Chapter 52: Road to Heaven
Zhu Youtong certainly wouldn't tell anyone about his momentary confusion, but simply said, "We were talking about His Majesty and Miss Zhou."
Zhu Yuhuan was somewhat frustrated by her behavior of dragging Zhu Hanjia and Zhu Qiyu along to gossip under the pretext of legitimate reasons, and asked, "Why are you bringing Jiajia and Yuge'er to discuss this?"
"Don't even mention us, the tenants in the imperial farm are talking about it too." Zhu Youtong chuckled and said, "Your Majesty appreciates Miss Zhou so much, they all guess that His Majesty wants to appoint Miss Zhou as a court lady."
For ordinary people, being a female official is the best way out they can imagine.
Although entering the palace as a female official inevitably carried the risk of being buried alive, Emperor Xuanzong did not bury his concubines and palace maids alive after his death. This also made the people less afraid of entering the palace, and they even secretly hoped that their daughters could enter the palace to gain glory and even provide for their families.
Zhu Yuhuan rolled his eyes and joked, "What a shame! Otherwise, we could set up a gambling game and let everyone bet on how lucky Miss Zhou is. It would definitely be a very interesting scene."
In fact, all four of them knew very well that the female official was not even as good as Zhou Yingying in terms of rank, and Zhu Qizhen's "appreciation" was not the kind of appreciation that everyone thought.
Zhu Youtong stopped talking about this and just took her sister's arm and said coquettishly: "Sister, you have read the memorial today, right? Let's go out for a walk. I heard from the tenants that they need to weed the sorghum recently, so let's go and take a look."
Zhu Yuhuan said with a smile: "Okay, now that we have finally come out, we can't stay in the house all the time, right?" She looked at Zhu Hanjia and Zhu Qiyu and smiled at them.
Zhu Hanjia and Zhu Qiyu remained silent.
For them, they should really cherish such times.
Zhu Qizhen and the cabinet had agreed on a hunting period of only twenty days. Since they had to inspect agricultural affairs, they naturally could not just stay at the imperial farm. Therefore, after staying for two or three more days, the group was ready to officially leave.
If it were before, Zhu Qizhen probably wouldn't have cared. After all, as long as they were out having fun, what difference did it make where they played? But now that he had met Zhou Yingying, Zhu Qizhen was reluctant to leave Changping Huangzhuang.
These days, Zhou Yingying took him for a good tour around the imperial manor. Her lively appearance surprised Zhu Qizhen a little.
He had never seen a woman like Zhou Yingying in the palace. She was a bit spoiled, but not unkind. On the contrary, she was very knowledgeable and interesting. Not to mention that she, like Zhu Qizhen, liked outings and hunting, and she was very yearning for the capital.
Zhu Qizhen became more curious about Zhou Yingying. Thinking of the group of uninteresting palace maids prepared by his mother, Empress Dowager Sun, in Kangning Palace, Zhou Yingying was really interesting.
Just like the rabbit, except that Zhou Yingying was more lively, so Zhu Qizhen wanted to bring this "prey" back to the palace.
But Zhu Qizhen couldn't help but have some concerns. After all, if the news got out that he brought a woman back from outside the palace, it would not sound good.
It was also for this reason that Zhu Qizhen did not talk about this matter with Zhu Yuhuan in person. Although he himself did not know why he did not dare to talk about this matter with Zhu Yuhuan, he still avoided it instinctively.
However, Xue Huan had already known about the situation between Zhu Qizhen and Zhou Yingying, so he quickly comforted Zhu Qizhen.
——Persuade Zhu Qizhen to bring Zhou Yingying back to the palace.
"All under heaven belongs to the king, and all the people are his subjects. Your Majesty is the Son of Heaven, so why not bring women back to the palace? If you have any concerns, you can also select a group of women from the imperial farm to serve as palace maids, which can also be considered a cover-up."
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