Chapter 117 - Notes on Old Ten's Salted Fish Delusions

Yin'e and the Ninth Prince have not yet been summoned to the palace to study with their companions. In addition, after they entered the palace, they were not assigned to the same group as the older princes. Therefore, the tutor assigned to teach them only needs to be responsible for the two of them.

Wai An-da's eyes were fixed on the two of them, so he was very perceptive and would immediately notice if anyone showed any sign of slacking off.

The tutor responsible for teaching Yin'e and the Ninth Prince only needs to take care of the two of them, which is a great thing for Yin'e.

This is almost like giving them individual tutoring. Not only can they learn more, but because there are fewer students, the teaching pace is also faster. They don't have to worry about whether others have learned or can keep up with the pace.

But the Ninth Prince, who disliked riding and archery, suffered greatly. Sometimes he really wanted to tell his tutor that he didn't need to put in so much effort to teach him; just let him pass the test...

Upon hearing Yin'e's suggestion, the Ninth Prince's eyes lit up, and he was somewhat tempted. However, after a moment, he shook his head and refused to summon the chosen Haha Bead to the palace in advance: "It was already agreed before that I would summon my companion to the palace a month after I enrolled in school."

If things are suddenly changed midway through an agreement, it will be very troublesome to coordinate with all parties involved. Anyway, there are only a few days left until the one-month deadline, so the Ninth Prince would rather endure a few more days of hardship than create trouble for himself and take on a lot of work.

"Alright then, Ninth Brother, hang in there for a few more days." Yin'e sighed and patted the Ninth Prince's shoulder helplessly.

Yin'e was actually quite helpless. He asked the boy named Haha Zhuzi, who had been chosen for him, to be brought to the palace a month later. This was partly to give the tutors in the Imperial Study some time to realize that he was a difficult and unruly child. In the future, if he made a mistake in the Imperial Study, they could punish him directly without blaming his tutor.

Secondly, Yin'e, who had long ago decided to live a life of leisure, would not compete now, nor in the future. This meant that those who followed him would have no promising future, and the possibility of them achieving anything significant was out of the question.

After the person chosen for Yin'e Haha Zhuzi was selected, the Consort Gui hinted at the family of the chosen Haha Zhuzi, subtly indicating their stance of not getting involved in the conflict. This one-month delay in entering the palace was their last chance.

If they can accept a mundane life, they can quietly wait in their residence for a month, and someone will naturally arrange for them to enter the palace to be Yin'e's study companions; if their ambition remains and they still have lofty aspirations, then the Consort and Yin'e will not force them, nor will they force them to enter the palace to be study companions and delay their future prospects.

The selection of Yin'e's Haha Pearl was personally chosen by Emperor Kangxi, and the Consort could not completely interfere. Otherwise, it wouldn't have been so troublesome; unqualified candidates could have been eliminated from the beginning.

Yin'e had originally planned well for Haha Zhuzi's arrangements, taking all aspects into consideration. However, he did not expect that the Ninth Prince would follow suit and also postpone his own companion's entry into the palace by a month.

Unlike Yin'e, the Ninth Prince was the son of Consort Yi, but not her eldest son, and Consort Yi came from an ordinary bondservant family. The Ninth Prince's background was not particularly prominent, so there was nothing to be ashamed of, and he didn't need to deliberately avoid the Crown Prince's limelight like Yin'e did.

The Ninth Prince's decision to postpone Haha Zhuzi's entry into the palace as a companion, just like Yin'e's, actually brought no benefit. It was merely a waste of the opportunity to win over Haha Zhuzi and cultivate a relationship with his companion.

It was for this reason that Yin'e reminded the Ninth Prince to bring his study companion into the palace to accompany him in his studies as soon as possible.

But the Ninth Prince rejected his suggestion, finding it troublesome to disrupt the plans. Since that was the case, they could only wait a month. Fortunately, it was already the winter solstice in November, and there were only a few days left before they entered the Imperial Study.

At 7 p.m. (戌初), after the afternoon riding and archery class, Yin'e and the Ninth Prince returned to the Qianqing Palace together. The two walked side by side on the narrow and secluded palace road in the Forbidden City, their figures hidden by the red walls and green tiles on both sides.

“Ninth Brother, let’s have dumplings together later. I brought you your favorite dumplings when I came back from Yongshou Palace. They were made fresh today by the small kitchen in Yongshou Palace.” Turning to the Ninth Prince, Yin’e invited him.

Today is the Winter Solstice Festival. The Ninth Prince did not return to Yikun Palace to celebrate the festival with Consort Yi and Yinzhi, nor did he plan to go to Gandong Fourth Palace to eat dumplings with the Fifth Prince. Naturally, Yin'e invited the Ninth Prince to celebrate the festival with him. Otherwise, he would not have specially brought back the Ninth Prince's favorite dumplings.

Since the two brothers moved from the Western Six Palaces to the Western Three Palaces and began studying in the Imperial Study, their relationship has deepened even further. For the past two weeks, they have been going in and out together every day, studying and practicing riding and archery in the Imperial Study. They have been spending more time together than before, and naturally, they have become even closer.

The Ninth Prince nodded and agreed without hesitation: "Alright, let's go to my Fourth Palace."

He was just waiting for Yin'e to invite him!

Having agreed to spend the Winter Solstice Festival together at Ganxi Fourth Palace, the Ninth Prince, who was very happy, suddenly became more cheerful.

If he hadn't spent the whole day in the Imperial Study, leaving him physically and mentally exhausted, he might already be skipping and hopping along the palace path.

People are in high spirits when they have good things to do. The Ninth Prince, who was a little listless after being tortured by the riding and archery class, perked up and asked Yin'e about the consequences of skipping class today: "What did Father punish you to copy? How many times? Do you want me to help you?"

When Ninth Prince heard from Yin'e that the punishment given by Kangxi was only copying books, without being forced to kneel, being beaten with a board, or being confined, he breathed a sigh of relief, and the huge weight that had been hanging over his heart was lifted.

At that time, the riding and archery lessons had not yet ended, and the training ground was crowded and noisy. In addition to the eunuchs who taught the princes riding and archery, there were also many eunuchs running errands, so the Ninth Prince did not ask in detail.

Now that they were on their way back to the West Third Palace, they had time to slowly ask Kangxi what Yin'e was being punished to copy and how much he had to copy.

As for the Ninth Prince's claim that he could help, it wasn't just empty talk. Yin'e and the Ninth Prince were raised together, and they were taught to recognize and write characters by the same teacher.

When they first started learning to write and their handwriting hadn't yet settled, the characters they wrote under the guidance of the same teacher were extremely similar, making them almost indistinguishable when mixed together.

Even now, after nearly three years of practice, Yin'e and the Ninth Prince's handwriting has begun to show its character, establishing their own styles and handwriting, but they can still imitate each other's handwriting.

If done intentionally, even if the handwriting is not 100% identical, it is still possible to achieve a similarity of 70% to 80%.

If they deliberately wrote their characters in a messy and illegible manner while copying, it would be almost indistinguishable from the real thing, and no one would be able to tell which ones were copied by Yin'e himself and which ones were written by the Ninth Prince.

“The punishment isn’t too severe.” Yin’e shook his head, first reassuring the Ninth Prince, “Father has punished me by making me copy today’s homework ten times.”

After a pause, Yin'e immediately declined the Ninth Prince's offer: "The amount of writing to be punished is not much, so I won't trouble you, Ninth Brother. I can handle it."

If Kangxi had punished Yin'e by making him copy the "Great Learning" ten times, then perhaps Yin'e would have needed the Ninth Prince's help.

The Ninth Prince was stunned for a moment, and then nodded with a look of surprise: "It's not heavy, it's just copying today's homework. I thought I had to copy the Four Books."

The Ninth Prince had even less contact with Emperor Kangxi, and thus held him in even deeper awe. As a result, the punishment he anticipated was more severe than Yin'e had expected—it involved copying all four books together.

As for how many times to copy it, the Ninth Prince hadn't thought about it in detail, but subconsciously he thought it would be at least ten times. After all, Yin'e was the first student who dared to skip class in the Imperial Study, so the punishment would definitely not be light. Otherwise, how could he deter the other princes and prevent them from following suit and causing trouble?

But the final result was much better than the Ninth Prince had expected, which surprised him. He had originally thought that Kangxi would make an example of him.

Or perhaps, although the Emperor visits the Imperial Study almost every day, he doesn't actually pay much attention to their studies? He doesn't care much about their academic level? The Ninth Prince blinked his phoenix eyes, somewhat puzzled.

But such doubts were only fleeting in the mind of the Ninth Prince. He quickly let go of the matter and said to Yin'e, "Perfect timing. When we get to the Fourth Academy, I'll give you my notes from today's class."

The Ninth Prince did not usually take notes, but today Yin'e skipped his morning cultural class, so he was destined to miss one class.

So this morning in class, the Ninth Prince not only listened attentively, but also took careful notes. He wanted to show the notes to Yin'e so that he could catch up on today's lessons through self-study later.

Originally, the Ninth Prince planned to hand over the notes to Yin'e tomorrow, because according to their habits, after returning to the West Third Palace from the Imperial Study after school at the beginning of the day, they would never open their books, let alone study by lamplight, and would not spend their rest time studying hard.

But now the situation is different. Yin'e was punished by Kangxi to copy books. Even if he was unwilling, even if he just wanted to go to sleep after school, he had to complete the task of copying books seriously and put into use the study room that he had not used since he moved into the West Third Palace.

With a pained expression, Yin'e sighed, "Compared to copying books, I'd rather Father Khan put me in solitary confinement and punish me by making me stay in the West Third Prison for a few days—solitary confinement is so much better than copying books!"

The Ninth Prince was speechless and rolled his eyes at Yin'e: "Father must be crazy to punish you with confinement, to keep you in the West Third Palace and not let you out. Isn't that actually helping you so you don't have to go to the Imperial Study to study?"

If violating the rules of the Imperial Study only resulted in being confined to the study, then the princes, who had to arrive at the Imperial Study at three in the morning every day to begin their studies, might be vying to make mistakes and be punished.

—Whether others would do it or not, at least the Fifth Prince and the Ninth Prince would. If there were enough benefits, they would actually dare to cause trouble.

Being punished with a day of confinement means not having to go to the Imperial Study for a day—where else can you find such a good deal? Aside from not being able to leave the house, what's the difference between confinement and a holiday? Even if the princes studying in the Imperial Study weren't confined, their days were still the same routine, with nowhere else to go.

With a sigh, Yin'e raised his hand and rubbed his face vigorously, wiping away the gloomy expression on his face and revealing a smile again: "Forget it, I don't want to think about it anymore. Father has punished me lightly enough. I should be content."

"Let's go, Ninth Brother, let's hurry back and eat dumplings together to celebrate the Winter Solstice!"

The Ninth Prince was also infected by the laughter and joined Yin'e in striding towards the West Third Palace.

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Author's Note: Thank you to all the little angels who voted for me or watered my plants with nutrient solution between 11:13:12 and 20:25:06 on May 9, 2023!

Thank you to the little angel who watered the nutrient solution: Yanwen (1 bottle);

Thank you so much for your support! I will continue to work hard!