“Mother.”
Startled by the shout, Hua Chun still dutifully bowed in greeting. “Why are you waiting at the gate?”
Madam Wan smiled brightly, pulling her by the hand toward the residence. “Wasn’t I worried something might happen to you? So I came out here specially to wait.”
Looking at her, Hua Chun felt a bad premonition creeping up.
This Madam Wan had also appeared in the first episode — her extravagant attire and her masterful eye-rolling alone had been enough to leave a deep impression on viewers. Not to mention the scene where she’d stood hands-on-hips at the gate of Prime Minister Hua’s courtyard, cursing out the concubines outside:
“If you’ve got what it takes, go have a son of your own! If you’ve got what it takes, have one smarter than mine! Don’t bite off more than you can chew — no matter how unhappy you are, I’m still the lady of this household, so swallow whatever complaints you’ve got!”
Every line had been delivered with such overwhelming force that the concubines had scattered, not daring to say another word.
Watching the drama, it had been quite entertaining. But now that she was actually here, playing this woman’s son, Hua Chun’s heart pounded with nerves.
By the usual rules of period dramas, the flashier a character was, the faster they tended to die. Better to keep a low profile in everything…
“Come, come, take a look.” Madam Wan held onto her arm, joy evident on her face. “Now that I see you’re all right, I really should re-arrange the renovation of the back courtyard. You’re a proper Prime Minister now — what does it look like, the two of us still cooped up in that little courtyard? This time your father finally agreed too — the household will cover the costs, so there’s no need to be frugal.”
What? Hua Chun was momentarily stunned.
So this back courtyard renovation for the Hua family had been meant for her and Madam Wan?
Her body stiffened. Remembering what she’d just agreed to with the Emperor, Hua Chun froze in place, not continuing forward.
“What’s wrong?” Madam Wan turned back, looking at her curiously. “Don’t you want to go see it? Does your backside still hurt?”
“…No, that’s not it.”
“Then why are you dawdling?” Patting her shoulder, Madam Wan winked. “The space is huge — bigger than all those other troublemakers’ courtyards in this household combined! Plenty of room for you to live in until you’re married and move to your own residence!”
Hua Chun gave two dry laughs and carefully glanced up at her. “Does this courtyard absolutely need to be renovated?”
“Of course it does.” Madam Wan’s eyes widened, frowning at her. “What’s gotten into you today? Why are you asking something like that? Didn’t you say it yourself — now that you’ve finally become Prime Minister, you’d take good care of your mother first?”
Hua Chun fell silent.
This particular bit of backstory had clearly been left out of the show, which was exactly why she’d walked straight into Noble Consort Hua’s trap! No wonder she’d been told not to renovate the Hua family courtyard — that Hua Liuying and Prime Minister Hua and Madam Wan were basically rivals; if she wasn’t doing well, she certainly didn’t want the others doing well either.
No wonder Grand Tutor Tang and Li Zhongtang had worn those expressions — sacrificing her and Madam Wan’s interests for the greater good, and she’d even been touched by her own sacrifice!
And on top of that, she hadn’t even discussed this with Madam Wan first!
Looking at Madam Wan’s expression, Hua Chun swallowed hard, weighed her words carefully, and finally spoke cautiously. “Mother, there’s something I’d like to discuss with you.”
Madam Wan, sharp as ever, could tell from Hua Chun’s expression that this was serious, and immediately turned solemn. “Go on.”
“Our back courtyard renovation… might have to be postponed for now. Today I petitioned His Majesty to prioritize famine relief and halt the renovation of Yong’an Hall. When Noble Consort Hua found out, she said the Hua family’s back courtyard should be halted as well, and I already agreed to it.”
Madam Wan’s eyes went wide, and she sucked in a sharp breath, hands going to her hips — every sign of an impending outburst.
Hua Chun instinctively clapped her hands over her ears!
But after taking a deep breath, Madam Wan surprisingly calmed down, frowning as she said, “This isn’t your fault. That Hua Liuying’s mother has always been at odds with us — like mother, like daughter, she’s petty too. Being Prime Minister isn’t easy for you; your mother won’t be the one holding you back. If it needs to be halted, then halt it.”
Was she really being this reasonable? Hua Chun was a little surprised, and after the surprise came a wave of genuine emotion. However rough and boisterous Madam Wan might seem, when it came down to it, she truly did consider things from her child’s perspective.
“Don’t worry, Mother. I’ll definitely find a way to convince His Majesty to let the renovation continue afterward,” she said. “After all, the Hua family’s courtyard has nothing to do with the imperial court.”
“Good.” Madam Wan held her hand, opening her mouth as if to say something more, then, mindful of the servants nearby, only gave her hand a gentle squeeze instead.
The Hua family had served as officials for generations. Lord Hua favored sons over daughters, and it was entirely thanks to Prime Minister Hua’s achievements that Madam Wan held the status she did today. So she had always been supportive of her “son’s” decisions.
After all, it was her own selfish desire that had turned her daughter into a son, forever denying her the chance to live a normal life as a woman. Madam Wan had regretted it more times than she could count, but there was no turning back now — the Hua family could not survive the crime of deceiving the Emperor, so all she could do was let her daughter suffer this wrong in silence.
“Since there’s no need to go look at it, hurry back and rest,” Madam Wan said, patting her back. “And go change your medicine again.”
“Yes.”
Glancing at her gratefully, Hua Chun turned and, leaning on Pin Tan’s arm, headed back to the small courtyard.
Stumbling into pitfalls at every step wasn’t a sustainable way to live — she really needed to get to know this Prime Minister Hua properly. Even now, she still didn’t know his full name; she’d only ever heard him called “Prime Minister Hua.”
She thought about it and said to Pin Tan, “Take me to the study. There’s still a lot of unfinished business.”
“Yes.” Pin Tan didn’t ask further questions, since her master had always been remarkably hardworking.
There was a wealth of information in the study. Left alone inside, Hua Chun sat behind the desk and gathered a stack of letters and memorials to look through.
Back in modern times, she’d also worked in an administrative role — a graduate of political science and law, employed as a secretary at some government office — so she was quite skilled with written work, and handling official documents wasn’t much of a challenge for her.
For some reason, looking at the traditional characters and the vermillion-ink annotations before her, Hua Chun felt an odd sense of familiarity, as though she’d seen it all many times before, and she read through it without the slightest difficulty.
So when the three characters “Hua Jinghua” caught her eye, it gave her quite a jolt.
“Jinghua?”
Was she just never going to get a decent-sounding name in this life? Being called “Chun” — “spring fever” — back in modern times was bad enough. Now that she’d traveled through time, she was apparently stuck with something that sounded like a ham sausage brand? Hua Liuying’s name might be a bit overly dramatic, but at least it beat “Prime Quality.”
Still, why did this name feel so familiar? Like she’d heard it somewhere before?
She thought hard about it but couldn’t place it, and continued flipping through the correspondence.
Reading between the lines of the letters, it was clear that Hua Jinghua would have been considered elite even by modern standards — his tone was neither servile nor arrogant, neither flattering nor overly humble, matching the character’s portrayal in the drama, giving off that comfortable, refined air of a gentleman warm as jade.
But the memorials addressed to the Emperor were an entirely different story. There were still many on the desk that hadn’t been submitted yet, and everywhere the vermillion brush had annotated, the words were cold and clipped — concise, yes, but reading almost like open provocation toward the Emperor.
No wonder he got beaten — who else would deserve it! Hua Chun read through them for a long while and, objectively speaking, felt the Emperor had shown remarkable restraint in holding off punishment for as long as he had. Just look at what she’d written—
“That is the truth.”
“This did indeed happen.”
“His Majesty is wise and will naturally judge for himself what is true and false.”
Worse still, on one memorial where an old official had been flattering the Emperor, Prime Minister Hua had written a single word in response: “Oh.”
So passive-aggression had apparently been popular thousands of years ago too? If you don’t want to respond to someone praising the Emperor, you can just… not respond and pass it along directly. Why go out of your way to court death like that?
Shaking her head, Hua Chun picked up a writing brush, intending to make some corrections.
But her elbow accidentally knocked against a nearby memorial, sweeping the one at the bottom — marked with the characters “discarded” — onto the floor along with it.
Startled, Hua Chun bent down quickly to pick it up.
One very old memorial had fallen open, and from the ink alone she could tell it must have been quite some time ago — the vermillion annotations on it were far more numerous than on the one she currently held.