Chapter 28 The brothers talked in the inner hall…
The brothers talked for a while in the inner hall. Wen Shan went outside for some fresh air and looked up to see a nest of birds in the ginkgo tree in the courtyard.
"What kind of bird is this? It's so beautiful." Wen Shan saw a bird with long tail feathers and fiery red fur fly out of its nest.
Baoquan said, "This looks like a sparrow. These birds are incredibly beautiful, whether they are red or green, but it's rare to see one as pure in color as this one. Moreover, these birds are not commonly seen in the capital. I have seen them a few times back in my hometown of Shengjing."
The prince and his companions came out when they heard the commotion. The bird that had just flown away must have gone out to forage for food. In the nest, there was still a bright green sparrow and several newly hatched chicks, which were incredibly beautiful with their bright red and green plumage.
The Third Prince, itching to climb the tree and raid the bird's nest, said, "These birds are exposed to wind and rain outside, sometimes hungry and sometimes full. Why don't we rescue them and bring them back to the palace to raise them?"
Wen Shan sighed, feeling a strange sense of sympathy for someone who was living a carefree life.
The Crown Prince also took a liking to the rare and beautiful bird and nodded in agreement. The servants immediately brought a ladder to climb up and take the bird down, but the Third Prince insisted on going up himself. Wen Shan tried to persuade him but couldn't, so he rolled up his hem and climbed up. The Crown Prince, Yinzhen, and Yinsi held the ladder from below.
The Third Prince carefully climbed up. Inside the bird's nest made of mud and grass was a green adult sparrow and three chicks chirping. The adult sparrow was surprisingly docile, merely protecting its chicks behind its wings and watching the uninvited guest warily, without attacking the Third Prince.
"It's even more beautiful up close!" The Third Prince turned and shouted to the Crown Prince and the others, reaching out to take the bird down.
The Crown Prince called out from below to warn the Third Prince to be careful. The Third Prince responded and then cautiously reached out his hand. Yinzhi was too small to exert much strength, so he leaned against the ladder, seemingly trying hard but actually just slacking off.
Yinzhen was genuinely worried. On one hand, he was concerned about the safety of the Third Prince, and on the other hand, he felt that climbing trees to steal bird nests was a violation of the natural law of life. Why would someone want to take a bird down from a tree and keep it as a pet? The Bird Bureau had plenty of rare and exotic birds.
Yinzhi could tell from his brother's furrowed brows that he disapproved of catching birds, but since the Crown Prince and the Third Prince were both in high spirits, Yinzhi was afraid that if Yinzhen spoke up and directly advised against it, it would spoil the Crown Prince's fun, so he secretly tugged at Yinzhen's hem.
The Crown Prince was looking up and giving instructions to the Third Prince, so he didn't notice them.
Yinzhen saw Yinsi shake his head at him and understood what his younger brother meant. He pursed his lips and said nothing.
After a while, the Third Prince finally came down safely, but he was covered in mud, and the birds had left a few claw marks on his face as they struggled, turning him into a little tabby cat.
The Crown Prince laughed heartily, and Wen Shan, both amused and exasperated, called for someone to wipe the Third Prince's face. The Third Prince himself didn't seem to care, and happily held the little birds in his hands.
"Second brother, fourth brother, eighth brother, look! It's so beautiful!"
"More beautiful than the most beautiful bird in the bird guild!"
The prince reached out and touched them a couple of times. He had never kept any pets since he was a child, so he was very interested in these birds. The young birds didn't look like they could fly yet, so the prince didn't want them. He wanted to take the emerald green adult bird back and raise it.
The prince's personal eunuch was clever and went to find a birdcage early in the morning.
Fuqi and Laifu were also excited to see the birds and ran over to circle around them. Yinzhen and Yinsi each took one bird and restrained them to prevent them from pouncing on them.
Raising several young birds would be troublesome, and it was uncertain whether they would survive. Both the Crown Prince and the Third Prince were not interested. However, the Third Prince did not dare to argue with the Crown Prince and could only watch as the Crown Prince put the adult bird into a cage and took it away.
"Why don't we put these chicks back in their nest and lure the red bird back so we can catch it then?" the Third Prince suggested enthusiastically.
“Third Brother, birds are very intelligent. If they sense any human presence, they won’t come back,” Yinzhi said.
He could see that his fourth brother was becoming increasingly dissatisfied, so he simply preemptively told his third brother to abandon this outrageous idea.
The Third Prince asked with some doubt if it was true, and Baoquan, who was standing next to him, chimed in, saying that what Yinzhi said was indeed true.
The Crown Prince, teasing the bird in the cage, casually waved his hand and said, "No need to bother anymore, we'll disturb Consort Xuan's rest."
The Third Prince had no choice but to give up.
When the time came, the Crown Prince and the Third Prince left with the birdcage, leaving behind three chicks that chirped a couple of times. Their mother, trapped in the cage, struggled to fly out but could only helplessly watch herself drift further and further away from her children.
Wen Shan sighed, thinking that she might have to retract her previous assessment that they "had no ill intentions." After all, princes want what they want immediately and have no consideration for the suffering of others.
Not to mention there are only a few birds.
Yinzhen kept a straight face, but Yinsi was already used to it. There would be even more outrageous things to come. Now it was a bird, but it would be a human later.
Wen Shan looked at the three baby birds and didn't know what to do. They looked fragile and beautiful, as if they had just hatched. Wen Shan had never raised such small birds before and was afraid of accidentally killing them. If she put them back in the nest, even if the red male bird that had just flown away could raise their children, the whole family would be in big trouble if the Crown Prince and the Third Prince came again.
Having no other choice, Wen Shan had to raise them in Xianfu Palace. Fortunately, these little birds were very resilient and Wen Shan managed to keep them alive.
Fuqi and Laifu spent all their time around the birdcage. At first, Yinzhen was worried that Fuqi would swallow the birds that had just grown their feathers. But one day, when the palace maid was feeding the birds, she forgot to close the cage. The birds flew out and landed on the table. Fuqi and Laifu discovered them first, and the two dogs and three birds started playing together.
When Wenshan found out, she was puzzled and thought that this was completely against the laws of nature. Don't dogs like to catch birds?
Yinzhi held Laifu and groomed its fur, saying that Wenshan was framing it. Laifu was so well-behaved; if any of the birds got bitten in the future, it would definitely be Laifu's doing.
Fuqi, who was still happily laughing with Yinzhen in the courtyard, was completely unaware that a black pot had already been placed on her head.
After raising them for a while, Wen Shan saw that the three birds were lively, beautiful, and affectionate. They could even land on the back of her hand. She thought that if either Yinzhen or Yinsi liked them, she could put them in their room to add some liveliness and make it more festive.
Yinzhi refused without even thinking.
“I hate birds,” Yinzhi said quietly.
Wenshan asked, puzzled, "Do you find them noisy?"
It can be quite noisy sometimes, especially when she's taking a nap.
Yinzhi didn't speak, he just stared at Wenshan, his eyes brimming with resentment.
Wen Shan suddenly realized something – how could she have forgotten Yin Si's infamous eagle-killing incident…
Wen Shan, curious, leaned closer and asked him, "So who exactly sabotaged those two eagles?"
In the fifty-third year of the Kangxi Emperor's reign, the emperor had originally ordered Yinzhi to accompany him on a trip to the border regions. However, it happened to be the anniversary of Empress Wei's death, so Yinzhi went to pay his respects and was unable to go with him. Yinzhi then sent two hunting falcons to the emperor as an apology, but to his surprise, the two sent were dead falcons. The 61-year-old Kangxi Emperor, who was already wary of such things, was furious and felt that Yinzhi was harboring resentment and deliberately cursing him. From then on, it was basically declared that Yinzhi was completely out of the running for the throne.
However, it is absolutely impossible for Yinzhi to send two dead eagles to Kangxi in such a formal manner; it seems to have been arranged by some close friend.
Yinzhi feigned heartbreak: "Mother, aren't you just stabbing your son in the heart?"
Wen Shan remained silent for a moment, then cautiously asked, "It wasn't your fourth brother who did it again, was it?"
"No, that's not it."
Wen Shan breathed a sigh of relief: "Is that the Third Prince? Or the Fourteenth Prince?"
Wen Shan guessed all the remaining possibilities, but Yin Si just shook his head.
How could anyone guess this? Who was the mastermind behind it?
"Could it be your imperial father?" Wen Shan stroked her chin, her imagination running wild. Could it be that Kangxi deliberately played a trick on Yinzhi?
It definitely feels like something he would do.
Yinzhi sighed: "None of them."
"Huh?" Wen Shan was completely baffled. When Yinzhi was sent over, he was perfectly healthy and lively. How could something have gone wrong when he arrived in front of Kangxi?
Yinzhi looked up at the sky, utterly despondent.
"Mother, do you really want me to admit that I've had such terrible luck that it's earth-shattering and ghost-weeping?"
"..."
"So, it really was just a coincidence?" Wen Shan asked tentatively.
Yinzhi remained silent with a blank expression.
He investigated the matter afterward, but no matter how he investigated, the conclusion was that no one had deliberately tampered with it; the two falcons had simply fallen ill due to the change in environment.
Wenshan thought he was both pitiful and funny; how unlucky could he be!
Wen Shan then recalled what Yin Si had told her about the foolish attempt by the eldest prince to kill the crown prince. It seemed that Yin Si had done nothing wrong but was inexplicably dragged onto the stage and scolded mercilessly by Kangxi.
So it turns out that Yinzhi is destined to be an unlucky guy?
These events, in the previous life of Yinzhi, were a helpless and miserable fate, but now, when Yinzhi talks about them, he feels speechless.
Wenshan was amused by his grumpy and somewhat embarrassed expression.
"Mother, I saw you smile!" Yinzhi accused, hands on his hips.
"My poor son, I'll make you your favorite boiled pork slices tonight." Wen Shan immediately switched to a loving mother mode and quickly slipped away.
She was afraid she would burst out laughing if she stayed any longer.
So Yinzhi could only eat two extra bowls of rice with tears in his eyes at dinner.
At the end of the month, on the nineteenth of the following month, the Imperial Noble Consort went into labor and gave birth to a princess after a full day and night.
Wen Shan and Yin Si both knew that this princess had also died young. Even Kangxi's heart sank after he went to see her. Like the seventh princess who died a few months earlier, the little princess was as thin as a cat and her cries were very weak. It was obvious that she had some kind of deficiency.
After the imperial physician's diagnosis, a chill ran down his spine. Two princesses had been born into the palace, both born with congenital deficiencies. It seemed that the eighth princess was also on the verge of dying young. The entire Imperial Hospital felt that their heads were in their hands. If the two princesses could not be saved, the emperor's wrath could wipe out their entire clan.
Even though the entire Imperial Hospital did everything in its power, the eighth princess could not be saved and died before she was even a month old.
The Imperial Noble Consort's health completely collapsed after losing a son and a daughter. The strong smell of medicine from Chengqian Palace permeated several streets. Emperor Kangxi had just welcomed two little princes and had not been happy for long when another daughter died. Overwhelmed by joy and sorrow, he also fell ill and even caught a cold in the middle of summer.
The entire harem, which had been filled with joy last month, suddenly became solemn.
When Emperor Kangxi fell ill, the concubines had to take turns attending to him. The Imperial Noble Consort, who had lost her daughter, was even more ill than Emperor Kangxi. The Noble Consort Niohuru had just finished her postpartum confinement and still had to take care of the Tenth Prince. Counting down, it was Wen Shan's turn, so Wen Shan was on the first day, followed by Consort Hui and Consort Rong, and then the order continued according to rank.
Kangxi's illness was not serious; he only had a cough and occasional fever at night. Although the morning court sessions were suspended for a few days, he still had to review memorials. Wenshan's visits to attend to him mainly involved serving him medicine and occasionally chatting with him.
After reading some memorials while wearing his outer robe, Emperor Kangxi started coughing again. Wen Shan brought him the medicine and said, "Your Majesty, please rest and drink your medicine."
After drinking the medicine, Emperor Kangxi said with some emotion, "The last time I fell ill was when I contracted smallpox. More than twenty years have passed in the blink of an eye."
"Smack—!"
The tray Wenshan was holding suddenly fell to the ground.
Her heart pounded instantly; how could she have forgotten about that?
Neither Yinzhen nor Yinsi have been vaccinated against smallpox yet!
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