Chapter 71: The Lament of the Tenth Master, the Lazybones...
The Imperial Concubine was attending to the ailing Empress Dowager at Cining Palace, so Yin'e couldn't go out to play. Now that the Empress Dowager was seriously ill, it would be inappropriate for him to go out and run wild in the palace.
Unable to leave the house, Yin'e could only stay in Yongshou Palace to receive formal education and spend his time studying.
Yes, in the afternoon, the Imperial Concubine went out to Cining Palace to attend to the sick, and Yin'e also had to stay in Yongshou Palace to study for at least an hour. He was to be introduced to the literacy of the palace maids specially found by the Imperial Concubine, and learn to recognize and write characters. He could not slack off just because it was his birthday and relax for a day without learning anything.
Compared to the other princes, Yin'e's education did not begin very early. He only officially began his education at the beginning of this year, at about three and a half years old.
Under the influence of Emperor Kangxi, who was known for his rigorous parenting style, most princes began their formal education at the age of three.
The earliest princes, such as the Crown Prince and the Fourth Prince, began their education before the age of three, laying a solid foundation early on and studying the Four Books and Five Classics earlier than other princes.
The last one to start formal education was the Fifth Prince—he was at the very bottom of the list, only beginning his formal education at the age of five. Now the Fifth Prince is eight years old and has not yet completed his formal education. He does not recognize Manchu, Mongolian, or Chinese characters, nor can he write. If he were to enter the Imperial Study, he would likely give his tutors a headache for a while.
Before the Fifth Prince, princes could begin their studies with tutors as soon as they entered the Imperial Study. The tutors at the Imperial Study had never seen anyone like the Fifth Prince, who hadn't even finished his elementary education.
Yin'e was mediocre among the princes. He couldn't compare to the Crown Prince or the Fourth Prince, who had received early education, nor could he match the Third Prince's literary talent and erudition. He was also less hardworking and ambitious than the Seventh and Eighth Princes.
However, the Imperial Concubine did not have high expectations for Yin'e's studies, nor did she ever demand that Yin'e be very ambitious.
Yin'e, following the advice of others, remained true to his original aspirations, living a carefree and leisurely life like a lazy bum.
After his formal education began, Yin'e spent only one hour a day studying. The rest of the time was the same as before; he could do whatever he wanted, whether he wanted to lie down, be a couch potato, or run around and play. The Consort would not stop him.
In the early Qing Dynasty, Manchu and Mongolian languages were used more often, but after Emperor Kangxi ascended the throne, he vigorously promoted Han learning, and gradually Han language took the lead.
Now, the Manchus have gradually become accustomed to using Chinese characters in their daily lives, and Manchu and Mongolian scripts are not used as frequently as they were in the early days of the dynasty.
After formally beginning his education, Yin'e not only learned spoken Mongolian, but also how to recognize and write Manchu, Mongolian, and Chinese characters.
When he was only learning spoken Mongolian and Manchu, Yin'e didn't think they were difficult at all. But when he started learning how to recognize and write Mongolian and Manchu, he realized what hell and torment were.
Yin'e was speechless. Why did all those Manchu characters look so strange?
Each character twists and turns, making them all look the same.
At first glance, those Manchu characters are indistinguishable; they are just a few lines haphazardly twisted into a single character. They lack both form and system, appearing chaotic and scattered, making them extremely painful to learn, driving people (especially Yin'e) to the brink of madness.
Fortunately, Yin'e didn't have to learn Chinese from scratch, so he didn't have to spend too much time and energy on learning Manchu and Mongolian.
After the Imperial Concubine left for Cining Palace in the afternoon, the Ninth Prince, who had also stayed in Yongshou Palace to take a nap with Yin'e, did not return to Yikun Palace and also began his studies with Yin'e.
The Ninth Prince also began his studies this year, learning directly with Yin'e at Yongshou Palace.
Consort Yi, who was busy taking care of Yinzhi, was very grateful to the Noble Consort and personally went to thank her. She then resumed her practice of filling the Yongshou Palace storeroom.
Yinzhi was born with a weak constitution. Although he did not need to take medicine every day to stay alive, he would fall ill with minor ailments such as headaches and fevers whenever the seasons changed or the weather changed drastically.
After the Empress Dowager fell seriously ill, Consort Yi also had to go to Cining Palace to attend to her. At the same time, she also had to take care of Yinzhi, who was not in good health. Over the past two months, she had lost a lot of weight. Of course, Consort Yi was not the one who lost the most weight; the one who lost the most weight was Imperial Noble Consort Tong.
For the past two months, Consort Tong has been running back and forth between the two places every day. She has to attend to the sick in Cining Palace and handle palace affairs. She is busy every day and has lost weight and looks haggard.
Consort Yi went to Cining Palace to attend to the ailing Prince Yinzhi, leaving Yinzhi alone in Yikun Palace. The Ninth Prince had grown up and reached the age of understanding, and he had considered being a good older brother by bringing Yinzhi to Yongshou Palace to visit Yinzhi.
However, Consort Yi was overly cautious towards the ailing Yinzhi, treating him like the apple of her eye.
Every time the Ninth Prince wanted to play with Yinzhi, Consort Yi would nag him repeatedly, telling him not to take Yinzhi to dangerous places, not to play violent games, not to scare or bully his younger brother, and especially not to let his younger brother fall and get hurt.
After Consort Yi nagged and reminded him several times, the Ninth Prince, who was already impatient, felt even more that Consort Yi was biased. His sensitive nature became stubborn, and he no longer wanted to play with Yinzhi, let alone take Yinzhi to play outside Yikun Palace.
By now, the Ninth Prince has given up on being a good older brother to Yinzhi and still goes straight to Yongshou Palace every day to find his playmate Yin'e, just like before, and doesn't spend much time with his younger brother.
But Yinzhi actually really liked playing with the Ninth Prince; it seems that little kids all like playing with older kids.
Yinzhi wasn't very attached to Consort Yi, but he really liked to stick close to the Ninth Prince.
Unfortunately, Consort Yi stood between the two brothers. The Ninth Prince's enthusiasm was dampened by Consort Yi several times, and he gradually stopped paying attention to Yinzhi.
The Ninth Prince greatly disliked Consort Yi's nagging in his ear, who was worried about Yinzhi's health and scolded him for not taking good care of his younger brother and not making him happy. It seemed that in Consort Yi's eyes, he should give in to Yinzhi and put him first in everything.
He was indeed Yinzhi's older brother, but the Fifth Prince was also their elder brother, yet the Ninth Prince had never seen Consort Yi make such a request of the Fifth Prince.
As he grew older, the Ninth Prince became increasingly aware of Consort Yi's favoritism.
But unlike before, he would never cry to Consort Yi about these things again, nor would he run away from home at the slightest disagreement because of Consort Yi's favoritism, or quarrel with Consort Yi, stubbornly waiting for Consort Yi to bow down to him first.
He simply stopped expecting anything—children in the palace always mature very early, not to mention that the Ninth Prince was also very sensitive and stubborn, and liked to retaliate in kind. He would be good to whoever was good to him.
After two quarters of an hour of Manchu lessons, the palace maid who was teaching Yin'e and the Ninth Prince paused the lesson to allow the two princes to rest for a while before continuing their studies.
Leaning back in his chair, Yin'e looked dazed. He mechanically raised his hand to rub his stiff face, feeling a chaotic mess in his head. He was completely numb, not wanting to say a word, and even breathing felt exhausting.
"Tenth Brother?" The Ninth Prince approached, his face, which had grown increasingly like Consort Yi's and was now more delicate and beautiful, filled with worry. "Are you alright? Are you feeling unwell today too?"
Learning Manchu and Mongolian every day was the most painful time for Yin'e. The Ninth Prince had become accustomed to the pain and numbness that Yin'e would show after each day's lessons.
But the Ninth Prince was still worried about Yin'e, because in his eyes the Tenth Prince was really in a bad state. He had lost all his color and was in a daze, to the point of questioning the meaning of life.
"Ah!!!" Yin'e suddenly clutched his head and howled, the sound echoing throughout the entire Yongshou Palace.
The palace servants of Yongshou Palace remained remarkably calm in the face of this. Having long been accustomed to Yin'e's daily wailing, they ignored his cries and didn't even bother to cast a glance at him.
Awakened from his numb state by the Ninth Prince's concern, Yin'e shouted wildly, "I'm not studying anymore! I'm not studying anymore! Just let me be illiterate, it won't make a difference if I'm not—I want to keep Fifth Brother company, I want to be like Fifth Brother and not go to the Imperial Study to study!"
Fifth Prince: ? Illiterate? Is that how you're making up stories about me?
The Ninth Prince was completely oblivious to Yin'e's pain. He had an exceptional talent for languages and was learning from scratch, unlike Yin'e who was more familiar with Chinese. This made his previous knowledge an obstacle.
Unlike Yin'e, who found learning Manchu and Mongolian languages like a living hell, the Ninth Prince learned them with ease and grace, as if he were born to make a living from languages.
"Tenth Brother, I don't think it's difficult at all." Ninth Prince looked at Yin'e with an innocent expression, genuinely not understanding why Yin'e thought Manchu and Mongolian were difficult to learn.
With puffed-out cheeks, Yin'e glared angrily at the Ninth Prince, snorted through his nose, and turned his head away with a cold expression: "Don't try to be my Versailles right now, or I might not be able to resist hitting you."
The Ninth Prince didn't know what Versailles meant, but this wasn't the first time he had heard the word from Yin'e's mouth. He wasn't too surprised or curious about what it meant. He just sighed and said, "Tenth Brother, your method of learning Manchu is not quite right. Let me teach you again."
"No!" Yin'e directly refused the Ninth Prince, his tone very firm.
His chubby little face puffed up, and he glared at the Ninth Prince with hostility, saying indignantly, "Is that how you teach me? You're just undermining my confidence!"
For struggling students, the greatest humiliation is asking top students for study methods. What's as easy as eating and drinking for top students is an insurmountable challenge for struggling students; they simply can't find common ground with high achievers in this area.
While it's hard to say about other aspects of the Ninth Prince, he has an exceptional talent for languages. In terms of language learning, he can truly be called a genius.
What stumped Yin'e was not anything else, but that he was used to the system and structure of the Chinese language and found it difficult to change his mindset to accept the Manchu and Mongolian scripts, which looked like musical notes, were winding and messy, and each character looked similar.
"How about we skip the lessons today?" Ninth Prince suggested, seeing that Yin'e was really uncomfortable. "Today is your birthday, it's fine to rest for a day."
Yin'e glanced blankly at the Ninth Prince, not particularly interested in the suggestion: "If I don't study today, I'll still have to study tomorrow, and I might even have to catch up. Rather than that, I'd rather suffer today."
As the saying goes, a short pain is better than a long one. If I only have to worry about studying for an hour a day, I definitely don't want to leave today's pain for tomorrow and have to suffer for two hours straight.
Blinking, the Ninth Prince couldn't think of any good ideas to help Yin'e.
He had tried many times before, but Yin'e always coldly rejected him, saying that his help was a kind of torture called "Versailles".
After thinking for a moment, the Ninth Prince changed the subject to distract Yin'e: "The Golden Banquet Festival is in two days."
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Author's note: I looked up what Manchu looks like, and all I can say is... it's extremely difficult to read (lights candle).
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