Emperor Kangxi looked at the drawing in silence for a moment. “Liang Jiugong, remind me later to find a painting tutor for the Eleventh Prince.”
There was simply no telling what this drawing was supposed to depict.
The dark-faced man, Master Quan, stepped forward, pointing at the drawing as he explained it, and only then could the emperor barely picture what the object was meant to look like.
“Is this thing truly just a lamp?” No other hidden function to it? The emperor was skeptical.
“Reporting to Your Majesty, if it’s exactly as the Eleventh Prince described, then yes, it’s simply a lamp.” Nothing else seemed feasible with it, really. The only genuinely novel part was that thing called “glass”, assuming it could actually be produced, and turned out even clearer than crystal.
“Then go work it out. I too hope to see this ‘glass’ with my own eyes someday.” As for Yin Cheng, a boy who’d spent his whole life confined within the palace, who’d never traveled farther than the pox-avoidance quarters, how had he come to know of such a thing at all?
“Liang Jiugong, go find out what else the Eleventh Prince got up to at the pox-avoidance quarters.”
The emperor simply didn’t believe that Yin Cheng, who in twelve years had barely ever stepped outside his own doors, could have had such a change of character after one trip to the pox-avoidance quarters. Although he wasn’t some sheltered maiden, he’d always been even more reluctant than one to show his face in public. A man like that, suddenly transformed overnight, surely meant some new variable had entered the picture.
Such as, perhaps, that secondary consort.
Yin Cheng rode the palanquin back to the Eastern Five Houses. The whole way, he couldn’t make sense of it, his secondary consort wasn’t, in fact, that farm woman’s niece from the south after all.
Then who was she?
And, as his father suspected, what exactly had brought her to his side?
His mind felt muddled. By the time he reached the door, he found himself reluctant to step inside. It wasn’t quite mealtime yet, so his secondary consort was probably at the writing desk, writing and drawing as usual.
“Oh, you’re back?” To his surprise, the person he expected to find inside the room instead appeared right in front of him.
Yin Cheng saw Wang Xiaohai trailing behind her and realized he wasn’t imagining things.
“How did you know I was back?” He couldn’t quite name the feeling in his chest, something heavy and unsettled.
All this time, if she had no ulterior motives, why hadn’t she just said so? Now that the farm woman had fled early on, and his father had begun to suspect her, she was practically an abandoned pawn. Even if she did carry some hidden identity, and had some plan for the future, she’d still be confined within these small Five Houses regardless.
Without his father’s permission, not even death would be hers to choose.
Prompted by his father’s reminder, and reading between the lines of what had been said, Yin Cheng suspected his secondary consort might well be someone deliberately raised from childhood by forces in the south flying the banner of “Overthrow the Qing, Restore the Ming”, groomed for the sole purpose of one day making her way to the capital and infiltrating the palace, or someone else’s household.
“I’ve been here the whole time. I heard footsteps and guessed it was you coming back.” Ever since he’d left, Zhao Xiaojin had picked up a book and stood waiting by the door.
She held up the book and gave it a little shake. “So, how’d it go? Everything all right?” That eunuch from earlier had been rather fierce.
“Of course everything’s fine. Father simply asked whether I’d recovered. Oh, right, this is Ajiu, she used to serve at the Palace of Heavenly Purity. Seeing that I’m looking much better, Father sent her over to attend to you. That way, you’ll have more time freed up, and can simply focus on looking after me.” Yin Cheng glanced at the book in Zhao Xiaojin’s hand, then pushed Ajiu forward from behind him.
“This servant Ajiu greets the secondary consort.” Ajiu, dressed as a third-rank palace maid, stepped forward and knelt calmly before Zhao Xiaojin, about to kowtow as well.
“Get up, get up!” This was the second time Zhao Xiaojin had witnessed someone kneeling to kowtow, and she still couldn’t stand it, she rushed forward to stop her.
Last time, at the pox-avoidance quarters, it had happened so suddenly she hadn’t had any chance to prepare, that covered-faced woman had simply gone “thud” straight onto the floor before she knew it. This time, though, this Ajiu had only just knelt down, there was still time to stop her before she actually kowtowed.
Besides, she was just an ordinary person herself, how could she possibly deserve treatment like this?
But even with Zhao Xiaojin already holding her steady, Ajiu still went ahead and bowed her head down, not onto the floor, but against Zhao Xiaojin herself.
“Please, get up.”
Having been in the palace for a few days now, though she was still learning most things, Zhao Xiaojin had already grasped that servants kneeling before their masters was simply taken for granted here. Especially when they’d made some mistake, they’d kneel and beg forgiveness, kowtowing for mercy. All of this was second nature to them by now. And the masters of this palace were just as used to seeing it.
But Zhao Xiaojin wasn’t like that. She had no interest in playing the role of “master” they described, nor would she casually let anyone kneel and kowtow to her. If someone made a mistake, apologizing and correcting it was what mattered. If the mistake was serious enough, she could guess well enough what the consequences would be here.
But she had no intention of touching any of that, nor any way to.
Having someone suddenly trailing behind her all the time was, frankly, rather inconvenient. Especially since wherever Zhao Xiaojin went, Ajiu followed right along.
“I’ll just be in this room, you can go do something else.” If there was one upside to this arrangement, it was that Ajiu’s accent was much closer to her own, so the two of them could understand each other with barely any guessing needed.
That was something even the little monk couldn’t match. So now, Zhao Xiaojin had one more person she could actually talk to.
“Forgive me, secondary consort, but this servant was sent here specifically to attend to you. Whatever concerns you is this servant’s concern too.” As Ajiu spoke, she still kept about two steps of distance from Zhao Xiaojin. Of course, she always positioned herself somewhere behind, out of easy notice.
“This really does feel strange.” Zhao Xiaojin walked over to the writing desk, at least there, she wouldn’t have to keep noticing someone standing behind her.
Since the desk could only seat two people, Ajiu, in order to stay close, either had to stand in front and block the light, or press herself against the wall and the furnishings instead.
“Give it a few more days, and you won’t feel that way anymore.” These past couple of days, Yin Cheng had watched his secondary consort constantly find excuses to avoid Ajiu, only for Ajiu to stick closer the more she tried to dodge her.
With no other option left, his secondary consort had taken to squeezing in right beside him instead.
“I don’t think I’ll ever get used to it.” She’d been living independently for a long time now, she wasn’t some little brother who needed his mother watching over him constantly.
Zhao Xiaojin picked up the records the little monk had already written out and flipped through them.
“Do you think, how are my potato sprouts doing out there, the ones we left behind?” The two baskets in this room were doing wonderfully, the sprouts already standing tall and straight.
Zhao Xiaojin counted the days, in about another month, the potatoes she’d planted should be nearly ready. Whether they’d turned out well, whether they’d be edible, she’d finally know either way.
“Should I send someone to ask?” Given the kind of scene his father had put on that day, Yin Cheng suspected the pox-avoidance quarters, sprouts and all, had probably already been thoroughly searched and turned inside out. Whether any of it was even still there was anyone’s guess.
Hearing this, Ajiu, still keeping her distance, kept her expression carefully composed, though her ears perked up sharply, determined not to miss a single word.
“You can ask them? Then have someone find out how tall the tallest basket has grown, and how many leaves the leafiest one has. And for the ones that aren’t doing well, note their height too.” She wanted to work out first how likely this whole venture was to succeed.
Zhao Xiaojin had all her questions of interest sent along to be asked, never suspecting that the messenger sent out of the palace took a detour, heading off in the exact opposite direction instead.
Having returned to the palace only the day before, Emperor Kangxi had already made his way back to Changchun Garden once more, standing now beside the western wall of the garden. He watched with his own eyes as workers carefully removed the sprouts from the twenty-four baskets that had been brought over from the pox-avoidance quarters, and, once confirmed undamaged, transplanted them separately into the ground here.
“Liang Jiugong, has that person the procurement servant at the pox-avoidance quarters mentioned been found yet?” The people the emperor had sent to the pox-avoidance quarters had searched from top to bottom, no other problems had turned up for now, but as for these newly-planted sprouts, everyone’s account of them differed slightly.
Everyone claimed never to have seen them, yet someone else said the procurement servant had exchanged words with the vegetable delivery man, mentioning these harmful dirt-eggs. That servant, unable to withstand pressure, had eventually told the whole truth.
This thing called a dirt-egg was apparently a food crop, easy to grow and filling to eat. Poor families in the south, when digging for wild greens in the mountains, had stumbled upon them by chance, tried them, and ended up treating the spot as their own private back garden ever since. Whenever food ran short, they’d go dig a few up to fill their stomachs.
Supposedly, a single hole could yield several dirt-eggs of various sizes.
“Reporting to Your Majesty, that vegetable delivery man went home to get married a few days ago.” So there was no way to bring him in on such short notice.
“Went to get married, what a coincidence.” Whenever something came up, the emperor’s instinct was always to suspect something more. “Who’s that person hurrying over there?” He’d noticed someone approaching quickly.
“Reporting to Your Majesty, that’s someone from the Eleventh Prince’s household.” That day, the Eleventh Prince had brought back an official maid, Ajiu, in plain sight. Naturally, there’d also been arrangements made behind the scenes.
“Go, bring him over.” Something happening already, this quickly?
Even the emperor himself wasn’t sure what he’d been expecting.
“What did you just say?” The messenger explained the situation, and it wasn’t quite what the emperor had suspected in his heart.
“You’re saying the Eleventh Prince’s secondary consort wants to know how tall these green sprouts have grown, and how many leaves they have?” That was all she wanted to know, not using the sprouts’ height or leaf count to relay some hidden message?
It had to be said, hearing this, the emperor felt disappointed.
By all logic, a little girl of such murky origins, said to be quite lovely-looking, arriving alone in the capital like that, with no support along the way, should hardly have made it through the city gates unnoticed.
Ever since those various factions in the south had been scattered and broken up, they’d splintered into smaller cells operating in secret. Over the years, they’d caused him no small amount of trouble. Similar schemes turned up nearly every year, from the households of imperial princes on down to the wives and concubines of local officials, no one was safe from having someone slipped in.
Perhaps this was simply this little girl’s smokescreen?
Whatever scheme it was, now that she was right under his watchful eye, there’d be no escaping. Since this secondary consort of the Eleventh’s clearly understood how to grow this dirt-egg crop, he’d simply wait and see how the two baskets she’d brought back into the palace turned out.
If it truly proved possible to grow several dirt-eggs from a single hole, then even if she’d been sent here to play some little honeypot scheme, he could set the matter aside for now.
Zhao Xiaojin truly didn’t expect that her simple request for a little data on her potato sprouts would come back with far more than that, they’d even had a drawing made. Comparing it side by side, it became painfully clear just how limited her own and the little monk’s drawing skills really were.
“Those people seem quite nice. Once the potatoes have grown, I have several ways to cook them, I should let them try some.” Completely different from those people who’d ignored her entirely at first.
Zhao Xiaojin hadn’t meant to stir up any trouble afterward, but those who’d helped her out deserved something in return, at least.
Heh. Little did she know just who exactly stood behind all of this. Yin Cheng didn’t dare voice that thought aloud.
As things stood now, regardless of however his father might suspect his secondary consort’s origins, at least for the time being, her safety wasn’t in question. He’d watched Ajiu’s every action closely, under the pretext of service, what she’d really been doing before was a kind of mobile confinement. But things were different now, though she still hovered around his secondary consort, she seemed to genuinely place her safety first at all times.
Perhaps his secondary consort really was just a simple little girl, one who’d merely seen more of the world than most.
These past few days, Yin Cheng still hadn’t figured out how he was supposed to treat his secondary consort. And she, meanwhile, went about her days perfectly at ease, relaxed when there was nothing to do, busy when there was, utterly unaware of the turmoil weighing on his mind. At night, she still slept just as soundly as ever.
To really get to the bottom of it, he’d need to find that woman who’d fled.
In fact, Yin Cheng could simply ask her himself. But he didn’t dare.