CH 102

Where do men get confinement leave. Lu Shi Qing’s new injury was not enough for him to call in sick, and the old injury could not be discovered by Emperor Huining, so it was not easy to take leave from work to live idly.

But Yuan Ci Xian had this wish, and he had to satisfy her.

Lu Shi Qing hugged the mother and daughter while frowning and lost in thought.

Yuan Ci Xian saw that he had difficult expression, and was about to speak unhappily, when suddenly she saw his brows stretched out, and said: “I understand.”

Lu Shi Qing accompanied Yuan Ci Xian to eat, got up and drew up a letter, roughly explained the current situation in the Huihu territory and the attitude of their royal family, and asked Cao An to present it to the palace the next day.

After Emperor Huining met Cao An, he naturally couldn’t tell him to go back empty-handed, so he waved his hand and sent someone to prepare some high-quality tonics for the Lu family. He asked his personal eunuch to go to Yongxing Lane and bring an imperial physician with him.

Yesterday the imperial physician in the palace was ordered to come to Lu Mansion, but Yuan Ci Xian had not wake up at that time. In the end he didn’t give her a pulse check, but simply asked about the general situation. Now this trip was not out of concern, but to test her out.

Emperor Huining was a very suspicious person, it was impossible to trust anyone wholeheartedly, even Lu Shi Qing. The reason why he got angry with Zhang Zhi Xian before was not because he hated his unscrupulous words, but because he was subconsciously afraid of what he said.

Although Lu Shi Qing was only a fourth rank official, the power in his hands was too great, and these powers were handed over to him by Emperor Huining himself. It was true that Zhang Zhi Xian, this high-ranking minister, had always been at odds with him, and might take this opportunity to make trouble. But these words reminded the old emperor that a courtier who have frequent contacts with Nanzhao’s and Huihu’s royal families was actually a very dangerous existence. If he wanted to, he could reach a conspiracy agreement with those enemy country during the two missions. If Yuan Yi Zhi’s support was added, the consequences would be even more unimaginable.

So yesterday, Supervisor Zhang gave Emperor Huining an idea. Yuan Yu, the eldest son of Yuan family, had not have an heir for many years. Now that Yuan Ci Xian gave birth to a twin, why not take the opportunity to canonize one of them, and then take it to be raised in the palace to show his “sacred grace”. Such move could be said to not only hold the Lu family under his thumb, but also guarded against the Yuan family.

Emperor Huining didn’t respond on the surface, but in fact he was already faintly moved. But this kind of fake grace, the Yuan and Lu families naturally understood the real meaning. Yuan Ci Xian had just experienced something like that, it was not good for him to immediately take people by force, so it’s best to find out her physical condition first.

After the eunuch came, Lu Shi Qing received him respectfully, and then the imperial physician took Yuan Ci Xian’s pulse.

After the imperial physician finished his diagnosis, he was a little surprised. He reported the truth to Emperor Huining, saying that with Yuan Ci Xian’s body, she would definitely not be able to give birth again within three to five years, and whether she would fall into the root of the disease, whether she have the opportunity to conceive, depend on how she raised her body next.

After hearing this, Emperor Huining hesitated for a while.

His defense against Lu Shi Qing was to take precautions, but he didn’t really want to tear up his face with this courtier who had always been favored. Hearing Yuan Ci Xian’s situation, he knew that it would be difficult to pick up the child, so he had to hold back for the time being.

In fact, Yuan Ci Xian had worried about this since she was pregnant. When she saw the imperial physician come to check her pulse, she guessed what the emperor was thinking about. After all, this was not the first time the old emperor used this kind of tactic. Back then when he made her father a prince, he also prevented her brother, who was still young, from coming to Diannan with them, and make him stay in the capital as a hostage.

Fortunately, she was not in good health now, so it became blessing in disguise, and saved the pair of children.

It just that since seeds of doubt had been planted in the old emperor’s heart, it would only grow and flourish, and the road ahead would be more difficult. She was afraid that this matter would still happen to the children sooner or later.

However, Lu Shi Qing told her not to worry, calmly wrote an eloquent letter of resignation, then let someone sent it to Zichen Palace the next day.

Yuan Ci Xian was taken aback at first, but after thinking about it, she realized that this was the method of advancing by retreating that he and Zheng Zhuo had always use.

This “painstaking” letter of resignation was telling Emperor Huining that he had already understood what he meant, and he was very disappointed and frustrated. The so-called I’m not afraid of being smashed to pieces, I want to stay innocent in the world. Since the emperor did not trust him so much, he was willing to resign and return to his hometown, return to Luoyang to live idly, and never ask about the court affairs again. It just so happened that for the trip to Huihu this time, he suffered a lot of hardship on the way, and had several life and death confrontation with the Turks, afraid his body had already received enough tortured. If His Majesty willing to grant permission, it would be the best.

Yuan Ci Xian felt that he was playing quite big this time, and if the next day Emperor Huining wrote the word “Granted” in his resignation, it would be very interesting.

The result had no if. Because Lu Shi Qing said that when he explained the internal affairs of Huihu in his letter the day before, he quietly left a few foreshadowing, hanging the appetite of the old emperor. Not to mention the long-term, it was impossible to abandon him as a courtier just for the sake of the current war between the Turks and Huihu.

Emperor Huining really panicked and sent his eunuch immediately, saying that he was not allowed to resign from office.

Lu Shi Qing told the eunuch with a difficult expression on his face that since His Majesty still have some use for him, he would naturally not disobey the edict, but his body had not fully recovered, and he might not be able to endure it when he returned to court.

The eunuch was all smiles, and said that it was not a problem. His Majesty said to grant him a month’s leave to let him rest and recuperate.

With this retreat to advance move, it refrained the old emperor from being too suspicious and guarded. More importantly, he also managed to obtain the “confinement leave” for himself. Yuan Ci Xian couldn’t help but sigh in admiration for her husband’s intelligence.

Xuan shi‘s word became a prophecy, she really made her son sit with her daughter-in-law for confinement.

In the following days, when Yuan Ci Xian was lying on the bed, Lu Shi Qing also fulfilled his promise that he would be there wherever she was, and mostly lay down with her. Because she couldn’t catch the cold wind, he didn’t go out casually, so as not to bring frosty air with him.

The two patients seemed to have made a nest on the bed, and arranged all their meals on the side of the bed. At the beginning, it was like a short separation is better than a newlywed honeymoon, and when they took the meal, you would feed me and I would feed you, you take a bite of my green vegetables, I eat a piece of your radish, you pick fishbone for me, and I peel the eggshell for you. Later, Yuan Ci Xian really fed up of looking at Lu Shi Qing twenty-four hours a day, so she put more attention on the children.

Lu Yuan Shu’s rocking crib was moved here, and it was next to the bed of the two of them. During the day, Yuan Ci Xian breastfed her. At night, because her body had not yet recovered, the wet nurse took care of her.

As for Lu Yuan Zhen, since the first day, she had never mentioned the matter of breastfeeding him, and it was not good to keep him in the room all the time, so as not to trouble Lu Shi Qing to take the child out when the child was hungry, and simply let him spend more time with the wetnurse. It was just that she always asked to see him from time to time, so a few times a day she would trouble the wetnurse to bring the baby, and it often coincided with the time when Xuan shi was playing with this grandson.

After twenty days like this, in the Third month of spring, when the children were approaching a full month, Yuan Ci Xian asked Lu Shi Qing if he wanted to hold a banquet and make simple arrangements for the two brother and sister.

This full month banquet, no matter how big or small, it was necessary to be held, and Lu Shi Qing was still an official of the imperial court, so it was really necessary to entertain some colleagues. But he refused on the ground that her body had not fully recovered and it was no good tiring her up from all the required work, and said that he would make it up again when the children were one year old.

For the Flower Festival, it was originally Lu Shi Qing’s turn to host the banquet, and he also used this reason to excuse himself. When Yuan Ci Xian heard this, she didn’t insist on it like last time, and just listened to his arrangement.

After a few days, Lu Shi Qing’s injury was almost healed, and he returned to court. Yuan Ci Xian’s confinement was also over, and she could go out to take a breath of fresh air. After he step outside to go to work, she wanted to take the two children to the yard to enjoy the spring breeze. Only when Yuan Ci Xian asked the wet nurse, she said that Lu Yuan Zhen had a poor appetite this morning and Lu Shi Qing, who was worried that the child would get sick, took him to doctor Ge’s medical hall for consultation when he went out just now.

Yuan Ci Xian thanked the wet nurse, but didn’t ask too much. She didn’t see Lu Shi Qing bringing the child back until dusk, so she hugged Lu Yuan Shu to see the Xuan shi.

Xuan shi was really worried about her grandson, but it was Yuan Ci Xian who comforted her, and then left her daughter in her courtyard to distract her, while she went back to her room and waited for Lu Shi Qing.

Lu Shi Qing came back alone, and when he entered the door, she got up and asked, “Where’s Yuan Zhen?”

He said quietly, “Still in the medical hall.”

Yuan Ci Xian shook her head with a solemn face, walked in front of him, stared at him, and asked again word by word: “I’m asking, where’s Yuan Zhen?”

He fell silent for a while, then reached out and stroked her cheek: “He’s fine, and he will be reunited with us soon.”

Hearing these words, Yuan Ci Xian finally couldn’t hold back the tears that she held back for a long time.

Her child was not rescued that night. She noticed something was wrong within a few days after giving birth. Firstly, it was due to the intuition of a mother when getting along with the child, and then thinking of Lu Shi Qing’s strange attitude towards the child, and her brother’s unnaturalness that day, she became even more suspicious.

She soon had a terrible idea: the child might have been swapped.

It was impossible for Lu Shi Qing to know whether the child was real or not during the rescue, but he had always acted cautiously, and he must have confirmed it when he came back. Neither she nor Xuan shi had seen Yuan Zhen before he was kidnapped, but the midwives had seen him, and several maids such as Jian Zhi and Shi Cui had also seen him, so it was not difficult to tell if the child was swapped.

But Lu Shi Qing chose to hide it from her and Xuan shi, and even told all the people who knew to lie to them. The reason was not that he intended to fool them with other people’s child for the rest of their life, but that he was sure that Yuan Zhen was safe and would come back in the near future, so he didn’t want them to worry. After all, the first few days after giving birth were very critical to Yuan Ci Xian’s recovery. He knew that it was impossible to deceive her for too long, so he only wanted to hide it for a few days.

Lu Shi Qing gently hugged her, and said, “Don’t worry, he is well fed and warmly dressed, and he will be back with us in three days.”

Yuan Ci Xian nodded in tears, and stammered, “How can we save him… how can we save him?”

Lu Shi Qing patted her on the back, and said calmly: “Father-in-law and I have agreed to kill the old king of Nanzhao.”

Yuan Ci Xian suddenly raised her head.