Chapter 49
A few days later, the third princess set out on her journey to marry.
The wedding procession was huge, and the dowry stretched for miles, with gold, silver, jewelry, silk and brocade, which was very impressive.
After all, it is a marriage between two countries, representing peace, so it must be grand.
The princess stood in the crowd and watched from afar as the third princess boarded the carriage.
The third princess was dressed in red and seemed to have lost a lot of weight.
A gust of wind blew and blew away the veil covering the third princess's face. The princess saw that the third princess's face was as pale as paper and her eyes were empty, as if her soul had been taken away long ago.
The emperor personally brought his concubines, princesses and princes to see the bride off, showing that he attached great importance to the event.
All the ministers were delighted and praised him endlessly.
The gongs, drums, firecrackers and joyful atmosphere made the people watching the fun smile.
The princess caught a glimpse of a plain figure among the concubines.
Concubine Rou stood at the very edge, quietly watching the departing convoy, without a trace of light in her eyes.
The third princess left, carrying her feelings and emotions that no one knew about, and disappeared in the vast wind and snow.
Her sacrifice brought a period of peace.
The emperor, however, was still obsessed with the green smoke from the alchemy furnace, praying for immortality.
*
The sunflowers outside the window are in full bloom, and the petals are falling on the desk in the wind.
The princess held her chin and looked out the window, her fingertips unconsciously stroking the almanac on the table.
Today is her coming-of-age day, but the entire palace seems to have forgotten about it.
"Princess!"
Jiang Jiang's voice came from behind. When the princess turned around, a sachet embroidered with ginger was handed to her.
The sachet was made of ordinary brocade, with stitches so fine that they were almost invisible. The lavender tassels swayed gently with Jiang Jiang's trembling fingers.
"My skills are not very good, please don't despise me, Princess." Jiang Jiang lowered her head, and the tips of her ears turned red.
When the princess took the sachet, her fingertips accidentally touched Jiang Jiang's hand.
At that moment, she felt her heart beating so fast that it seemed like it was about to burst out of her chest.
The sachet emits a light medicinal aroma and is a recipe for calming the nerves.
"I like it very much!" The princess held the sachet against her chest, her voice trembling slightly.
She suddenly thought of something and grabbed Jiang Jiang's wrist fiercely, "Jiang Jiang, you won't leave me, right?"
Jiang Jiang was stunned, but soon figured it out.
According to palace rules, palace maids can leave the palace and get married when they reach the age of twenty, and she is already twenty-one this year.
"I promised the princess!" Jiang Jiang gently shook the princess's hand, "I will always be with you."
The princess then smiled, with a slight redness in the corners of her eyes.
She tied the sachet around her waist and turned it around for Jiang Jiang to see.
"Princess, you are very beautiful!" Jiang Jiang praised, making the princess giggle.
Two years passed in a flash like this.
The emperor completely forgot her existence.
In addition, the princess and Jiang Jiang often stayed at home, and many palace people forgot that there was a fifth princess in the harem.
The seventeen-year-old princess sat in front of the bronze mirror, looking at Jiang Jiang who was combing her hair.
In the morning light, Jiang Jiang's profile is particularly gentle, and her drooping eyelashes cast a small shadow under her eyes.
She suddenly wanted to reach out and touch the shadow.
"Princess, your hair is done!" Jiang Jiang looked up and met the princess's burning gaze, and was stunned.
The princess hastily looked away, feeling a surge of pain in her chest.
This feeling was becoming increasingly difficult to suppress, but she didn't dare to say it out loud. She was afraid of scaring Jiang Jiang and ruining everything she had.
At night, the princess tossed and turned in bed.
She took out the sachet from under her pillow and sniffed it gently.
Two years have passed, the fragrance has long faded, but the embroidery thread is still as bright as new.
A bold idea took shape in her mind.
…
Three days later, an inspector of the Imperial Astronomical Bureau mentioned in the court that there were strange phenomena in the sky, indicating that yin was stronger than yang.
The Supervisor said that it was God's instruction that the adult princesses in the harem needed to leave the palace and establish their own residences in order to balance the royal fortune.
After hearing this, the emperor agreed.
When asked which princess in the harem had reached the age of marriage, the palace maids answered one by one. The emperor then remembered the princess. Because he was busy making elixirs and asking for advice from immortals, he casually gave her a house in the south of the city.
On the day they moved into the princess's mansion, the princess excitedly took Jiang Jiang around to visit.
"Jiang Jiang, you said you like sunflowers, so I planted sunflowers in this yard!"
"This place is spacious, I can practice my boxing and kicking!"
"Your room is here, right next to mine!"
The princess chattered incessantly, her eyes shining as if filled with stars.
Jiang Jiang forced a smile in response, but her eyes remained on the princess's bright smiling face.
She didn't tell the princess that she liked sunflowers, mainly because the princess was as bright and dazzling as the flowers and was her sun.
The princess is now seventeen years old, an age when ordinary noble ladies would have been engaged long ago.
If one day the Emperor suddenly decided to arrange a marriage for the princess...
"Jiang Jiang, why don't you speak?" The princess came closer, with a faint fragrance on her body.
Jiang Jiang lowered her eyes. "I was just wondering if there aren't enough servants in this mansion."
The princess waved her hand nonchalantly, "No problem, it's just a nice quiet time!"
What's more, having you is enough.
The princess didn't say the rest of this out loud. She pulled Jiang Jiang's hand and said, "Come on, I'll take you to see what's in the backyard!"
Jiang Jiang let the princess lead the way, but her heart was heavy.
She was just a servant, and all she had to do was serve and protect the princess.
*
In the imperial palace, the hall was filled with smoke all day long.
The emperor is obsessed with cultivating immortality and refining elixirs. In order to refine the elixir of immortality he desires, he has not attended court for many days.
The Taoists kept in the temple wore robes embroidered with the Bagua pattern and circled around the alchemy furnace all day long. The air was filled with the pungent smell of sulfur and cinnabar.
A Taoist priest who called himself Xuanyang Zhenren presented a pill called "Buyang Pill". After trying the pill, the sick eunuch became radiant and energetic.
The emperor was very pleased and immediately ordered him to be in charge of refining elixirs and promised him the position of imperial teacher.
For a time, Master Xuanyang became a new noble in the court. Princes and ministers vied to curry his favor, and gold, silver, and jewelry were sent into Master Xuanyang's residence like water.
The Taoist priest became increasingly arrogant and even refused to accept a visiting card from the Prime Minister's residence.
However, the good times did not last long.
Because of his arrogance, he offended many people. Someone exposed that Xuan Yang Zhenren had stolen other people's prescriptions. The emperor was furious and conducted a thorough investigation. He found out that the Bu Yang Dan was actually a residual prescription stolen from a pharmacist named Lin.
The furious emperor executed the entire clan of the Taoist priest, but he became very interested in the pharmacist Lin, so he sent people to investigate.
The spies reported that Pharmacist Lin behaved strangely, often dissecting corpses late at night and using various strange prescriptions to treat terminally ill patients.
What is even more amazing is that many patients who were sentenced to death by other doctors were cured by him.
What excited the emperor the most was that this person had also been researching the elixir of immortality for more than twenty years.
The emperor couldn't wait to summon Pharmacist Lin into the palace.
Faced with the fanatical expectations of the emperor, Pharmacist Lin knew that immortality was nothing but an illusion, but he had to pretend to study it.
He knew that if he refused, he would face a fate even more tragic than that of Master Xuanyang.
At the same time, the princess and Jiang Jiang, who had left the palace, were shocked to realize that the peaceful and prosperous times within the palace walls were nothing but an illusion.
Skinny beggars can be seen everywhere on the streets, and there are often starving people on the roadside.
In the magnificent restaurant, the powerful and wealthy spent money lavishly, while in the alley across the wall, a mother was selling her children for half a rotten steamed bun.
…
When the princess was eighteen years old, the border war broke out again.
The Xiongnu cavalry broke through the border, burning, killing and looting.
Refugees flocked to the capital like a tide, but were stopped outside the city walls. They had no choice but to sleep in the wilderness and survive by digging grass roots and peeling tree bark.
The princess sent people to set up soup kitchens to provide relief, but it was just a drop in the bucket.
"Isn't it said that a marriage alliance can ensure peace for decades? Now that the war has started, my third sister..." The princess looked towards the north with a frown.
Jiang Jiang secretly sent someone to investigate and learned that the third princess was in a difficult situation in the Xiongnu.
Now that the war has resumed, life and death are uncertain.
The two of them sat in silence, and could only pray in their hearts for the third princess who was far away in a foreign land.
In this absurd world, the worries of the princess and Jiang Jiang seem so insignificant, yet so real.
*
Inside the imperial palace, wisps of green smoke swirled up from the gilded incense burner, mixed with the unique bitter smell of elixir, filling every corner of the palace.
The emperor was reclining on the dragon-patterned couch, his once majestic face now covered in a sickly flush, his cloudy eyes fixed on the urgent border report in his hand.
His skinny fingers suddenly trembled violently, and the parchment was crumpled into a ball in an instant.
"Waste! All of you waste!" The hoarse roar startled the eunuchs waiting outside the hall and made them kneel on the ground.
He suddenly swept the teacup on the table to the ground, and celadon fragments flew everywhere.
"Issue an order! General Li was headstrong and reckless, leading to the rash defeat of a hundred thousand strong armies, the loss of three states on the border, and the devastation of the people! The entire Li family must be executed!"
Three days later, the bloodstains on the bluestone slabs of Caishikou had not yet dried, and the newly appointed general was already kneeling in front of the palace, trembling with fear, waiting for the emperor's order.
The veteran, who was over 50 years old, had his forehead pressed against the cold floor tiles, and his official uniform on his back was already soaked with cold sweat.
He clearly remembered how the 137 people in General Li's mansion were taken to the execution ground, and he also remembered General Li's head with his eyes wide open hanging on the city gate.
At the same time, the capital city was still immersed in a false prosperity.
On Zhuque Street, there was an endless stream of sedan chairs carrying dignitaries, the silk shops were in short supply of satins, and the sounds of stringed instruments drifted from the teahouses and taverns.
The court officials tacitly put the emergency memorials at the border at the bottom of the box, and only said auspicious words about good weather and good harvest when they went to court every day.
As the emperor listened to these reports, a satisfied smile appeared on his sallow face. He turned around and went back into the alchemy room.
Not far from the princess's mansion in the south of the city, a long line began to form since early morning.
The ragged refugees held broken bowls and stared at the simple awning.
The princess wore a plain cotton dress and personally served porridge to the people who had left their homes.
Her slender wrists trembled under the weight of the heavy wooden spoon, but she refused to let anyone else do it.
Jiang Jiang stood behind her, wiping the sweat from her forehead from time to time, the heartache in her eyes almost overflowing.
"I heard that three prefectures in the north have been lost." An old man with a dusty face, after barely filling his stomach, sat on the ground and sighed, tears welling in his cloudy eyes. "Those barbarians kill everyone they see, even infants..."
He had fled from the north and had witnessed the Huns burning, killing and looting, and had barely managed to save his life.
The princess's hand suddenly shook and the hot porridge almost spilled.
She thought of her third sister who married the Huns four years ago.
That night, Jiang Jiang found out the news and told it to the princess, who completely collapsed.
Because the Huns tore up the contract, they took the lead in torturing the third princess to death.
The princess curled up on the bed, buried her face deep in the quilt, and her tears soaked a large piece of silk.
Jiang Jiang stayed by the bed, listening to the suppressed sobs, her nails digging deep into her palms without her noticing.
The next morning, news came from the palace that Concubine Rou had passed away.
It is said that she committed suicide by hanging. When she was found, her body was hanging from the beam, but she was still tightly holding a faded sachet in her hand.
The successive news made the princess heartbroken.
She cried bitterly over the unfair fate of her third sister and Concubine Rou, but she was even more saddened by the fact that she could not control her own fate.
She sat by the window all day, staring at the flowers in the yard that were gradually withering.
The food that was delivered was hot, then cold, then cold, then hot again, and finally taken away unopened.
Jiang Jiang was so anxious that blisters appeared on the corners of her mouth, but she could only stroke the princess's thin shoulders again and again, comforting her softly as if she were coaxing a child.
*
In the imperial palace, Pharmacist Lin was staring at a strange, pitch-black rock in a daze.
The surface of this strange rock that fell from the sky is covered with honeycomb-like holes, and it emits a strange metallic luster under the candlelight.
Three months ago, a meteor suddenly fell over the capital, and that night this strange stone suddenly appeared in the suburbs.
Unlike ordinary stones, this stone fell from the sky and looks strange. People call it an item that accidentally dropped from the divine realm.
The emperor was so excited that he immediately sent someone to transport the stone back to the palace.
In the past three months, Pharmacist Lin has used this "magic stone" to refine twelve furnaces of elixirs, and twenty-three palace servants have been carried out to test the medicine.
The emperor's health was deteriorating.
The dragon robe that once fitted him now hung loosely on his body, and his exposed wrists were covered with purple spots.
He had taken a lot of pills indiscriminately, and his body was now at the end of its rope.
After he angrily smashed the head of the eighth censor who suggested suspending the alchemy with a teacup, he gave Pharmacist Lin an ultimatum.
“Your Majesty, in order to refine an elixir of immortality suitable for you, you need to mix it with the blood of a real dragon…” Pharmacist Lin knelt on the ground, his voice trembling uncontrollably.
He knew he was playing with fire. This was just his guess. Using the emperor's blood to make elixir was disrespectful.
But he still wanted to give it a try, even though he knew it might not end well.
However, he sent someone to secretly send his wife and children out of the capital at night. Looking at the carriage disappearing into the night, this usually calm doctor finally burst into tears.
The next day, when Pharmacist Lin entered the palace holding the refined pill, a hint of madness flashed in the emperor's dim eyes.
Out of instinct, he still wanted to find someone to test the medicine on.
When Pharmacist Lin tried to dissuade the emperor from using medicine by subtly pointing out that people have different physiques and the effects of elixirs are different, the emperor misunderstood.
He actually started to think crazily that only his blood relatives could bring out the best effects of the elixir.
He didn't have many princes to begin with, and he needed them to continue his lineage, so the emperor turned his attention to the princesses.
The elixir is so precious that only clean and pure people can try it.
When the old eunuch beside him whispered in his ear about the various princesses, the emperor's eyes lit up when he heard about the fifth princess, and his cracked lips suddenly stretched into a strange smile.
"Come here, summon the Fifth Princess to the palace!"
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