BERW - Chapter 7

Chapter 7

He had thought the Seventh Princess would, for the sake of their being genuine kin, let him get through his workday in peace.

But it was precisely for the sake of their being genuine kin that Shen Yuyao had come looking for him on purpose.

Had he been a commander she did not know, he might really have turned around and reported her to the Emperor. Though her ultimate aim was to alert His Majesty, the Emperor was the biggest boss of all; she could not simply go straight for him right at the start, could she?

"Commander Yuan, this princess has already agreed on the hour with Grandfather. Today she must leave the palace. So as not to put you in a difficult position, this princess has even specially obtained a pass from Fengyi Palace."

Shen Yuyao said this to Yuan Shilu outside while shelling melon seeds.

Hearing it, the smile on Yuan Shilu's face froze stiff.

His deputy, Qiao Qiu, frowned in distress and stepped half a pace forward to share his superior's burden.

"This junior officer Qiao Qiu greets the Seventh Princess. Princess, please do not make things difficult for us. His Majesty has decreed that after nightfall, any passage through the palace gates requires an imperial decree in hand. Even Her Imperial Majesty's Feng pass is no use."

Previously it had been allowed. Not only the Empress's Feng pass, but even the Eastern Palace's token could see one out at night. But that was before the business at the New Year Banquet.

The Crown Prince had been reprimanded by the Emperor and confined to quarters.

"How dare you! I see you are taking advantage of my Seventh Princess's youth to deceive her here. Her Imperial Majesty is the mistress of the Inner Palace; can she not even govern who comes and goes within it? You keep saying it is His Majesty's decree, so where is the edict? An order without an edict must be a trick played on the princess!"

Meixiang had eaten her fill, and her voice carried full conviction; even her quarreling was self-righteous.

It was only that the content was a little unreasonable. Orders like this one were generally passed along by word of mouth; how could the Emperor possibly write out an actual edict and send it down for such a thing?

To write an edict would be to slap the Central Palace and the Eastern Palace in the face in plain view, laying bare his displeasure with the Crown Prince and the Empress. And if the Crown Prince had erred, that had nothing to do with the Empress. Once such a thing became an edict, it would spread to the court, and the censors would surely tear it to pieces with their words and pens.

Even an emperor could not act with complete abandon!

Never had Yuan Shilu and Qiao Qiu regretted as much as they did now not having checked the almanac before leaving the house today.

Shen Yuyao popped the plump white melon-seed kernels into her mouth one by one, biting down into a mouthful of fragrance. Well pleased, she pinched up another handful and went on shelling.

Yuan Shilu was not exactly wronged either; he belonged to the Crown Prince's faction.

By rights, since Qu Yanyue had a son, everyone of the Qu line should naturally stand behind the Third Prince and support him. Though the Crown Prince's position had once been as steady as Mount Tai, and Qu Yanyue had no intention of contending for the heir's seat, the Yuan clan still ought to have kept to the middle.

But the Yuan clan had insisted on attaching itself to the Eastern Palace line, and even wanted to send a Yuan daughter into the palace as Crown Princess.

The principal consort's seat was out of reach, but the post of Senior Consort could still be thought about.

After all, until now the Crown Prince had had neither principal consort nor child, and no few people harbored the hope of bearing an imperial grandson early and settling securely into the future empress's seat.

The Yuan clan's ambition was too great. And such great ambition meant they had to be made to understand one thing: Qu Yanyue was not dead yet.

The Qu clan, and the in-law families close to the Qu, should all follow Qu Yanyue obediently. Want to set up a stove of one's own, to straddle two boats? Then best beware of capsizing in the gutter!

Yuan Shilu had never imagined Shen Yuyao would help Qu Yanyue, because Shen Yuyao was even more of a Crown Prince partisan than he was. Yet under Meixiang's repeated badgering, he could not help beginning to wonder whether today was a scheme of the Third Prince's faction.

He was an Imperial Guard commander; with him in place, the Crown Prince's strength within the Imperial Guard would be very great. If he could not hold this seat securely, the Crown Prince's strength in the palace would be more than half purged.

Yuan Shilu drew a deep breath. He did not want Shen Yuyao to have come specially to make trouble today, so he swallowed his bellyful of grumbles and went on coaxing Shen Yuyao gently to return to the palace and stop kicking up a fuss.

Meixiang, for her part, quarreled louder and louder, and Shen Yuyao now and then opened her mouth to pour oil on the fire, making the scene more scorching still. Neither side would give back half a step.

Seeing that a standoff like this would get them nowhere, Yuan Shilu's expression changed, shifting from comparatively mild to stern.

"Seventh Princess! If the Seventh Princess keeps pestering us, then do not blame this junior officer for disregarding our ties and reporting the truth to His Majesty!"

"Ha, you should have done that long ago. Commander Yuan, I believe that even if Father learns of this, he will not condemn this princess for it. I only wonder how Commander Yuan will fare. To become an Imperial Guard commander at such a young age and be stationed at the South Palace Gate, you must have won great battle honors and be quite favored by Father."

Shen Yuyao's single sentence made the resolve Yuan Shilu had only just settled waver violently.

That he had reached this point so young was of course not due only to his illustrious family. And as for the post of Imperial Guard commander, who knew how many were secretly eyeing it.

If anything happened to him, he was sure his enemies would spare no effort to kick him while he was down.

The Seventh Princess was the princess the Emperor loved most, and he was merely an Imperial Guard commander. Which weighed more was plain at a glance; if it came before the Emperor, he would certainly come off badly.

This truly was a predicament with no way forward and no way back.

"In the deep hush of the night, what is all this commotion about?"

As Yuan Shilu agonized, he suddenly heard a voice that should not have appeared here. He stared wide-eyed toward the source of the sound, and out of the darkness walked a young man in black.

Those familiar brows and eyes made Yuan Shilu's heart leap; he nearly went mad with fright!

"The Crown..." Yuan Shilu let out a single syllable, then immediately clamped his mouth shut and put on a scolding air. "Who goes there!"

The gate guards who had never seen the Crown Prince merely thought their commander's manner had turned a little strange. Qiao Qiu, who had seen the Crown Prince, went white in the face, more panicked even than Yuan Shilu.

How could the Crown Prince appear here! Were the palace attendants guarding the Eastern Palace all useless?

If the Emperor learned the Crown Prince had slipped quietly out of the Eastern Palace, then the Crown Prince might be fine, but they who had seen him tonight would certainly be in for serious trouble!

They could not cry out the Crown Prince's identity; best to send him quietly back to the Eastern Palace!

In the instant the Crown Prince appeared, Yuan Shilu's thoughts had almost all flown to him, so that he nearly forgot Shen Yuyao, who wanted to leave the palace.

Fortunately, Shen Yuyao did not care that his focus had shifted, for she would soon pull Yuan Shilu's attention back.

What a good, helpful person she truly was! Shen Yuyao ate another mouthful of melon seeds, chewing happily as she counted on her fingers just how many people she had helped tonight.

Helping wherever she went; she was the very light of righteousness in this palace!

Shen Yuyao put away the tea and refreshments at hand, blew out the lamp, gripped the protruding handle of the carriage, and coughed twice in a low voice.

Meixiang understood that the hour had come. She swallowed, took the needle hidden in her sleeve, and jabbed it into the horse's rump. With a shriek the horse bolted forward.

Bai Yuan's eyes went wide; he could not believe that a palace maid at the princess's side would do him such harm! Fortunately, palace horses were gentle of temper, and that small pain was not enough to drive the horse into an uncontrollable frenzy; at full effort he could still hold it back.

"Don't stop, keep going, and mind you don't run anyone down." Seeing that the carriage was not jolting as badly as she had imagined, Shen Yuyao lifted the curtain and said quietly to the eunuch driving it, "Don't worry. When it is over, your reward will not be lacking."

Bai Yuan was about to burst into tears. A reward afterward? Whether he would live to afterward was the very question!

Why on earth had he traded shifts today? He should have gone back obediently to rest and waited until tomorrow to take the night watch!

Bai Yuan wanted to weep but had no tears, and having no choice, he could only obey Shen Yuyao and drive on tamely. The tall horse charged forward like a mad thing, and the Imperial Guards all fell back as one. Yet their formation did not break. Seeing the horse suddenly bolt, Yuan Shilu shouted hastily, "Form ranks! Raise shields, and make certain the princess is safe!"

With that, he himself dashed forward, caught the edge of the speeding carriage, and with a twist of his body leapt up onto it.

The move was dashing and the pose perfect. He had just lifted the carriage curtain to go in when he took a kick square in the face.

Kicked clean off the carriage by the struggling, panicked Seventh Princess, Shen Yuyao.

When Yuan Shilu landed he rolled once to shed the force, then sat a little dazed, staring blankly.

This cousin of his had quite a bit of strength in her legs; he had not been able to steady himself at all and was kicked straight off!

Could it be that he had grown frail lately?

Yuan Shilu began to doubt life itself, while Shen Yuyao patted her chest and let out a breath. If she had been rescued off the carriage, how would she have kicked up a fuss tonight?

The bolting horse was quickly surrounded by the Imperial Guards. Facing shields forged of fine iron, it could not break through and gradually quieted, and Bai Yuan could no longer make it run forward.

The moment the horse stopped, Bai Yuan tumbled straight to the ground and knelt there, refusing to rise. Beat him to death and he would still not climb back onto the carriage to drive for the Seventh Princess!

Shen Yuyao, meanwhile, flung open the curtain and lifted her head, looking precisely at the Crown Prince, whose face had gone white from the sudden horse scare.

Shen Zhuocong saw that Shen Yuyao was unharmed. Before he could even breathe his sigh of relief, he saw Shen Yuyao close her eyes and open her mouth to wail.

"Wuuu! That was so frightening! I want Mother Consort, I want Mother Consort!"

She, Shen Yuyao, had been twenty-four in her former life, and after rebirth was the fourteen-year-old little princess.

And now she sat in the carriage like a three-year-old child, throwing a tantrum and bawling for her mother.

As it turned out, once a person casts off all shame, the life that had once pressed so much weight upon her suddenly became easy.

As long as my skin is thick enough, I am invincible!

Shen Yuyao touched the pastries in her bosom and thought that in a little while she would be able to go to Ziwei Palace and watch the show.

She hoped her Crown Prince brother would not be angry. She had truly worked hard to make chaos and help him get out; it was only that she had been frightened beyond bearing and could not master her fear, and that was why she had cried.

Her kind Crown Prince brother simply had to forgive her.

Shen Zhuocong did not want to forgive this Seventh Sister of his, who could ruin anything she set her hand to. But when he stood before the Emperor and the furious Emperor slapped him across the face, all the anger in his mind was wiped clean in an instant.

What took its place was bewilderment, and the fury of having lost face in front of others.

Previous Table of Contents Next