Part 3
She had considered letting Ah Chen enter Hongwen Hall. However, after inquiring, she learned that the students inside were a mixed bag of good and bad, and since they were all imperial relatives, the teachers dared not punish them easily.
Near vermilion one gets red, near ink one gets black. After much consideration, she ultimately didn’t want her brother to go there.
The beauty before him lowered her eyes and spoke softly. Her gentle voice was just as before, yet it made Gu Zhen’s heart feel a sharp stab of pain.
A wave of sourness rose in his heart. Gu Zhen slowly tightened his hand hidden in his sleeve, suddenly feeling a sense of powerlessness. He forced a tiny smile onto his lips: “I’m sorry.”
Sorry that he disregarded her face and directly dismissed Zhao Weimin from office, causing the current situation of the Huai’an Marquis Manor and causing her to lose her support.
“Yiyi, it is Zhen who is not good,” he whispered.
But Zhao Yiyi straightened up and said gently, “Why must Your Majesty say these words? This consort understands completely. The fault lies with this consort’s father. If not for his own interests, repeatedly submitting memorials to oppose Your Majesty, Your Majesty would not have done this. It is also his greed that implicated Elder Brother.”
She absolved him completely. It was decisively different from their past confrontations and the words spoken in anger.
Glancing at the sky, she smiled again, “It is getting late. This consort still has some palace affairs unfinished, so I will not keep Your Majesty.”
This was a disguised eviction order.
Looking at the list she held in her hand, Gu Zhen was lost in thought for a moment, then slowed his voice to ask her, “Are there any difficult palace affairs? Zhen can take a look for you.”
She shook her head: “Many thanks, Your Majesty. Since Your Majesty’s guidance that day, this consort has been much more adept at handling palace affairs. There is nothing difficult for the time being.”
No matter what method, he couldn’t make him stay a moment longer.
His palm exerted force abruptly, fingertips leaving marks in his palm. Gu Zhen had to laugh a few times, saying helplessly, “If there isn’t, then that is for the best.”
After sending Gu Zhen away and checking the list once more, Zhao Yiyi had someone send it back to the Bureau of Palace Ceremonials (Shangyi Bureau).
“Just handle it according to this,” she said indifferently. “After all, there are precedents for the reward feast for the Sericulture Rite. If they still can’t handle it well, it means they are not putting their hearts into it.”
Chancellor Cheng of the Imperial College personally wrote a reply to Zhao Weimin, rejecting his request for his third son to enter the Imperial College.
Immediately after, Zhao Weimin heard about the regulation that the Imperial College would not accept illegitimate children.
He didn’t take it seriously. Although he was ostensibly preparing for Zhao Chen to enter the Imperial College, privately he was inquiring everywhere and sending gifts, wanting to see if there was any chance to turn things around.
But he was scolded by a colleague with whom he used to be on good terms: “What do you think Your Majesty issued this decree for? Who else but you has been trying to send a child into the Imperial College recently? Isn’t your Sanlang an illegitimate child? Do you really think just because you call him legitimate, he really is?”
“Ah-Xu is my wife, married with proper rites. Her son is my legitimate third son!” Zhao Weimin’s old face flushed red as he argued on the basis of reason with that colleague.
The colleague chuckled, “How exactly this child came about, you know in your own heart. I’m reminding you for the sake of our past colleagueship. Since you won’t listen, then forget it.”
Zhao Weimin was half-dead with anger and left with a flick of his sleeves.
However, after returning and thinking quietly, the more he thought, the more uncomfortable he felt.
He felt more and more that His Majesty’s decree seemed to be specifically targeting him.
Although he had insisted in his heart all these years that Shunnian was legitimate, he knew in his heart whether the boy was legitimate or illegitimate.
Thinking of this, Zhao Weimin took a deep breath but felt it was strange. His Majesty’s move clearly seemed to be done for his eldest daughter, but hadn’t the relationship between His Majesty and his eldest daughter always been mediocre?
Before he could figure out the matter of his two sons, news came that the Hejian Marquis Manor wanted to break off the engagement.
The people from the Hejian Marquis Manor didn’t even come in person; they just sent a servant to return the Gengtie (marriage document with birth data), saying that if the Huai’an Marquis Manor agreed, they would come to discuss it.
Zhao Weimin flew into a rage instantly, cursing, “They were the ones who proposed this marriage back then, and now they are the ones who want to withdraw! Do they really think the daughters of our Zhao family are objects in their Cui family’s pocket, to be taken when wanted and returned when not?!”
Zhao Yuan persuaded, “Father, given our family’s current situation, it is inevitable that the Cui family wants to withdraw the marriage.” Thinking of this, he was also annoyed, a hostility brewing in his eyes.
But thinking of the family’s plight, it all dissipated in the end.
Zhao Weimin stood up abruptly, “They can forget about settling this easily. I will go into the palace to see Her Ladyship the Empress right now!” He said hatefully, “If that old thing Cui Yang weren’t out of the capital, I would go to his door right now to demand an explanation!”
Zhao Chen watched from the side, finding it somewhat funny. A few days ago, Father said that although Elder Sister was the Empress, she was a married-out daughter and shouldn’t interfere in her natal family’s affairs. In the blink of an eye, encountering trouble, he remembered Elder Sister was a daughter of the Zhao family and wanted to find her to take charge.
He knew that Father’s anger this time was not truly for Second Sister’s sake, but because he felt he had lost face.
“If it’s broken, then it’s broken,” Zhao Chen said irritably. “Does Second Sister have to marry into the Cui family? Even if Second Sister really married over there, it would be a fate of being tormented by the Cui family.”
Zhao Weimin’s anger didn’t subside. He cursed at home for a long time. Before he could make a decision, a female official from the palace came to the door to convey the Empress’s order: to take the Second Miss Zhao into the palace for a short stay.
The female official wore a green round-collar robe and a Putou cap—a man’s attire. She stood there smiling gracefully, “Her Ladyship says she knows the Marquis and Madam Xu are deeply in love and surely cannot bear to let Madam Xu pray in the temple alone. Since the Marquis happens to have nothing to do these few days, why not go to the temple to accompany Madam Xu?”
Zhao Weimin froze abruptly. Looking at the document in the female official’s hand stamped with the seal of the Department of Palace Affairs, he swallowed back the words he hadn’t spoken. He reached out to take the Empress’s order and said respectfully, “Subject obeys the order.”
That mountain temple was desolate and bitter. he had originally planned to bring Ah-Xu back after a couple of days. He never expected his eldest daughter would still be thinking about this matter.
This point, he hadn’t anticipated.
When she first heard that the Cui family wanted to break the engagement, Zhao Yiyi was also attacked by fury, snapping a chicken-claw brush in half.
But seeing the smile on Zhao Duanduan’s face, her expression softened slightly.
“Elder Sister.” Zhao Duanduan leaned against her, lowering her voice, “He came to find me yesterday, telling me to wait for him. He said he would definitely resolve his family’s matters and begged me to give him some time.”
Zhao Yiyi held a cherry stem in her hand. She turned her head sharply to look at her, her brows darkening as she asked softly, “Then what do you think?”
among the peers in Luoyang, Cui Siyuan was considered an outstanding noble son. If Duanduan truly liked him, it wasn’t impossible for Yiyi to consider it further.
Zhao Duanduan shook her head: “I don’t want to.” Her face showed a determined look, her eyes piercing. “If he couldn’t resolve it before, how can he resolve it well in the future? Unless his mother dies, even if I marry over, I won’t have a good life.”
Zhao Yiyi smiled, a look of relief flashing across her face, and pulled Zhao Duanduan into her arms. “Mhm, it should be like that. If you don’t want it, then we don’t want it. Elder Sister will pick a good one for you in the future.”
Zhao Duanduan also laughed, “Right? I don’t want to pick up past things; it makes it look like no one wants me, like I can only hang myself on his tree.”
“Mhm, we won’t pick it up.” Zhao Yiyi’s eyes were full of tenderness as she said softly, “It is too late to mend the fold after the sheep is lost. The matter has already happened; making amends has lost its meaning.”
Outside the hall, hearing the voice drifting from the window, Gu Zhen’s footsteps stopped abruptly.
Author’s Note: Today’s update! Chirp chirp chirp! Today is also 30 small red envelopes~
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