The next morning, the Northern Five Houses stirred to life as usual.
But in bed, Zhao Xiaojin, for once, wanted to linger a little longer. The little monk had gotten into the swing of telling stories about his childhood the night before, and had kept talking until quite late. Because so many of the things that had happened were so convoluted and bizarre, she’d been startled again and again just listening.
So the palace really was this dangerous, she’d better be careful. One careless slip, and she could easily get set up by someone. And also, if anyone came calling for her, she should absolutely use the little monk as a shield, push him forward whenever possible.
He’d said so himself.
If she couldn’t push him forward, then stall until he showed up in person. If that didn’t work, call for Ajiu. And if Le’a happened to be around too, bring him along as well.
Zhao Xiaojin didn’t dare forget any of it, even as she got up, she found herself silently reciting their names one by one.
By the time she’d finished checking on the potato sprouts and still hadn’t seen the little monk, she assumed he’d gone off to meet with someone.
“His Majesty has been keeping the various princes’ studies in mind, and had them called early this morning for an examination.” Ajiu answered Zhao Xiaojin’s question without pausing her work.
Things weren’t like before anymore, even if the secondary consort never left the house, she still needed to be properly presentable at all times. Because, by rank and status, she stood at the very bottom of the palace hierarchy, above only the servants themselves, meaning anyone at all could summon her on a whim. If that ever happened, it wouldn’t do to make them wait.
Fortunately, the Five Houses stayed quiet, no one came knocking, no one stopped by.
About two hours later, Yin Cheng returned. Behind him, Wang Xiaohai was carrying something Zhao Xiaojin recognized instantly.
“Oh, it’s already been made?” It was the oil lamp, looking almost exactly as she’d imagined it.
Zhao Xiaojin quickly took the lamp from Wang Xiaohai’s hands, leaning in for a closer look. What the palace craftsmen had produced was far more refined than her rough sketch had been. She’d only ever managed a crude outline, what had come out of it now was practically a work of art.
The whole lamp was about as long as her forearm, the exterior, including the base and the handle, appeared to be some kind of aged bronze finish, engraved with the now-familiar blessing-and-longevity characters. The bulging middle portion was made of clear glass, tinted just slightly yellow.
She set the lamp down on the writing desk, and as she did, she could faintly hear the sloshing of the oil filling it inside. Lifting the glass chimney, Zhao Xiaojin asked Ajiu for a fire striker, gave it a puff, and handed it over, and once the trimmed wick caught the flame, the lamp lit up.
“From now on, we won’t need candles for light at night.” Lowering the glass chimney back into place, Zhao Xiaojin turned to look at the little monk. “What’s wrong?” He didn’t look happy at all, and even Wang Xiaohai beside him had a furrowed brow.
“Secondary consort, you have no idea, today at His Majesty’s court, with so many princes present, only our young master received this lamp.” Wang Xiaohai couldn’t hold back and blurted out what had happened earlier at the Southern Study.
“Why would it be your father who gave it, though? Didn’t we have it made at the Imperial Workshop?” Zhao Xiaojin’s question came from a completely different angle than everyone else’s concern.
“Besides, even if your father only gave it to you specifically, that’s only right, isn’t it? I came up with the idea for the lamp, we drew the design together, and we handed it to the Workshop to make it. Now that it’s finished, of course it should come to us.”
Hearing his secondary consort deliver this answer as though it were self-evident, Yin Cheng realized his whole conversation last night had been utterly wasted on her. She’d listened so attentively at the time too, how could she forget it all after one night’s sleep?
In this palace, everyone’s every move was scrutinized, especially the movements of every palace master. At the level his father occupied, even the slightest hint of favor or delight, in others’ eyes, registered as a major signal.
Today, even the Crown Prince had looked at him differently, let alone the other princes.
The whole way back, he’d felt as though every single person was staring at him. For all he knew, before he’d even left the Palace of Heavenly Purity, word of this had already spread throughout the entire Forbidden City.
“Well, keep it safe then.” Yin Cheng felt tired, not physically, but deep down inside.
He’d gone to the Palace of Heavenly Purity that very morning, and standing among all the princes, he’d turned out to be the least accomplished in his studies of them all. Even his Fifth Brother, who’d learned Mandarin the latest of anyone, could answer his father’s questions fluently and without hesitation. When it came to him, though, every question was a pitfall, he only ever had the vaguest grasp of any answer.
And yet, his father had gone and handed him this lamp in front of everyone regardless.
Wasn’t this practically roasting him over an open flame?
“Mm, but is this really the only one? Just one won’t be nearly enough, we’ll need at least two.” Zhao Xiaojin’s mind was entirely occupied with the lamp, completely missing the expression on the little monk’s face.
Wang Xiaohai had been about to speak up, but Yin Cheng cut him off before he could.
“Let’s just wait and see what furnishings the Imperial Household Department sends over next, there might be another one in there.” He still wasn’t entirely sure what his father’s intentions had been. If the Workshop had simply presented it to the emperor and he’d passed it along on a whim, that would be fine.
He just worried his father might have had some other motive in mind.
“All right, tonight, this one’s yours to use first.” If his father kept summoning him for exams this early in the morning, the little monk would probably be staying up even later than usual. She’d need to save him a snack for the evening too, so he wouldn’t be too hungry to focus on his reading.
This was one thing about his secondary consort he appreciated, she was always thinking of him, in every little moment. Although Yin Cheng still felt some of that weariness lingering, hearing this warmed his heart all the same.
Zhao Xiaojin’s worries lasted only a few days, because the emperor soon departed with the Eldest, Third, and Eighth Princes to inspect military affairs along the northern frontier. Compared to before, the little monk visibly relaxed, at least he no longer had to get up so early.
The moment the emperor left the palace, the Imperial Household Department suddenly picked up its pace considerably. The new furnishings all arrived on schedule, and even the glass windows she’d requested were newly installed. They’d thought things through quite thoroughly, too, removing the original paper windows entirely and replacing them with fully wooden window-doors, with a single layer of glass set inside.
In other words, the new windows now had two layers, opening outward. The wooden panel and the glass panel could be opened together to let a breeze through, or just the wooden layer alone could be opened to let light in. At night, both layers could be shut, and from outside, nothing could be seen inside at all.
She’d mentioned this idea before, but only in passing, she’d never expected the people at the Imperial Household Department to not only remember it, but actually build it.
If that were the case, then all the other items she’d sketched out, the glass cups and jars that Ajiu had even carved wooden models of, might be nearly finished too?
Zhao Xiaojin drifted off to sleep hugging that pleasant thought, while at the writing desk, Yin Cheng continued reading by the light of the oil lamp.
Reading, in name, but in truth, he was spending more of his time trying to sort out the current mood in the palace. With his father having left with the Eldest, Third, and Eighth Princes, the attention on him had dropped considerably. And yet, right on cue, the Imperial Household Department had made another move.
It should have been a simple matter of swapping out furnishings, and yet here they were, replacing even the windows with great fanfare, and doing it while he happened to be away, no less.
Just as the matter of the lamp had barely settled down, the glass windows had already lifted him right back into the spotlight. With Ajiu and Le’a both present when the Household Department workers arrived, it was difficult not to wonder what his father was really thinking.
Only his secondary consort had accepted it all with pure, uncomplicated delight.
Yin Cheng stared at the oil lamp’s steady, unwavering flame, when suddenly everything before his eyes seemed to sway, and for a moment he genuinely feared something was wrong with his body again.
“Young Master, quick, get outside, the earth dragon’s turning over!” Wang Xiaohai was the first to react, followed by Ajiu and Le’a rushing in from outside.
“Ajiu, get the secondary consort out!” Yin Cheng, already hoisted onto Le’a’s back, could only call back to Ajiu over his shoulder.
Outside, a cool draft swept through, that night, even the moon was hard to make out clearly, who would have imagined the capital would tremble like this? Although it wasn’t severe, it was still frightening.
Yin Cheng watched Ajiu bring his secondary consort safely outside and finally felt his worries ease. Through all that commotion, his secondary consort still hadn’t even woken up, sleeping straight through until this deep in the night, seemingly without a care in the world. What a life.
Behind them, Yin Xiang came running, wrapped in a blanket. “Eleventh Brother, are you all right?”
“I’m fine, I’m fine. This time it wasn’t much of a tremor.” Nearly every year, the earth dragon in the capital turned over at least once, plenty of people had grown used to it by now.
“By tradition, we’re supposed to spend the rest of the night outside, aren’t we?” It had become something of an unwritten rule, just in case there were further aftershocks.
“Right, we should stay in the courtyard tonight.” Yin Cheng watched the servants already carrying blankets and bedding out of the rooms, there was no other option now.
Zhao Xiaojin had been shaken awake. Opening her eyes, why on earth was she looking up at stars in the sky?
Turning her head, she found the little monk right beside her.
“What happened?” She’d clearly been asleep in bed, how had she ended up outside?
“The earth dragon turned over. We need to spend the night in the courtyard.” Yin Cheng gave a brief explanation, and was about to continue when his secondary consort, still half-reclined, suddenly leaped up with startling agility.
“An earthquake? How bad was it? Do we need to run?” Zhao Xiaojin was fully awake now.
Back at school, teachers had regularly run drills for fires, earthquakes, and the like, the moment certain key phrases came up, her body reacted almost on reflex.
“Calm down, calm down, it’s not that serious.” He didn’t expect his secondary consort to also know how dangerous an earth dragon turning over could be. “The reason I woke you is because at the First House, the Primary Consort seems to be going into labor.”
Consort Hui had personally sent word, there was simply no way Yin Cheng could refuse to go.
“Didn’t they say there were still a few days left?” The Primary Consort had specifically requested earlier that, on the actual day of the birth, she’d trouble Zhao Xiaojin to come by.
Although Zhao Xiaojin felt she had absolutely nothing useful to offer in a situation like that, she hadn’t refused outright either.
“Probably got startled by the tremor.” Yin Cheng looked genuinely worried, the Primary Consort had already gone into premature labor once before. It had barely been any time at all since then, and now this had happened again, if the birth didn’t go well, the blame might well fall on his secondary consort.
“So, do I need to go?” She really didn’t want to. When her mother had given birth to her little brother, she’d been at the hospital, and the row of delivery rooms, the screams from inside hadn’t even been contained by the hospital doors.
Cursing, screaming, all of it.
“You do need to go. The palace gates are locked right now, so Mother can’t get here on short notice, the person in charge here is probably going to be Consort Hui.” And Consort Hui, faced with her own son’s daughter-in-law delivering her firstborn son, would surely side with the Primary Consort. At the very least, she’d focus on keeping the child safe.
Whether the secondary consort actually showed up or not made little real difference, but the people in this palace believed in exactly that sort of thing regardless. With someone like her available, if she wasn’t summoned and the child couldn’t be delivered safely, that would be seen as a failing in itself. And if she was summoned and the child still couldn’t be delivered, then the blame would fall squarely on whoever had been called in.
And of all the moments, this wasn’t one where his secondary consort could shake her head and refuse. Whether by rank or by status, Consort Hui was more than entitled to summon her.
Zhao Xiaojin was hastily dressed and readied by Ajiu, nearly in the dark. The road to the First House was the only path available, one she already knew well by now. Still, Zhao Xiaojin felt this particular stretch was far too long, and far too difficult to walk. Why, of all people, did they keep coming to her for something like childbirth, when had she ever given anyone the impression that whatever she touched would somehow turn out well?
This was pure superstition!
But she couldn’t refuse to go, or it would only cause trouble for the little monk.
At the First House, everyone had already fled outside because of the tremor, gathered in the courtyard. When the Primary Consort had sensed something was wrong, she’d simply lain down right there on the ground. Moving her back inside now felt wrong, and not moving her felt wrong too. A crowd stood in a circle, holding dim lanterns, while the midwife who’d been prepared in advance examined the Primary Consort.
“It’s time!” Her cry startled everyone present.
At that exact moment, Zhao Xiaojin happened to be stepping through the gate of the First House.