Chapter 084
Chapter 84: Your insatiable desire needs to be reined in!
Third Princess Xuan Ji swept toward the Imperial Study in a bold red dress; before she even arrived, that blaze of red had already stabbed into the eyes of the palace attendants.
She had heard that Lin Qing Xuan had entered the palace, and she could no longer hold back. She dressed to look bright and stunning because she wanted him to see what kind of lively world he should belong to once he took off those plain monk robes.
Instead of seeing him, she got an earful from her own father.
Inside the Imperial Study, the Emperor was already uneasy because of strange changes in the heavens. When he saw the harsh red on Xuan Ji, his vision went black and his stomach heaved, and he dry retched: “Ugh… ugh…”
He could only shout one word before the world spun and he fell straight backward: “Out!”
The Empress caught him and cried out for the Imperial Physician: “Your Majesty!”
After a flurry of golden-needle treatment, the Emperor slowly woke. Gasping, he pointed toward the door with disgust and said: “Tell Xuan Ji to get out. I faint when I see her!”
Only then did the Empress understand: the Emperor had fainted from anger at the daughter he loved most.
Back then, when memorials piled up like snow accusing her of setting up a private house and keeping male favorites, the Emperor had brushed them all aside. He would snort and say: “My little Xuan Ji has never been willing to step on even an ant. You dare say she tramples lives? What a joke!” He would add: “She could recite all 3,800 characters of the tale The Crown Prince Xuzheti Cutting Flesh for His Parents when she was six. Even Master Ru Hai praised her for having a Buddhist heart. A child that kind would not fail to value life.” He would say: “Every time I visit the Consort Oriole Palace, she is punished with sutra copying. Those small hands write the finest tiny calligraphy, and her copies of the Ksitigarbha Sutra stack as high as a person. Which of your daughters has that patience?” Then he would glare and finish: “I am devoted to the Buddha, and Great Qian has temples without number. How could my daughter be the villain you paint, who kills, robs, and bullies ministers’ daughters? Are you saying I raised her wrong, slapping my face?”
Because of his protective favoritism, the ministers fell quiet.
With that endless indulgence, Xuan Ji’s boldness swelled. She acted stranger and wilder, and the people’s anger had long piled up to the sky.
But today, her long-standing protective talisman failed.
That single “out” left Xuan Ji stunned.
She had spent most of her time outside the palace and didn’t know what had changed inside. She only felt her hot excitement drenched with a bucket of ice water. She had come for a monk, yet got shamed by her father in public.
Shaking with rage, she stamped her foot and rushed to her mother Consort Oriole’s quarters, the Flower Mirror Terrace.
As soon as she stepped onto the grounds, a chorus of chattering parrots in the corridor cages drilled into her skull. She didn’t get why her mother liked those sharp-beaked creatures. They screamed all day and were annoying to death.
With a dark face, she strode down the corridor and kicked open the hall door. Consort Oriole was leaning by a carved window, teasing a bright green parrot on its stand.
At forty, her waist was still slender, like a young maiden who had never given birth. The slanting sunlight fell on her well-kept face. With no heavy powder, her skin shone like a pearl, and the faint lines at her eyes had turned into a different kind of charm with age. A celery-green vest showed a corner of a moon-white shirt. When she lifted her hand, the jade bangle on her wrist chimed with a clear ring, prettier than the parrot’s mimicry.
The little maids in the corridor peeked and quietly marveled. In their hearts they thought this did not look like a woman past forty. She looked like a newly favored beauty.
Xuan Ji sneered inside. She knew well that after giving birth to her, her mother had secretly taken Silken Skin Pills to keep her youth. The price was that she could no longer conceive. Mother had never planned to have a son to secure her place, which suited Xuan Ji just fine.
With a bang, Xuan Ji kicked over the gilded foot warmer. The bronze rolled across the floor with a harsh clatter. Still not satisfied, she reached for the green parrot on the stand.
Consort Oriole’s voice was not loud but left no room for disobedience as she snapped: “Presumptuous! Your father gifted that. Go on and try touching it.”
“Mother,” Xuan Ji’s eyes reddened, and she finally found a place to vent her grievance, “you all keep yelling at me!”
Consort Oriole didn’t even lift her eyelids. Pinching a melon seed, she kept teasing the parrot as she said, full of mockery: “Who would dare shout at our Third Princess.”
Her tone turned colder: “Don’t think I don’t know the fine things you’ve done outside the palace. If I hadn’t covered for you, would that whole house of male favorites still be safe today?”
Just then, a slender, soft-tempered, handsome eunuch came up with a tea tray and offered it meekly: “Princess, please have tea.”
Xuan Ji gave him a look and understood at once: [Another fake man that Mother has collected. But that face is even better than the ones in my private house.]
A streak of competitiveness rose in her: [No, when I leave the palace I will find a few of this type. I haven’t tried the soft, feminine kind yet. What a pity for Mother, stuck with rootless eunuchs, never knowing the joy of a real man.]
Thinking of this, she couldn’t help letting out a chuckle.
Seeing that shameless look, Consort Oriole flung all the bird feed in her hand to the floor and snapped: “Put away those filthy thoughts in front of me! The year you had your Hairpin Coming of Age, I begged your father to let you open a private residence outside. I meant for you to play to your heart’s content so you wouldn’t have to rush back to the palace. Who knew you would spend these years raising men!”
Her voice grew colder still: “You are an unmarried princess. Do you not want your reputation? Your face?”
She never had deep motherly love for this daughter. If Xuan Ji weren’t her own, she wouldn’t have bothered with even one extra sentence.
“But Father just told me to get out,” Xuan Ji argued, which to her was the biggest grievance of the day.
“Out is mild,” Consort Oriole shot back, finally turning around, her eyes like knives as she looked her up and down. “Look at what you’re wearing. That deadly red. Your father has been ill for days. Even I have to choose a time to see him, afraid of crossing his mood. And you rush in to be scolded.”
The sight of her daughter’s flashy outfit gave Consort Oriole a headache. She ordered, “Pack up that shabby house of yours and move back to the Princess Residence for a while. Your father is sick. As his daughter, if you won’t be filial now, then when?”
She added, “And throw out that dress the moment you get back. That bright red looks like you were fished out of a pool of blood. What kind of taste is that? Right now the Imperial Palace allows only plain clothes. Put away those silks and satins and change to cotton and linen. Aren’t there enough memorials charging you with luxury and debauchery? And you still act like nothing is wrong.”
Xuan Ji’s face fell at the thought of being shut back in the palace: “Do I really have to live in the palace? It is so boring.”
“Look at those two dark smudges under your eyes,” Consort Oriole said with real anger. “Night after night of indulgence would break even an iron body. Your insatiable desire needs to be reined in.” She ended with a hard order: “Return to the palace and do sutra copying for seven days as a blessing rite for your father.”
“Fine…” Seeing there was no way to turn this around, Xuan Ji tried to bargain, “then let me go back and tidy up. I will return in two days, all right?”
She was still thinking about the handsome new men she had just collected.
“No,” Consort Oriole refused without a blink. “You return tomorrow.”
Her head full of men, that girl needed a firm Prince Consort as soon as possible to keep her in check. But with Xuan Ji’s reputation lying in ruins, which proper young master in the Capital City would dare marry her?