Crown Prince
Suppressing his melancholy, Cui Shenzhi pulled away from Ping An's embrace and sat down on a chair. After a moment's thought, he said softly, "Ping An, as the ancients said, 'A person with a wealth of knowledge naturally exudes elegance.' Shall I teach you to read and write?"
Ping An found it amusing.
"A belly full of poetry and books naturally exudes elegance"... Does Cui Shenzhi mean he hopes she will "live a life wrapped in coarse cloth and coarse linen"? Or does he think that a young woman like her can "be proud and boastful to the world, with the imperial edict fresh and wet, the characters as white as crows"?
"Abdomen...what?"
"It's normal that you don't understand this sentence now. You'll naturally understand it when you start reading and writing. So, would you like to learn from me?"
Ping An didn't really want to, but Cui Shenzhi did, so she had no choice but to think about it, and that's how the matter was settled.
Cui Shenzhi also instructed Qi Kang to add Ping An's name to the list of palace servants in the Eastern Palace through the Imperial Household Department. Her treatment would be the same as that of the head palace maids Ju An and Si Wei. As for her accommodation, considering that Ping An had come with Si Wei, she would temporarily stay with Si Wei.
After all this was done, it was already late, so Cui Shenzhi asked Siwei to take Ping'an for a walk around the East Palace, since Ping'an would be spending a considerable amount of time there for the next few days.
It's not that Cui Shenzhi intends to let Ping An leave the palace when she turns twenty-five, but given Ping An's current personality, she feels that everyone who talks to her is doing her a favor. Once she leaves the palace, she'll probably be taken advantage of and sold out within a couple of days, and she'll even have to thank the person who sold her. Therefore, Cui Shenzhi plans to keep her until she has the ability to survive outside the palace before letting her leave.
However, there was one more thing I wanted to tell him before he left.
“Ping An,” Cui Shenzhi patted Ping An’s head again, “My name is Shenzhi, but in front of outsiders you have to call me Your Highness. Only when you are with me can you call me Shenzhi, understand?”
"Outsider? Your Highness? Who is the outsider? And what is Your Highness? Is it your nickname? Why can't we call you Shenzhi in front of outsiders, but have to call you Your Highness?"
Cui Shenzhi choked up, feeling a bit of a headache. He could easily explain things to Ping An if she understood even a little bit about the world, but Ping An didn't understand anything, which made things difficult.
He pondered for a moment, but couldn't come up with a suitable story, so he could only say somewhat helplessly, "Then you can only call me Shenzhi when I'm around. When I'm not around, you... in short, don't call me by my name. Do you understand?"
Ping An nodded, then took Choi Shin-ji's hand and shook it.
"Shenzhi, I'm leaving with Sister Siwei now, but I won't go too far. If you feel sad, just call me and I'll come over and sing for you!"
"good."
*****
Lying on the bed, which was much more comfortable than usual, Ping An couldn't help but let out a soft sigh.
This is what a human life should be like... but that's all it is. It's a life for humans, but it shouldn't be hers. Her life should be spent in those magnificent and exquisite palaces, not in this ordinary servant's room.
However, haste makes waste, so she had to be patient and take it slow. Besides, there was another important matter she needed to do right now.
That is to get rid of Guo Shu.
Guo Shu was merely a steward in the Cold Palace. Helping her get close to Cui Shenzhi was already the limit. Any further and he would be a useless person who couldn't help her at all. He also held Qingya and her true identity as leverage, which he had to eliminate as soon as possible, since the longer it dragged on, the more likely something would go wrong.
However, she needed to think carefully about how to get rid of Guo Shu. She had arrived at the Eastern Palace, but that was all she could do. She didn't have a single person she could use. If she wanted to get rid of Guo Shu, she could only guide Cui Shenzhi to do it. But how could she get Cui Shenzhi to do it?
Did she inadvertently reveal that Guo Shu had smeared her reputation?
No, she's going to be Cui Shenzhi's bedmate in the future. If she uses this reason, it will definitely leave a big knot in Cui Shenzhi's heart. Even if she gets into Cui Shenzhi's bed in the future, Cui Shenzhi may not give her what she wants, or even accept her. Just to get rid of Guo Shu, the price is too high and not worth it.
What makes Cui Shenzhi feel that she was bullied by Guo Shu?
Okay, but it's too difficult. Qi Kang had just found out that Guo Shu had taken good care of her, and then she said that she had been bullied by Guo Shu. There was no one to testify, so it was hard to convince people. Moreover, after she arrived at the East Palace, she went to wash up with Siwei. Siwei could see clearly whether she had any wounds or not. In other words, she couldn't even fake wounds. Without witnesses or physical evidence, it was a bit of a pipe dream to convince Cui Shenzhi to get rid of Guo Shu with just words.
If they can't make a fuss about themselves, then they can only make a fuss about Choi Shin-ji.
Ping An looked at the clothes she had casually tossed aside by the bed, clothes she had worn in the cold palace, and an idea slowly surfaced in her mind.
*****
Since Cui Shenzhi was, after all, a prince who had participated in government affairs, he had to attend court with Cui Sugong every five days. On days when he did not attend court, he spent most of his mornings dealing with government affairs. Therefore, the time for teaching Ping An to read and write was naturally set for half an hour after lunch every day.
Needless to say, the book used to enlighten Ping An was the Thousand Character Classic.
Ping An looked at the book she knew by heart and couldn't help but find it a little funny. Ten years had passed, and how had she ended up back in this book again?
While seemingly listening attentively to Cui Shenzhi, she was recalling the state of mind she had when she first learned to read from Qingya, intending to do the same.
But she soon realized something was wrong; she couldn't follow it because she had learned it too easily back then.
It's unclear whether she resembled Qingya or her mysterious biological father, but at the time she could understand and write almost anything she heard, and her learning progress was incredibly fast. If she had continued in that manner, Cui Shenzhi would definitely have noticed something was wrong.
—If she were that smart, she couldn't have stayed in the Cold Palace for more than ten years without being affected by being deposed as a concubine, and remained so innocent and naive.
However, she had never seen anyone else who could read, so she didn't know how many characters a normal person should learn per day. She decided to check out Cui Shenzhi's teaching progress first, and then she was both amused and exasperated to find that in just a short while, Cui Shenzhi had already taught the sixth sentence.
So, one of them doesn't know how to teach, and the other doesn't know how to learn. This is truly...
Ping An smiled and shook his head.
Upon seeing this action, Choi Shin-ji immediately stopped teaching.
"Ping An, what's wrong? Is there something you don't understand?"
Hearing this, Ping An secretly rolled her eyes in her mind.
What's wrong? What do you mean, what's wrong? Some kind person keeps lecturing you endlessly.
She wondered if finishing the Thousand Character Classic in a month was too fast, but given Cui Shenzhi's pace, she would be considered quite capable if she could even last half a month.
“Shenzhi…” Ping An lowered his head, looking embarrassed. “You taught me too much, I can’t remember it all…”
Now it was Choi Shin-ji's turn to feel embarrassed.
He had long forgotten his learning progress back then, subconsciously thinking that the Thousand Character Classic was not difficult, and that he could learn it by saying a sentence about Ping An. He forgot that Ping An had never even held a pen, so how could he possibly keep up with such a teaching speed?
Unless Ping An is a genius with a photographic memory.
Once he realized where the problem lay, Cui Shenzhi immediately changed his teaching method. He first told Ping An the meaning of the whole sentence, and then taught her word by word.
First, teach Ping An to recognize the characters, then explain their meanings to her, then write them for her stroke by stroke, then guide her through writing them several times, and finally let her try it on her own.
Ping An had performed flawlessly in the previous steps, but she inadvertently revealed a flaw in the final step.
—The delay had been too long, and she relaxed a bit. When she picked up her pen, she unconsciously wrote a vigorous and powerful stroke.
Upon discovering this, Ping An immediately used her ring and little fingers to deftly flick the pen away in the direction of the stroke, as if that stroke was not written well by her, but rather an accidental result of her using too much force.
After the pen was flicked away, the ink on the tip began to splatter uncontrollably, causing varying degrees of ink spots to appear on the bodies of the people present. The situation was particularly dire for Cui Shenzhi, who was standing in front of Ping An. Not only were there ink spots on his body, but there was also an ink stain that ran across his entire face.
In this situation, Siwei and Qikang's attention was drawn to Cui Shenzhi's face, and they couldn't help but cover their mouths and turn away to chuckle, no longer caring about how Ping An was doing.
Ping An's eyes flickered, and she quickly stood up as if to help Cui Shenzhi clean it up, but 'accidentally' knocked over the ink on the table.
Now look what happened! The papers on the table, or rather the entire table, and even Ping An himself, were all stained with a lot of ink.
Ping An was flustered and confused. She wiped Cui Shenzhi's face with a handkerchief and then went to wipe the table. Seeing that the handkerchief was soaked with ink, she rolled up her sleeves and wiped Cui Shenzhi's face again, forgetting that her hands were also full of ink. As a result, the more she wiped, the more ink appeared on Cui Shenzhi's face.
Seeing this, Siwei's shoulders trembled even more violently, while Qi Kang couldn't help but burst out laughing.
Cui Shenzhi was a little confused, and then he saw Ping An in front of him stare blankly for a moment before pointing at his face and laughing so hard he almost fell over.
Seeing Ping An's blackened hands, Cui Shenzhi understood, so he reached out, dipped his hand in the ink, and smeared a line on Ping An's face as well.
Ping An was stunned for a moment, and after realizing what was happening, she immediately launched a counterattack. However, she was no match for Cui Shenzhi in terms of 'strength', so she resorted to some tactics. She smeared a mark on Cui Shenzhi's face and then hid behind Siwei and Qikang. In this way, the 'battle' quickly spread throughout the study.
Under Ping An's lead, Siwei and Qikang also started to play around, making a mess of the entire study. When they finally stopped, they realized that everyone's face was covered in black smudges. They looked at each other and quickly tidied up, laughing as they did so.
After tidying up, Cui Shenzhi continued teaching.
After a few happy days, trouble came.
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