Perhaps influenced by Consort Yi’s words, Yintang had a very rich and vivid dream that night. When he awoke and saw the dampness staining his bedsheets, a sense of shame and annoyance welled up within him.
He had experienced such dreams before, but previously the figure in them had always been a hazy, indistinct shadow. This time, however, she had taken on a specific, concrete appearance. The young woman was wearing a crabapple-red cloak, and seeing him shivering from the cold, she had actively burrowed into his embrace, her delicate, boneless hands slowly unfastening his cloth frogs…
Stop! I cannot think about this anymore! That is your savior!
The benefactor was kind-hearted and sought no reward, yet he had violated her chastity in his dream. He was lower than an animal!
Yintang thoroughly despised his own behavior. He never imagined that his character could be so despicable. Usually, he put up a fine facade, only to have his true nature exposed in a dream.
Pui, truly filthy!
Yet, strangely enough, although he had only met Wuyunzhu once, even two months later he still vividly remembered her appearance. Her eyes were bright and watery, seeming to have hooks whenever she looked at someone, dragging the gaze of whoever she looked at so they could not look away. When she smiled, she had a pair of dimples that made anyone who saw them feel a sweet warmth in their heart…
No, really, stop thinking about it!
Yintang shook his head fiercely, trying to shake the wild thoughts out of his brain.
During lunch, the Tenth Prince, Yinger, kept staring at Yintang, and suddenly said, “Ninth Brother, you’ve been acting rather strange the past few days.”
Yintang jumped in fright and gripped his chopsticks tighter. “Me? What could possibly be strange about me?”
Though his words were firm, inwardly he was panicking: Has Old Ten figured something out? Can he even guess what happened in a dream? Surely not.
“I can’t put my finger on it, but you just seem a bit off. Ninth Brother, if you’re facing any trouble, tell me, and I’ll help you think of a way.” Yinger patted his chest with great loyalty.
Chest…
Yintang immediately thought of the two soft curves from his dream…
Ah, ah, ah, he really was a bastard.
That afternoon when he went to the Arrow Pavilion to practice his martial arts, Yintang pushed himself ruthlessly, training until his whole body was sore and utterly exhausted. Only then did he lack the mental energy to dwell on those messy thoughts.
On his way back, Yintang noticed that the guards on duty had changed, and one of them was Shoushan. He wanted to go over and express his gratitude, but then he immediately remembered what he had done to the man’s younger sister in his dream, making him feel a guilty conscience and keeping him from getting close.
When he reached the Fourth Directorate, Yintang took a comfortable bath and prepared to rest. However, no sooner had he returned to his room than someone suddenly lunged from behind and violently grabbed his waist.
An assassin!
Yintang reacted swiftly, executing a shoulder throw on the figure.
Thud.
From the sound alone, anyone could tell how miserably that person had been thrown.
“Master~ How cruel of your heart, this maid is in so much pain~” the woman on the floor cried out, holding back tears.
Yintang, however, felt not a shred of pity. “Who are you? Why are you assassinating Master?”
Mentioning assassination made the woman’s face turn even paler. Ignoring the act of playing the pitiful victim, she hurriedly explained, “This maid wouldn’t dare assassinate Your Highness. This maid is of the Lang clan, formerly a palace maid in the Palace of Earthly Purity, assigned by Consort Yi yesterday to serve by your side.”
Ah, Yintang remembered. So that was how it was. “Didn’t I instruct yesterday that you were all to go sweep the floors with Old Woman Liu? Why have you come to the front courtyard? Who let you in?”
Sensing the displeasure in his voice, the Lang woman did not dare conceal the truth. “It was Old Mother Wang who told this maid to come serve you.”
Old Mother Wang was Yintang’s wet nurse, currently managing matters big and small throughout the Fourth Directorate, and held considerable influence.
Yintang put his hands behind his back, his face as dark as water. “It seems that in your heart, Old Mother Wang’s words carry more weight than this prince’s?”
Terrified, the Lang woman shivered and shook her head repeatedly. “This maid wouldn’t dare. This maid didn’t have that intention originally, but Mother Wang said she noticed today that your undergarments were stained, meaning you must be longing for a woman, and told us to try our hardest…”
“Shut your mouth!”
Having his own hidden thoughts exposed made Yintang’s temper flare up with irritation. “Get out!”
“Go properly sweep your floors. If you ever dare come to the front courtyard again, I will have people send you to the Department of Punishments.”
“Yes, yes, yes.”
The Lang woman scurried out in a flurry.
She wouldn’t come. Never coming back again. The Ninth Prince was too terrifying.
Yintang shouted outward again, “Heyuzhu, get your butt in here.”
Heyuzhu had been standing guard outside and naturally heard the commotion within. Coming in now, he felt rather guilty.
“What are Your Highness’s instructions?”
Yintang was well aware of his predicament. Over the years, relying on her status as a wet nurse and Consort Yi’s trust, Old Mother Wang had acted tyrannically and with great authority throughout his Fourth Directorate, even daring to order around his personal attendants. Now she had grown even more arrogant, treating his commands as dead letters and instigating palace maids to enter his bedroom!
His displeasure growing all the more, he said coldly in a low voice, “Tomorrow, tell the people in the Fourth Directorate that no palace maid is allowed to enter my front courtyard, regardless of whose orders they are acting under.”
Heyuzhu nodded in compliance, then hesitated slightly, “Does Old Mother Wang count in that?”
“Naturally.”
“If Old Mother Wang insists on entering the front courtyard, then…”
Yintang looked at him and retorted, “Then how do you think she should be dealt with?”
Gauging his intent, Heyuzhu replied carefully, “Disobeying the master’s orders should be punished by sending her to the Department of Punishments.”
Yintang was satisfied. “You’re getting sharper these days. Dismissed.”
He climbed onto the bed. He had originally thought that afternoon’s venting had exhausted his energy and would let him sleep soundly tonight, but alas, he dreamed again.
The next day, looking at that familiar damp patch, he once again despised himself. Mm, it must be because I haven’t read enough of the sages’ books and my thoughts lack nobility.
Consequently, starting from that day, Yintang applied himself with extraordinary diligence to his studies, putting forth full effort in the Upper Study and even burning the midnight oil to read books back at the Prince’s Directorate.
The results were striking. Yintang’s dreams grew less seductive and featured more classic texts and scriptures.
Such intense striving, however, drained his vitality. After persisting for over half a month, Yintang collapsed from exhaustion.
Kangxi had just returned from Mount Wutai, caught up in handling state affairs and conferring titles upon his sons. He had been so swamped with work that he hadn’t checked on the younger princes, but upon finally getting a moment to rest, he heard the news that Yintang had collapsed from exhaustion and immediately set out to visit him.
“This son pays his respects to Imperial Father…”
Kangxi pressed his son down. “Rest properly. What happened? Let me see the prescription.”
Well-read in medical texts and deeply versed in the properties of herbal medicine, a single glance at the imperial physician’s prescription allowed him to gauge Yintang’s condition.
“Just fill this prescription and go brew the medicine.”
Once the attendants had all withdrawn, Kangxi began lecturing his son. “Your body and skin are gifts from your parents, not to be damaged. How can you be so careless with your own health? If you were diligent on ordinary days, you wouldn’t need to push yourself so hard now! Besides, you aren’t an examinee taking the imperial examinations…”
This…
My original intention wasn’t to catch up on my studies. But the true reason was too embarrassing for Yintang to voice aloud.
He could only lower his eyelids and patiently endure the lecture.
To Consort Yi’s eyes, however, it looked as though her son had been unjustly wronged by his imperial father. Her heart ached fiercely, and she could not help speaking up to intercede.
“Your Majesty, Yintang is still ill. Can’t you ease up on those words and wait until his health has recovered before speaking?” She wiped the corner of her eye with a handkerchief, her tear-filled eyes misty. “Besides, Yintang’s diligence in learning isn’t it also because he hopes to show a good performance in front of Your Majesty?”
“What performance?” Kangxi looked somewhat perplexed. This ninth son of his had always been perfunctory in his studies and loved slacking off; why had he suddenly become so motivated?
“Not long ago, news about the Imperial Household Department rushing to make ceremonial robes for Princes of the Second Rank and Beiles spread everywhere. Yintang grew anxious, thinking that if he performed a bit better now, it might move you to bestow a title of nobility.”
“So that was it.” Kangxi came to a sudden realization.
Kangxi at this time was just over forty, right in the prime of his vigor, and possessed sufficient tolerance toward his sons. Seeing a son strive for self-improvement brought him more joy than wariness.
“You are only sixteen; what’s the rush?” Noticing his son’s pale complexion, Kangxi felt a growing fondness and pity. “Nurture your health back to strength. After your grand wedding, enter court to participate in government affairs, handle a few matters well, and I will confer a title upon you.”
“Thank you, Imperial Father.”
Upon returning to the Hall of Mental Cultivation, Kangxi summoned Yintang’s tutoring instructors to his presence and inquired in detail.
“The Ninth Prince has been exceptionally diligent in his studies recently, and his essay-writing has improved immensely.”
“The Ninth Prince has already switched to a seven-strength bow, practicing stationary shooting two hundred times a day and mounted archery two hundred times, which is double his previous practice.”
……
Regarding Consort Yi’s words, Kangxi had initially doubted them, thinking she was just making excuses for her son. But after hearing the instructors’ reports, Kangxi was genuinely surprised. He also inspected the calligraphy and essays Yintang had practiced over the past month, and they had indeed improved.
If he had known about all this before conferring titles on the princes, he might have… no, he still wouldn’t have conferred a title on Yintang. A Beile was out of reach. A Beizi was, for an imperial prince, too low a rank—worse than having none at all.
He recalled the high-spirited appearance of the eldest princes on the day titles were conferred, along with the disappointment on Yintang’s face and the envy hidden deep within his eyes, and then looked at this stack of increasingly stellar assignments on the dragon desk. A sense of compensation gradually arose in his heart.
How to compensate him?
A title of nobility was out of the question; rewarding gold and silver would provoke groundless controversy; rare and precious medicinal herbs? That felt inauspicious…
When his gaze swept across the nearby roster of palace maidens eligible for selection, he thought of a way: he could compensate Old Jiu with a good father-in-law’s family.
In the thirty-seventh year of Kangxi (1698), on the sixth day of the third lunar month, the once-every-three-years imperial bride selection officially commenced.
The selection process was much simpler than Wuyunzhu had imagined.
The first day of selection involved inspecting the maidens from the households of Manchu, Mongol, and Han officials of the second rank and above, as well as maidens from the Two Yellow Banners, totaling around three thousand participants.
All three thousand of them set out from their homes in the early hours of the morning, riding in carriages to wait outside the Gate of Divine Prowess. Once daylight broke, they dismounted, were led into the palace by eunuchs, registered, received their small tally boards, and proceeded to the Imperial Garden for inspection.
Before entering the Imperial Garden, Wuyunzhu inevitably felt nervous, continually rehearsing in her mind out of fear that her speech and actions might go wrong and implicate her family.
However, once she actually stepped into the Imperial Garden, she discovered that those pre-rehearsals had no use at all.
Her group of six stood before the Emperor and the Consorts for barely ten seconds before being waved away.
There was no need to kowtow, no need to answer questions, and they didn’t even need to call out their names. It was truly just a brief, sweeping glance.
After stepping out of the Imperial Garden, Wuyunzhu was led away separately and sent to the Palace of Compassionate Tranquility (Xianfu Palace). Here, she saw several familiar maidens. After some conversation, she understood that those living here were “candidate” maidens who had passed the preliminary selection and still needed to participate in a second review.
Over the next three days, the preliminary selection continued, inspecting maidens from the Two White Banners, Two Red Banners, and Two Blue Banners respectively. New maidens were sent to the Palace of Compassionate Tranquility every day.
On the ninth day of the third month, the preliminary selection officially concluded, and a total of eighteen maidens moved into the Palace of Scenery Happiness (Jingfu Palace).
After another two days of rest, the palace organized the second review. This time, there was much more time to spare than before, and the consorts in each palace carefully inquired about the maidens’ preferences and family backgrounds.
Once the second review concluded, the maidens departed the palace.
Stepping out of the imperial city, Wuyunzhu felt her entire person relax considerably.
From the preliminary selection to the second review, during all those days, no consort had summoned her privately, nor had anyone sent any rewards. She must have had her name dropped from the list and would not be matched in marriage to any imperial prince or noble clan member. She could stay at home for a few more years!
Upon returning to her residence, she devoured a hearty and satisfying spicy hot pot, then returned to her room to bathe and sleep.
During her time in the palace, constrained by strict rules every day, she had eaten poorly, slept poorly, and suffered physical and mental exhaustion; she needed a proper rest.
She fell into a deep sleep, and when she woke up, a bolt from the blue descended.
Someone had come from the palace to escort her father into the palace to express his gratitude and receive the imperial decree of marriage assignment!