Chapter 77 Epilogue
During these four years, I spent most of my time in the History Museum, and occasionally went into the palace to take a look at He Xi and then leave.
My daughter's father would seize the opportunity of my entering the palace. My daughter-in-law would usually follow me around and nag me, reporting on her whereabouts. One time, he suddenly appeared in the History Museum, beaming with joy and asking me to come to the palace quickly. I ignored him, and he left in frustration. A moment later, he ran into the History Museum again, carrying a bewildered He Xi, and said softly, "Yao Yao, tell me quickly."
My daughter looked hesitantly at me, who was also bewildered, and uttered two words: "Mother."
Wow, you can talk now.
I subconsciously reached out and touched her head: "Your pronunciation is quite standard."
Li Siyan's face was filled with happiness: "Yiaoyao is really smart."
As Hexi grew up, she began to show some of her innate personality traits.
She is smart, but stubborn and a little overbearing. However, when she wants to make people happy, she is very sweet.
Overall, he inherited a double dose of junk genes from his father and me. Fortunately, after neutralization, the degree of his genes has been reduced and he is still within the range of normal children.
When Hexi was two years old, Li Siyan thought his daughter was a child prodigy, with high creativity and memory, and was definitely a heroine. I believed it and was a little proud. Her father didn't seem so annoying anymore.
No matter how bad her father was, he at least gave his daughter a beautiful face and good material conditions.
I believed her father's lies, and when she was four and a half years old, I happily brought Hexi home to start her education. But after teaching her, I found out: she is just an ordinary child. Don't compare her with a literary star like Meng Xu. Even her mother, I, was better than her back then.
It’s all Li Siyan’s junk genes that lowered my daughter’s IQ!
I was very worried and complained to Shangguan Lan, "What should I do, Xiaolan? I think Hexi might be a fool. She can't be the queen at all."
Shangguan Lan was silent for a long time before she said, "That's your fault. How could you compare her to Meng Xu, who passed the imperial examination at the age of twenty?"
"And what's wrong with being a little dumb?" she said. "This is an era where people rely on their fathers, Yingzi. Look, Meng Xuwen, the Quxing, has come down to earth, but he still has to work for your daughter."
*
Having said that, books cannot be avoided.
Having accepted the fact that my daughter is not as smart as me, I can only teach her patiently, little by little.
"Let's stop here for today."
I pulled a stack of tracing paper from the desk and handed it to the neatly dressed Li Hexi, whose hands were covered in ink. I said to her, "Go back and trace it. Give it to your mother tomorrow. Remember the strokes she taught you. Don't be lazy."
Little He Xi held a thick stack of tracing paper and said sadly.
She asked me, "Mother, when can Yao Yao return to the palace?"
I put away her small goat hair brush and said, "You can't ask me this. When will you finish memorizing the enlightenment training and when will you return to the palace?"
After hearing this, little Hexi became even more depressed.
It takes more than a thousand words to memorize them all, and I don’t know how long it will take to finish memorizing them.
As her first teacher, I was not only impartial but also extremely strict, leaving her no room for error.
The noble families who made their fortunes by making clerks all have the tradition of raising their children through hard work. I, her own mother, was brought up in this way. Now that the dragon-slaying girl has become the evil dragon, it is natural for me to start using the same educational method to deal with the next generation.
Her father's educational methods are rather wild.
Li Siyan had never received a proper systematic education. He only ran around with her in the palace and played games, under the pretext of exercising his body and cultivating the kingly demeanor of commanding slaves.
I think he is talking nonsense. Children only have a few years to remember things, but he has wasted all of Hexi's golden period.
But... He Xi herself definitely prefers to go to her father's place.
Children don't want to sit down and study. They just want to play outside every day. I was the same when I was a child. I often climbed over the wall to go out and play. Because I did so many bad things in the past, it is very easy for me to catch Hexi doing bad things. My daughter is in my hands and can only be forced to study. She can't escape even if she has wings.
Although her father loved his daughter, he would never dare to disobey me, so he could only comfort He Xi: "...When you grow up, you won't have to study every day."
He Xi's face was filled with worry: "That's it, it will take me a long time to grow up."
After she turned four, the precious little princess began to lead a strange commuter life - she would stay at the Shen family for a few days every month, and then return to the palace for a few days. However, the lifestyles provided by these two places were completely different, which made the young He Xi very confused.
Li Siyan is willing to spoil his daughter, but I am not. All the training standards are based on what Meng Xu and I did back then. Hexi will be the queen in the future, and the requirements are very harsh. If you don't work hard when you are young, you will regret it when you are old. Others don't work hard and their lives are at most mediocre. If she doesn't work hard, she won't be able to sit firmly on the throne in the future, and she may not even be able to leave behind an intact body.
Women are naturally more prone to parenting anxiety than men. I belatedly regained my concern for my daughter and wanted to cram all the knowledge I knew into her little head.
Shangguan Lan couldn't bear it any longer: "Yingzi, too much is as bad as too little. Take it easy and don't make us Yaoyao tired of studying."
Meng Xu, who returned to Chang'an to get married, also advised me: "The princess is different from us after all. She doesn't need to read so many sage books. It would be better for her to learn more about statecraft from Your Majesty, which would save her some effort."
After being persuaded by this group of people one after another, when Hexi was five and a half years old, I finally reluctantly agreed to resign and invited Mr. Guo, who had taught me in the past, to teach her.
Because - doing it myself would really hurt the relationship between mother and daughter.
Little Li Hexi is struggling to survive with her heavy schoolwork, and her old father is also trying hard to repair our relationship.
He gave me almost omnipotent freedom, and only asked me not to die.
Everyone says that he is deeply in love and has lived a hard and ascetic life for a long time to preserve his chastity for the Queen. But I know very well that his core is still the same as before, lonely and extreme. The only difference is that his previous way of showing it was to control me tightly, while now it is indulgence without any bottom line.
After so many years, I've given up on trying to correct Li Siyan's character flaws. He's such a stubborn person, how can I change him? Maybe in my next life.
Only with his indulgence did I return to my previous life, going to the History Museum to work every day, shopping and eating in my spare time, supporting myself with my salary, and living a simple and leisurely life.
Li Siyan tried to join me, but I was like a bad-tempered cat. If he stayed close to me for too long, I would drive him away with a cold face. If he refused, I would show him the tattoo on my ankle and ask him to recall how many excessive things he had done to me. Although he felt wronged and sad, he could only leave with a guilty conscience when he saw me bringing up the past, and watched me work and shopping from a distance with longing eyes.
I don't feel the slightest bit of guilt for hurting him - he deserved it.
To this day, I'm still indignant. Did he receive any punishment other than my lack of love for him? No, he's now sitting on the throne, holding his daughter, living a comfortable and carefree life. From beginning to end, I was the only one who was hurt.
But... although I feel unbalanced, I can't do anything about it.
In this era, he is the king and I am the subject. We are born unequal. Apart from my feelings, I have no other means to punish him.
So I can only let go of these grudges, live my life in a muddle-headed way, and love myself well.
*
While I was content to be an emotionless writing machine, other people's stories were also quietly happening.
We historians have our own professional benefits, which is that we can collect gossip openly.
The working staff of Zichen Palace were roughly divided into two groups. One group was mainly composed of Qingfu, Hu Yueer and Huiyue, who were mainly responsible for taking care of Li Siyan's food, drink, defecation and urination. The other group was relatively young, led by Suxi and Chaner, who followed Hexi and took care of her daily chores.
Everything went well at first, but later Hexi spent more and more time living outside the palace. I did not allow too many palace maids to follow her out of the palace, so Suxi had a legitimate reason to be idle.
Of course, a black-hearted boss like Li Siyan would never let go of his capable subordinates easily... After he caught Su Xi playing pitching pots several times, he was transferred to the harem. While working part-time as a playmate, he was also responsible for monitoring the concubines who stayed in the palace to prevent them from having other intentions.
But Li Siyan was overthinking it. They had no other thoughts. Was playing cards not fun? Or was the food in the palace not delicious? Why were they vying for favor? Was there any special benefit?
The answer is no.
Humans are realistic animals and will not do meaningless things.
Looking at the two queens of this dynasty, the former went to Mount Zhongnan to become a Taoist nun, enjoying the breeze and bright moon every day, while the latter worked diligently every day in the History Museum carrying bricks and writing books... When the women saw this, they thought, wow, this is the treatment of being a queen, so they gave up the idea of vying for favor and lived a paradise on earth in the harem.
There were also some who were more ambitious, but they were all sent away by Wei Wan'er to remarry. The atmosphere in this dynasty was open, and there was no shortage of suitors for the emperor's women. Generally speaking, as long as they didn't make trouble, they could live a good life.
As for those who have done evil...
Xie Xiu Niang is the most cautionary example. Just because she was disrespectful to me and tried to provoke Li Siyan when he was at his most irritable, he sentenced her to death without any hesitation. Xie Xiu Niang was originally a concubine, her life was like a floating duckweed, and she died as a sinner without even a coffin. It was very miserable.
Although it is a relief, it is still sad that such a beautiful woman died because of such a trivial matter... It is a bit regrettable.
Everyone also gossiped about this in private: Xie Xiuniang's bold and extraordinary behavior was obviously imitating the one from the Shen family. Unfortunately, she only learned the basics and was just imitating the ugly woman. After all, she still had feelings for the emperor, and the female historian from the Shen family really wished that the emperor would get away and never come near her again.
Human nature is inherently despicable, and the emperor is no exception. The melon that cannot be obtained is the sweetest, and people are eager to taste it.
To outsiders, the emperor killed Xie Xiuniang out of venting his anger and also to show goodwill to me: Look, I helped you kill the person who bullied you.
So... only I can bully you.
This signal makes many people unable to sleep or eat.
Having witnessed the entire process of the emperor's anger and punishment of Xie Xiuniang, Sister Zhang Qian, who had captured me and tipped off Chang'an, was so frightened that she couldn't sleep well for several nights.
Although the emperor didn't hold her responsible for not keeping an eye on me...but the emperor's sinister expression over those two days was enough to send a chill down one's spine. Zhang Qian was merely the wife of a small-time clerk, and suddenly faced with such a calamity, those few days were truly difficult. Even more unsettling was the fact that the emperor had arrested Zhang Zhi, bundled him off, and thrown him aboard a ship.
Yes... When I was entangled with him in the cabin, Xiaozhi, Zhang Zhi, Tanwei, Kaizhi... all the people he thought I would care about were locked up in the cell under the cabin, so that he could use them to threaten me every now and then. I didn't expect that this time he would go too far and I was directly driven into depression. Li Siyan had no choice but to let these people go in disgrace and even gave them some compensation.
Poor brothers Tanwei and Kaizhi, from the time they were arrested to the time they were released, they had no idea what had happened from beginning to end.
All they knew was that they had a huge sum of money in their pockets - a really huge sum, enough to buy hundreds of acres of fertile land and ensure that they would have no worries about food and clothing for the rest of their lives.
How clever was Kaizhi? After receiving the compensation for mental damage, he immediately redeemed himself and Xiaozhi's sister, packed up his belongings and fled to settle down elsewhere, fearing that the emperor would take back the compensation; but Tanwei remained with Zhang Zhi, as usual.
He was different from Kaizhi. Kaizhi fell into slavery due to his family poverty, but he was sold to the Zhang family when he was young. Zhang Zhi had been good to him over the years, and he had nowhere else to go, so he continued to accompany Zhang Zhi.
Zhang Qian finally felt relieved. After surviving the disaster, she fell seriously ill in Yongnian County. During her illness, she seemed to have figured something out. Her snobbish and mean personality had changed a lot, and she also relaxed her control over her brother a lot.
Zhang Zhi also returned to Mingzhou. After recuperating for a few months, the emperor remembered him and opened a back door to send him to the official school in Luoyang. After the success, he sent someone to interview him, mainly to take credit for it in front of me.
Zhang Zhi was greatly shocked: I knew that his master was valued by the emperor, but I didn’t expect that he valued me so much.
Time flies. After this incident, Zhang Zhi studied painting in the official school in Luoyang for several years. After completing his apprenticeship, he came to Chang'an to pay his respects. Now he has achieved considerable success.
When he came to Chang'an to meet his new mentor, I invited him to have a meal together at Tianxiang Tower. At first, this silly boy didn't dare to come. I repeatedly emphasized that the emperor would never cause him trouble, and he reluctantly showed up.
During the meal, I asked him about his recent situation. He said he was doing well. I saw that his face was rosy and his cheeks were plump, so I knew that what he said was true. However, he looked at me with some timidity... It can be seen that Zhang Zhi had witnessed the emperor's madness with his own eyes, and it left some psychological trauma.
It was not until three rounds of drinks that his vigilance gradually collapsed and he began to chatter about some details of what happened that year. Only then did I know that Li Siyan originally wanted to kill Zhang Zhi, but before killing him, he seemed to remember something and ran to the prison to take a look at Zhang Zhi.
It was this one glance that saved Zhang Zhi's life.
The emperor looked at him, suddenly sneered, and muttered, "She is used to eating good things, so she won't be interested in your ordinary bean sprouts."
Zhang Zhi burped sadly, "Of course I can't compare to Your Majesty, but I'm not that bad either..."
I laughed so hard I nearly threw the chopsticks in my hand. "You should be thankful for your ordinariness, my dear disciple. If you were even slightly decent looking, you wouldn't be sitting here having dinner with me today without any problems!"
Zhang Zhi's appearance was indeed ordinary, but he was gentle and honest. After he left his powerful and annoying sister, many families were willing to marry him, but Zhang Zhi turned them all down because he was obsessed with painting and didn't care about the reputation of love.
Some people are single on their own initiative, while others are happily gaining weight while hugging their wives.
The one who has gained weight recently due to happiness is my younger brother, Shen Chuan.
He finally married the goddess of his dreams. The goddess fed him three meals a day and made him fat and white, like a pig waiting to be slaughtered.
Shen Xiaochuan's weight had been soaring for half a year, but suddenly took a sharp turn and returned to her original state because... Guan Yunyu was pregnant and her reaction was still very strong. She had no strength to feed Xiaochuan anymore and still needed Xiaochuan to feed her.
His aunt was obsessed with business and too lazy to serve the young couple, so Xiaochuan had to do it himself, following the standard of his brother-in-law serving his sister, and concentrating on serving the beautiful Guan Yunyu.
This was no easy task. Due to exhaustion and hard work, Xiaochuan quickly lost weight. The last time I saw him, he was like a walking straw.
When Ma Gan saw me coming to see him, he was so happy that he immediately pulled me aside to ask about the pathogenesis and treatment interventions of postpartum depression.
The setting sun shone on him, coating him with a thick layer of golden light of the Holy Father.
Guan Yunyu sat in the room holding her belly and looked at him with soft eyes.
I felt envious for a moment.
Treating each other with respect and living in harmony, this is what a husband and wife is.
*
When Hexi was eight years old, I planned to take her out of Chang'an.
Li Siyan cried out to his parents, "Yaoyao has never left home since he was a child. This time he has to leave for such a long time. I..."
I said coldly, "Stop talking nonsense. You know nothing. The ancients said that reading ten thousand books and traveling ten thousand miles is the best way. What future can a woman locked up in the palace have? Yaoyao wants to be the empress in the future. She must travel the world and observe the people of the mortal world."
Li Siyan had been a nanny for many years and had long since transformed from a vigorous emperor into a worried uncle. Even after I lectured him like crazy, he still kept muttering with heartache: "Yaoyao is still young..."
I wanted to throw the history book in his face. "Wake up! Emperor Zhao was already eight years old and could be the head of the family. And your daughter still spends all day thinking about going out to catch butterflies with her sisters. How can this be right?"
Li Siyan was in the wrong and kept silent.
I took his seal and stamped the customs document with a huge stamp, then put it back in my sleeve and said, "This time I'm traveling incognito. Tell the puppet staying in the palace to dress more convincingly. Also, remember to send more powerful guards to protect her."
Li Siyan wilted like an eggplant that had been beaten. He nodded and said, "Okay, I will make the arrangements. Don't worry."
"Yingying," he suddenly called me when I was about to go out.
"What?" I frowned. "What's wrong?"
"No..." He said with a hint of expectation in his eyes: "Yingying, do you remember this day fifteen years ago..."
I glanced at him calmly and said, "Of course I remember. It was my father's death anniversary."
The light in his eyes went out in an instant.
"Don't talk about the past with me anymore," I said calmly, "wouldn't it be better if we could just continue to live our lives deceiving each other?"
*
Li Siyan was hit hard by me. He licked his wound sadly for a while, then forced himself to cheer up and sent me to the carriage at the palace gate.
He Xi had been waiting in the carriage for a long time, with half of his head sticking out from behind the curtain.
I looked at her fox-like charming and upturned eyes, stretched out a hand, and pushed her back into the carriage.
He Xi let out a cry of grievance, just like her father.
She happened to be growing taller recently, and her height increased rapidly. The little girl who I could lift with one hand before, now I can hardly carry her.
I climbed onto the carriage swiftly and squeezed her to the side. "Hexi, move over a little and make room for your mother."
He Xi inherited my bad mouth and took the opportunity to complain: "Mother, you have gained weight recently."
I said, "Don't bring up something that is not related to the topic!"
She pouted, leaned on the car window, and waved goodbye to Li Siyan. Li Siyan watched us leave with eager eyes, looking extremely aggrieved.
Withered orchid sees off the guest on the road to Xianyang; if the sky had feelings, it would also grow old.
After the carriage left the city, He Xi finally remembered to ask me, "Why didn't Dad go out with us?"
"He's the emperor," I said. "The emperor's tours are too grand, cumbersome, clumsy, and inefficient."
He Xi seemed to understand, but not quite, and said gloomily, "I will miss Daddy very much."
"No, you won't," I rubbed her beautiful little face: "Outside the palace is a hundred times more fun than inside the palace. You won't have time to think about him."
He Xi was very melancholy.
"They all say that my father and mother had a bad relationship." The little girl thought about her father for a while, then came to chat with me again: "They also said that my grandfather was beheaded by my father, but is that true?"
"Yes," I always treated my daughter as a healthy person, so I didn't hide this unspeakable thing from her. I admitted it without hesitation: "Not only that, my mother didn't want to marry him at first, but he forced me to."
He Xi showed an understanding expression, as if to say, "This is indeed something my father would do."
I seized the opportunity to teach him a lesson: "You must never learn from him in the future. Think twice before chopping off someone's head. Unless the person has committed a heinous crime, do not casually frame an honest person."
I don't know how much He Xi took in. When faced with my lectures, she always replied perfunctorily, "I've got it in mind, my daughter."
*
The mother and daughter's trip was full of joy. Just as I expected, after He Xi left Chang'an and faced the beautiful mountains and rivers that were about to belong to her, she quickly forgot about her father.
After taking her to climb the mountain for two days, I took her to the Shen family tomb and asked her to kowtow to her deceased grandparents, great uncle, and eldest uncle one by one.
Poor little Li Hexi, has always had others kowtow to her, and only her cruel mother dared to make her do things that are inappropriate for her status.
The autumn grass is growing thickly on the grave. The ginkgo tree I planted when I returned to Chang'an has grown a little taller. Ginkgo trees grow slowly but have a long lifespan. The Feng Shui master said that this tree is a good omen and can bless them to live a long life in the afterlife.
I lowered my head and touched my parents' names, and whispered softly, "Father, Mother, your daughter is here to see you."
Pointing back at He Xi, he said, "...and your granddaughter."
He Xi sighed and was busy having fun as I directed her to set up the brazier and prepare paper money.
The moon was bright and the stars were sparse that night, with the croaking of frogs in the distance. It was a gentle and peaceful night.
While burning paper in front of my parents' grave, I recounted many old stories, starting from that year in the Xuanzheng Hall when I pointed at Li Siyan's nose and called him a bastard, to how I struggled to escape, and then to my painful struggle after my daughter was born.
He Xi didn't quite understand some of the scenes, but she also vaguely understood why I wasn't as close to her as Aunt Shangguan Lan was to Sister Xiaohuan. After all, she wasn't a child born with her mother's expectations, and my teaching and care for her was more out of responsibility rather than pure mother-daughter love.
In the firelight, He Xi listened to me quietly, as if she was listening to a stranger's story.
I couldn't help but rub her cheeks again: "What? Are you too engrossed in what you're listening to?
He Xi let me twist and turn her, and after hesitating for a long time, she said, "Then mother, you won't abandon me like you abandoned father, right? Will you... leave again in the future?"
Children are more anxious about separation than adults.
I shook my head: "If I wanted to abandon you, I would have done it long ago. Why would I bother to choose a tutor for you and bring you to pay respect to my grandparents?"
He Xi thought about it and it seemed so, and his tense expression gradually relaxed.
Snuggling into my arms, this little girl, who was related to me by blood, whispered to me, "Will you forgive Dad?"
"Won't."
I said calmly, "Some mistakes are irreversible. Once you make a mistake, it's gone forever."
*
After all these years, I have never reconciled with Li Siyan.
He didn't try to force me anymore.
There has always been a strange relationship between us. He is flattering and I am indifferent. He is rich, but he cannot get me to even look at him straight in the eye.
Although our relationship seems to be bad, we are raising a daughter together.
The years passed quietly, diluting the past love and hatred to some extent. Sometimes I felt as if we were walking on the two ends of a river, and Hexi was a drifting boat, drifting to her father for a while, and then drifting back to me.
The past is long gone, and there must be a will of heaven. When I was brought to the Xuanzheng Hall and pointed at the emperor's nose and cursed him, the trick of fate quietly came upon me. But at that time I thought it was just ordinary. Who would have thought that so many incredible things would happen later?
Looking back on my half life, there were fifteen years of peace and tranquility, and fifteen years of turbulence. Fortunately, I finally gained my freedom after a serious illness. Now my family is at peace, my daughter is healthy, and I have returned to my favorite job. Everything has returned to peace again.
I don’t know what the future will be like, I just hope that these peaceful days can last a little longer, until He Xi has her child and takes over the throne from Li Siyan, and I can complete the history of our dynasty and live the life I should live.
Sitting in front of my parents' grave, I squinted my eyes and looked towards Chang'an. The night wind passed by my shoulders and the stars hung low.
He Xi quietly rested her head on my shoulder and said to me, "Mother, Sister Xiao Huan said that the deceased will turn into stars in the sky, always watching over us."
I laughed: "Your sister Xiaohuan is fooling you again."
He Xi said seriously, "It's true. When Mr. Guo passed away, I cried beside his bed, and he told me the same thing."
Seeing that I was just smiling but not saying anything, He Xi continued seriously, "Mother, you and Father will become stars to accompany me in the future."
The world has experienced many vicissitudes of life, but the mountains are still shaped like a cold current. Many years ago, it seemed like a starry night like this. I knelt in the Ye Ting facing southeast to pay homage to my father and brother on the seventh day after their death. At that time, I felt that the world was lonely and desolate, and there was no hope in life.
Things are much better now than before, maybe I should be content.
I pulled He Xi into my arms and whispered, "Of course, Mom and Dad will be with you."
He Xi asked me, "But mother, didn't you forgive father?"
"What does it matter?" I said, "He didn't expect me to forgive him. We just happened to have you."
Even though we are on opposite sides of the world, we can still see each other across the clouds.
As long as we were still under the same sky, he was satisfied.
(End of text)
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