Chapter 1100

Who Has Come?

With a sweltering hot summer, the whole Da Shun quietened down in this season. There were no fights in court, the citizens did not cause trouble, there were no floods and no conflicts occurred at the borders. It was as if everything had turned static, it was as if it was the last calm period before a huge disaster occurred.

Lu Song’s rank was demoted to Sixth rank external official at Zhong Shu province and lost his right to attend court. The Lu family disappeared from court suddenly and was considered a major incident during this hot summer.

General Ping Nan manor formally requested Lu Ping’s marriage from the Lu family, this surprised Lu Song. He had the intentions of spreading rumours outside, saying that Lu Ping had been taken advantage of by Ren Xitao, creating an impetus, wanting to take this chance to cause General Ping Nan manor to lose out so that they would give up on the idea of suppressing him. After all, if this matter was spread around, this would not do anything good to Ren Xitao’s reputation.

But a body verification from Feng Yuheng caused the Lu family to lose all hope. Lu Ping was still intact, so how could they spread the story of her being taken advantage of?

However, General Ping Nan manor asked for a marriage when the Lu family had already fallen to its lowest, Lu Song felt that the situation could be turned around and wanted to take the chance to curry favour with General Ping Nan manor, planning to climb back to the high position in the future. However, General Ping Nan told him personally: “Your official position or your life, make your choice. Marrying your daughter into my Ren family with your Sixth Official position, my Ren family will not treat that child badly and will show some mercy to your family based on this relationship. But if you act out on your own and do not change your ways, then do not blame This General for sparing no one in your family!”

Lu Song completely believed that General Ping Nan had the ability to get rid of everyone in the Lu family, so he did not speak anymore, with Ge Shi managing it, they silently exchanged the eight characters, then with Ren family making the decision, they set the marriage date in spring next year.

Finally autumn arrived, and when the first gusts of cool wind of the autumn days blew into the capital, almost everyone breathed a deep sign of relief. The stuffiness of this summer gave all of them the impression that they could not breathe properly and the feeling of “a huge disaster would erupt” constantly filled their heart, with this feeling only gradually dissipating when the days of autumn came.

Everyone felt that they have overthought things, currently Da Shun was peaceful, the Sixth Prince was regent, the Emperor also appeared to make a decision on the matter of Left Prime Minister. On the outside, the Ninth Prince and Seventh Prince also played a part, and they had the First Prince supporting Da Shun financially. With this kind of Da Shun, what else could they fear?

Imperial Concubine Yuan Gui was dismembered alive, the Eighth Prince was still locked in the death row prison, it was said that the rot had already reached his knees, and the bone at the base of his thigh could be seen, it was as scary as one could imagine. But he would not die, suffering while he was alive. Just like this, he was paying the appropriate price for what he did in the past.

No one felt he was pitiful, and even felt that he deserved it. The Eighth Prince’s faction in the past, some of them still held positions in the capital. Because there were so many of them, and many of them were related to the concubines and noble ladies in the palace, touching a small part of them would create huge implications, so it was impossible to really completely get rid of all of them. As the saying goes, capture the ringleader first in order to capture all his followers, the Eighth Prince had been caught, so there was no need to fear those people causing waves anymore. Because for the princes left, there was nothing that would cause them to shake things up anymore.

Under the incitement from the Emperor, arrangements would be made for the Eighth Prince’s faction to regularly visit the death row prison, making them see the state of the Eighth Prince over and over again, so that they would also think at the same time, if a prince making a mistake could end up like this, if it was them, how would they be treated?

With such strong perceptions and mental stimulus, those people no longer dared to cause trouble, and quickly lost any control at court. The Sixth Prince had always ruled the nation with knowledge, during this period as regent, he fixed up the book vault until it looked really good, summoned scholars to continue writing books, and even restructured all the public and private schools in the capital and Shun Tian Prefecture. And with Feng Yuheng’s suggestion, he opened many specialised academies similar to Hundred Herb School, with the emphasis on cultivating specialised talents, not just focusing on the theory of the four books and five classics.

With the cooling of autumn, the Emperor had thoughts of going hunting. All the princes and ministers wanted to make the Emperor happy, so they expressed their support. Only Imperial Concubine Yun who lived in Chun Palace was more unhappy, she asked Xuan Tianhua: “How long will all of you be gone? It cannot delay us going to Ji An Prefecture to deliver the dowry. We agreed that we would reach Ji An Prefecture before the Mid-autumn festival, meeting Madam An on the day of the Mid-autumn festival, then returning after spending the Mid-autumn festival there.”

Xuan Tianhua smiled in a troubled manner, “The imperial hunting will only take three to five days at most, Imperial Concubine Mother does not need to worry.”

“Is it possible for me to not worry?” Imperial Concubine Yun said in exasperation: “You will not manage your own matters and I, as your mother, helped you to manage it, and you still look calm, it makes me angry seeing this. Learn from your Ninth Brother, when he gave Ah-Heng dowry in the past, I did not have to worry at all.”

Xuan Tianhua gave a jolt, suddenly thinking, if it was him who would give Feng Yuheng the dowry, would he be as unbothered like how he was now?

It was true that he was not that concerned, or more like, he did not know how to be concerned. He had never thought about these things in the past, and even always felt that marrying and having children was unrelated to him. Only until he was forced by Imperial Concubine Yun to this point and the other party was Feng Xiangrong, that was when he nodded. But even though he did nod, his heart did not throb like it should be.

In the end, treating that girl well was one matter, causing him to truly move his heart, it was another matter.

The Emperor headed towards the imperial hunting grounds, and the whole group was grand, other than the Sixth Prince who was carrying out his duties as regent, all the other princes and the princes’ wives were accompanying him on his left and right. The Empress also led the concubines and noble ladies in the imperial palace, following along. All the court officials of Fourth rank and above followed and were even allowed to bring along their family members.

Anyway, this was an imperial hunt with the theme of “making the Emperor happy”, everyone’s absolute orders was to serve the old Emperor well, hunting was secondary, singing and dancing, as well as food and drink was the main event. Even Yao Xian brought Yao family’s three sons, three daughter-in-laws and six grandsons along, and especially received instructions from Feng Yuheng that he could accompany the old Emperor in drinking alcohol in appropriate amounts.

The hunting grounds were already prepared, when the people arrived, the tents were already set up and the grounds were segregated. It was not that different from the winter hunt last time, the womenfolk camping area expanded outwards in an order based on the official’s position of the Master of their family, the princes and their wives lived in another area, the concubines and noble ladies also had their own specialised area, it was segregated very clearly.

The people arrived in the evening, the imperial chefs from the imperial palace headed over the day before, and they were currently cooking. The food was the wild game hunted from the mountains, the drinks were high quality alcohol taken from the imperial palace.

The Emperor also felt relaxed and happy leaving the imperial palace, pulling Yao Xian and drinking bowl after bowl of alcohol, but Yao Xian had him eat sobering medicine beforehand so that this old Emperor could hold on a little longer, such that he would not get drunk after a few bowls of alcohol.

After the incident with Imperial Concubine Yuan Gui, all the concubines and noble ladies were nervous, afraid that their currying favour to Imperial Concubine Yuan Gui in the past had caused the Emperor or Empress to dislike them. Therefore during the hunting event this time, they were all rather obedient, surrounding the Empress and trying their best to put in a good word, smiling while in her company. This grand event even caused the Empress to develop an illusion. She thought that this was many years ago when Imperial Concubine Yun had not entered the imperial palace yet, when these people would pay their respects everyday and gather around, spending time with each other happily.

However, it was still different, everyone had grown old, there were no new people entering the palace for over twenty years, for these concubines who remained, which one of them would not have lines on their faces because of time? No matter how well they maintained themselves, when compared to those princes’ wives and the Young Misses from the various families, they were so much older.

The Empress thought, to be able to compete with those young girls, only Imperial Concubine Yun could do so, right? In her impression, that woman was really young, and was especially age resistant. When Winter Moon Palace caught fire, she came out once and that face actually did not change much compared to more than 20 years ago, making people envious when they saw it.

The Empress was someone who did not like to initiate trouble, since the concubines and noble ladies were willing to maintain harmony on the surface, she was happy to show this harmonious appearance to the Emperor. In the end, seeing his wife and concubines chatting and laughing was more powerful than seeing people argue and bicker.

The celebratory banquet on the first night did not have much rules, it was free and easy, people could gather with anyone they wanted, not caring about their position or status, there were even sons of Fourth rank officials who came to have a drinking competition with the First Prince. When the Emperor saw it, he laughed and even told Yao Xian: “Look, that is how things should be!”

Feng Yuheng also enjoyed this kind of atmosphere, she even took out a lot of red wine and drinks out from her Space and gave it the imperial chefs, letting them distribute these to everyone to drink. The wine were snatched by the men, and the drinks were sent to the Madams and Young Misses. Ignoring how the men would go crazy when they drank alcohol, because the Madams and Young Misses had not drunk carbonated drinks before, they were momentarily amazed, with all of them discussing how delicious this thing was, how mystical it was, and people even started guessing where this thing came from? Was this made by the imperial chefs?

Xuan Tianming told Feng Yuheng softly: “Giving such a good thing for them to drink, it’s really a waste.”

Feng Yuheng laughed at him for being petty: “It’s not like you don’t know, my Space has a self-replenishing function, so what if a lot was taken out? It would be replenished automatically in no time.”

“I know.” Xuan Tianming said again: “But I feel that it is being easy on these people, they do not know who is the source of what they are drinking and cannot praise you.”

“People not talking about me is the best.” Feng Yuheng said: “Abnormal things will become evil spirits! I do not want to be treated as an evil spirit by others. If all strange and rare things come from me, people will suspect me one day.”

Xuan Tianming’s heart pulsed, and watching the bonfire in front of him, he suddenly asked her: “If there is a small place, much much smaller than Da Shun, but the people are kind, the court is stable, the folk there are simple and honest, and no one would investigate if you are an evil spirit or not, that kind of place, do you like it?”

Feng Yuheng was confused, “No one will investigate if I am an evil spirit or not? Even if I take things out in front of them, they will not have any abnormal reaction?”

Xuan Tianming told her: “They will, but they will naturally prop you up as a god. They have a religion, they think that for all good things, no matter how abnormal they are, are given by the god they believe in, so they will accept them happily.”

“Uh……” Feng Yuheng scratched her head, “People with religion, aren’t they all very extreme? For the sake of that god they believe in, they will not care about anything else and do some radical things?” After all, in the 21st century, a certain religious group gave her a rather bad impression and it was a rather deep impression as well.

But Xuan Tianming shook his head and said: “No, their beliefs is that they have to perform good deeds and everything is positive and enabling. Not only do these people not have extreme thoughts, their personalities are mild and they are enthusiastic.”

Feng Yuheng was moved by what he said, “What kind of place is that? I like that kind of place, can we go?”

Xuan Tianming nodded, “Of course we can go, but not now, one day I will take you to that place, spending the days with smaller homes and businesses, not a vast land like Da Shun.”

At the hunting grounds, husband and wife were talking about their plans for the future, but did not know, at this moment, two people were standing at the entrance of Deyang Gate at the imperial palace, telling the imperial guards guarding the palace gates: “Open the gate, This Prince has an urgent matter and rushed back from the hunting grounds, there is a need to enter the imperial palace immediately!”