Chapter 87
In May, Chu Qin rushed back to the capital, exhausted.
He left the capital with the imperial edict and the mission. After washing up at home, he immediately changed into official uniform and went to the palace to report.
He had reported back once last year and came again this year. Practice makes perfect and he was no longer nervous when talking to the emperor face to face.
After the report was finished, Chu Qin breathed a sigh of relief.
He has been traveling for more than half a year and didn't go home for the Chinese New Year when the family would reunite. This time he can have a good rest at home and celebrate his sister's birthday. It's worth his hard work on the road.
As it turned out, he relaxed too early.
The emperor's attitude was very amiable and approachable, and he began by praising her: "My dear minister, you are truly a pillar of the country."
Just as he said this, Chen Jiu handed over the imperial edict, "Master Chu, please accept it."
Chu Qin: ???
What's this familiar bad feeling?
Suddenly realizing something, Chu Qin looked at Chen Jiu with a look of horror: No way? I just got back!
Even donkeys are not used like this!
Chen Jiu obviously also felt that the emperor's decision was a bit of a trap, and his eyes looking at Chu Qin were gradually filled with sympathy and pity: Lord Chu, stop struggling.
Chu Qin: “…”
He accepted the imperial edict with a dull face, opened it and saw that he was still an imperial envoy, but the destination had been changed to the north.
There was a slight snowstorm in the north this year, so the emperor asked him to go over and investigate, arrest any corrupt officials, and redress any grievances.
From the south of the Yangtze River to the north, from floods to snowstorms, he is just a tool, moving wherever he is needed.
No, you can't think like that.
He is a subject, and he should do whatever the emperor tells him to do!
Chu Qin silently repeated "loyalty to the emperor and patriotism" and "the emperor's power is supreme" ten times to convince himself.
To be honest, not everyone can do the job of imperial envoy. At least he has to be the emperor's most trusted minister.
From this perspective, he should be considered a close minister to the emperor, right? It is this kind of closeness that somewhat wastes the ministers.
Chu Qin's figure looked even more vicissitudes of life as he left.
The emperor watched, his conscience aching, and he muttered to himself, "Did I go too far?"
If Chen Jiu had not been afraid of offending the emperor and losing his head, he would have said to him on the spot: You know that too!
But he was too afraid to do so, and could only say against his conscience, "It's because the Emperor values him."
The emperor had little conscience to begin with, so when someone brought some stairs, he immediately descended them: "Yes, I think so highly of him, he should be grateful!"
As he spoke, he began to believe it, and there was a hint of pride in his tone.
Chen Jiu's eyes twitched slightly. He was so grateful. Did you let him wander outside for nearly a year?
Do you want this kind of gratitude given to you?
The emperor had no idea what his personal eunuch was complaining about. Just as he had solved one problem, he thought of another difficult one: "What has the queen been doing these days?"
Chen Jiu's expression froze and he stammered, not daring to answer.
Seeing his performance, the emperor had no idea, "The Queen is still writing a storybook?"
Ever since the Queen visited Chu Huan, it was as if her Ren and Du meridians had been opened up. She kept asking people to buy the storybooks on the market and also started writing her own storybooks.
Before she got married, the queen was a talented girl. She could write articles and poems with ease, and the emperor collected quite a few of her works.
This time, he wrote the story in a secretive manner and did not let others see it.
The emperor was really curious, so he sent people to investigate. However, the people in Kunning Palace acted as if they were guarding against thieves, keeping their mouths shut and not leaking any information.
He sent people to collect the waste paper that the queen used to write her storybooks, but it turned out that all the waste paper had been burned. So for so long, he didn't know what storybooks the queen was writing.
He had hoped that Chu Huan would reveal something while she was eating melons, but unfortunately Chu Huan's mind was full of studies and she hadn't eaten melons much in the past few months.
Maybe Chu Qin was in a good mood after returning, so Chu Huan ate melon today and also ate the queen's melon.
The emperor was so excited that he didn't notice Lin You's hesitant expression: "Quick, present it."
The report begins with a conversation between Chu Huan and Hong Mei.
Chu Hua: "Have you heard of any popular novels recently?"
Chu Huan was busy with her studies and had no time to read storybooks, but the maids in her yard could read them. Occasionally, they would tell her a story when she was free, so that she could understand the customs of the capital.
Hongmei is one of the best among them. All her motivation to learn to read and write comes from reading storybooks.
"There are some popular books, but they are not as good as the ones written by the young lady. They are boring."
Chu Huan: [Tong'er, what's going on? It's been four or five months since the Queen returned from my visit, and she still hasn't written down the storybook?]
The system checked: [Let me see... ah, got it.]
[In the first month, the Queen read many popular storybooks on the market, learning from them until she grew tired of the routines.]
The following month, the Queen began writing a storybook. However, due to her lack of experience, her writing was clumsy, often with no clear beginning or end, and the logic was inconsistent. She herself was disgusted by it and burned all the used paper, not allowing anyone else to read it.
Chu Huan had been through that period before, so she could understand: [Newbies are like this. The first book is a little more difficult. When writing, I'm filled with enthusiasm and stay up all night. I'm very motivated. I feel that I'm talented and this book will be a hit!]
After writing it, I look back at it after a while and find that it's not well written here, that it needs improvement there, and it's the kind of dark history that I can't bear to look at, the kind that I wish I could destroy and erase.
The system saw something and laughed: [Hey—you're right! The Queen revised it after writing it, but unfortunately there were too many loopholes. After half a month of revisions, she still couldn't fix it. In a rage, she burned it.]
Chu Huan suspected that the Queen just wanted to destroy her dark history, and she had evidence.
In order to save face for the Queen, I won't tell everyone about it.
Chu Hua: [And then?]
System: [The Queen learned her lesson. She felt that she was a novice and had made a mistake by writing a long article on her first try. So, she tried writing a short article the second time.]
[The previous book was burned, but the Queen had a good memory and some of the plots she had written were still in her mind, so she wrote down the parts she thought were better, and it became a fragmented story of abuse.]
Then, I added a few more things here and there, and it became a short story. The storyline was written, and the logic was coherent, but the rhythm wasn't quite right.
Chu Huan didn't care about the rhythm. What interested her most was the fact that the emperor was abused in the story.
In a feudal society where the monarch holds absolute power, who would dare to write about the Supreme Being and torture her so harshly? There is only one Empress in the world, and if you miss this opportunity, you will miss it!
Chu Huan urged, "What's the plot? Tell me more!"
The tone clearly shows that they want to watch the show.
At that time, everyone in the Chu family put down their work.
Everyone held their breath, wanting to know how the emperor was tortured, even the fifth prince and Chu Qin were no exception.
The old master's butt was even stuck to the stool. If he missed such an interesting thing, he would definitely regret it for the rest of his life!
Even if the emperor comes today, he can't separate him from the stool!
System: [Over the past twenty years, the Queen has suffered the pain of love and knows that torturing someone requires both physical and mental effort. This can be considered as incorporating all of her own personal experiences into this.]
Modern, often melodramatic, abusive stories usually involve the female protagonist, with incidents like miscarriage, car accidents, and kidney and uterine removal. These methods wouldn't work on men in ancient times, so the empress would create a sickly figure for the emperor, making him cough when the wind blows and have a fever when the weather gets cold, like a porcelain doll.
[In terms of heartbreak, he was unable to marry his beloved due to his frail health, and could only watch her marry his own eldest brother. Every day, he watched his eldest brother and his wife affectionately under the same roof, and he felt sad.]
This sadistic writing routine sounds good, with both physical and emotional torture arranged in place. The specific plot will depend on the queen's writing skills, whether she can make readers empathize with the story and make them cry.
Chu Huan didn't have much time, otherwise she could have asked the system to read this part of the story from beginning to end, so that she could appreciate the masterpiece of the emperor's physical and mental torture.
There was no way. This storybook would definitely be difficult to publish, and she couldn't even buy it with money.
What a pity.
Chu Hua: [Isn't the character design of this sister-in-law based on the Queen herself?]
System: [No.]
Chu Huan was shocked: [What a shame! If anyone reads this, they'll regret marrying the emperor and cuckolding him. Uncle-sister-in-law literature, how exciting.]
Everyone: “…” Indeed, what a pity, cough cough cough.
Well, this idea is a bit outrageous.
Fortunately, even the system cannot detect their inner thoughts, so as long as they don't say it out loud, everything will be fine.
When the emperor saw this, his face turned pale. What a pity!
I don’t know how he offended this little girl. She is still interested in his cuckold as always!
No matter how angry you are, you still have to continue reading the report.
System: [With the experience of the previous book, the Queen seemed much more at ease when writing the second one.]
Dissatisfied with the cookie-cutter stories on the market, and disgusted by the fact that her own storytelling had also fallen into the same vicious cycle, she decided to take a different approach and create something fresh.
While thinking about a new story, she heard about a minister's wife having a difficult childbirth. The queen had a flash of inspiration: why is childbirth only painful for women? So, she added a setting where a boy gives birth.
Chu Hua: ???
Chu Huan:!!!
[Wow——This setting is so fashionable! ]
I'm not surprised that a modern author would come up with a male child, but this is ancient times, and the queen's idea is so advanced that it must be encouraged!
One person and one unified were in the middle of a conversation, and Chu Huan couldn't clap, so the system applauded for her for three seconds.
Chu Huan's curiosity was about to overflow: [Is it only the emperor who has children, or do all men have children?]
System: [Both are born.]
Chu Hua: [How can a man give birth to a child?]
System: [The Queen didn't describe it in detail, but through some obscure descriptions, it seems that it came out of a chrysanthemum.]
Chu Huan tried to hold back, but couldn't help herself: [Hahahaha! The Queen is so talented, hahahaha!]
She could fully simulate and understand the queen's mental journey. After all, men and women have different physiological structures. Without a caesarean section, there is no other place to be imagined except the anus.
But it’s still okay for chrysanthemums to give birth to children, hahahaha!
Chu Huan couldn't stop laughing, and the system also laughed synchronously. For a moment, everyone's ears were filled with the devilish hahaha laughter.
At that moment, all the men in the Chu family felt a dull pain in a certain part of their body.
The emperor was even more puzzled.
A man giving birth? A chrysanthemum giving birth? Is this a bizarre arrangement that his queen could come up with?
Chu Huan finally stopped laughing and returned to the topic: [Come to think of it, isn't it the setting of female-dominated novels that men give birth to children? Could this be the first female-dominated novel in Dasheng?]
System: [There are still some differences.]
Generally speaking, the setting of female-dominant literature is that the man and woman are swapped, with the woman in power and the man taking care of the family. However, in the Empress's story, the man is still in power, but he has the additional setting of giving birth to children.
Chu Huan summarized: [So, a man is responsible for both earning money to support the family and carrying the baby for ten months? Is there such a good thing?]
The system agreed: [I also think this setting is good, but it's not very friendly to women with strong career ambitions.]
Chu Huan didn't think there was anything wrong with it: "It's just based on Dasheng's current situation, transferring the difficulty and pain of pregnancy and childbirth to men. There's not much change. It's a partial combination of ideals and reality."
If this setting is realized, girls will be liberated, and men will never be able to say such frivolous words as "Isn't it just giving birth to a child?"
System: [What a pity, it's just a plot from a storybook.]
Chu Huan: [Yeah, what a pity.]
The men all shook their heads. No! It's not a pity! They don't want to have children!
The emperor didn't feel sorry, he just thought it was outrageous.
He said that in the past, the queen would never hide her good articles and poems, so why did she hide them after writing the storybook? It turned out that she wrote him into the storybook, in that way!
The emperor's face twisted when he thought about how he used chrysanthemums to give birth to children in the storybook.
He wanted to destroy the outrageous script, but considering that the queen had a way to vent her emotions, which was better than keeping those negative emotions in her heart, he had no choice but to compromise.
In the end, he was the one who was wronging the queen.
Forget it, the queen wrote the storybook but didn’t show it to anyone else.
If he really insisted on destroying the Queen's script, the two would definitely quarrel, and the consequences would be even worse.
Moreover, this is not entirely a disadvantage.
Although it was a bit outrageous, this was a rare opportunity since the last unpleasant incident in Kunning Palace, so the emperor still went to Kunning Palace to find the queen with a report.
The emperor's main purpose was to play the victim in an attempt to win the queen's attention, but unfortunately the queen's attention was only on Chu Huan and the system's comments.
I thought her idea was bold enough, but it turned out not to be advanced enough.
That’s right, there have been women who ascended the throne as emperors in history, so why are men still emperors in her novels?
She is narrow-minded!
The queen secretly clenched her fists: She must keep up the good work!
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