Read Novel Full Chapter 4
Chapter 4
I forgot to mention in the previous chapter but Tianzhu means India in Chinese.
Early the next morning, Xie Qing reported to Li Yaoying, “Your Highness, the soldiers of Yining Square said that Princess Fukang has been going to Yining Square a lot recently; three times this past half month.”
Yaoying finished her morning makeup. Looking at herself in the mirror, she pressed her fingertips on the green jade gold leaf ornament between her eyebrows and asked, “What was she doing at Yining Square?”
Xie Qing stood outside the twelve panel vertical folding screen, back perfectly straight and replied, “Heard that she went to the Zoroastrian shrine to watch the a ceremony for the Zoroastrian God.”
Most Hu merchants believed in the Zoroastrian religion, and Yining Square had a Zoroastrian shrine where the Hu people often held sacrificial rituals.
Yaoying put down the circular1 copper mirror with sunflower carvings, and her doubts became heavier.
Zhu Luyun was bent on revenge. She absolutely would not have leisurely gone specifically to the shrine to watch the Zoroastrian followers shooting fire and wielding swords for no reason.
The ritual was simply a pretense to fool people.
She suddenly got off her high horse and deigned to associate with Hu people, for what purpose?
Did she want to bribe the Hu people to assassinate Li De?
In the novel, Zhu Luyun repeatedly attempted to assassinate him and failed every time at the last minute.
At first, Zhu Luyun thought that Li Xuanzhen was secretly obstructing her revenge plan, but later she realized that Li De had already in fact known that she wanted to assassinate him.
Li De feigned ignorance, keeping her around in order to wipe out the remnants of the former dynasty.
Yaoying had Xie Qing continue sending people to follow Zhu Luyun.
She was not worried about Li De’s safety, only that it would implicate Noble Consort Xie and Li Zhongqian.
Xie Qing asked to be excused.
Her maid, Chun Ru, entered the room, smiling and bringing a blue ink birds and flowers embroidered shawl.
Li Yaoying took it and put it on her arm. The silk was painted with silver powder to look like stars. When sunlight shined on it, the flowers and birds were like stars floating in a river: vivid, lifelike and dazzling.
Chun Ru smiled and said, “In next month’s spring appreciation banquet, Your Highness will surely have the most beautiful flowers in the capital.”
As usual, the spring appreciation banquet would be a competition of peonies, but everyone knew that the final decision of the flower competition depended on the person.
The seventh princess was peerlessly magnificent, and she always had a new and unique bright brocade dress to match, in addition to the ‘king of flowers’ Moutan peony the second prince purchased for her for thousands of gold from Luoyang, the capital city of the East. At that time, she would have beautiful clothes and flowers. Who could possibly compare to the princess?
Yaoying gathered the shawl: “Don’t concern yourself over this, I won’t go to the spring appreciation banquet this year.”
She and Li Zhongqian had agreed to go to Qujiang River together to race horses and take a spring hike.
Chun Ru was dumbfounded, having a lamenting look on her face: “The prime minister furen’s maid I met by chance said that you definitely had to attend the spring appreciation banquet this year. The sons in the capital were so happy that they jumped up and down. This servant heard people say that they were all busy making new clothes that the brocade from the east and west market was almost depleted because of them. Face powder and gemstone carved jade belts have also increased in price. Hu merchants have made a fortune.”
The seventh princess was as beautiful as an immortal, her status was noble, and the sons of the noble families in the capital have admired her for a long time, but they had no opportunities to get close to her.
When they heard that she would attend the spring appreciation banquet at the prime minister’s residence, the threshold of the prime minister’s residence was almost broken by people who came to the door to ask for invitations.
The youths were so excited that they started preparing half a month ago, bathing with incense, applying rouge and powder (makeup), vowing to overwhelm the other competitors at the spring appreciation banquet.
If the seventh princess did not attend, afraid that half of the people at the banquet would be disappointed.
Hearing Chun Ru describe in vivid detail how the sons of the capital’s high-ranking families applied powder, Li Yaoying couldn’t help but laugh: men nowadays used powder to become beautiful, she truly was unable to appreciate it.
”It’s indeed a pity that Your Highness won’t go…..”
Chun Ru remembered a matter and her eyes turned.
”I heard that the Zheng family’s third son will also go to the spring appreciation banquet, and will also compete with the sons of the Wang, Cui and Lu families’ sons to write poems!”
Yaoying raised her eyebrows.
……
Zheng Jing, the Zheng family’s third son, was her undeclared fuma2 candidate.
Everyone knew that Zheng Jing was the first di son of the main branch of the Zheng family, but his talent fell short to that of his concubine elder brother Zheng dalang3.
Li De had praised Zheng dalang in public many times.
The rumor in the capital was that Zheng dalang would take over Minister Zheng’s official position in the future, while the mediocre Zheng Jing would stay in the clan to manage the Zheng clan’s affairs.
Only Li Yaoying knew that Zheng Jing was a talented man who was hiding himself at the moment, but would rapidly be promoted and become Prime Minister in the future.
After Li Xuanzhen became middle aged, he was muddle-headed and irritable. His several military campaigns nearly brought down Great Wei. After his death, the dynasty was in turmoil. Luckily, Zheng Jing’s experience and knowledge stabilized the situation.
During his life, Zheng Jing assisted three generations of emperors. Having the authority to overturn the imperial court, he was so powerful that he could even influence the abolition of junwangs4 at one point in time.
Zheng Jing’s father had arranged a marriage for Zheng Jing.
A few years ago, that family had unfortunately died in the war.
According to the novel, Zheng Jing set up a burial mound for his fiancée, and never married a proper wife in his life but took many concubines. His children popped up one after another, so much so that he had to expand his rear yard, otherwise it was not large enough to live in.
……
Li Yaoying had seen Zheng Jing a few times and didn’t have much of an impression of him.
Hearing Chun Ru mention it now, she still couldn’t recall Zheng Jing’s facial features and appearance, but only vaguely remembered that he was tall, thin, and refined, no different from other sons of noble families.
The past few years, Yaoying has been warily guarding against Li Xuanzhen. She was still young and hadn’t though about the matter of marriage.
The marriage to the Zheng family was set by Li Zhongqian behind her back. He had made a verbal agreement with Minister Zheng before he left for war.
This matter was not hidden from Li De, and the news was passed to her from Li De’s close servant.
Thinking about this matter, Yaoying couldn’t help but lightly humph.
Second brother had actually given her a husband without saying a word!
When he came back, he must be beaten up first!
Chun Ru secretly sighed.
She deliberately mentioned the Zheng family’s third son but the princess was still indifferent. It seemed that this year’s spring appreciation banquet would really be in vain for others.
……
The weather was getting brighter and brighter day after day. Cherries were ripening in the courtyard and the feeling of spring was getting stronger. In the palace garden, the willows were turning green and the apricot blossoms looked like snow.
Xie Qing would report to Li Yaoying every day on Zhu Luyun’s movements.
Zhu Luyun seemed to have lost interest in Zoroastrianism. Since that day, she had not once left her residence.
However, her servant went back and forth between the princess residence and Yining Square every day to pass on information, their movements secretive.
Yaoying thought, ‘Zhu Luyun might really be preparing an assassination plan.’
She asked Xie Qing to keep an eye on Zhu Luyun, while she was deeply worried, hoping that Li Zhongqian would return safely as soon as possible.
The war report came back ahead. Li De led the wang’s army division to return victoriously but there was a minor accident on the way and his return date was undetermined.
Yaoying eagerly awaited, constantly sending people to find out the situation.
Originally it was said that he would return to the capital at the end of the month, but by the middle of the fourth month, Li Zhongqian was still late in returning.
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1 It was not circular but more exactly ‘spiral shell’, like a conch or snail. I chose circular because the mirrors would always be a circle shape and it sounded better.
2 fuma: husband of an imperial princess. Specifically the emperor’s son-in-law.
3 lang: son, minister, prefix after a number to denote status; a very all-purpose title that’s been used frequently in this novel. I had quite a bit of trouble, actually, because it’s used so often and so versatile-y (eg. Du Sinan is Du lang which I substituted using Gentleman, Li Zhongqian has also been called erlang, or second son). I would have continued using my previous method except here, it doesn’t mention the concubine brother’s name at all, only using dalang (meaning eldest son). It felt quite awkward putting ‘Eldest Son Zheng’.
4 junwang: third rank prince. Nobility titles aren’t important in this novel so I’ll make this short. Junwangs are typically relatives of the imperial family, nephews of the empress or something. They could hold a lot of power, which emphasizes exactly how much influence ZJ had at that point to abolish one.