When Ning Rushen left the palace gate, the carriage from the Ning mansion was already waiting outside.
A middle-aged man hopped down from the carriage, a trace of happiness on his simple and honest face. He saluted toward him and said, “Master!”
Ning Rushen: …….
Ning Rushen: “Who are you?”
The man across from him instantly lost his color from shock. “Master! I’m Yan Min!”
Ning Rushen looked at his clothes and guessed, “Oh…you’re Manager Yan?”
Yan Min nodded quickly. “That’s me.”
Ning Rushen smiled slightly. “You look different from usual today, so I didn’t recognize you at first.” He said this and boarded the carriage, leaving Yan Min to stand there and finger his face, his eyes full of confusion.
There were snacks and tea inside the carriage, and someone had lit incense.
Ning Rushen almost fell apart with exhaustion.
He grabbed some walnuts and started cracking them while he called Yan Min awake. “Let’s go.”
The carriage started with a creak and slowly set off.
They had gone a few meters when a sharp voice came from behind them: “Master Ning— Master Ning, hold on!”
Ning Rushen’s heart fell. He had a trace of an ominous feeling.
He rose and banged on the carriage door to alert the manager. “Uncle Yan, quick, drive faster!”
“Oh, Master. But I seem to have heard…”
“You heard wrong.”
“......”
“Master Ning…Master Ning! His Majesty wants to see you…His Majesty…” The voice behind them drew closer and closer, trembling with his panting breaths.
The carriage swayed as it came to a stop.
Ning Rushen took a deep breath and drew back the curtain. He looked out into De Quan’s face, pale and sweaty with running.
Once De Quan recovered his breath, he joined his thumb and middle finger together and rebuked Ning Rushen. “Aiyo, Master Ning, you really are annoying~”
Li Rushen smiled politely: ……
***
On his way from the palace gate to the depths of the palace, everything was tiled in gold and walled in vermilion. Once he came through a side gate, he took a winding path, pear trees growing beside it, blooming like drifts of snow.
Ning Rushen looked around and exclaimed to himself: A spring courtyard with pear trees blooming like jade, what a wonderful place to bury a body.
Having left on this journey, he was afraid he’d never return…
“Master, why are you sighing?” De Quan smiled and said.
Ning Rushen shook his head, raised his hand and pointed at the pear tree that was blooming the most magnificently. “I like this one.” If he had to be buried, he wanted to take this spot.
“This is the palace, every flower and tree belongs to the ruler.” De Quan smiled and said, “If you like it, you can come here another day to appreciate it, Master, or ask His Majesty for a branch or two.”
When Ning Rushen heard this, waves of emotion roiled in his heart.
So he could actually come here “another day.”
“I hope I can do so.”
While they were talking, they quickly reached the imperial study. De Quan stopped at the door, bowed and said, “Master Ning, please come in. I won’t enter with you.”
Ning Rushen nodded and thought of the palace rules. He reached around in his sleeve and stuffed something into De Quan’s hand with practiced ease. “Thank you, Grandpa.”
Once he finished speaking, he rearranged his sleeves and stepped into the royal study.
Once the door closed, De Quan looked eagerly into his hand. There, a few small walnuts were piled together. There was only half left of one of them.
“......” De Quan felt his head split open.
Inside the study.
There were paperweights, brush and paper neatly arranged on a hardwood table. A few branches of pear flowers leaned against each other in a white china vase, adding a trace of radiant loveliness to the solemn study.
Li Wuting sat behind the table in dark clothes, his brows slightly furrowed.
A man in ornate robes stood before him. He was born with a noble, dissolute air, and his features were similar to Li Wuting’s. He was the second son of the late emperor, the Xuan Prince Li Yingtang.
Li Yingtang ruffled the pear branches. “Your Majesty, what happened at the ceremony today?”
Li Wuting tapped the table lightly and didn’t reply.
Li Yingtang glanced at him and urged him helplessly, “I don’t know what that Ning Chen did wrong, but the officials with merit in the court right now are all twisted into a single rope. He already has achievements to support him, and he has Father’s word as well. If you punish him however you want, people will be afraid that they’re next…”
“Brother, I know how far to go.” Li Wuting finally opened his mouth.
Li Yingtang looked at him, mused and smiled. “I thought too much.”
“Your Majesty.” A voice reported from outside, “Scholar Ning would like an audience.”
Li Yingtang took back his hand and saluted. “I’ll say goodbye for now.”
***
Ning Rushen followed the attendant into the study, and when he was halfway there, he met someone coming out from inside.
It was a man who emanated the noble air that came from the royal family. His features were similar to Li Wuting’s. It was just that there was a shallow mark at the corner of his eye, like a slight flaw on a beautiful piece of jade.
He remembered that this was Prince Xuan, who had just been given his title at the ceremony. “Greetings, Your Highness.”
Li Yingtang was quite amiable. “Master Ning.”
The two didn’t spend much time on small talk.
Ning Rushen brushed past him and soon reached the inner study. He saw Li Wuting sitting behind the table.
Li Wuting was looking down at the paper he was writing something on, and not looking at him.
Ning Rushen bowed and saluted. “Greetings, Your Majesty.”
The other man was silent for a moment, then a cool voice sounded. “I heard that you took a fall today, and hit your head, Official Ning?”
Ning Rushen: ……W-who made that report?!
He looked embarrassed. “I was slow-witted.”
Li Wuting put down his brush and looked at him lightly. “Your skill is exceptional, so how could you be so careless.”
Ning Rushen: “......”
Was it an illusion, or had those words been said in a peculiar way?
He could faintly feel a cold wind brushing past him. The emperor’s gaze landed on him.
Ning Rushen looked down and gave two loud coughs, tremblingly prostrating himself. “Your Majesty, you blame me…I should die a thousand deaths for my sins…” He gave several hacking coughs.
Li Wuting looked at him silently from across the table.
Ning Rushen’s scarlet court robes were a little large on him, making his body seem frail where it bowed on the ground. His thin spine showed faintly through, and his hair fell like ink across his back.
His fingers were clenched against his lips, which had coughed until they were red.
He didn’t seem like he was completely acting.
Ning Rushen was choking on his saliva until he saw golden stars, when a pair of tall dark boots edged with gold suddenly appeared in his vision.
“It seems like I scared you, Official Ning.”
“?” Ning Rushen looked up at him with teary eyes. “Your Majesty?”
His damp eyes looked clear and harmless, carrying a hint of naive confusion. Li Wuting met his gaze for a moment, then slowly said, “I called you here for a matter regarding your duties.”
His duties?
Ning Rushen suddenly realized: That’s right, he was going to retire!
Li Wuting said, “Official Ning, you’ve suffered some serious brain damage, so you should no longer be able to carry out your duties at the Imperial Hanlin Academy. Beginning from tomorrow…”
Ning Rushen couldn’t help himself from saying with excitement, “I was planning to retire and return to my hometown as well—”
“...you’ll come to the imperial study.”
The two voices landed at the same time.
The study was silent. The two men gazed at each other, one from above, one from below.
Li Wuting looked at him calmly. “What did you just say, Official Ning?”
Ning Rushen’s mouth trembled.
That was exactly what he wanted to fucking ask Li Wuting!
He’d suffered brain damage, and he could no longer go to the Hanlin Academy, so he should go to the royal study?
Where was the respect you should pay to the imperial study?!
“I…” Ning Rushen pressed against his temple, feeling dizzy. “I must have heard you wrong, Your Majesty. You said that I should retire, right?”
Li Wuting suddenly crouched down in front of him, his cold gaze meeting his eyes. A warm, rough hand seized Ning Rushen’s chin, pulling his face upwards.
Ning Rushen let out a grunt.
This face that seemed a little pale came more clearly into Li Wuting’s vision.
Li Wuting said softly, “You can bear to retire, Official Ning?”
“What?” Ning Rushen’s face had been pinched before he could defend himself. His eyelashes trembled, and his lips opened and closed like a goldfish.
His faint breaths brushed past the emperor’s calloused hand.
Li Wuting carefully looked over Ning Rushen’s expression. The skin beneath his fingers was soft and a little cool, like a white pear flower, that could be crushed with the slightest force.
You could hear a needle drop in the royal study.
The palace maids had soundlessly kneeled.
In the thick silence, Ning Rushen finally couldn’t help but carefully inhale the snot that he had coughed out with a slurp.
He measured the ruler’s expression. “If there’s a pension.”
Li Wuting: “.......”
After a moment, the hand holding his jaw let go, leaving two faint red marks.
Li Wuting looked at Ning Rushen, the corner of his mouth faintly jerking. “I was joking.”
After he spoke, he rose and walked back behind the table. He took up his weasel-hair brush and continued writing. “Official Ning, you’re the cabinet minister that the late emperor personally appointed. I’ve only just ascended the throne, so how could I cast aside a minister who has given outstanding service?”
Ning Rushen: ……
So what were we doing just now, playing Lego with my mom? We spent all day messing about for nothing.
Li Wuting finished writing, and once he printed his seal on the paper, he dusted it off. “Take the decree, Official Ning.”
Ning Rushen’s fingers trembled. “......Thank you for your grace.”
***
Ning Rushen left the royal study.
He smiled at De Quan, who was standing outside the door with a smile on his face that wasn’t completely natural. Then he glanced at the sky and drifted away in a daze.
De Quan’s head was in a fog after being smiled at.
Was Ning Chen going to prison or what?
“De Quan.” A low voice came from within the study.
“I’m here!” De Quan hurriedly gathered himself, bowed and opened the door, scurrying inside. When he reached the royal table, he saw Li Wuting replying to a memorial with gathered brows. “Your Majesty, what……”
Li Wuting didn’t lift his head. “What did Ning Chen give you?”
His calm voice carried a frightening insight.
De Quan trembled with shock and knelt down with a thump. He trickled cold sweat.
Giving palace attendants presents had always been an unspoken rule of the palace. On the lower end, they were tips, but on the higher end, they were bribery, something he could lose his head for.
De Quan trembled so hard he was like a shaken sieve.
Li Wuting looked up at him. “Place it here, and I won’t question you further.”
“Y-yes, Your Majesty.”
Under the emperor’s gaze, De Quan took out a handful of walnuts from his sleeve with shaking hands and placed it on the table with a clatter.
Then he prostrated himself on the ground, saying with tears and snot trickling down, “Your Majesty, Master Ning’s bribe of walnuts…consists of four and a half in total, not a single one less. They’re all here! Y-Your Majesty, please spare me!”
Li Wuting: “......”
***
The author has something to say:
De Quan: I come from a long line of eunuchs, and I’m afraid we’re all poor!
Ning Rushen: ……A long line…of eunuchs?
Li Wuting: ……
***
cela’s notes
Li Wuting’s name is 李无廷 (Lǐ Wútíng), meaning “plum” and “without a court.” This given name has to do with his status in his previous life as a king who had no control over his court, since a powerful courtier had made him a figurehead. But you have to wonder what was going through the head of his parents, naming a prince “courtless.”
1 hour and 22 minutes for 2,060 words, or 4 minutes for every 100 words. A new record! An improvement in rate by 0.7 minutes.
A total of 4 hours and 50 minutes for 5,877 words, or 4.9 minutes for every 100 words.
Comments
Post a Comment