CH 13

By the time the boat was moored on the other side of the lake, Jing Ye was already rocked to the point of dizziness so when stepping ashore, he couldn’t help but stumble. Fortunately, Gu Hong was there to lend him an arm.

A person was already standing on the shore, with slightly curved eyes and ebony hair.

Jing Ye paused for a moment, then turned to look at Gu Hong, who motioned for him to come forward.

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Jing Ye coughed lightly and said, “Lin Qing.”

Lin Xiaosheng bowed and saluted: “Your Majesty.”

Gu Hong smiled slightly, reached out to hold the emperor’s hand, and led him inside. After passing through the shadows cast by the trees on both sides, Jing Ye was surprised to find that this place was also a cluster of buildings and pavilions that was tidied very cleanly with no sign of dilapidation.

Lin Xiaosheng walked by the side of the two, and when he lowered his head a little, he could see their hands clasped.

Jing Ye followed Gu Hong to a door. The houses and buildings here did not have plaques hanging on them to indicate any name. A black-clothed guard was waiting at the door, who also bowed and greeted, “Your Majesty.”

Jing Ye nodded and the guard pushed open the door to let the three of them into the room. Further inside was a jade gauze partition with the door already open.

Jing Ye stepped in and was stunned when he raised his eyes and looked around: “This place…..”

Behind him, Lin Xiaosheng glanced at Gu Hong and spoke slowly.

“This is the work of our Gu and Lin families, who have devoted more than 20 years of efforts.”

…………

Feng Ling stood quietly in the main hall of the Feng Manor. Behind him, old Lord Feng sat on the main seat, the tea lid in his hand gently knocking against the edge of the tea cup.

The servant stood in front of the doors, bowing and leading the distinguished guest in front of him to the main hall.

The old man in his fifties walked slowly to the front of the hall with the servant, and said with cupped hands, “Lord Feng, I haven’t seen you for so many years.”

Lord Feng hurriedly put the tea cup back on the small table, stood up and said, “Elder Xing.”

Feng Ling didn’t understand, so he could only bow in greeting.

The old man smiled slightly, moved his gaze to Feng Ling, and sighed with feeling: “This is…..your son?” He couldn’t help but take two steps forward and look more carefully.

Feng Ling looked up at him, then lowered his head again: “Feng Ling, greets this respected elder.”

“Good, good.” Elder Xing looked at him, and couldn’t help but speak praises to old Lord Feng, “Your son truly has the appearance and demeanor of dragons and phoenixes, truly a pillar of the nation…..”

Old Lord Feng nodded and smiled.

When the servant standing by the side raised his eyes, he saw the thin fingers of this Elder Xing, trembling faintly within his sleeve.

………..

In front of Jing Ye’s eyes were dozens of standing cabinets, all of which were sealed with paper seals. When he looked up to the innermost part of the room, he could see the cabinet with the seal of the Zhao family, which was the largest one.

So he simply walked straight to it, raised his hand to tear off the seal, and opened it. What met the eyes were shelves and shelves of booklets, each marked with the year, month and person’s name, numbering almost hundreds of volumes, even divided into main volumes, auxiliary volumes and so on.

Jing Ye now completely understood that this was the “Qingyu Pavilion” planned and set up by the female emperor and Prime Minister Gu in his memory.

A trove of information managed by the Gu family and funded by the Lin family.

It seemed that his workaholic grandmother not only had to control the overall situation when she was alive, but also required her children and grandchildren to continue to remain fully in control of the court after she ascended to heaven.

It was really not a small case of controlling and possessiveness at all. It was no wonder that after the night of food poisoning, the booklet of information Gu Hong brought over was detailed enough to write a novel.

Jing Ye raised his hand to take Zhao Mingde’s volume, but unexpectedly, it unstabled and brought several volumes with it, all of which fell to the ground. The black-clothed guard hurriedly stepped forward to tidy up.

“Your Majesty, please be at ease.” Gu Hong said with a smile, “The people around Your Majesty are very clean, guaranteed to have no informants from outside the palace. These days, Your Majesty can come here to check more, in the case of…..suppressing the chaos.”

Jing Ye: “…..En.”

He suddenly had a creepy feeling.

It was getting late, and the three quickly returned to the shore from earlier. Gu Hong seemed to have something to do, so he quickly bowed and left. Lin Xiaosheng also turned to leave, but was stopped by Jing Ye.

“Lin Qing.”

The person who was called turned around. The moonlight reflected on his handsome silhouette, making him look extraordinarily cold.

Jing Ye said, “Are your eyes better?”

He nodded: “This subject thanks Your Majesty for the medicine.”

Jing Ye looked into his eyes and thought to himself that the reason his eyes were blurry and couldn’t see things must be because of congenital myopia.

Lin Xiaosheng said, “Your Majesty?”

“Ah, ah, it is nothing.” Jing Ye came back to his senses and smiled at him, “Qing can go back.”

Lin Xiaosheng pursed his lips, looked at him, and in the end still turned away.

The next day, all the officials with their own thoughts and motives went to court, but Zhao Mingde took sick leave, and after that, he continued to take leave for several days, putting on a full air of arrogance.

Jing Ye didn’t pay it any attention either, and still asked the quails with an amiable face, “Are there any memorials today?” “How is the disaster in the southwest?” “Do the common people have enough to eat?” “How many young can the old sows in the east of the city have in a single litter?” And so on. The officials were also used to it, all replying timidly with perfunctory answers one by one.

The days went by without any waves.

It was just that Jing Ye no longer went to the imperial study after taking a noon nap every day, but instead took a boat to Qingyu Pavilion to check the volumes. As soon as Lu Baizang heard about this he suddenly developed a whim, going to the hall every day to ask His Majesty the Emperor if he wanted to bring some snacks to relieve his boredom.

While asking, he would also press kisses.

Jing Ye was practically almost driven to look up to the sky and scream by this questioning mode of asking and kissing and said: “Qing, qing’s kindness is difficult to refuse, just…..hnn, uh, then you can fry Zhen some melon seeds…..” As he spoke he kept backing away to avoid the kissing.

“En?” Lu Gongzi stopped pressing down kisses and blinked, “Your Majesty wants to eat melon seeds?”

“…..That’s right.”

Lu Baizang frowned: “It’s just a crude street snack…..” Then he smiled at Jing Ye, “Your Majesty, please change it to another kind.” He stretched out his left arm and hugged Jing Ye’s waist, lowered his head and bit the other’s pink lips, lightly licking and kissing.

Jing Ye’s forehead vein twitched, he grabbed Lu Huihui, who was nibbling on some snacks, and blocked Lu Gongzi’s mouth with its small belly that was like a creamy steamed bun.

Lu Baizang: “…..”

Lu Huihui struggled fiercely: Ah, too scary, I want to take a shower——

Jing Ye: Who’s the one refusing to shed a tear without seeing the coffin.

His Majesty the Emperor who finally won the victory, brought a packet of fragrant melon seeds (Lu Gongzi expressed that his heart was broken with the act of frying them) into the archives room with a smile, and while eating melon seeds, he learned the profound science of “the Zhao family’s daily life”.

By the evening, Jing Ye finally went ashore. Ye Mao had been waiting on the shore for a long time, and hurriedly stepped forward and said, “Your Majesty, to the imperial study?”

Jing Ye lowered his head and crossed under the hanging willow branches: “Zhen won’t go tonight, to the palace.”

“Ai.” Ye Gonggong raised the whisk, “Your Majesty, please step on the imperial sedan.”

Jing Ye was raising his foot to enter, but suddenly he said, “Why does Zhen…..hear the crying of a child?”

“Ah?” Ye Mao was stunned for a moment, listened carefully, and sure enough, “This is…..” After a moment of thinking, he understood why, and hurriedly smiled: “It’s the little prince.”

Jing Ye’s heart moved, and after pondering about it for a while, he found his answer.

Jing Ye’s fifth brother was conferred the title Prince of Xiao by the late emperor because he liked to wander jianghu as a chivalrous knight-errant. Although he did not participate in the fight for the throne, when he returned to the imperial palace he was gravely injured and in the end, died from his injuries. The two sons he left behind were arbitrarily named princes by the original owner, and they were left to their own devices in an unknown secluded place in the imperial palace.

Jing Ye raised his foot in the direction of the crying as soon as he understood, and Ye Mao hurriedly followed.

Passing through the shade of the trees was a small spot of open grassy area, and under the twilight and sunset, there was a little child sitting there, crying with his chubby little paws covering his face.

Jing Ye walked over slowly, the little guy was quite keen, and immediately moved his paws to look at him. He was only one or two years old, and was very cute like a snowball.

Ye Mao let out a surprised sound: “The appearance of this little prince…..is quite similar to Your Majesty’s.”

“Really?” Jing Ye couldn’t help chuckling as he watched the child raise his face to look at him. “Where’s the maid who takes care of you?”

However, the child got up unsteadily, reached out and hugged Jing Ye’s leg, opened his mouth and spit out a bubble.

Jing Ye’s heart softened. In his previous life, a group of nephews and nieces often surrounded and bothered him to play with them. The elders laughed and said that he had an affinity for children. Now it seemed, this was really the case?

He couldn’t help leaning down and picking up the little guy: “Know how to speak yet?”

The little prince remained silent, his big black grape-like eyes looking at the warm and gentle young man holding him in his arms, unwiped tears still on his small face. Jing Ye’s heart moved, recalling that this child’s parents had died, he was his uncle, so why not raise him at his side…..

“Yun’er!”

Suddenly there was a childish sounding shout from the front. Jing Ye raised his head, and saw that it was a seven or eight-year-old child holding a hollowed-out wooden sword, watching them vigilantly.

The sunset was gradually setting, and the ground was painted with red and orange rays of light.

The sweet and cute little baby in his arms suddenly opened his arms and kept “babbling” toward the boy in the distance.

Jing Ye was amused and couldn’t help but lower his head and rub his face against the child’s smooth and chubby cheek, saying with a smile, “Your big brother is here?”

The little prince: “Yah!”

Both grown-up and child looked at each other and smiled, looking like a pair of father and son, causing the boy who was holding his sword vigilantly to startle.

Jing Ye looked at him and instructed Ye Mao: “Wait here.” He walked over with the little guy, leaned down, and handed him the child in his arms: “Can you hold him?”

The boy nodded with a serious expression on his tender face and stretched out his hands.

The little prince nestled in his arms, looked at the stern face of hus big brother, and then looked at Jing Ye who was smiling gently, then turned his head, and resolutely hugged Jing Ye’s neck: “Yahyahyahyah!”

The little boy’s face darkened.

Jing Ye couldn’t help laughing, and his intention to bring this little baby home became stronger and stronger.

The little boy was still working hard: “Yun’er!”

Little baby: “Yah!”

Little boy: “Yun’er, don’t fuss, come, come to big brother.”

Little baby: “Yahyah…..wu, wu wah wah wah…..”

Little boy:”…..”

Jing Ye smiled and looked at the wooden sword in the boy’s hand. Although it looked rough, the body of the sword was as smooth as a mirror. Just by looking at it, one could estimate the smooth fluidity when the maker’s hand raised their own sword to create this wooden one.

…..Wait.

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He suddenly remembered that although the Prince of Xiao had passed away, before he died, he was worried that his two sons would be left unattended in the palace, so he ordered a servant to go out of the imperial palace to find a close friend to look after and teach his sons.

And this person was indeed now living quietly in the imperial palace.