Chapter 109: Precognitive Dream (Qin Lie)
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After the Lunar New Year, comes the Lantern Festival. In previous years, the capital, prefectures, and other prosperous counties would hold lantern festivals a day in advance.
Huangzhou was originally a poor and remote place, and after the White Lotus Rebellion, the population was devastated, with less than one in ten surviving. It had not held a lantern festival for several years.
Over the past year, the Prince's Palace has not only taken in displaced people but also reduced their taxes and provided them with houses and land. Now, although the population has increased, the prefecture is holding another Lantern Festival to celebrate. However, the people don't have enough money, so the lanterns on the streets are sparse.
Qin Lie never liked joining in these kinds of festivities, and as he watched the process, he grew increasingly disgusted. However, fearing that Lingyi would be disappointed, he promised her, "This year will have to do. I'll take you to see the best lantern festival in the world next time."
Lingyi nodded and looked around. Although the street wasn't packed with people, there was still a constant flow of people. There were many stalls selling lanterns on both sides of the road. The lanterns were not only ordinary in style but also crudely made and very similar to each other, so they didn't catch her eye.
After all, she had seen all kinds of lanterns that were presented as tribute from various places every year, hanging on the high eaves of the palace. They were not only diverse in style, but also exquisite in every one of them.
But now, when I think back on those things, they seem like that magnificent palace, exuding a decaying, lifeless aura.
Lingyi wanted to buy some lanterns, but she already had one in her hand, which Qin Lie had made himself.
She was carrying a rabbit lantern, while Qin Lie, holding Huan'er, was carrying a tiger lantern.
General Qin, who was extremely busy with state affairs, took great care in making the lanterns by hand. However, despite being adept at using all eighteen kinds of weapons, he was completely helpless with those bamboo strips. The two lanterns he made were crooked and bloated, and if one did not know beforehand, it would be impossible to guess what kind of animal they were.
If she were to buy something else, it would be a clear sign of her dislike. He was petty and wouldn't show it on his face, but he knew he would definitely cause trouble for her when they got back, so he had no choice but to give up.
Even so, it was enough. Along the way, she enjoyed watching lanterns, solving riddles, and buying food, experiencing a joy she had never known before.
Qin Lie took her hand and followed the flow of people to the riverbank. The banks were packed with people, even more than on the street.
The people gathered here were mostly refugees who had just settled down in Huangzhou, received land and houses, and finally had new hope.
On the Lantern Festival, thinking of those deceased or separated relatives, wondering where they are still suffering, the riverbank was filled with sobs and prayers.
Each river lantern bears an inscription of their longing or sorrow, filling the entire river surface.
"Master, Madam, please buy a river lantern!"
The merchants selling river lanterns could tell they were well-dressed and had a refined air about them, so they came over to strike up a conversation.
Lingyi nodded slightly, and Qin Lie took out twenty copper coins to buy two cups.
He gets what he wants by himself, never praying to the gods, nor needing their blessing.
Moved by the atmosphere today, I also released a river lantern for all the fallen soldiers of the Jizhou army, wishing them to be reborn in a peaceful and prosperous world in their next life.
After he finished, Lingyi was still writing her wishes on a pen. Taking advantage of his height, he stood openly behind her and peeked at her.
Seeing that the name of the Sixteenth Princess and Emperor Chengtai was written on it, but Xie Yu's name was not, he was somewhat satisfied. After she finished, he pretended to be curious and asked, "Why doesn't it say your Fifteenth Sister, or any other aunts?"
Lingyi was caught off guard by his question and paused for a moment before replying, "The gods in heaven are so busy. I'm afraid that having too many wishes would make me seem too greedy and backfire."
Qin Lie twitched the corners of his lips. He was naturally not satisfied with this answer. He wanted her to put him first in everything, instead of lying and hiding things from him when he had already asked.
He had originally intended to wait for her to confess herself, but it was clear that he wouldn't be able to wait that day, so he decided to expose her directly. But before he could speak, she continued, "Besides, I believe that even without divine protection, Fifteenth Sister and Aunt Liu Cui can find their own path. Just like I wouldn't write General and Huan'er's names..." Her voice was soft yet firm, "I will cherish the people around me with all my might; how could I be lazy and ask the gods for help?"
Qin Lie was taken aback by her words, then burst into a hearty laugh, his eyes sparkling like stars.
Who would dare say he was just a lecher?
His chest heaved, causing Huan'er in his arms to open her big, dark eyes and look up at him.
He ignored everything, holding Huan'er in one arm and wrapping his arm around Lingyi's waist with the other, pulling her into his embrace and kissing her deeply.
The bustling riverside, the crowded river lanterns, and the sorrowful crowds all seemed to have vanished.
At this moment, there were only dense kisses and the sticky, wet sounds of water.
Lingyi never expected him to be so reckless outside, and she was stunned for a moment before pushing him away.
Seeing her blushing so much she wanted to disappear into the ground, Qin Lie chuckled and said, "The Lantern Festival is a day for private engagements. What's so interesting about the lanterns? It's the people who are beautiful. It's common for men and women to find a secluded spot, hold hands, and kiss. If I were in the capital when I was young, instead of Jizhou, I would have kidnapped you and taken advantage of you long ago. Even now, there are plenty of couples out there. We're getting married through proper channels, so what's there to be ashamed of?"
That's true; the riverbank is neither dangerous in desolate places nor lacks any dark spots where one can hide.
Qin Lie had excellent eyesight and pointed it out to her. Sure enough, there were many young men and women being affectionate by the big rock and behind the big tree.
But that's no excuse for his recklessness! Lingyi was so angry that she didn't even care about Huan'er anymore and turned to leave.
Qin Lie followed slowly behind, carrying Huan'er, and said with a smile, "We're all disguised, no one will recognize us, but dear..."
"Say it again!" Lingyi stopped, turned around, and glared at him angrily.
He feigned an exaggerated silence, then leaned down and whispered in her ear, "I was wrong. I forgot that the princess is shy; we need to kiss her properly at night when no one is around..."
Lingyi couldn't listen any longer. She pushed away his smiling face and turned to leave, but was bumped by a boy running from the side, nearly falling. Qin Lie quickly steadied her, intending to reprimand her in a stern voice, but his gaze instantly hardened when he saw the child.
A woman ran over, sweating profusely, and apologized repeatedly: "I'm so sorry! I'm so sorry! My rascal, did he hurt the young lady?"
Unable to resist such enthusiasm, Lingyi quickly said, "He's just a child, it's nothing."
The woman thanked him profusely, then shouted "Little Stone!" and chased after him.
Lingyi straightened up, only to find Qin Lie looking at her with an extremely strange gaze.
She was still angry and didn't want to talk to him, so she was about to leave again, but he stopped her and slowly asked, "What does the princess think of those two people just now?"
This question seemed abrupt and unrelated. Lingyi asked, "What do you mean, 'how'?"
Qin Lie seemed taken aback by her question. He paused for a moment, then said, "It's nothing. I just thought that the mother and child seemed to be blessed people."
He was talking nonsense again, and Lingyi rarely mocked him, saying, "I didn't expect the general to know how to read faces."
Qin Lie chuckled: "I only know a little bit. Someone like you, Madam, is clearly a woman of great fortune. You must have already married your ideal husband, right?"
Lingyi couldn't hold back any longer. She glared at him and just wanted to get as far away from him as possible.
Huan'er, nestled in his arms, thought she had learned something extraordinary. She clapped her hands, drooling, and repeated indistinctly, "Ruyi Niangjun... Ruyi Niangjun..."
Lingyi quickly took out a handkerchief to wipe Huan'er's drool, and then adjusted the hood of his cloak. "The night breeze is too cold, let's go back."
Qin Lie responded, but did not move his feet.
Lingyi knew his intentions, after all, he had silently pressured her when he came.
Practice makes perfect, and this time she didn't even need to hesitate before offering her hand. He took it, skillfully intertwining their fingers, and smiled smugly. "Let's go home now."
Huan'er giggled, "Go home! Go home!"
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If life goes on smoothly like this, who wouldn't say that life is peaceful and serene?
However, before Qin Lie's injuries had fully healed, a letter arrived from the Prince's Palace, announcing their return to Jizhou at the end of January.
Qin Lie did not linger and immediately rushed to the border to subdue the Xiongnu who were constantly harassing the frontier.
Compared to his dream of using a "marriage alliance" to capture Erqi and his son, in this life Qin Lie has already married a princess, and Qin Hong and Qin Shen are not of enough importance, so there will be no such good opportunity again.
The Xiongnu were known for their strategy of plundering when they could win and retreating when they couldn't. Skilled on horseback and familiar with the grasslands, they were easy to defeat, but annihilating them was nearly impossible. Therefore, the Jizhou army had always prioritized defense and rarely launched offensives. But now, with the country fragmented and the situation in the Central Plains changing, Qin Lie no longer had the patience for a protracted tug-of-war with E'erqi.
After switching from defense to offense, the battle lasted for more than two years before Erqi was finally killed. The remnants of the Xiongnu were driven north of the Baihe River by Qin Lie, thus completely eliminating the major threat to Jizhou.
In the same month, before Qin Lie had returned, Qin Shiyan, the Prince of Dingbei, couldn't wait to declare himself emperor in Jizhou.
"Have you thought this through? Do you really not want to be the Crown Prince?" That night, Madam Zhen stared at Qin Xu and asked solemnly.
Qin Xu didn't hide anything from her. "No man in the world would refuse a vast empire, but..." He shook his head, "I don't want to compete with my third brother."
Madam Zhen pouted, "You're not inferior to him. Even disregarding seniority, you're a hundred times stronger than him."
Qin Xu, with his long eyebrows and handsome eyes full of tenderness, smiled gently and said, "Even so, I have more important things to do now, which is to accompany you to take good care of your pregnancy, wait together for our child to be born, love him, teach him, and watch him grow up and have children. These things will take up a lot of my energy for the rest of my life, so how can I have the mind to be that damned Crown Prince?"
"That's true." Now that Madam Zhen is six months pregnant, she has lost her previous meticulousness and become somewhat lazy.
She took Qin Xu's hand and said, "We have a long life ahead of us, and there's really no need to worry about the throne. Besides, although my third brother is a man of few words, he respects us a lot, and his wife is also very tolerant and has always been on good terms with me. She will never treat us and the children badly in the future."
Qin Xu nodded. "Since we both think this way, I will report to Father tomorrow. That way you can stop overthinking and get a good night's sleep."
Since Qin Shiyan decided to declare himself emperor, Zhen Shi has been sleeping very little.
With his elder brother having passed away early, Qin Xu was the eldest legitimate son and had managed the affairs of Ji Province for many years without ever making a mistake.
Whether it was the Zhen family or other people with ulterior motives, they immediately flocked to him, claiming that he was undoubtedly the crown prince.
The Crown Princess, the future Empress.
When Zhen thought about these things, she couldn't help but feel excited.
But after the initial excitement, he quickly calmed down. The Crown Prince was the heir apparent, and the official duties he had to handle would inevitably be several times more than those in Ji Province. Qin Xu was in poor health; could he really handle it? Moreover, even if he could, there was the highly decorated Qin Lie by his side. Although Zhen Shi had never read history books, she had heard the story of "The Prince Replaced by a Civet Cat." How cruel was the struggle for the throne?
Putting aside everything else, the example of the Liu family is right in front of us. A few years ago, the Seventh Prince and the Crown Prince fought to the death.
Zhen Shi didn't think Qin Xu and Qin Lie would follow in their footsteps, but it was inevitable that the family would never be as harmonious as before.
She used to be competitive because Qin Xu was being talked about.
At first it was because he was bedridden, and later it was because he didn't have children.
But now... she touched her belly; their child was about to be born.
She didn't ask him to rule the world; she only wanted her family to live a peaceful life, for him to accompany their children as they grew up and for her to grow old with him.
She thought this to herself, but hesitated to tell him.
Just as he said, no man in the world can resist the temptation of a vast and beautiful land.
She didn't want him to be in a difficult position because of her.
But today, he actually brought it up on his own initiative.
No matter how high-sounding his words were, she understood the real reason.
Just like those sleepless nights she tossed and turned, even though she didn't say a word, he understood.
Madam Zhen raised her head and looked closely at Qin Xu's face. The man before her was no longer the spirited man she had first met. Now he was calm and reserved, like a beautiful jade in a box with only a faint, lustrous glow, yet he still made her heart flutter as if they were meeting for the first time.
She smiled slightly, but tears welled up in her eyes. "Actually, there's something I've never told you..."
"What is it?" Qin Xu asked, slightly surprised.
"I met you long before the marriage negotiations began..."
With tears in her eyes and a smile on her face, Zhen slowly told him about her past as a young girl.
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Qin Lie returned to Jizhou in triumph, but instead of immediately paying respects to the new emperor, he went straight to the Hanmoxuan (Hanmoxuan Pavilion).
Zhao Mama and the others tacitly agreed to prepare hot water in advance so that the couple, who hadn't seen each other for months, could have a good time together.
But... after a long while, Qin Lie muttered in dissatisfaction, "Why were there only two?"
He was referring to sheep intestines. Last year, he discovered the princess was secretly taking contraceptives and was immediately furious. He only calmed down after hearing her reasons. No man would complain about having too many children, especially someone from a prominent family like theirs. It wasn't like they couldn't afford to raise them; more sons meant a greater chance of success, and there would always be one to inherit the family business. He was no exception, but thinking of the princess's difficult pregnancy and childbirth, he still felt a pang of sympathy.
Moreover, he could only come back in his spare time these past two years and could not stay by the princess's side for long. He might not even be able to come back when she gave birth.
With this in mind, he accepted the princess's plan for contraception.
However, taking medicine is harmful to the body, so he shamelessly asked a few veteran soldiers for help, and finally got some sheep casings from their lovers.
I made a fool of myself at first, not knowing that these things needed to be soaked in advance before use, and I tried to use them anyway, almost hurting myself.
Moreover, it was not easy to find sheep casings that fit his size, so he had to swallow his pride and ask someone to make them for him.
Sheep casings are hard to find, and even more troublesome to use.
If he were at home, he could prepare the large bowl early in the morning and soak the ingredients for the evening's meals.
Once he is away on campaign and returns eager to enjoy his company, the princess will need to make preparations in advance.
He really went to great lengths to get her to agree, coaxing, pleading, and making promises until she blushed and agreed.
But this also gave her the opportunity to "cut corners." She used to only prepare one, and it took a lot of persuasion to get her to change it to two.
He had been gone for almost half a year, and he was as hungry as a wolf. If you looked at him at night, his eyes would practically be shining.
I wrote her a letter specifically asking her to prepare more, but she still came back with only two, which was obviously intentional.
General Qin always believed in the saying, "Heaven never seals off all paths; how can we be defeated by such a setback?"
After much coaxing and pleading, she finally relieved herself using other methods and left Hanmoxuan feeling refreshed the next day.
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Qin Lie had planned to visit his father, the newly enthroned emperor, but was stopped at the gate by Granny Qian, so he went to the old lady's courtyard first.
The aroma of tea wafted through the air, but he had no time to savor it. His sharp eyes were fixed on the old lady as he asked, "Is this Grandmother's... or Father's idea?"
He didn't call him "Father Emperor" or even "Father King," and the old lady understood his choice. She sighed, "She's just a woman. Are you really going to give up this easily attainable position of Crown Prince for her?"
Qin Lie corrected her, "She is not 'a woman,' but my lawfully wedded wife, the mother of my own flesh and blood."
The old lady reminded her, "But she was also a princess of the old dynasty!"
Qin Lie scoffed: "Grandmother, has our Qin family ever treated her like a princess?"
The old lady was speechless for a moment, then explained the situation to him clearly: "The Liu family has ruled for a hundred years. Even though only the Southern Dynasty's Chengtai and the Seventh Prince remain as male descendants of Emperor Jiahe, how many princesses have married? How many princes have taken wives? Their descendants and relatives are countless. These people are like a densely woven net, with deeply entrenched influence in the capital and the provinces. It's impossible to eradicate them completely. If she becomes the Crown Princess, those resentful collateral branches of the Liu family will definitely use this as an excuse. Then, guess who those opportunistic ministers will support?! Besides, you're attacking the capital under the guise of avenging Hui Niang, which will win you some popular support. But if your Crown Princess is a princess from the previous dynasty, wouldn't it make you a laughingstock?"
Qin Lie said arrogantly, "The so-called popular support is nothing more than the victor taking all. Whoever gives them peace and quiet will be their support. They are really nothing to fear."
Seeing that the old lady was still trying to persuade him, Qin Lie sighed softly and said with regret, "Grandmother, before today, I thought you liked her very much."
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