Chapter 218
Chapter 216: Luo Ning Falls Onto the Prince
Luo Ning did not understand medicine.
But the word “convulsions” sounded like a very serious illness.
No wonder the Empress Dowager had been so anxious that she did not even have time to greet Luo Ning, and had hurried off after the eunuch attendant.
Luo Ning sighed.
Xiao Huai Feng said in a cool voice: “Do not worry. Things will not get too chaotic. Imperial Mother has been laying out plans for this for years.”
He and the Emperor had never gotten along since they were young.
He was not a patient man to begin with. As his brother, the Emperor had always treated him badly. The fact that he had endured without rebelling already took a great deal of restraint.
In private, he could not even pretend to care.
Between the two brothers, one rose as the other fell.
Luo Ning said: “I am only worried about Imperial Mother. She is getting older. If she has to worry about her children and grandchildren like this all the time, her body will not be able to take it.”
Xiao Huai Feng said: “Because she is the Empress Dowager. She holds that position, so she has to do that work. She is only doing her duty.”
Luo Ning was speechless.
It was not only because of duty, but also because of affection. She was their Mother.
It was as if Xiao Huai Feng saw through her thoughts. The corner of his mouth lifted in a faint, mocking smile.
Perhaps in his eyes, the Empress Dowager had no real feelings at all. She was a wall of politics, firm and unshakable, with no emotion in her heart.
“Mother” was only her least important identity. “Empress” and “Empress Dowager” were her true self. All her thoughts were based on that.
Luo Ning understood what Xiao Huai Feng meant, but she did not argue with him.
Mother had many children, and her feelings for each child were different. The Mother that Prince Yong felt was the Empress, the Empress Dowager.
Luo Ning asked: “Prince, the Emperor is seriously ill. Will the Secondary Consorts still enter the manor tomorrow?”
Xiao Huai Feng thought for a moment and said: “If there is no morning court session tomorrow, we will say that the Emperor is unwell and it is not suitable to hold a joyful event. Let them enter the manor through the side gate.”
Luo Ning was stunned.
[You are really ruthless.]
[A Secondary Consort is also an Imperial Noblewoman, appointed by the Imperial Court. She just does not have an Imperial Seal. If you receive them with the standards used for concubines, will their maiden families not be so angry they cough up blood?]
[They are not concubines.]
[When the Emperor recovers and hears of this, he will probably be angry too.]
He was talking about the four Secondary Consorts.
“Prince, is that not going too far?” she asked.
“Chances pass in an instant,” Xiao Huai Feng said. “If the inner residence is to be peaceful, it is best if everyone lowers their head. In a military camp, there can only be one general. Do you understand?”
He wanted to press down the momentum of the Secondary Consorts as much as possible and raise Luo Ning up, so that the prestige of Luo Ning, this “chief general,” would stand firm.
At a time like this, Luo Ning absolutely could not say that she lacked confidence, fall behind, and disappoint the Commander-in-chief’s expectations.
She gathered her expression and nodded carefully: “I understand, Prince!”
Let the outside world make a fuss about this if it must. For now, they had to keep the inner residence under control first.
Since the Commander-in-chief had handed over power, Luo Ning had to show what she could do. If even Prince Yong was not afraid, what was there for her to fear?
In any case, it was not the Censorate scolding her.
As she thought of this, Luo Ning almost laughed. The pens of the Censorate would soon shift from other targets back to Prince Yong again.
To scold Prince Yong, they had spent who knew how much effort and how much ink and paper.
Luo Ning could not help wanting to laugh as she said: “Prince, I think the place that understands you best in all the world must be the Censorate.”
In order to scold him, did they not have to dig into his affairs with all their might and understand him thoroughly?
Xiao Huai Feng said: “Only when there is no war in the world and no people starving to death does the Censorate have time to scold this king. That is a blessing.”
Luo Ning was taken aback for a moment.
She said: “It is indeed a blessing, Prince.”
The husband and wife looked at each other.
Xiao Huai Feng looked away and said to her: “Go change your clothes first, then come back to eat.”
After a moment of thought, he added: “I will eat in the main courtyard and sleep there tonight.”
“Yes.”
Then he said: “I will sleep in the main courtyard for a month.”
This was also to help Luo Ning build up her authority.
Luo Ning answered in agreement.
She had already shared a bed with Prince Yong for a few nights and did not find anything wrong with it.
To put it bluntly, him sleeping at her side did not feel much different from a maidservant on night duty sleeping on the footstool.
Although his scent was different from a woman’s, it did not smell bad, and Luo Ning did not mind. She slept very deeply. Once she fell asleep, she hardly knew anything. She never noticed when he got up.
Luo Ning felt that he should not be annoyed either, because she also smelled clean, slept quietly, and was not hard to get along with.
She had already forgotten all the little booklets Nanny Yin had shown her before the wedding.
Xiao Huai Feng had not returned to the main courtyard for a few days. When he came back, he found that the arrangement of the bedchamber had been changed. The wardrobes, trunks, and desks had all been moved.
The bed curtains had also been changed to a lilac color.
He looked around the room.
Luo Ning remembered that he had said the main courtyard was for her to use, so she answered calmly: “I asked them to move the furniture around. It is arranged like my Wenqi Courtyard at home. It feels easy to use this way.”
“Do as you like,” Xiao Huai Feng said, not caring.
There was also a large heated brick platform by the window where one could sit and write during the day.
They both sat down to drink tea. Xiao Huai Feng asked Luo Ning: “You have been in the manor for ten days now. Is there anything you are not used to?”
“No.”
Luo Ning told him in detail: “The garden is big, so I can stroll everywhere and do not feel bored. The food tastes good, even better than what Nanny Kong makes, and there are more dishes. Nanny Shi is a good person, and Chief Steward Tao Bo also treats me with a lot of respect.”
Inside the main courtyard, all the servants were her own people. There was not a single old servant with seniority, so there were no cases of “wicked servants bullying their master.” Outside the courtyard, there was no mother-in-law, and no nurse acting like a steward, trying to lay down rules for her.
The attendants whom Prince Yong usually used had all been taken with him to Linhua Courtyard.
Luo Ning smiled and said: “Everything is good. I just hope that after the Secondary Consorts enter the manor, they will not disturb my good days.”
Xiao Huai Feng slowly drank a cup of tea and asked her: “You returned to the capital in the twelfth lunar month of the fifth year of the Xiping era, did you not?”
“Yes.”
“I came back in the fourth month,” Xiao Huai Feng said. “These people in the Prince’s Manor are not servants who have been with me day and night.
“In their eyes, I am the master who returned home first, and you are the master who entered the manor less than two years later. In front of you and me, they do not have any deep, years-long service.
“So you feel that they are easy to get along with and do not dare to test you. That is right. You also do not need to be polite with them. Aside from Tao Bo, there is no need to give face to anyone.”
He added: “Tao Bo used to serve at Imperial Father’s side. We have to give him that much respect.”
Luo Ning agreed.
Her mood grew even lighter.
In a strange place, everyone would be bullied for being new. Being a new daughter-in-law was hard mainly because of this.
As a new daughter-in-law, your husband’s family did not know you and felt you were a stranger. The household servants also saw you as an outsider and wanted to press down your spirit.
People said a daughter-in-law had to endure until she became a mother-in-law. That one word “endure” held all the bitterness in between.
Luo Ning did not need to endure like that, because in the whole estate, both master and servants were still getting used to one another. The servants did not have much confidence, yet they still hoped that the Princess Consort would look kindly on them.
Luo Ning felt more and more that this job of hers was not bad.
It was dangerous, but not hard.
When night fell, Luo Ning went to bathe. She washed her body and hair first, then sat on the big heated platform by the window and used a small brazier to dry her hair.
The process took quite a long time.
So she picked up a storybook to read while she waited. Qiu Lan was about to come in to serve her when Xiao Huai Feng came in, already changed into his under-robe, so Luo Ning told the maidservant to leave first.
He asked Luo Ning: “Are you not going to sleep?”
Luo Ning said: “I am waiting for my hair to dry. Prince, you sleep first.”
So Xiao Huai Feng went to the bed and lowered the curtains.
When Luo Ning’s hair was finally dry, it was already late. She blew out the candle in the bedroom and carefully climbed into bed.
Behind the dim curtains, Xiao Huai Feng was already lying down. She did not know if he was asleep.
He was sleeping on the outer side of the bed. Luo Ning planned to climb up from the foot of the bed. Unexpectedly, her knee landed on his calf. He quickly pulled his leg back, and the quilt under her hand slipped as he tugged it. Her whole body pitched forward.
Her face buried itself in his lower abdomen.