Two more days passed quickly, and the entire palace was busy preparing for the Empress Dowager's burial.
If we're talking about who's the most idle, it has to be Little Sable.
She reached for the plate, grabbed a piece of pastry, and stuffed it into her mouth. Xi Xizhi smacked her lips, splattering pastry crumbs everywhere.
An Honghan was engrossed in handling official business and had no time to pay attention to Xi Xizhi. Xi Xizhi found it too boring, so she turned over, jumped off the table, and prepared to go out and find some fun.
Unlike An Honghan, who lives a monotonous life and never gets bored.
Perched on the threshold, Xi Xizhi turned its little head, pondering what fun places there were in the palace. The previous times it had wandered off, it had stumbled into different places by accident. The palace was so vast; without a map, it was easy to get lost.
Although she has two palace maids by her side, what if Xi Xizhi gets lost when they are not around? As the saying goes, self-reliance leads to abundance; one cannot rely on others for everything.
The most important thing is to get a map and memorize the palace route.
No matter where you live, you must first get to know your environment, right?
He scurried back to the desk and called out to An Honghan in a flurry.
An Honghan frowned at first, then stopped what he was doing. "What is it now?"
Because they couldn't understand each other's language, Xi Xizhi could only use gestures to make An Honghan understand her meaning. She patted the white jade brick floor with her paws and then pointed to the painting hanging on the wall.
An Honghan put down his brush and looked at it with interest. "What does it mean?"
Xi Xizhi was a little discouraged and demonstrated it again. Because her limbs were relatively short, her clumsy movements were very cute when put together.
An Honghan gave a barely perceptible smile. "Explain it more clearly."
Xi Xizhi gestured back and forth more than ten times, but seeing that the man was still staring at it with his chin propped up, even the slow-witted Xi Xizhi realized something was wrong. An Honghan was just teasing it! He probably figured it out a long time ago.
He sat down angrily on the ground, panting heavily.
Tapping the floor means "ground"; pointing at the scroll means "map". The two actions together mean "map".
An Honghan walked out from behind his desk and instructed Lin En, "Go find a map of the palace."
Lynn nodded and went out. The longer he spent with the little ferret, the more he felt that it was intelligent. Usually, no matter how smart other pets were, they couldn't think for themselves, and many things had to be arranged by their owners. This little ferret was different; it dared to ask its owner for things.
When Lynn brought the map, Xi Xizhi was so shocked that she took two steps back. Was it really necessary to be so exaggerated? What was going on with that scroll that was more than five meters long and more than three meters wide?
Amused by the little sable's timid behavior, An Honghan raised an eyebrow and said, "Here's the map you wanted. Since you're so eager to learn, you'll stay in the Imperial Study for the time being and memorize the palace routes. I will check your progress later. If you can't memorize it completely, then keep memorizing it until I'm satisfied."
This is what they call "lifting a stone only to drop it on your own foot!" Xi Xizhi looked at the emperor with a pained expression.
Seeing through Xiao Mink's trick of feigning pitifulness and gaining sympathy, An Honghan was not fooled and shook his head, saying, "This is one of the survival skills, and you must learn it."
In short, Xi Xizhi was left speechless.
Survival, everything is for survival!
Two eunuchs spread a map on the white jade brick floor, revealing the intricate routes of the palace to Xi Xizhi at a glance.
One has to admire the ingenious architect who designed the palace; every route leads to a different place, and numerous intersecting corridors and walkways form various shortcuts.
Xi Xizhi jumped onto the map, circled around it several times, and then realized a huge problem. She didn't recognize the characters marked on it.
Looking at An Honghan with a troubled expression, Xi Xizhi rolled around on the spot in frustration.
"Lynn, read the words above to the little ferret until it memorizes all the palace names." An Honghan and the little ferret were on the same page, and a moment later, An Honghan assigned the task to Lynn.
Thus, Lynn became Little Mink's first teacher.
Although he thought it impossible to teach a ferret to read, Lynn dared not disobey His Majesty's decree. He resigned himself to kneeling on the ground and first pointed to the larger palace in the center, "This is where we are—the Imperial Study."
An Honghan stood aside to supervise, and when the little ferret stretched out its paw to trace the three words, he smiled again.
Xi Xizhi practiced the character several times to make sure she remembered the approximate strokes. She then nodded solemnly to Lin En, indicating that he could now teach the next character.
Lynn was so surprised he couldn't close his mouth...
An Honghan urged, "Why aren't you teaching us yet?"
Lynn shuddered in fright, then pointed to the garden behind the 'Imperial Study' and said, "This is the Imperial Garden."
Because the palace was so vast and had so many buildings, Xi Xizhi only managed to memorize a dozen or so after an hour. Because she needed to memorize not only the locations of the palaces but also the complex routes, her progress was very slow.
Seeing that Xiao Diao was studying diligently, An Honghan sat back down at his desk and continued to review memorials.
There have been a lot of troubles lately. First, there was the flooding in Fengzhou, and now there are matters concerning the Empress Dowager's burial. I wanted to spend some time playing with Xiao Diao, but I haven't had a moment to spare.
Finally, the day of the Empress Dowager's burial arrived. All the civil and military officials gathered at the palace, each with an extremely somber expression and a mournful face. Each official wore a white cloth to express their condolences for the Empress Dowager's passing.
After the Empress Dowager passed away, she was to be buried in the imperial mausoleum, and all civil and military officials were to accompany her.
Since it was inconvenient to take the little sable to the imperial mausoleum, An Honghan handed it over to Xiao Xunzi and asked the eunuchs of Panlong Palace to take good care of it.
Xi Xizhi was happy to enjoy her leisure time. She had heard that the imperial mausoleum was located halfway up Cuiyin Mountain. Climbing a mountain in this sweltering heat was just asking for trouble, wasn't it? Thinking that An Honghan rarely went on a 'long trip,' she figured she might as well visit the Imperial Hospital.
The world is so big, but she only knows An Honghan and the old man.
I've been working so hard to memorize the map these past two days, and it's finally going to come in handy.
An Honghan stepped out of the Panlong Palace, and Xi Xi followed with her own two panicked palace maids.
Xiao Xunzi's life was spared only because Xiao Diao pleaded for him. Moreover, before His Majesty left, he instructed them to take good care of Xiao Diao, and that they would be held responsible if anything went wrong. Lifting his robes, Xiao Xunzi hurriedly chased after them.
Despite her small stature, Xi Xizhi was surprisingly fast. She skipped and hopped along, stopping occasionally, comparing her route to the one in her mind, until she finally found the Imperial Hospital. Although Xi Xizhi couldn't write, the three gilded characters on the plaque were exactly the same as those on the map, so she knew she hadn't gone to the wrong place.
He swaggered over the high threshold, and a strong smell of medicine wafted towards him.
Many eunuchs were drying medicinal herbs in the courtyard when they suddenly saw a small white ball of fur crawl in. They all assumed it was one of the concubines' pet cats or dogs that had wandered into the wrong place.
But as the little white ball of fur drew closer, and someone noticed the fiery red fur on its forehead, someone exclaimed, "It's His Majesty's Phoenix Cloud Sable!"
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