Chapter 51: Boating, Deception and Routines
After living in seclusion for more than three months, Wang Funiang finally waited for the day when the emperor remembered Qingsi Palace. She felt that her spring had come.
For this purpose, she dressed herself up very carefully, pinning an elegant green chrysanthemum on her temples. Although she despised Chen Ying's coquettishness, in order to win the emperor's favor, she still learned to dress like her, wearing plain clothes, no jewelry, and hanging a rustic cloth purse on her waist.
At first glance, I thought there were twin sisters standing opposite me, and I couldn't help but laugh.
Wang Funiang was so angry that she fell backwards.
Damn it, who would have thought that the emperor not only didn't come to see her seriously, but even brought another woman with him. She was still laughing!
"Ms. Wang, long time no see." I said with a smile.
Wang Funiang's face turned pale, and she squeezed out a few words from between her teeth: "It's been a few months since we last met. How is Madam Shen these days?"
"Not bad," I said honestly, "Mr. Wang looks good."
She looked fine just now, but since she saw me, her face turned visibly pale.
Li Siyan glanced at Wang Funiang's outfit, his eyebrows furrowed sharply, and he said unhappily, "Chen Ying doesn't know how to dress. She dresses like a tattered sack all day long. I've long thought she looks ugly. I haven't seen her for a few months, so why are you imitating her?"
I also kindly reminded her, "Talented Lady Wang is a natural beauty, and bright and colorful attire is most suitable for her. Crab-shell green really doesn't look good on people, and it's a bright color that complements you."
Wang Funiang was almost crying from being bullied: "If Your Majesty doesn't like it, then I will go and change it right now."
Li Siyan waved his hand: "No need, you can go down today, I will come back another day."
As he spoke, he pulled my shoulder and said, "Qingfu has gone to prepare the boat. You can go to the chariot and rest for a while."
I glanced at Wang Funiang's lost figure and asked, "Isn't she coming with us?"
Li Siyan frowned irritably. "I was just passing by Qingsi Palace, but she got the news and came to disturb us, dressed like this. She is really tactless."
I sighed in my heart, men are always heartless to women who don’t care about them.
"It would be boring to go with just two people," I said, "Why not take her with you?"
Before Li Siyan could stop me, I had already broken free from his hands and shouted, "Talented Lady Wang, His Majesty has changed his mind. He wants to invite you to go boating with him!"
The beauty paused, turned around in surprise, her eyes bright.
"Really? I'm not lying to you." I said seriously, "Your Majesty also said that I should change into some light clothes to avoid inconvenience in moving around later."
The gloom on Wang Funiang's face disappeared and she nodded like a chick pecking at rice.
She is not very smart, but she has one good point: her emotions are all expressed on her face, and her acting skills are as bad as mine.
But as the saying goes, if you don't move forward, you will move backward when you are sailing against the current. Recently, by deceiving Li Siyan, I have gradually gained some insights into the art of performing arts, and my acting skills have improved by leaps and bounds, but Wang Funiang is still standing still, firmly sitting on the throne of the number one golden broom in the inner courtyard.
After I finished shouting, Wang Funiang happily went to change her clothes. I smiled at Li Siyan and said, "A boat trip with three people is a very elegant event. Congratulations on enjoying the blessing of having two lovers."
Li Siyan's face was so sour that his knuckles were cracking.
"Are you angry?" I asked.
He glanced at me coldly, his hands behind his back, and said nothing.
I curled my lips: "You deserve it. Who told you to offend me just now?"
"...Okay, I won't bring her next time. That should be fine, right?"
His expression relaxed slightly, but he still didn't respond to me.
I rolled my eyes inwardly, thinking, "With all my experience in relationships, how could I not be able to coax you?" I immediately reached out and grabbed his collar, kissed him on the cheek, and said, "I've already given in. There's a limit to pushing things too far."
Li Siyan seemed to want to go a little further, but I didn't give him the chance. I snorted, turned around and walked away.
The most important thing in dealing with a man is never to let him get too complacent.
The Taiye Lake is vast and boundless, with willows and lotuses planted near the shore. I felt the breeze from the Three Mountains and squinted my eyes in comfort, thinking of a poem I had read before: The palace orioles herald the dawn, and the auspicious smoke begins to rise; the spiritual birds of the three islands fly back and forth over the water.
Even behind bars, humans instinctively seek the certainty of freedom.
Li Siyan's gaze also fell vaguely into the distance, as if there was something on Penglai Island that particularly attracted him. We were both in a daze. In the silence, a bird with slender legs flew over the lake and shattered the reflection of Penglai Palace.
The shattered shadow quickly returned to its original form. This time, a beautiful woman with flowers in her hair appeared in the scene. Wang Funiang had finished changing her clothes and came over with small, cheerful steps. "...May I ask when your Majesty will depart?"
In this way, the three of us formed a temporary bird watching group and climbed onto Li Siyan’s emperor’s exclusive pleasure boat together.
...This painted boat perfectly demonstrates the poor aesthetic taste passed down from generation to generation in the emperor's family. It is so gaudy and colorful. But Li Siyan is particularly proud of it. He took the initiative to ask me what his boat thinks of it, and said that if I like it, he will take me for a ride once a month.
Wang Funiang, as usual, didn't understand Li Siyan's expression and thought he was asking her. She was flattered and took the initiative to say, "Your Majesty, I like it very much. It's a unique experience to see the mountains and rivers from a boat."
While Li Siyan was perfunctorily answering her question, I slipped over to the attendant Wei Xizi, patted his shoulder vigorously and said, "Brother Xizi, let's go write poetry."
Wei Xizi was shocked, grabbed the paper and pen, and took several steps back: "...I dare not!"
I gazed from afar at the magnificent sight of autumn coming to Penglai and the falling leaves in the frosty forest. I felt poetic for the first time in a long time and wrote a seven-character poem with great ease.
It's a pity that no one was willing to communicate with me. The Dog Emperor did come to take a look and gave a dry comment that it was good. I asked him what was good about it, and he gave me a silent look at the back of his head.
The next moment, Wang Funiang gracefully turned to his side and started talking to him with a smile, but looking at Li Siyan's expression, he really hoped that the beauty in front of him would disappear quickly.
I was enjoying the show from the sidelines. When Wang Funiang volunteered to get the silk ribbon for Li Siyan, I winked, pulled his collar, and whispered in his ear, "Do you want her to stop bothering you? I have a way."
"What."
Li Siyan glanced at me sideways, but his body unconsciously leaned down to accommodate my height, as if he wanted me to use more force.
"If I can do it, you bring me a raccoon." Without waiting for his consent, I let go of my hand and pushed him to the stern. "It's a deal."
Not long after, Wang Funiang came over gracefully. She looked around and didn't see Li Siyan, and her disappointment was immediately apparent.
I invited her to enjoy the scenery with me. Wang Funiang looked at me unhappily and said elegantly, "Funiang is vulgar and will not disturb Madam Shen's elegant mood."
After saying this, she raised her noble little chin.
I said, "Are you really not coming? It's fine, I'm just going to enjoy the scenery, not write poetry."
Wang Funiang said arrogantly, "Madam Shen, please do as you please."
I laughed out loud.
"What a pity! I wanted to teach Concubine Wang my seductive skills, but she disdained my little tricks. So just pretend I didn't say anything." I pretended to be regretful and got up to leave.
Before he could take another step, she grabbed his sleeve. Disbelief was written all over her beautiful face: "...You really are a charmer! Are you Wong Tai Sin?"
"Wong Tai Sin?" I almost didn't follow her train of thought.
Wang Funiang said sternly, "Since you are truly the Wong Tai Sin, and have gained His Majesty's favor by bewitching his mind, I urge you to leave immediately, or I will hire the Taoist priests of famous temples throughout the world to capture you."
Seeing that I didn't react, she panicked: "...The Taoist priest of Xuandu Temple is extremely powerful! You, a monster, will have nowhere to escape!"
I racked my brains to think about what the hell Huang Daxian was. It took me a long time to remember that I seemed to have seen it in a notebook before. It was a respectful name for the weasel fairy in the northern countryside.
"You must be confused. It's the vixen who seduce men, not the weasel." I corrected him patiently.
Wang Funiang was silent for a long moment, then finally whispered, "No matter what kind of spirit you are, if you can teach me a few of your... magic, I won't tell anyone about this."
"Want to learn?" I said, "Come closer and listen."
Wang Funiang immediately sat up straight.
"I've designed a script for you. Try to act it out," I said. "First, you have to pretend that you have no feelings for His Majesty at all. Your usual affectionate expressions are just to please him. In short, it's all an act."
"Why?"
I muttered, "Human nature is base. The less you care about him, the more he can't leave you."
Wang Funiang pondered, "You have a point, but in the past three months, I haven't even seen His Majesty, nor have I seen him unable to leave me."
I could only say, "...you'd better find a Taoist priest to take me in first."
"No," she said, "regardless of whether it works or not, I should try my best for His Majesty."
This time it was my turn to be the uneasy one.
Actually, it was just a whim, a desire to tease Wang Funiang. I hadn't expected her to be so gullible, so gullible that I began to wonder why the Wang family had sent her to the palace. Weren't they afraid that her intelligence would decline and drag the entire family down with her?
Just as we were talking about this, Huiyue came over and said that Li Siyan was calling us over. Wang Funiang glanced at me reluctantly, then suddenly remembered my teachings. Her face turned serious and she said with a noble and cold expression, "It's really annoying."
Huiyue raised her eyebrows silently.
I almost laughed out loud, and suddenly felt that Wang Funiang was actually quite cute.
God must have accidentally kicked the jar containing the heart-eyes away when he was pinching her face, which caused such a funny result.
While I was fooling Wang Funiang, Li Siyan was fishing.
He called us over simply to show off the big carp he had caught.
As usual, I flattered him without any emotion: "This fish must be very plump."
Wang Funiang pretended to be expressionless at first, then she smiled and said, "Your Majesty is truly amazing."
Li Siyan took us to see the cranes.
I have been writing for many years and my eyesight is not very good. I could only see a group of white birds jumping around on the lake beach. I casually said, "Beautiful," and then lowered my head to ponder the half-written poem.
Wang Funiang also tried hard to restrain her desire to flatter. She tilted her beautiful eyes slightly and said calmly, "The fairy cranes on the fairy mountain are a sign of good fortune. Thanks to Your Majesty, I am so happy to see them."
Li Siyan looked at her in surprise.
How could an ordinary emperor encounter such a strange situation? He took two women out for a boat ride on the lake, but both women ignored him.
It's okay for me, since Li Siyan has long been accustomed to my indifference. But Wang Funiang was as attentive as a butterfly just a moment ago, and then became cold as ice in the blink of an eye. It's really confusing.
After returning to Zichen Palace in the evening, Li Siyan came to ask me specifically what kind of magic potion I had given Wang Funiang that made her quiet down for the first time in her life.
I chuckled as I repeated the day's conversation, mocking Li Siyan for finding a stupid concubine who lowered the quality of the royal offspring.
Unexpectedly, Li Siyan nodded and said, "It's okay to be a little stupid. These women are just gifts from aristocratic families. I have no intention of having children with them."
I took a piece of fish with my chopsticks and put it in my mouth, mumbling, "I can see that too. You don't even want them to sleep with you, so of course they can't have children."
He touched my head across the dining table and said, "Of course. It's not the woman I chose. What's the point of sleeping with her?"
"But I heard that men fall in love with every woman they meet, and even if they don't like her, it doesn't stop them from taking her in."
"Only vulgar men would act like this," Li Siyan said, "The late emperor was like this. Although he loved the noble concubine, he was still having affairs outside. Such a man is not worthy of being a husband or a father. Letting him die peacefully is already a courtesy on my part."
As a good minister of the imperial court, I consciously closed my ears when I heard him speak ill of the late emperor.
After silently eating a few mouthfuls of fish, I asked curiously, "Have you really never enjoyed any concubine? I remember the few months when you banished me to the palace, people kept saying that you had married a new woman..."
"That was to prove that I didn't absolutely need you." He lowered his eyelids and said self-deprecatingly, "As you know, I couldn't be emotionally moved by them. When I was chatting and laughing with other women, my mind was still full of you."
"...You are truly a scum who plays with women at will." I said, "You are no different from the late emperor."
He smiled and said, "When I was young, I hated him and swore I would never be such a person. But later on, I became worse and worse. You are right. I am a scum, a villain, a shameless person. Sooner or later, I will get my retribution."
Every time Li Siyan frankly admits that he is rubbish, I find it hard to continue scolding him. This person has voluntarily given up his moral bottom line. There is no word in the human language that he cannot accept.
"But maybe you can pull me out of this quagmire." He looked at me intently and said, "What is love? What is respect? How to be a gentleman? You can teach me all of these. As long as I can earn your unwavering devotion, I'm willing to learn."
This sounded incredibly familiar to me, and I frowned as I thought for a moment, "...Which storybook did you copy this line from?"
"Suo Chuang You Meng, I happened to see the manuscript you left for Concubine Shu."
I rolled my eyes.
Using the lines I wrote to trick me, the dog emperor is so mean.
After collecting the bowls, I relaxed like a little girl, lazily lying next to Li Siyan, and reminded him, "You promised me during the day that if I told Wang Funiang to shut up, you would allow me to keep a raccoon slave, right?"
This posture was extremely ambiguous. I was like a thin piece of paper, stuck to his sleeve, with the tip of my chin poking his shoulder, and I could clearly feel the slight stiffness of his muscles.
"Aren't you the most reasonable person in the past? How come you have learned to force sales now?" He stroked my slender back through my clothes and kissed me on the forehead.
"Don't you like it?" I stretched lazily: "...You are so unromantic. This is not called forced buying and selling, this is called acting like a spoiled child."
"You're wrong. I like it very much." His voice lingered softly beside my ear: "If you are really trying to please me, no one in the world can resist you."
We were so close that we could almost feel each other's shallow breathing, but we each had our own agenda.
The candlelight on the table was bright, shining on our faces, like a layer of warm yellow gauze, making our features blurred, just like the most ordinary couple in the world.
"Why do you have to keep a cat?" Li Siyan asked me in a low voice.
I thought about it and said, "Because raccoons are cute and can catch mice."
Li Siyan said, "My Purple Palace is heavily guarded. Not only can't mice get in, but even flies can't get in. There's no point in keeping it."
"Don't you like squishy little animals?"
"I don't like cats and dogs, raising just one of you is enough for me."
I changed my posture and slowly said, "There is another reason, but it's a bit far-fetched."
"Tell me about it." He played with my fingers and whispered.
"Most families in Chang'an keep small animals: guard dogs, rat catching raccoons, and parrots and birds. Without these little creatures playing around, it doesn't feel like home anymore."
Li Siyan remained silent.
He can give me the most precious thing in the world, but Neiyuan will never be my home. He understands that I don't belong here.
"Didn't Your Majesty keep pets when he was a prince?" I tried to chat with him.
"No," he said. "When I was little, I picked up a puppy. It was bullied to death a few days later. I haven't kept an animal since then."
"What a shame," I sighed. "But now you're the emperor, and you can protect your pets. Why not try raising a few?"
I dipped my tea in water and wrote the word "home" in small seal script on the table. I pointed and said, "A house with people, pigs, and animals, where everyone is happy and it's lively and bustling, is what we call a home."
There was a hint of confusion on Li Siyan's face.
He had never experienced the warmth of a family for a day, and was both unfamiliar and familiar with the word. However, my appearance must have ignited his yearning for this concept, and he began to be moved.
To break down a person's defenses, you need to proceed step by step. If he makes concessions once today, he can make concessions thousands of times in the future.
Li Siyan did not agree to me rashly, but just said we would discuss it later.
The next day, he returned from court and had some government affairs to deal with, so he went to Yanying Palace first.
I taught my palace servants to read and write in the courtyard.
Halfway through the lesson, Li Siyan and a few trusted ministers emerged from Yanying Hall. After exchanging a few pleasantries, they exited the palace through the alleyway. Across the palace wall, I could hear Li Siyan's intermittent voice: "...Have your cats or dogs given birth recently? If so, bring me one."
I cupped my hands into a trumpet shape and shouted outside, "I want the raccoon color!"
As soon as the words were spoken, the conversation outside the wall stopped abruptly.
The young palace maids who were practicing calligraphy all smiled.
I was calm and composed. I moved a bench and sat down, then said to them with a smile, "Hey, the rats in our palace are going to be in trouble."
It was a rare thing that the emperor wanted a cat kitten. The news spread quickly, and families competed to send their newly born kittens to the palace for the emperor to choose. All of them were cat-shaped.
The scene was like a small-scale talent show.
Li Siyan, Qingfu, Huiyue and I served as joint judges for this talent show, and we commented on dozens of meowing contestants based on their temperament, coat color, and family background.
In the end, Li Siyan, Huiyue and Qingfu all fell in love with a very polite and steady kitten from the Taifuqing family, while I was clamoring for the loudest kitten from the You Pushe family.
"You don't understand. A loud voice means being sentimental." I argued.
The vote was three to one, and in the end, Li Siyan made the final decision: "I'll do as you say."
I happily picked up the loud-voiced cat from You Pushe's family, stroked its round head, and decided to give it the most resounding name.
"Sister Huiyue, do you have any good names?" I asked Huiyue, because she was often responsible for changing the names of new palace maids.
Hui Yue shook her head: "Since it is Madam Shen's beloved pet, it should be Madam Shen who should name it. I dare not interfere."
Qingfu also rolled up his sleeves and said indifferently, "I don't know how to judge a cat either."
I turned to Li Siyan: "Where is His Majesty?"
Li Siyan's imagination was rather lacking. He stared at the soft little cat in my hand for a long time, then hesitated and said, "Walking on snow? Fish pattern? General Rat?"
I mocked him mercilessly: "You shouted 'Rat General' at the entrance of Anyifang, and half the cat slaves in the neighborhood rushed towards you. How embarrassing."
"Then what do you want to call it?" Li Siyan also felt that it was a bit common.
I said firmly, "Call me Da Mi."
Li Siyan, Huiyue and Qingfu were all silent.
But I said confidently: "...You don't understand, giving a name that's cheap is easier to raise! My brother was weak when he was young, and he got better after being nicknamed 'Donkey Slave'. Da Mi sounds better than 'Donkey Slave', right?"
"What about you? Do you have a nickname too?" Li Siyan became interested.
"My full name is Chen Ying, my nickname is Ying Ying, my courtesy name is Zhuo Chen, and my pseudonym is Cang Lang." I said proudly, "Even my given name and surname are not bad."
"Oh." Li Siyan felt quite regretful.
I lifted the little cat slave up to the same height as my face, and facing its droopy little face, I said sternly, "From now on, your name will be Shen Daming. You must catch mice well. If you do well, there will be plenty of snacks."
Li Siyan said sarcastically, "...It's not even as big as a mouse. You'd better keep a close eye on it and don't let it get bullied by mice."
"Don't hit the kids," I said, "Big Mi is the best little cat slave."
Big Mi didn't understand that I was praising it, so it just played to its strengths and meowed at the top of its lungs, making Qingfu roll his eyes in annoyance.
"Baby, this is your home." I stroked it several times with satisfaction and put it in the cat bed that I had prepared long ago.
Li Siyan watched from the side, with a faint smile on his lips and a gentle look in his eyes.
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
