After the Double Ninth Festival, Ye Yunting, as he previously said, went to Rongyang Courtyard to invite the elder Wangfei to help organize the banquet set for the fifteenth.
The banquet was scheduled for the fifteenth, and most of the matters were being taken care of by subordinates, with Zhu Lie and Wu Geng also assisting. Ye Yunting only needed to
take care of things on a high-level. However, they were all men, and on the day of the banquet, there would still be female relatives present, so they hadn’t been sure if many of the arrangements were appropriate. Now that Ye Yunting invited the elder Wangfei to take charge, this thorny problem was solved.
The elder princess was sitting in the hall in plain clothes. She didn’t put on any powder on her face, but her complexion nevertheless looked much better than it did that day on the Double Ninth Festival. She leisurely leafed through the banquet ceremony program booklet that Ye Yunting handed over, pointing out several problems and calling for the appropriate subordinates one by one to solve tem. Then she looked at Ye Yunting and said: “This shouldn’t have been entrusted to you; it’s also a hard work for you..”
Traditionally, banquets held in the palace were organized by the head of the household, with the help of the chief steward. But the palace suffered great upheavals and the loyal old steward was killed, while she distanced herself from everything in the palace. Hence, the burden fell on Ye Yunting.
At present, she carefully read through the ceremony booklet and found that, although there were some flaws in the banquet arrangements, by and large they were all in good order. The handwriting on the booklet, in particular, flowed like clouds along water, exuding a graceful demeanor. Although the character were not connected, they shared the same atmosphere. It was very stunning.
The elder Wangfei came from the Shen family of Niyang. Although the Shen family was founded on military exploits, their ancestors always valued the knowledge and literary talents of their children. When she was in her boudoir, she also read a lot of poetry and books, and was familiar with the Four Books and Five Classics.
And so, when she looked at Ye Yunting again, there was pity in her eyes.
Although she had distanced herself from everything these past years, it did not mean that she couldn’t understand the current situation. Ye Yunting had been sent to the palace to married off, but because there was no one supporting him, he was turned into a sacrifice in vain.
With his head full of knowledge and his clear mind, it was such a pity.
Ye Yunting smiled. “It’s not hard work. It’s mostly Zhu Lie and Wu Geng who are busy.”
The elder Wangfei shook her head, thought for a moment, and then said, “I have nothing to do except worship the Buddha, so you can leave the affairs of the house to me. With Yi Qiu’s help, I can still take care of you for a few years.” She looked at Ye Yunting with very kind eyes. “Hanzhang’s father was never the type to follow rules, so there are no rules in this palace. Although you have married into the royal family, you don’t have to restrain yourself like a housewife in the back courtyard.”
After a pause, shee continued: “Although you can’t take the imperial examination and become an official, there are other things that you can do.”
She looked at Ye Yunting with a gentle expression, obviously sincere in her intentions for him.
Ye Yunting was stunned for a moment when he heard this, and then a warm feeling spread through his heart. He sincerely thanked her, “Thank you, Mother.”
The elder Wangfei waved her hand, “You can go do other things, and leave the banquet to me. You don’t need to waste your time with me here.”
Ye Yunting hesitated. “Mother, don’t push yourself too hard…”
“Don’t worry, I’m strong.” The elder Wangfei looked at him, her eyes containing a wisp of laughter. “When you go out, call Yi Qiu in. “
Ye Yunting stood up after hearing this, bowed and retreated.
He left the front hall and walked into the garden, where he met Li Fengqi who was coming in from the door.
There was another person following Li Fengqi, wearing a black cloak, a crimson official uniform. He had a beard under his chin, and a square and serious face. It was the uncle that Ye Yunting had not seen for a long time: Prince Qie of Dali Temple.
He didn’t know why Prince Qie suddenly came to the palace. Was he looking for Li Fengqi, or was he here to see him?
After being frozen for a moment, Ye Yunting put aside speculations and stepped forward to make his greetings, saying, “Wangye, uncle1.”
Prince Qie scoffed, the look in his eyes a little complicated. “It seems that you are doing well in the palace.”
“It’s all thanks to Wangye’s blessings.” Ye Yunting’s tone was light, lacking intimacy and being somewhat distance.
He and this uncle couldn’t be considered close to each other.
Over the years, he had met his uncle no more than ten times, and each was for his mother’s memorial day. Every time, Prince Qie would politely and distantly ask if he was doing well in the Duke’s Mansion, and he would say yes, and then there would be silence.
He had long been accustomed to and accepted such cold treatment from his maternal family.
Now that they were suddenly face to face, there was no emotion in his heart, just some slight confusion.
Prince Qie didn’t seem to know how to talk to him, either, so he remained wordless. Instead, he explained, “Yin Chengru’s case has progressed, and there are some things I need to ask Deputy Governor Zhu about. I thought that since I had not seen Wangfei in a long time, I could come visit the palace. Seeing that Wangfei is doing well, I feel at ease.”
“I am sorry to have worried Uncle.” Ye Yunting said politely.
Just as it always did, their conversation reached a dead end.
Li Fengqi couldn’t bear to see Ye Yunting’s polite, fake smile, and couldn’t be bothered to pay attention to Prince Qie anymore. He wheeled his wheelchair forward and, casually taking his hand, said: “Uncle has important business with Zhu Lie, so we won’t disturb him here. Let’s go have a meal first.” After saying that, he turned back to Wang Qie: “Uncle is here on official business, so I won’t give you a meal.”
Prince Qie cupped his hands and nodded. “This trip is about official matters, Wangye, so there is no need to be polite.”
Li Fengqi nodded slightly towards him, squeezed Ye Yunting’s palm, and motioned for him to push him away. Ye Yunting also felt that the atmosphere was really awkward, and that he and Wang Qie really had nothing to talk about, so he followed Li Fengqi’s words and pushed him to the backyard.
Prince Qie stayed standing where he was, looking at the backs of the two people, the look in his eyes difficult to discern.
He had heard a lot of rumors these days, both good and bad. But the most common thing to hear about was that, in order to save his own face, Prince Yong’an purposely went to Showa Street with the Wangfei to show off his consort. Many courtiers said that Prince Yong’an was good at strategizing and was able to endure the humiliation of having a male consort.
He feared that this was not going to be a good feast.
The fight between Prince Yong’an and the emperor had been completely exposed ever since the Yin Chengru rebellion case. While courtiers were busy weighing the pros and cons
of taking one or the other side, he himself only wanted to overthrow the Yin family and break Ye Zhili’s arm.
He came today knowing that he would see Ye Yunting. After hearing too many rumors, he was prepared to see that Ye Yunting’s life wasn’t going too well. But he didn’t expect that, when he saw him in person, he would find Ye Yunting much taller and more upright than he was when he had been at the Duke’s Mansion, with his face and eyes showing a calmness that had never been visible there before.
“Qing-niang.” Prince Qie looked at the sky with his hands behind his back and sighed. “He looks less and less like you. I hope my guess is wrong…If it is right, then Ye Zhili would not be able to atone for the crime he committed even if he peeled off his skin and bones.”
Meanwhile, Ye Yunting pushed Li Fengqi back to the main courtyard.
The two of them were silent all the way, but Li Fengqi spoke up first, “There’s been some progress with the case of Yin Chengru secretly stationing troops with the intention of rebelling.”
Speaking of official matters, Ye Yunting had to put aside his personal feelings. He was still very concerned about the progress of Yin Chengru’s case. “How is it going?”
“Prince Qie had sent people to Jizhou to collect evidence a few days ago. I don’t know how he got the evidence that Yin Chengru mobilized troops.” Li Fengqi said.
Prince Qie was over forty, but he had been in charge of Dali Temple for more than ten years. He was quite capable in investigating cases. He also had an old grudge with Ye Zhili, and the Yin family was Ye Zhili’s in-laws. The Ye and Yin families had been helping each other over the years and had a very close relationship. If he wanted to shake the Duke of Qi’s palace, he had to break Ye Zhili’s arm first.
As long as Yin Chengru was convicted of treason, when Yin Chengru died, the Yin family would be severely damaged, but Ye Zhili has not tried his best to deal with it, and there would form a gap between the two families.
In order to convict Yin Chengru as soon as possible, Wang Qie’s actions could not be too hasty.
“If it can be proven that he mobilized troops without permission, then half of the crime is settled,” Ye Yunting said, “But I’m afraid there is still not sufficient evidence if we want to say that it was a conspiracy to rebel.”
Li Fengqi nodded and smiled carelessly. “That’s why he came to look for Zhu Lie.”
“Does the Deputy Governor have evidence?” “Ye Yunting was really curious.
Yin Chengru’s rebellion was entirely due to Li Zong setting up a trap for Zhu Lie, but in the end it was Yin Chengru that he got involved. Indeed, the rebellion charge was groundless. He was curious about what evidence Zhu Lie had to convict Yin Chengru.
“Young Master, do you want to know?” Li Fengqi raised his eyebrows and tilted his chin. “Come over and I will tell you.”
“…”
This sentence was very familiar. The last time that Li Fengqi said something like this was when they were in the sedan chair. And then…
Ye Yunting stopped in time and cut off his recollections. Looking wary, he said, “It would be better if I won’t listen to such confidential matters.”
After saying that, he lowered his eyebrows and started making tea.
Sure enough, Ye Yunting was already wary of him.
Li Fengqi clicked his tongue regretfully, but ultimately agreed to listen to him. “Yin Chengru did not have any rebellious intentions, but there’s conclusive evidence that he has contacts with Xihuang. Zhu Wen had just delivered the evidence the day before yesterday. “
Yin Chengru was the legitimate second son of Yin Xiaozhi, and held the position of the governor of Jizhou. He had a high position of power and had considerable ability. But there was just one thing: he was very obsessed with training falcons.
Weizhou had a great number of hunting falcons, and Jizhou was adjacent to Weizhou. In previous years, Yin Chengru would often look for reasons to go to Weizhou to collect high-quality hunting falcons. At that time, there was no enmity yet between Li Fengqi and the Yin family, so he turned a blind eye to it. Occasionally, Zhu Lie would even compete to see who could catch the best falcon–this was how the falcon A’Qing, which was given to Ye Yunting by Ye Wang, came about.
But now that the two parties were in conflict, it was either one died or the other. Any mistake anyone made in the past could be used as a weapon.
Zhu Wen, who was based in Northern Xinjiang, only intended to make a fuss about his private departure from Jizhou and sneaking into Weizhou. Unexpectedly, after following through on his investigation, he discovered that Yin Chengru actually did have contacts with Xihuang merchants.
Zhu Wen caught the merchants and obtained Yin Chengru’s letters from their hands. Most of the letters were about the sale of hunting falcons, and most of them were anonymous, except for the most recent one which involved the sale of an excellent hunting falcon for a huge sum of money. Yin Chengru seemed to have been unable to pay off the entire price in lump sum, so he stamped his private seal as a guarantee.
“In fact, this is nothing. With the status of the Yin family, Li Zong will not have him killed so easily.” Li Fengqi laughed and sighed. “It’s a pity that he was unlucky. The spies sent by Zhu Wen found out that just five days after Yin Chengru gathered troops at the border, something strange also happened in the Xihuang army. A small group of elite Chen army moved privately to the border between the two countries. “
The unauthorized deployment of troops and the communications with Xihuang merchants, plus the continued actions of the army: Putting the three things together, even if Chengru has a hundred mouths this time, he still wouldn’t be able to clear himself of the charges of collaborating with the enemy and treason.
Li Fengqi’s eyes flashed with cruelty, and he said coldly, “Yin Chengru will definitely die this time.”
Since the Yin family dared to conspire with Li Zong and wanted to eliminate the Xuanjia Army and replace them, they ought to be prepared to be counterattacked.
“Once Yin Chengru dies, the Yin family would feel as if they had lost an arm, and they would definitely feel resentful towards the emperor.” Ye Yunting continued.
The Yin family was working for Li Zong, but with the situation being exposed, the emperor could not protect him. The Yin family wouldn’t take this lightly.
“That’s right.” Li Fengqi smiled: “It’s thanks to Prince Qie this time. If he hadn’t moved so quickly to get the troop dispatch letter, and Yin Chengru and the entire Jichuan army worked together to deny things, he wouldn’t have been convicted so quickly. “
“Is Wangye intending to win over Uncle?” Ye Yunting heard the song and knew what it meant. His tone was a bit hesitant as he said, “It’s just that my uncle and I are not close.
I’m afraid I won’t be able to help.”
His uncle probably resented his father’s lack of loyalty and righteousness, and didn’t like him either.
Ye Yunting heard from his wet nurse that his mother lost her father when she was young, and she grew up living with Uncle. This eldest brother became like a father. Later, his uncle passed the imperial examinations and became an official in Dali Temple. He loved and cared for his only sister very much. At that time, his father had already inherited the title of Duke of Qi, but he came to propose marriage. His uncle felt that the difference in their social status was too great and didn’t agree with it, but his mother liked his father, and his father repeatedly kept promises, and so his uncle had no choice but to agree to the marriage.
After only three years of the marriage, his mother died in childbirth. Within a year, my father remarried someone from the Yin family. After another year, that Yin family member became pregnant, and then gave birth to a child, Ye Wang.
And the Prince’s family had cut off almost all contact with the Duke of Qi.
===Author’s Notes===
The author has something to say:
#Less routines, more sincerity
77: It seems it’s time to change to a new routine.
Tingting:……?
Did you find out that you have a new name?! After some thought, I thought “Chongxi” was too simple, so I added two characters. I’m really a bad namer orz
PS: Like clouds flowing in the water, the seedling fibers come out from between and the bones of the wind are scattered. Although the words are not connected, the climate is similar. Excerpted one by one from Baidu Encyclopedia
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===Translator’s Notes===
- 舅父, “Jiufu”, which specifically means maternal uncle. ↩︎
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