Chapter 210: Can’t Forget Me
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The early teachings of his Royal Mother to “be prudent and protect oneself” were very useful. His status was inferior to that of the crown prince, who held the legitimate inheritance as the eldest legitimate son, and he was not as favored as the youngest son born of Consort Zhou. All he could rely on was Royal Father’s favor and reluctance to alienate him, as well as the joint efforts of Royal Mother and Empress Fu to pull him under their wings to shield him from the malicious actions of Consort Zhou. Royal Father felt the need for him to kneel there and appease the anger of the Fu family, so he knelt, with the only ones he bowed to being Heaven, Earth, Royal Father, and Royal Mother, all for the safety and well-being of Royal Mother, younger sister, and himself. It wasn’t much.
So he obediently knelt there in the sun. He was still young at the time, and he soon felt parched and dizzy from the sun’s heat, especially longing for a drink of water. But the palace servants dared not give him any, and that heartless Funing had already run back to the palace to sleep, not even informing Royal Mother about it. Instead, it was Fu Mingzhu, that arrogant daughter of Fu Xiang, who stood far away watching him for a while, then ran over to express her apology to him in a roundabout way.
This is what she said to him at the time: “You can’t blame me. Who told you to come up and attack me first? If you had scolded Funing first, or dragged Funing away, then I wouldn’t have misunderstood that you were going to attack me. Now, it’s good that even Uncle Emperor won’t listen to reason and has punished you to kneel here.” Even in her apology, there was arrogance in her tone.
He ignored her, so she squatted next to him and whispered, “How about you stop kneeling? I’ll keep an eye out, and if anyone comes, I’ll call you. They won’t dare to say anything, or else I’ll have Aunt deal with them!” She was still as domineering as ever.
Indeed, she was a child spoiled by favoritism, who didn’t understand anything. She thought she was helping him, but she didn’t realize that if he had really listened to her, Royal Father and Empress Fu would soon know about it and would look at him differently. He would no longer be the obedient and honest boy, but rather an unreliable little rascal. Royal Father had countless matters to attend to, so how could he not discern right from wrong? Therefore, he shook his head resolutely, because he wanted to conserve his strength and didn’t speak to her at all.
She seemed a little unhappy, so she squatted silently for a while, then wrinkled her nose and yelled at him, “A dog bites Lu Dongbin, not recognizing kindness. Do as you please! Don’t blame it on me if anyone finds out! Even if they say it, I won’t admit it!” After saying that, she ran away, but after a while, she had a bowl of cooling soup sent to him by the palace servants.
He considered himself to be someone who matured early. If it were ninth brother, he might have had the integrity to overturn the bowl of cooling soup; if it were elder brother, he might have arrogantly ordered it to be taken away. They needed to maintain their dignity and pride. But he wasn’t like them. He needed that bowl of cooling soup. He wasn’t sure if he would recover if he collapsed from heatstroke. So he happily drank the entire bowl of cooling soup and indicated that he wanted more. She hid behind a distant pillar, peeking at him. When she saw him finish the cooling soup, she wrinkled her nose at him in disdain, but more cooling soup soon arrived, and it was a big pot.
With this pot of cooling soup, he safely endured the punishment without incident. Because of this incident, Royal Mother strictly prohibited him from approaching her, and then the chief eunuch around Empress Fu, Rong Ming, got into trouble. Empress Fu had to step back due to illness, and Consort Zhou’s power became overwhelming, shining brightly for a while. He quickly reached the age to leave the palace and establish a fiefdom. From then on, he could only watch her from afar, without any chance of getting close to her, not even the chance to speak to her. Of course, she forgot about him, or rather, she knew of him but never paid attention to him or kept him in her heart.
In this palace, there were few people who lived as freely and openly as her. Perhaps some envied her, perhaps there was even a hint of jealousy. He silently watched her, wanting to see how far she could go. He learned about her various deeds from Royal Mother and the palace servants, knew that she had a bad temper and was pampered; saw her calligraphy and paintings from Empress Fu, knowing that she was not as incompetent as rumored; saw her fall in love for the first time, looking at ninth brother with joy and admiration, overwhelmed with shyness; saw her astonish everyone with her dance at Empress Fu’s grand banquet, blossoming into a beauty.
He saw her arrogance and pride, even her dominance and unreasonableness when dealing with noblewomen who didn’t get along with her, but she never did anything excessively malicious, which was far from the reputation of arrogance and dominance she had; he saw her fervor being ridiculed and ignored by ninth brother, hiding in the shadows feeling despondent, only to quickly rally and smile brightly, truly without shame or heart; he saw her tirelessly comforting the Great Empress Dowager, who was grief-stricken by the sudden death of her only son, staying up all night and day without sleep, quietly and gently accompanying her, personally brewing medicine and soup, and then exhaustedly falling asleep against the wall and slipping to the ground, utterly lacking in grace, not at all like the well-bred daughter of a noble family who valued etiquette.
He saw her rush out regardless of everything, disregarding the ridicule, disdain, and astonishment of others, like a little lioness standing up for ninth brother, carrying the name of being foolishly arrogant and rash, all to protect the person she liked; he saw her pleading for the innocent palace servants who were unfairly blamed by the young emperor, watching helplessly as the palace servants died as a result, retreating to vomit and cry behind the scenes, and never speaking to the young emperor again, even though she knew he was an emperor who needed to be pleased.
He felt that such a woman needed someone who understood her to cherish and love her. Otherwise, in the hands of those who couldn’t recognize her true worth, who only saw surface appearances like ordinary mortals and fools, she would be trampled into the mud and turned into dust. He, of course, would not be that ordinary mortal and fool who couldn’t recognize her true worth.
But she was ultimately not his. She was given to the most favored ninth brother by Royal Father, becoming a talisman to protect ninth brother’s life. Her joys and sorrows, brightness and sadness, innocence and sincerity had nothing to do with him. She was nothing more than a distant dream and a cherished memory of his youth. She was about to marry ninth brother, and he had almost resigned himself to it, but he didn’t expect that fate would be so wonderful that he would see her under the starlight of the Jade Emperor’s Temple on the Linkong winding walkway.
On that night, she looked so beautiful that she didn’t seem like a person of this world. For a moment, he thought he saw a celestial maiden descending to earth. Or perhaps he saw a woman who happened to resemble her, but when he saw her there, playing pranks on the palace maids, dancing wildly as if possessed, and arrogantly threatening to jump off if her family didn’t agree to her breaking off the engagement, he knew for sure it was her, Fu Mingzhu.
For a moment, he almost laughed out loud. But he knew very well that she was never short of people trying to please her, so he walked up to her with a stern face, successfully infuriating her and making her remember him, never to forget him again.
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