When Emperor Yongchang’s oral edict was transmitted to Prince Hui’s Manor, Yao Huang and Prince Hui had just finished eating breakfast!
Of course, if Prince Hui didn’t need to wait to dine with the princess, he, accustomed to rising early, should have finished eating about half an hour ago.
The one who came to transmit the edict was a young eunuch who served in Qianyuan Hall, usually under the management of Chief Eunuch Wang, the grand eunuch beside Emperor Yongchang.
Waiting in the first courtyard of the central route of Prince Hui’s Manor, before Guo Shu and Eunuch Cao, the young eunuch held his head high, chest out, and back straight, displaying the dignity of Qianyuan Hall.
When the sound of the wheelchair advancing came from inside, the young eunuch bent at the waist, preparing to bow to Prince Hui. However, when Prince Hui seated in the wheelchair finally revealed his countenance, the young eunuch froze for a moment, then lowered his gaze, deeply concealing the astonishment in his eyes.
Prince Hui was unable to walk properly and had long been exempted from kneeling ceremonies by Emperor Yongchang. As the princess, Yao Huang would have to kneel to receive the edict. Fortunately, this was only an oral edict. On the way out, His Highness had already reminded her she needn’t kneel.
With the prince and his wife one sitting and one standing, the young eunuch repeated Emperor Yongchang’s original words, then said: “Today there was morning court. His Majesty ate breakfast late. Lunch is set for five quarters past noon. His Majesty said Your Highness and the princess need not rush to depart. Arriving at Qianyuan Hall at the first quarter of noon will do.”
Zhao Sui nodded.
Eunuch Cao led the young eunuch to the reverse seat room for tea. Yao Huang pushed Prince Hui back. Once they were far from the front, Yao Huang asked: “I heard morning court starts at the hour of mao and lasts about one hour. Is that true?”
Zhao Sui: “Most times it is indeed so.”
Yao Huang sighed: “Then Imperial Father works very hard. Outside of busy farming seasons, ordinary common people can sleep until daybreak before getting up.”
Qing Ai, following behind, heard this and thought to himself that their prince worked even harder. From the start of his education, he rose before dawn every day to read. His Majesty only held court about nine times each month—he still had over twenty nights of good sleep.
Zhao Sui was going to Bamboo Courtyard for massage and signaled Qing Ai to come push the wheelchair.
While he was still there, Yao Huang asked: “Does Your Highness think that for today’s lunch, Imperial Father only summoned us, or did he also summon other princes?”
Zhao Sui: “…It should only be you and me.”
Yao Huang: “With so few people, do I not need to dress too formally?”
Yao Huang didn’t like using rouge, powder, and such things. She also didn’t want to wear clothing with three layers inside and out—it would even hinder using chopsticks to pick up food.
Zhao Sui: “You may.”
Yao Huang then moved aside, smiling as she watched Qing Ai push Prince Hui into the distance.
Zhao Sui stayed at Bamboo Courtyard all morning. When it was almost time to depart, Qing Ai pushed over that large rosewood wheelchair His Highness used to sit in when entering the palace—also the one His Highness started using last year after he was willing to get out of bed.
Zhao Sui looked twice and said: “Change to my commonly used rosewood chair.”
Whether standing or sitting, he was still a prince. He didn’t need a luxuriously carved wheelchair with complicated craftsmanship to reveal his status.
Whether it was the first oversized wheelchair with a footrest, or the rosewood wheelchair newly crafted by Master Deng that had no footrest but still had an entire carved back panel—as chairs, both were too bulky. The princess treated this lunch as a homestyle meal. When Imperial Father dined, he also sat in an ordinary round-backed chair. Why should he be out of place?
Qing Ai immediately went to fetch it.
At Ming’an Hall, Yao Huang was already prepared, wearing a set of green jacket and white skirt. In her hair, besides gold and jade jewelry, she had pinned a tender pink silk crabapple flower, adding to her elegant appearance the delicate charm and radiance befitting a bride of seventeen or eighteen.
Seeing from afar the lightweight rosewood wheelchair Prince Hui sat in, although it wasn’t as eye-catching as that large one, Yao Huang felt that Prince Hui at this moment looked more noble—a living, breathing nobility, not a nobility propped up by others.
In the palace, Consort Du carefully dressed herself up and walked with graceful steps to the West Warm Pavilion behind Qianyuan Hall. This was where Emperor Yongchang usually rested and took meals.
Emperor Yongchang was making preparations for this lunch.
As an emperor who was still fairly diligent and who every two or three years had to worry about border conflicts or natural disasters in various regions, when Emperor Yongchang was young, he rarely thought of summoning his children to dine with him. If he had that leisure time, he’d rather be alone to properly clear his mind, or summon beautifully alluring consorts to keep him company and relieve his boredom. Each of his children feared him. Gathered around the dining table, he’d still have to initiate conversation to draw them out. What was the point of eating such a meal?
Back then, Emperor Yongchang’s care for his children was expressed in how he would from time to time summon them to test their studies and martial skills, or bring them along to tour gardens, hunt, or watch operas.
Not until his age gradually advanced, he grew accustomed to the mental and physical exhaustion of being emperor, his interest in fresh beauties also faded, and he needed to consider the crown prince candidate, did Emperor Yongchang divide more of his attention among his six children. The two princesses were still young and didn’t need his worry. Of the four sons, the eldest was like that—had no opinions of his own and liked running to Consort Xian whenever something happened. What prospects could he have?
The fourth was still young. The second and third in the middle were three years apart. Emperor Yongchang naturally first paid attention to the second.
Then Emperor Yongchang discovered that not only did the second have exceptional talent in studies—he could read all manner of history books, military texts, strategic treatises, and examination papers and comprehend them thoroughly—the second’s martial skills were actually not inferior to young heroes carefully cultivated by several military clans. Including the second’s calligraphy and painting—this child was usually unassuming and taciturn to the point of seeming mute, yet when brought out to look, he excelled in everything!
Just when Emperor Yongchang worried that although the second was accomplished in both civil and military arts, his temperament was too quiet and unambitious, perhaps only a literature-obsessed or martial-arts-obsessed person who couldn’t manage affairs, a military conflict broke out in the south. His quiet, handsome second son who looked like a porcelain figure that could only be displayed in a cabinet stood forward and concisely said he wanted to lead troops.
Forget him—all the civil and military officials’ jaws dropped.
With a mindset of giving it a try, Emperor Yongchang approved his second son’s self-recommendation.
Then, on his first campaign, the second son fought a great victorious battle. The accompanying generals all came back praising the Second Prince, saying that although the Second Prince spoke little, every sentence hit the key point, and moreover, the Second Prince possessed natural authority without anger. Though young, he could command the scene. Even the most impulsive and reckless military generals couldn’t act up in front of the Second Prince.
Emperor Yongchang was both surprised and delighted. Only then did he realize that what he saw in his second son as quiet and taciturn, in the eyes of civil and military officials, the Second Prince was aloof, dignified, and a natural noble.
Such an excellent son—Emperor Yongchang enfeoffed him as prince early on, had him gain experience in the Ministry of War. When there were more conflicts, if his son wanted to go, he let him go.
Recalling that scene years ago when he personally sent his son far to the north to resist the Wuguo cavalry, Emperor Yongchang felt regret for the who-knows-how-many-th time. Back then, he should have stopped him!
Sighing, Emperor Yongchang’s attention returned to today’s family banquet.
Although he appreciated his second son in previous years, he had never summoned the second son alone to dine with him. None of his sons had ever received such favor. This resulted in Emperor Yongchang having no idea what topics to discuss when dining with a son who had been enfeoffed as prince, married, and crippled in the legs, to make the second son feel care from Imperial Father.
Eunuch Wang suddenly said outside the curtain: “Your Majesty, Consort Noble has arrived.”
Emperor Yongchang instinctively frowned: “What is she here for?”
Eunuch Wang: “…It looks like she wants to dine with Your Majesty and His Highness.”
Emperor Yongchang: “…Tell her that Zhen only wishes to dine alone with Prince Hui and his wife. She need not accompany.”
If Consort Du were the second son’s birth mother, or a foster mother like Empress Zhou who was gentle, amiable, and truly gave the second son care and love, Emperor Yongchang would definitely summon the consort over. But Consort Du purely treated the second son as a “prince” to use. When she didn’t have one, she scrambled to claim this prince. After having her own biological child, she even wanted to neglect the second son’s studies. Fortunately, Emperor Yongchang knew the second son loved reading and specially chose new teachers for his son, continuing to send books box after box to the second son, so the son’s talent wasn’t hindered midway.
If the consort truly dined with them, how could the second son be in any mood to eat?
Standing outside, Consort Du never imagined that she would come over under the blazing noon sun only to be sent away without even seeing His Majesty’s face. Immediately aggrieved, she said to Eunuch Wang: “Please trouble Eunuch to tell His Majesty again, say that I haven’t seen Prince Hui in a long time and miss him terribly…”
Eunuch Wang, who understood His Majesty’s intentions very clearly, smiled bitterly: “Your Ladyship, please don’t make things difficult for this old servant. How could this old servant change His Majesty’s decision?”
Since Eunuch Wang wouldn’t help, and Consort Du didn’t dare barge in herself, she could only leave sheepishly.
Eunuch Wang continued waiting outside. Finally, he waited for the figures of Prince Hui and his wife and hurried inside to announce them.
Emperor Yongchang took a deep breath and walked out with the loving father’s smile he had specifically practiced in front of a mirror.
Arriving at the doorway of the warm pavilion’s main hall, Emperor Yongchang looked outside. On the right gallery, he saw his second son actually sitting in a simple, plain small wheelchair, personally pushed by his white-skirted princess.
Accustomed to the large wheelchair his second son commonly used that could almost block the entire gallery, Emperor Yongchang felt somewhat unaccustomed at first. Immediately after came a surge of heartache. Had his second son grown increasingly despondent, even the wheelchair serving as his legs treated perfunctorily?
The heartache made Emperor Yongchang immediately look away. After that wave of sourness passed, Emperor Yongchang looked at the wheelchair again. Only then did he truly see clearly his own second son’s face—a face as refined and jade-like as in his memory, without a trace of the deathly air of someone on their last legs!
Emperor Yongchang stepped forward in shock. Just at this moment, a familiar, natural call of “Imperial Father,” even more intimate than when his two princesses called him, reached his ears.
Emperor Yongchang raised his gaze in surprise.
While pushing the wheelchair around, Yao Huang greeted with a smile: “We haven’t seen each other for so long. How does Imperial Father look even more radiant than at the Dragon Boat Festival palace banquet? While we were escaping the summer heat outside, we were still worried you’d be suffering from the heat in the capital.”
Prince Hui in the wheelchair: “…”
Emperor Yongchang under the gallery eaves: “…”
Suppressing the impulse to raise his hand to touch his face, shaking off that strange feeling stirred up by praise too unfamiliar, Emperor Yongchang smiled as naturally as possible: “No need to worry about Zhen. Zhen used ice mirrors all summer and didn’t feel hot at all.”
Speaking, Emperor Yongchang’s gaze fell in surprise and doubt on his second son’s knees. There was actually a tray there, supported by his son’s hands.
Seeing this, Yao Huang explained: “Imperial Father has seen all the good things under heaven. So Your Highness and I just brought back some local specialties from where we escaped the summer heat, and picked a cluster of grapes and two cucumbers from the manor’s own vegetable garden. Imperial Father, eat them to quench your thirst when you’re idle. Especially these cucumbers—sweet and crisp, they can completely be eaten as fruit.”
Emperor Yongchang looked at his son with complicated feelings. Did the manor have no servants left? The daughter-in-law had to personally push the wheelchair and the son personally hold the tray?
Zhao Sui lowered his eyes.
Originally Qing Ai was pushing and Fei Quan was carrying. Upon entering Qianyuan Hall, the princess said they didn’t need to bring too many people to dine with Imperial Father, so she gave him the tray.