Chapter Fourteen
While Consort Fucha was preparing her dowry, one day in December, near the end of the year, a piece of terrible news suddenly arrived: the Empress Dowager had suddenly fallen seriously ill and might be about to pass away.
The Emperor has suspended court and is attending to his sick relative in Cining Palace. His condition is even more severe than the last time he visited.
Consort Fucha's heart skipped a beat. Could it be that the Empress Dowager is nearing her end? If so, wouldn't her daughter's wedding date, set for next year, have to be postponed for three years?
The Imperial Palace.
The Empress Dowager was indeed on her deathbed when she suddenly collapsed, and then her sudden and powerful attack left no time for anyone to react.
The Empress Dowager was truly beyond saving this time. She herself had anticipated this. When she woke up in a daze, her limbs were weak, and she couldn't even hold Xuan Ye's hand with any strength.
She knew she was going to die.
"Xuan Ye, the Qing Dynasty is now in your hands..." The Empress Dowager actually had a lot more to say. She still cared about the Khorchin grasslands, the Borjigit people, and the Crown Prince.
In the end, she said nothing, but held Kangxi's hand, this time with a mixture of relief and satisfaction, "I have not failed the trust placed in me by Taizong (Huang Taiji) and Fulin. Under your leadership, the Qing Dynasty is thriving..."
Emperor Kangxi held the Empress Dowager's hand tightly, but in the end, this woman who had served four emperors closed her eyes forever.
Just before I closed my eyes, it was as if I was back on the vast grasslands of Horqin, with bright and beautiful girls galloping on horseback, and a handsome man chasing after them on horseback...
Her hands fell limply to her sides, accompanied by heart-wrenching cries; the Empress Dowager had passed away.
Chen Jialuo didn't know much about what was happening in the palace. She only knew that as someone else's future great-granddaughter-in-law, she should observe mourning with her mother, Wuku, after she passed away. She had heard that there was a seven-day mourning period and that a concubine in the harem had miscarried.
She only copied Buddhist scriptures, ate vegetarian food, and wore plain clothes, which was already considered very good.
Her father was at home every day, having breakfast with them. Chen Jialuo knew that the Emperor hadn't attended the morning court session yet and was still grieving over the passing of the Empress Dowager.
That makes sense, though. The emperor ascended the throne at the age of eight and lost his mother. He was raised by the Empress Dowager. Even if they had some differing opinions on politics, death is like a lamp going out, and all that remains in their memories are beautiful.
How could I not be heartbroken?
It was near the end of the year that the New Year's Eve palace banquet was cancelled this year, and things only returned to normal after the Lantern Festival.
The passing of the Empress Dowager also affected the marriage of the future Crown Princess Fucha and the future Fourth Prince's wife, Guarjia, requiring them to observe three years of mourning.
The one who found it most unacceptable was the Imperial Noble Consort Tongjia. Tongjia had been bullied by that old woman (the Empress Dowager) before, and she thought that her delicate and gentle nature and favored status meant that she had stolen the favor of the Mongolian concubines. She was also worried that the Emperor would be like the late Emperor.
When she died, Lady Tongjia felt a sense of relief, but at the same time, she was angry. She had begged the Emperor to let the Fourth Prince get married early so that she could see him get married and start a family before she died, but it all fell through because of this.
It's only been three years.
She's trying to live a little longer!
"Your Majesty, drink your medicine." The nanny brought the medicine over. The Your Majesty, who usually complained about the bitterness and needed to be coaxed, picked up the bowl and drank it all in one gulp, looking very bold. The next second, she vomited from the bitterness.
I quickly picked up a jujube to mask the bitterness.
At the Guarjia residence.
The passing of the Empress Dowager suddenly reminded Princess Guarjia of a crucial issue: after the three-year mourning period, her father and mother passed away one after another. Because of the mourning period, when she married into Yuqing Palace in her previous life, the Crown Prince already had two sons...
no.
Quickly send someone to find imperial physicians and doctors to help Father and Mother recover. They can't pass away so soon after her wedding date is set; they must wait until after her marriage.
As for the rest... she's not an immortal, how could she defy fate?
"Shuanghua, what has the Princess of the Fucha family been doing lately?" Princess Guarjia was thinking about whether to poison her, but then she thought, even if the Princess of the Fucha family wasn't involved, there were other people, and the thought made her feel unlucky.
"Princess, it seems the Fucha family is currently undergoing a frantic internal investigation because someone embezzled hundreds of thousands of taels of silver. No news can get out right now." Shuanghua shook her head; this was the only explanation.
That makes sense. If one store can make so much money, many large families own more than ten stores. Who wouldn't be busy?
The Empress Dowager has passed away, which has little to do with their lives, but how could they possibly swallow their anger when their money has been embezzled?
I heard that the government offices and prisons in the capital are overflowing with people lately. The prefect is working overtime to investigate cases, execute people, or exile them. In short, very few of them will have a good ending.
Even the bondservants under their Guarjia banner were thinking about whether to replace them every three to five years, since they were all very busy. Fortunately, she was an orphan and didn't have to worry about her parents.
Lihua was different. Her father and mother were both in charge, and she was a maidservant by the side of the legitimate daughter. She was very favored. Who knew that one day it was discovered that she had embezzled more than 100,000 taels of silver from Guwalgiya, and even dared to use Guwalgiya's name to swindle money, kill people, and seize other people's land...
Sure enough, the princess brought another maid, Pear Blossom, to serve her.
Princess Guarjia was somewhat dissatisfied with this matter, but she also knew that Consort Fucha, Uya, was no saint either. She had controlled the men's household for so many years, and most of her sons were born to her.
Let's focus on the Fourth Prince and Yonghe Palace instead.
Time passed day by day, and three years went by in a semi-leisurely learning of rules by Chen Jialuo. Under her guidance, her people finally learned Arabic numerals, which were simple, clear, and concise. The ledgers no longer had to be deceived because of their complexity.
She pioneered a series of melodramatic romances featuring real and fake heiresses, white moonlight substitutes, and other characters, including "The Domineering Young Master Falls in Love with Me," "The Rich Wife's Tale of Abusing Her Scumbag Husband," "The Untold Story Between Me and the Old Marquis," and "After Marrying the Scholar, I Roll Up My Sleeves and Get to Work." In short, she goes for the most melodramatic and entertaining stories possible.
Rich people don't care about writing novels, and poor scholars initially scoff at it, thinking, "How could a man possibly write such a book? Bah, I wouldn't do it even if you paid me."
"Hmph, what trash! A woman dares to get so cocky?"
"Haven't you heard of the saying 'the husband is the head of the household'? A woman like that should be drowned in a pig cage."
But there are always people who would bow down for a meager living. The base salary was fifty taels of silver, and they would get paid as soon as they wrote it. Once it was sold... men didn't like it, but those noble ladies and wives loved to read it.
With just a few dozen taels of silver coming in, the most popular book, "The Rich Wife's Tale of Abusing Her Scumbag Husband," which combined the power struggles within the inner court of the household, was the most beloved by the women in those women's quarters. Whether they were wives or concubines, one was thinking about how to learn from the experience, and the other was thinking about how to protect themselves from being harmed. In the end, it was even sold all over the country, earning a full one hundred taels of silver each month. After a year, they had earned over a thousand taels of silver...
Of course, the author of this book was not a man, but a woman who was scolded by her husband. Then... when faced with the prospect of receiving hundreds of taels of silver as a monthly share, she pursed her lips and remained silent.
His monthly salary from the imperial court wasn't even this much... "Madam, how about I polish your writing?"
Once the news got out, how could those scholars not be envious and jealous? In addition, because this type of storybook was so popular, the sales of books like "The Fox Fairy Falls in Love with Me" plummeted. Most of the people who bought storybooks were young women, while most men were busy studying for the imperial examinations to become scholars, or to become officials. They didn't have much free time to read storybooks.
If you can't beat them, join them. As a result, Chen Jialuo's bookstore surpassed the other two dowry shops and became the most profitable one.
Meanwhile, Emperor Kangxi was still worried about Bao Cheng's health. So much time had passed, and he still hadn't taken a liking to any of the princesses bestowed upon him. He even had the imperial physician examine his pulse, only to be told that he was perfectly healthy.
As for the question of whether he was keeping watch for a particular daughter, Kangxi never even considered that possibility. Even back then, when his father, the Emperor, was so deeply in love with Consort Dong'e, after "my first son," there were four other princes: Changning, Qishou, Longxi, and Yonggan.
Nalan Rongruo, who uttered the phrase "one life, one love, one partner," also had concubines.
Therefore, Kangxi did not have this concept in his mind at the moment; he only thought, "Could it be that my Baocheng is not up to the task?"
(End of this chapter)
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