This year was the same. On the 26th day of the first lunar month, Xiao Yuanjin entered the palace early. He first kowtowed to the tablets of his nominal grandmother, the Empress Dowager Da Lu, his biological father, the Emperor, and his deceased mother, and then received rewards from the three giants of the palace in his own bedroom.
Since he had been staying in the Zhenbei Palace recently, Xiao Lu didn't even ask the imperial kitchen to add more dishes for him at noon as usual.
But how could Xiao Yuanjin not have a meal with the emperor in the palace that day? Xiao Lu knew that he would definitely have lunch in the palace today, but she still used this as an excuse to deliberately not add more dishes to his meal.
The emperor was well aware of her little thoughts, so after the meal was served, his expression suddenly turned ugly.
However, Xiao Yuanjin still had the same smile as before. He held his emperor father's hand to comfort him, "Zizhen prepared for me, not only a sumptuous dinner, but also my favorite cream cake."
The emperor took a deep breath and decided to keep his good mood for his son's sake.
He asked curiously, "Cream cake? What is that?"
Xiao Yuanjin smiled, "It's a soft, sweet pastry with a delicate and dense texture. Zizhen said it's made with milk, flour, eggs, and other ingredients."
The emperor lost interest as soon as he heard this. He was different from Xiao Yuanjin. He liked salty food and couldn't stand sweet food.
After the father and son finished their lunch together in a cheerful atmosphere, the emperor asked Xiao Yuanjin, "Are you not planning to move back to the palace?"
Xiao Yuanjin nodded, "I've recently become addicted to reading storybooks. Zizhen has a lot of novel storybooks that are not available on the market."
Although he said so, the emperor knew that Xiao Yuanjin was telling him that he had not yet finished learning the swordsmanship.
When he met Xiao Yuanjin on the fifteenth day of the first lunar month, Xiao Yuanjin was reciting a story, but in fact he used his right hand as a pen and secretly wrote the word "sword" on the palm of his left hand.
The emperor patted Xiao Yuanjin on the shoulder and said, "It's rare that you like some kind of entertainment, so you can stay in the Zhenbei Palace for a few more days."
Xiao Yuanjin smiled, his eyebrows curved. "There, we will leave the palace after our nap. You don't know, Zizhen can play with a lot of things. During this time, I learned from her how to play with pots, fight with grass, play with tops, play with diabolos, and grind dates... She also gave me Mohele, bamboo dragonflies, Huarongdao, and Luban locks..."
Xiao Yuanjin patiently explained each thing one by one. He knew that his father was actually a poor kid who had little childhood. Didn’t his father say that he had never seen any of these small games and toys that were common among children? At least he had definitely never seen 90% of them.
The conversation between the father and son was soon reported to the Empress Dowager Da Lu and the Queen Xiao Lu. In fact, the two of them did not want to just pluck the wool of a single sheep, but they had no way of getting any information from the iron-clad Zhenbei Palace.
Not to mention how smart and capable the two previous butlers of the Zhenbei Palace were, and how Mr. Jiang was very smart, let's just talk about Yu Zizhen, who had a built-in plug-in system. The system gave her a high-tech version of clairvoyance and super hearing. No matter how powerful the traitor was, he would not be able to break through the surveillance and approach the third courtyard that she had designated as her territory without anyone knowing.
Those who are qualified to enter and exit the three courtyards have all been under close surveillance by the Little Naiyin System for more than half a year, and their character cards in the system show that they have a very high degree of favorability towards her. It may be hard to say what will happen to these people in the future, but at least they will definitely not betray Yu Zizhen in the near future.
As for Xiao Yuanjin's accompanying guards and palace maids, except for two people whom Xiao Yuanjin absolutely trusted, Yu Zizhen also placed the others in the first and second courtyards of the palace.
These people had to go through layers of notifications to even enter the third courtyard, let alone Lumingxuan, which was close to Yu Zizhen, and the martial arts training ground next to it.
Such a hardcore physical isolation method directly blocked all possible spies of the Lu family outside the third courtyard, making it impossible for them to provide any useful information to the Lu family.
The Lu family couldn't afford to break off relations with the Zhenbei Palace right now, so they could only take a roundabout approach and continue to focus on surveillance of Xiao Yuanjin and the emperor.
They comforted themselves by thinking that Xiao Yuanjin couldn't live in the Zhenbei Palace forever, and he would have to come back to the palace eventually, so they would just get information from the palace when the time came.
Although this will inevitably lead to news delays, who can blame them for not being able to reach that far?
After receiving the news from their spies, the reactions of Empress Dowager Da Lu and Empress Xiao Lu were still completely different.
While Empress Dowager Da Lu was delighted, she was actually somewhat skeptical of Xiao Yuanjin's account. She felt that given Xiao Yuanjin's personality, he wouldn't so quickly go from being a learned scholar to someone who only cared about having fun.
Empress Lu laughed heartily. She ordered the trusted maid she had brought into the palace from her mother's family, "Send a message to Lu Heng, asking him and the boy from the Wan family to take our eldest prince and the prince of Zhenbei out for fun more often in the future."
The palace maid was about to respond when she heard little Lu say a few more meaningful words.
"Reading storybooks, pitching pots, and fighting with grass are so boring. Mohele and bamboo dragonflies are even less fun. Listening to opera, music, storytelling, cockfighting, cricket fighting, horse racing, rolling dice, playing mahjong... aren't these more fun?"
The palace maid was startled and immediately understood the vicious intentions of Mrs. Lu. She answered "yes" without even raising her head, then took the sign herself and went back to the Lu family to pass on the message to Lu Heng.
She didn't dare say anything about Xiao Lu's decision, but Lu Heng's mother was furious at Xiao Lu's bad idea.
The eldest prince and the prince of Zhenbei are still children, and it is easy for them to develop bad habits and ruin their lives. Is her son already very old?
The prerequisite for leading others to play is that her son himself is also involved. Otherwise, why would her son bring others to such an occasion?
Not to mention that the eldest prince and Yu Zizhen might not be fooled, even if they were willing to be fooled, wouldn't her son also become addicted to it?
She couldn't let this awful little Lu ruin her good child. Her son couldn't do such a thing as killing a thousand enemies and hurting himself eight hundred times!
Lu Heng's mother wanted to protect her son, but Lu Heng's father Lu Mian simply didn't listen to his wife.
Because Duke Cheng'en Lu Tong thought that little Lu's idea was very good and he agreed with Lu Heng to do this, Lu Mian pushed his son out as a chess piece without hesitation.
In Lu Mian's view, this is a great opportunity for Lu Heng to make contributions to the family and increase the voice of the third branch. It would be a pity to miss it. As for whether Lu Heng will become obsessed with those things and become a good-for-nothing playboy, Lu Mian said that Lu Heng is just the second son of the third branch anyway, so it is not a big problem even if he is not very promising.
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