consort Zhao’s appearance is even better than Shufei Wei’s.”
These words successfully drew everyone’s gaze onto Shufei Wei.
Feeling the gazes cast from all directions, Shufei Wei grew even more timid. Her eyes were fixed on the tips of her shoes as she spoke meekly, “This servant concubine, this servant concubine naturally cannot compare to a consort master…”
The Imperial Noble Consort withdrew her gaze in disgust and, with a headache, pressed her temple. “All right. If there is nothing else, then you can disperse. This palace still needs to summon the people from the Internal Affairs Office and have them clean up Jingren Palace.”
Since the Imperial Noble Consort had spoken to send them away, they could not stay any longer. They had no choice but to leave Chengqian Palace with their own thoughts.