Chapter 74 Welcoming the Emperor (2)
Magistrate Meng was also anxious. Having a small household had its advantages, but now he needed people urgently and couldn't find any.
Just as the two were getting anxious, Meng Guanqi, having finished his bath, emerged from the right-hand side room. Seeing that Magistrate Meng had also come out, he was startled: "Father, what brings you here? Where is His Highness the Crown Prince?"
Looking at his parents and servants standing neatly in the front yard, his heart sank. Wasn't this leaving the Crown Prince alone in the inner courtyard?
Magistrate Meng's eyes lit up when he saw his son: "Qi'er, you've come at the right time. Xiaoxiao's report was unclear. Tell your father what happened and why His Highness the Crown Prince came back with you."
Meng Guanqi had no choice but to keep it brief, briefly recounting how he descended from Wanshan Academy, encountered a rainstorm on the way and took shelter in a dilapidated temple, and how he unexpectedly met the Crown Prince.
Magistrate Meng's eyes were deep: "Even if the Crown Prince goes on an incognito tour, he will have no fewer than thirty guards by his side. Now there are only two left. I'm afraid the crisis is not over yet. I will go and tell all the yamen runners to come back and guard outside the courtyard. Before the Qingzhou Guards arrive, His Highness the Crown Prince must not be harmed in our house."
Meng Guanqi felt a chill run down his spine; the relief he had felt at having shaken off his pursuers once he got home vanished without a trace.
Magistrate Meng ordered Steward Zhao: "Go to Huichun Hall and Jimin Hall and invite the most skilled doctors to wait in the front yard to treat the esteemed guest. I will now instruct Shi Yi to recall all the yamen runners who have finished their work. We will have to keep watch all night and make sure that Eunuch Wan returns with his troops to safely hand over His Highness the Crown Prince."
Steward Zhao's expression turned serious, and he quickly went out to find a doctor.
Magistrate Meng then instructed Liu: "Since there is no suitable candidate in the Crown Prince's household, why not let Li Xiaoxiao go?"
Meng Guanqi was taken aback: "Go where?"
Upon learning that he was to serve the Crown Prince during his bath, Meng Guanqi's heart tightened, and he blurted out, "No way!"
Magistrate Meng and Lady Liu both looked over at the same time: "Why not?"
Meng Guanqi panicked and her face flushed red: "Xiaoxiao, where has she ever done such delicate work? Besides, she's strong and doesn't know her own strength. Not only will she fail to serve the Crown Prince properly, but she'll also offend him..."
Upon hearing this, Madam Liu was also troubled. After all, Li Xiaoxiao originally came from a humble background as a kitchen maid, carrying water every day. Although she was later assigned to Meng Guanqi, she was used as a female guard and had never even entered Meng Guanqi's bedroom. How could she possibly understand the delicate work of serving others? What if she really offended the Crown Prince...?
Magistrate Meng said, "Go and call her here. Tell her to be careful. The Crown Prince gave the order. Can we say that we can't find anyone in the family?"
He was now worried about the safety of the Crown Prince, and such a trivial matter was not worth delaying him. After giving an order, he immediately left the front courtyard and went to the yamen to find someone.
Liu had no choice but to send Granny Qi to the inner courtyard to find Li Xiaoxiao.
Meng Guanqi felt a surge of anxiety: "I'll go take a look too." Ignoring the pain in her legs, she followed closely behind Granny Qi to the inner courtyard.
Upon hearing Granny Qi's instructions, Li Xiaoxiao was stunned: "What? You want me to serve the Crown Prince while he takes a bath?"
Holy crap, what kind of ridiculous job is this? She's already made herself look so filthy, and she still has to help people take a bath?
Granny Qi looked anxious and helpless: "If there were other people in the family, it wouldn't be your turn to do this. I know you've never done these delicate tasks before, but His Highness the Crown Prince is in the room. You must be very careful in serving him and not offend him."
Li Xiaoxiao's lips twitched as she looked at Meng Guanqi, who blurted out, "I'll go with you."
Granny Qi was taken aback: "Young Master, you—"
Meng Guanqi pulled Li Xiaoxiao towards the main room, saying, "I know you're not good at serving people, but I'll go with you. If His Highness the Crown Prince blames you, I'll take the fall..."
Granny Qi followed behind them anxiously. What was the young master up to? Did he want to bathe His Highness the Crown Prince himself? That wouldn't do. Although the Crown Prince was the master, the young master was going to take the imperial examination and become an official. He had his own integrity. How could he do such a thing?
He must be worried that Li Xiaoxiao is too clumsy to serve him properly. Granny Qi gritted her teeth and decided that she would just wait outside the washroom, ready to go in and help at any time.
Although serving the master a bath was usually the job of young maids and servants, Granny Qi was already of grandmotherly age, and the strict separation between men and women wasn't as rigid anymore...
The crown prince looked at the empty room with a puzzled expression. He had just gone to call a maid to help him bathe, but where was she? Even Magistrate Meng had left?
Footsteps sounded outside the door, indicating that someone had arrived. The Crown Prince stood up and was about to enter the washroom when he discovered that it was Meng Guanqi and Li Xiaoxiao who had come, followed by an old nanny.
The crown prince was taken aback. What was going on here?
Meng Guanqi was hesitating about how to speak to His Highness the Crown Prince when Granny Qi bowed to him and said, "Your Highness, please forgive me for being late. Xiaoxiao and I helped Your Highness bathe and change."
The prince's surprise was palpable; he had actually been given the task of having Li Xiaoxiao and an old nanny serve him while he bathed.
Where did this rule come from?
His gaze toward Li Xiaoxiao suddenly turned strange. Did Lord Meng have some deeper meaning in arranging for her to bathe him?
Could it be that you wanted to give it to him?
It's no wonder the Crown Prince had this idea. A guard with such skills as Li Xiaoxiao would never personally serve his master's daily life. In fact, he would have maids serving him, unless he became a concubine...
The Crown Prince, being the Crown Prince, couldn't possibly say it aloud, even if he thought it. Just as he was pondering how to refuse Magistrate Meng's kindness, Pang Shi, who had finished bathing earlier, came to find the Crown Prince and overheard what Granny Qi had said. He then started yelling at Li Xiaoxiao, "What? Is there no one else in your household? Why are you and an old nanny bathing His Highness the Crown Prince?"
Meng Guanqi blushed and stepped forward to explain, but Li Xiaoxiao said unhappily, "You're right, we don't have any maids in our household who are specifically there to serve others when they bathe."
She frowned and looked at Pang Shi with dissatisfaction: "Our whole family takes baths by ourselves, and we've never asked anyone for help." Her expression and eyes seemed to say, "Why do you need someone to help you take a bath when you're such a big person? Don't you have hands and feet?"
The scene fell silent instantly.
Meng Guanqi and Granny Qi broke out in a cold sweat, but they couldn't blame Li Xiaoxiao for saying that. She had only come to Biyang County after her family arrived, and she had no idea about the old rules of the mansion. When she arrived, there were hardly any servants left in the family, and Magistrate Meng and Madam Liu had to do most things themselves. So she had never seen wealthy families need maids to serve them during bathing.
But since she said it so bluntly, wouldn't His Highness the Crown Prince feel that they were neglecting him?
Pang Shi was taken aback: "Your Meng family is supposed to be a wealthy household, so why don't you even have maids to serve you while you bathe?"
Li Xiaoxiao said, "We're a poor family now. Even the young master can only eat meat once a day. Where would we get the money to support so many people?"
Granny Qi was both anxious and angry: "Xiaoxiao, you, you mustn't talk nonsense!"
Li Xiaoxiao said unhappily, "How can that be nonsense? I didn't say anything wrong... Would His Highness the Crown Prince not know that the Lord was fined? What's so strange about living a poor life..."
As she spoke, she sighed deeply: "It's a pity that the official worked so hard to save so many refugees. I thought the court would award him a plaque for being a man of great righteousness and saving people from suffering!"
The Crown Prince frowned slightly: "As far as I know, Magistrate Meng violated regulations by opening the granaries to distribute grain to rescue the refugees and also improperly arranged for them to settle down. The Ministry of Revenue only fined him half a year's salary and recorded a year's performance evaluation as a warning to others. In reality, the Imperial Envoy who was in charge of disaster relief made up for the lost silver and grain. It was already a light punishment, not a severe penalty. Do you still have any complaints about this?"
Li Xiaoxiao said, "The county government has replenished the grain, but we haven't gotten back a single penny of the money we spent on buying grain. Besides, we didn't force the refugees to stay in Biyang County. It was agreed that as long as they returned the grain they had eaten, or if any county magistrate wanted to take them in, they could be taken away by returning the grain per person. But those county magistrates who were trying to kidnap people ran away as fast as they could when they heard that they had to pay grain to ransom them. The refugees had no way to return the grain, so they had to settle in the county. Now they still owe us a lot of grain!"
The Crown Prince and Pang Shi then learned the truth about Magistrate Meng's decision to allow the refugees to settle down, and they were immediately speechless.
In their view, the court had already shown favor to Magistrate Meng. What was a half-year salary deduction? Which official in the capital hadn't been fined? Even the Grand Secretary had been fined. After the fine, he would go about his business as usual, and later, under some pretext, His Majesty would make up the fine. Nobody would take it seriously.
But to his utter surprise, the fact that Magistrate Meng had been fined half of his salary had left his family so impoverished that they couldn't even afford to support their maids. They were living worse than a wealthy household. The Crown Prince felt a pang of guilt and even felt a sense of shame.
"A clean prefect for three years, accumulating 100,000 taels of silver. Others become officials to get rich, but Magistrate Meng is so poor that he must have never taken a single tael of silver that he shouldn't have."
He was too complacent, thinking that even a branch of the Meng family, a family with a history of hundreds of years, still had some nails in a broken boat. Who would have thought that he would actually be living in such dire straits? His casual remark to send a maid to serve him during his bath had put him in a dilemma.
It's probably because they really had no other servants available that they had no choice but to call Li Xiaoxiao over.
Li Xiaoxiao wasn't satisfied yet: "It's one thing to be broke, but our young master was also—"
Meng Guanqi was shocked that Li Xiaoxiao dared to say such things in front of the Crown Prince, and immediately interrupted her, "Enough, Xiaoxiao, shut up."
He knelt down and begged the Crown Prince for forgiveness: "Your Highness, please forgive me. My father has no dissatisfaction with His Majesty's handling of the matter. To this day, we are still grateful for His Majesty's grace. No matter what the reason for the refugee incident, my father's actions still violated the laws of the Great Wu Dynasty. The court's handling of the matter is reasonable and legal. Our family has no complaints."
He paused for a moment: "Xiaoxiao comes from the countryside of Yizhou and suffered greatly from the flood. She was the only one who survived in her family. She fled with the refugees all the way to Biyang County. Therefore, she has great respect for her father who did not drive them away. She only knows half of the court's actions and not the other half, which is why she said such rebellious things. Please forgive her this time, Your Highness, in consideration of her youth and ignorance."
So that's how it is. No wonder she was indignant about the court's punishment of Magistrate Meng's salary. From her perspective, Magistrate Meng, who was willing to distribute porridge and take in refugees, was her savior. As a result, her savior was punished without any reward, and she had been holding back her anger for a long time. It just so happened that Pang Shi complained that her family did not have a maid to serve the master when bathing, so she said such things to her in a fit of anger.
The Crown Prince sighed inwardly and helped Meng Guanqi up: "She is right, so what crime has she committed? Lord Meng is of noble character and lives a simple life, which is only natural for me."
Meng Guanqi immediately said, "It was our fault for not taking good care of you. What wrong has Your Highness done? If Your Highness does not mind, I am willing to personally serve Your Highness during your bath."
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