Chapter 8 Chapter 8-Burning Paper Adventure
It was indeed Meng Xu who came. A quarter of an hour later, he bowed and left the study, holding the revision suggestions for the edict sent to him by the dog emperor, and bid farewell to Qingfu gently.
Qingfu called a young eunuch and asked him to send Meng Xu back.
Seeing Meng Xu about to leave, I hurried out and said to Qingfu, "It just so happens that I also have to go to the Ministry of Personnel to deliver the draft of the daily records, so I will go out with Meng Zhushu."
Qingfu glanced at me and said, "No."
I was anxious: "Didn't you say before that it had nothing to do with me? If it's okay, why can't I go?"
Qingfu exhaled a breath of foul air and said indifferently, "His Majesty has ordered you not to leave Zichen Gate. Have you forgotten?"
I was so angry that I wanted to curse, but Meng Xu stepped forward to stop me, winked at me, and smiled, "It's not a big deal anyway. Let it go. It's just that I haven't seen Shen Qijulang for a long time. Seeing Shen Julang still so energetic, I am very moved."
Qingfu interrupted sarcastically, "She's not just full of energy, she's downright lawless. Even the goldfish in the Taiye Pond are less restless than she is."
I didn't want to pay any attention to this old eunuch. I lowered my head and tried hard to hold back my tears. "Brother Meng, the same goes for me. The Secretariat has a lot of complicated affairs. Please take care of yourself."
Meng Xu simply nodded and exchanged a few more pleasantries.
We tacitly pretended not to know each other - so as to prevent the old fox Qingfu from suspecting our relationship.
I had no choice but to send him to the entrance of the Purple Palace. When the young eunuch wasn't paying attention, he whispered to me, "The personnel situation in the Secretariat is complicated. I don't often get the chance to enter the palace. You must take care of yourself and I'll come back next time."
I also whispered, "It doesn't matter whether you come or not, just be careful not to get tricked by your colleagues. The people in the Secretariat are not easy to deal with..."
If he gets this opportunity to see the emperor, his colleagues will definitely bear grudges against him. When I was working at the Provincial History Museum, I heard a lot about the intrigues in the Secretariat and I don't have a good impression of this place.
He smiled and said, "Don't worry."
Because of Meng Xu's arrival, I exuded a happy atmosphere all day long, and even forgot about the two baskets of paper money. It was not until I returned to the house at night that I reluctantly remembered it.
The more I thought about it, the angrier I got. I decided to go against the law and commit the crime. I would rather be punished than let my father and brother live in the open.
Anyway, I have always been a person with a bad record. I have violated most of the palace rules by myself. Too many lice will not itch, so I don’t care about adding another crime now.
So I did what I said, carrying two baskets and tiptoeing out the door.
The moon is bright and the stars are sparse tonight. The weather is very good. I am even luckier. There is no one guarding the door. I walked briskly north along the wall and arrived at Hanliang Palace.
Since Li Siyan has not yet taken anyone into the harem, there are large areas of palaces north of the Imperial Street that are uninhabited and dark, which is perfect for me to do bad things.
I chose a secluded spot by the Taiye Lake to set up a fire basin. If there is any improper operation and a water leak occurs, I can quickly get water from the Taiye Lake to put out the fire. It's perfect.
After choosing a spot, I put the basket down and fished out my hidden flint from my bosom. I struck a fire while squatting in front of the two baskets and muttering, "Dad, brother, this money is for you to spend in the underworld. Don't save it. I'll fold some more for you next Qingming Festival..."
"I know I'm a terribly unfilial daughter, which is why you're unwilling to visit me in my dreams. Please don't be angry, okay... Never mind, it's okay to be angry. At least come and scold me in my dreams and let me know how you're doing down there."
"I'm not living a good life. I've got a dog emperor who not only threatens me every day, but also won't let me burn paper for you. How can there be such a wicked person in the world? But don't worry, Dad. His sins will be punished sooner or later. We'll see..."
I struck the flint, threw it into the basin of paper money, and stared at the tiny flame in a daze.
Are they doing well in the afterlife? Maybe they've been reincarnated and don't recognize me anymore...
Suddenly, a lazy voice came from behind him amidst the flickering flames, "The money for the underworld has to be folded with yellow paper to count. The underworld won't accept this random stack of rice paper."
Someone!
I was startled, grabbed the basket and threw it hard at the person's face, kicked the burning basin into Taiye Lake, and then ran south without looking back.
The whole set of movements was done in one go, like flowing water. The person behind me was covered in paper money. He was stunned for a moment and shouted coldly, "Chen Ying, stop right there!"
I had just run a few feet away when I heard the sound, my feet suddenly went weak and I almost tripped over a branch and fell to the ground.
Damn it, not only was I caught red-handed, but the person who caught me was actually the dog emperor!
In the entire inner courtyard, he is the only one who would call me by my name so impolitely.
I reluctantly stopped and turned around, only to see Li Siyan wearing a stone-blue uniform, standing with his hands behind his back under the cool moonlight, with a small paper money hanging on his head... His overall image was very consistent with the atmosphere of the Ghost Festival.
Behind him stood Qingfu with an expressionless face. When he saw me looking at him, Qingfu rolled his eyes as if to say, "I knew you were looking for death."
When it comes to weirdness and sarcasm, this master and servant are definitely of the same origin.
"Come here." Li Siyan waved at me, as if calling a little cat slave.
I didn't move, but watched him vigilantly.
He then tempted her, "Come here. I allow you to burn paper money. I'll also give you some real gold. You can burn it for whoever you want."
I took a step back and whispered, "Even if my father and brother were to beg for food in the afterlife, I wouldn't appreciate your kindness."
I am speaking from the absolute sincerity. If I dare to burn paper money for my father under the gaze of the dog emperor, my father will appear in my dream tonight, calling me a dog slave and throwing the paper money back in my face.
Li Siyan was not annoyed and said in a very good-tempered manner: "Okay, then you burn yours and I burn mine."
I suspected I had misheard and asked uncertainly, "You burn yours?"
I didn't expect the Dog Emperor to really do what he said. I stared blankly at Qingfu as he deftly set up the brazier, prepared the flint, and took out a large box of golden, high-quality paper money from behind, and presented it respectfully to the Dog Emperor.
Only then did I understand Li Siyan's purpose for appearing here. I suddenly felt that there was no justice, and I shouted at Qingfu, "Didn't you say that burning paper money is not allowed in the palace? Why can Li Siyan do it?"
Qingfu frowned and said, "What is Mr. Shen thinking? How dare he compare himself with His Majesty?"
Li Siyan added leisurely, "Don't forget, I am the emperor. Even if I demolish the inner garden, no one will dare to say a word."
Yes, he is the emperor, and what he says is what it is.
I didn't want to argue with him anymore, so I squatted down without saying a word, picked up the basket, and picked up the paper money scattered on the ground one by one.
I have been folding it for a long time, it cannot be wasted.
After picking it up, I remembered that I had just kicked the pot for lighting the fire into the Taiye Lake.
Without a basin, the paper cannot be burned.
I suddenly felt a deep sense of powerlessness. I glared at Li Siyan hatefully, picked up the basket and prepared to go back.
Li Siyan's voice lingered again: "Why are you running? Come back to me."
I ignored him and strode towards the Purple Palace, my back straight like a proud little goose.
Seeing that I still didn't turn around, he chuckled and said, "Chen Ying, if you dare to take another step, I will expel your cousin from the Imperial College. Try it?"
Here it comes again. I stopped and closed my eyes. Li Siyan, this bastard, always uses my aunt and Xiaochuan to threaten me to be obedient.
What could I do? If I disobeyed, Xiaochuan would have no schooling, and my aunt would have no income. As the undisputed master of this land, the dog emperor had plenty of ways to deal with me.
I could only move slowly to his side with a frosty and constipated look on my face and asked, "What does Your Majesty want me to do?"
The Dog Emperor looked up at me.
It was strange. He had just been threatening me arrogantly, but in the blink of an eye, his expression changed. In the flickering firelight, his face looked a little lonely.
I rarely see Li Siyan with this expression. It reminds me of the motherless puppy at Wang Niangzi's house at the corner of the alley. Every time it sees people, it barks fiercely, but if you touch its head and give it some minced meat, it will turn over its soft little belly and whimper at you, begging for a touch.
I shook my head. Although the Dog Emperor also had the word "dog" in his name, he was much more annoying than Lady Wang's dog.
I glanced at the luxurious paper money in his hand again, and suddenly remembered something. I asked uncertainly, "Are you...are you..."
I wanted to ask if you were worshiping your mother, but considering the serious consequences caused by mentioning the dog emperor's mother several times before, I shut up in time.
Unexpectedly, the Dog Emperor nodded calmly and said to me, "You guessed right."
I wanted to say, "You are an emperor, why don't you go to the Taimiao to worship your ancestors, but come to the Taiye Lake to compete with me for space?" But suddenly a thought flashed through my mind, I vaguely guessed the reason, and shut up in time.
Tonight the moon is bright and the stars are sparse, and the magpies are flying south. It is a gentle and sad night.
Li Siyan waved Qingfu away and asked me, "You're a historian, aren't you curious? Why is my biological mother's tablet still in the palace, while her body is buried in the palace maids' tomb outside Chang'an?"
I remained silent.
Part of the historian's job is to gossip according to the emperor's orders. Li Siyan's mother's lawsuit is a big deal, so how could I not know about it?
He didn't expect me to respond, and continued, "Although she gave birth to me, she never achieved a high position, so she couldn't be buried in the late emperor's mausoleum. After several years, her remains were hastily left on the outskirts of the city. The ritual officials said that she could only be buried in my mausoleum as my biological mother after I pass away."
"That's wrong. Palace maids without official rank cannot enter the imperial mausoleum. Even your biological mother has no precedent of accompanying her son into the mausoleum." I couldn't help but add.
What I didn't say was that he had forced the title of Empress Dowager on his biological mother by pinching the neck of the ritual officer. After Li Siyan passed away, his mother might not be able to keep this honor, and naturally she would not be able to enter any royal tomb.
He simply hummed, "I had no intention of burying her in the imperial mausoleum. My maternal grandfather's hometown is in Yizhou. Although it has long been in decline, there are still a few members of the clan guarding the ancestral tomb. Qingfu said it was a beautiful place with beautiful scenery. I decided to bury her there as an unmarried woman."
I was stunned and blurted out, "Why not bury her in the late emperor's mausoleum with the ceremony of a concubine?"
He simply said, "That bastard of a thing, the late emperor, is not worthy of having her accompany him to the mausoleum."
I rolled my eyes in my heart again. Li Siyan actually called the late emperor a bastard. Who is the most bastard person in the entire inner courtyard? Doesn’t he know it himself?
When my eyeballs returned to their original place, I felt a little emotional.
It seems that Li Siyan really missed his mother and specially chose Yizhou, a place far away from home, as her burial place so that she could live peacefully among the mountains and rivers after her death.
After being tortured by him for a long time, I wouldn't be surprised if the dog emperor did anything perverted, but the fact that he showed this little bit of tenderness made me very uncomfortable.
I don’t understand. He knew the pain of losing a loved one, so why did he still brutally kill my father and brother?
Some people are born without empathy, and I think it's a disability.
Over there, after Li Siyan finished scolding his father, he waved to me and said, "Alright, stop standing there. Come over here and kowtow to the Queen Mother."
I took a slow step forward, my refusal evident in my words.
The dog emperor had very little patience. Seeing me hesitate, his face suddenly turned ugly. He reached out and grabbed my shoulders, dragged me to the brazier, and ordered, "Kowtow."
Seeing that I was still reluctant, Li Siyan said coldly: "It is your blessing to be allowed to kowtow to the Queen Mother. Kneel down!"
I suddenly raised my eyes.
Blessing, he said blessing.
Those two short words were like a sharp knife, fiercely cutting open the long-festering scar in my heart.
It was as if the old scenes were being repeated, memories surged out of the wounds like a river: the relatives who left one after another, the empty and hopeless history museum, me hiding in the corner crying, and the eunuch with the shrill voice.
He said: You are blessed that His Majesty thought of you first after he ascended the throne.
My anger grew from a spark to a raging fire in just a moment.
Then, with a snap, the string in my head broke again.
"Keep this blessing for yourself." I shook off his hand and said coldly, "Li Siyan, you are not the only one who has lost parents in this world. I have lost them too. This is all thanks to you. You want me to kneel down to the mother of my enemy? Is she worthy? I only hope that you can have more blessings like this, preferably so many that you will be abandoned by everyone in this life and no one will love you again."
Li Siyan was stunned for a moment, and the hand that was holding my shoulder was roughly shaken off by me, and he just froze in the air. His eyes were blank for a moment, as if he was stabbed by me.
"What did you say?" He said hoarsely, slowly clenching his fists, "Chen Ying, are you cursing me?"
"How is it a curse?" I laughed: "You said it, it's a blessing."
I shook the paper money basket in my hand again and sneered, "Isn't your Majesty's mother still buried? Tonight is the day the gates of hell open. Perhaps her spirit is wandering here. If I were her, I wonder how much regret I would feel if I saw the son I gave birth to with so much difficulty grow up to be a bastard who oppressed women."
I spoke the most vicious sarcasm in the calmest tone, and watched with great pleasure as the blood color on his face faded away bit by bit until it turned as pale as the moonlight.
A sultry summer breeze passed by me, and I lowered my eyes. Perhaps it really was the soul of that unfortunate woman, stepping out of the ghost gate on the Ghost Night and coming to the human world to see her only living relative.
I'm sorry, I said silently in my heart, but your son also killed the person I cherish most. He is so cruel and doesn't deserve any beautiful feelings.
Qingfu, who was in the distance, was spinning around anxiously, wanting to come over and pull me away, but he didn't dare. Looking at his expression, I couldn't help but chuckle again, and said to Li Siyan, whose face was pale, "I'm sorry, Your Majesty, I've been wanting to say this for a long time. Your Majesty, please punish me however you like. Push me into the Taiye Pond to feed the fish, or throw me into the Ye Ting to pour out the night incense. It's up to Your Majesty."
After a moment of silence, Li Siyan suddenly laughed abruptly, his laughter was sharp.
The flame in the paper burning brazier was still burning, and the flames reflected on the left half of his face, making his originally evil and handsome face look like an Asura devil.
He laughed and said, "I just asked you to kowtow, but you are not happy about it."
I was a little surprised that he was so easy to talk tonight. If it were in the past, I would have been thrown into the Taiye Lake to feed the goldfish.
"Well, I am your enemy. It is only natural that you hate me and curse me."
He raised his head again, and this time, the frustration in his eyes had completely disappeared, replaced by his usual laziness and viciousness.
I felt something was wrong and turned around to run, but he grabbed my collar and pulled me to his side.
He stretched out his hand expressionlessly and placed it on my shoulder again. I was horrified and struggled hard, almost kicking over the brazier beside me. But the more I struggled, the stronger he became. He pressed me down hard, and while holding down my shoulders, he raised his knee to push against my thigh, forcing me to kneel down.
I don't know how things turned out like this. One was the current emperor, and the other was a historian who hated him to the core. Two respectable people were fighting like children by the Taiye Lake.
Qingfu, who was far away, was stunned. In his decades of court career, he had probably never seen a fight between the emperor and historians.
The magical and exciting plot development made this old eunuch, who had experience in resolving disputes, forget to come and mediate.
Although I could beat up three Su Xings at a time, my mediocre skills were totally inadequate when I met a genuine fighting master like Li Siyan. I screamed and turned around to grab his face, but he seized the opportunity and struck me with lightning speed, forcing me to the ground.
Our bodies pressed tightly together, his heat seeping through the thin summer shirt and reaching my back and waist. I refused to give in, and even though I had already knelt, I still stiffened my neck and refused to lower my head. I opened my mouth and bit his right hand. Li Siyan hissed and ordered, "Don't move."
My canine teeth dug deep into his skin, leaving a bloody mark. I mumbled a curse: "You son of a bitch! Are you ashamed of hitting a woman?"
"Oh, if you hadn't reminded me, I would have almost forgotten you were a woman." Li Siyan pinched my cheek and grinned, "A young lady with such sharp teeth, are you born in the Year of the Dog?"
I jerked back, my head banging against his jaw. I cursed, "You're a fucking dog! How could such a shameless bastard like you appear among the royal family?"
He shook my mouth off, pressed his blood-dripping hand on my head, and panted in my ear, "Go kowtow, just once, and I'll allow you to go home once."
When I heard the word "go home", my cursing suddenly stopped and I turned around in disbelief.
Li Siyan was quick-witted and quick-handed. He seized the opportunity when I was stunned and pressed my head down to knock it down. At the same time, he also bowed down to the brazier.
The moment my forehead touched the ground, I was stunned.
This bastard took advantage of others' misfortune and had no moral principles.
Our postures were very strange and twisted. He pressed his whole body on me, pressing the back of my head, and both of our heads kowtowed to the brazier in unison.
How should I put it? This action is strangely familiar, and is highly similar to the ceremony of bowing to heaven and earth that my second uncle's third niece performed when she got married.
"You...you..." I got up tremblingly, raised my finger and pointed at him, so angry that I couldn't say a word.
Li Siyan seemed unusually satisfied, revealing a rare smile without any sarcasm. He said, "You're so good. Tomorrow happens to be a day off, so I'll allow you to leave the palace tomorrow."
go home?
I was stunned. Since entering the palace, I never expected to go back to my home in Anyifang to see my aunt, Xiaochuan, and...Brother Meng.
I could go back and see them. My heart started pounding at the thought, and I couldn't help but ask, "Really?"
Li Siyan nodded: "I said, if you kowtow to the Queen Mother, I will let you go home. If you kowtow one more time, I will give you one more day."
I quickly said, "If I kowtow to your mother 5,000 times, will I not have to write these fifteen years of daily records?"
He raised the corner of his lips slightly, standing with his hands behind his back: "Use your little brain and think about it, would I be so merciful?"
"You won't." I lowered my head.
"That's good to know. I'll ask Qingfu to arrange a carriage for you tomorrow. Remember to come back on time." He suddenly rubbed my head affectionately and said happily, "If you behave well in the future, I'll let you go out again."
I endured the discomfort of being patted on the head by the dog emperor and said obediently, "Yeah."
I want to leave the palace so much that I can even tolerate the harassment of the dog emperor.
Anyway, the loss has been suffered, it would be a waste if it is not used.
So, I took the sweet reward I got from the slap and followed Li Siyan back to the Zichen Palace. Li Siyan seemed to have forgotten that I had cursed him to be abandoned by everyone. He was very friendly to me and even told me about his mother.
The version of the story told by Li Siyan was similar to the one Xia Fugui told me, except for some details. For example, his mother did not die of illness, but was killed by a cup of poisonous wine given by the late emperor.
I was sweating when I heard this. Why was he telling me this? Was he treating me like a tree hole?
As we were about to return to the Purple Palace, Li Siyan suddenly gave me homework: "... Remember everything I've told you. Write a biography for the Empress Dowager later. Since you're a historian, this shouldn't be difficult."
No, it's difficult.
I immediately refused: "No, Your Majesty, all her stories were dictated by you. I can't testify to them, so I can't write about them."
Li Siyan said, "Oh, then you don't have to leave the palace tomorrow. You can leave when you finish writing."
"Why are you going back on your word?" I was so angry that I jumped up and down.
"Yes," he said with a smile, "I never keep my promises. Do you know that?"
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