The Beauties of the Song Dynasty - Chapter 126
He chuckled softly, "You!"
He paused for a moment, then slowly began to speak, “Through our repeated separations and reunions, experiencing the horror, the torment of time and space, and that magical thousand-year distance, I have come to understand that some things are beyond the control of mortals, no matter how much they try to escape them. This is destiny.”
"The Empress Dowager's destined happiness clashes with her fate, which is not what we want to see. The Emperor's repression and intensity are completely understandable."
"Ha!" she chuckled. "Zehua, acceptance and rejection are actually not far apart; it's just a change in mindset, but—"
He sighed deeply. "No matter how entangled the Imperial Uncle and the Empress Dowager become, it's destined to have no ending. Is that... something you'd be happy about?"
He remained silent for a long while, then slowly shook his head.
“I’m not happy about it, but I can understand. During the time when I didn’t know your true background, from the moment I realized I had fallen in love with you, I was often in a state of hopeful fear, because I was afraid that you would remember everything at any time and leave me. That anxiety was also because I didn’t know if there would be a future with you. But even so, I still wanted to hold on to you tightly, even if it was just for a day. That’s what my uncle is thinking now.”
Wanlan snuggled against him and said softly, "Uncle didn't establish an empress until eight years after his ascension to the throne, which was the ninth year of the Taiping Xingguo era. Does that put you at ease? The two of them... have at least five or six years left to get along peacefully."
Zhao Defang exhaled slowly and smiled faintly.
"Wanlan, I don't want to care about these things anymore. Let's leave after the Northern Expedition is resolved."
“…Okay,” she replied softly.
Three days later, around 7:00 AM, the Empress Dowager's carriage was ready, and a quarter of an hour later, the entourage set off to return to the palace.
Wanlan held the small porcelain bottle tightly in her palm, smiling happily.
This is what she rushed to the Dizang Pavilion to get just now. Three days ago, Master Ding told her to go to him to get something before she left, and it was the contents of this porcelain bottle.
He said this could help her.
Of course, it's still unknown whether we'll actually need it.
Looking up
Across from her was Song Huining, who was resting with her eyes closed. Wanlan couldn't help but sigh again.
Over the past three days, she had seen her mother very few times. One reason was that Zehua was with her, and another was that there was probably someone by her mother's side who refused to show herself.
However, those two people rushed back to the palace this morning before them.
It's almost July; time seems to fly by.
At the end of the year, the war they had been both anticipating and resisting was about to begin...
Chapter 110
The seventh day of the seventh lunar month is Qixi Festival.
When Li Yu, the Duke of Longxi, passed away, Emperor Taizong suspended court for three days and posthumously granted him the title of Grand Tutor. He was also posthumously enfeoffed as the King of Wu.
Wanlan never had the chance to meet this Southern Tang ruler, who possessed extraordinary artistic talent but was politically naive. According to Wang Zhi's "Silent Records," he was poisoned to death by Emperor Taizong with a drug called "Qianji" (牵机药).
Wanlan didn't know the truth; her uncle hadn't acted strangely during those days.
She always felt that Li Yu's death was a completely insignificant episode.
However, judging from Zehua's tone, the atmosphere between the Imperial Uncle and the Empress Dowager seemed to have cooled down again, for reasons unknown.
On the fourth day of the eighth month, Emperor Taizong issued an edict ordering the two Zhejiang provinces to send all relatives of Prince Qian Si Ma and above, as well as officials from his jurisdiction, back to the capital.
On the 22nd, the civil and military officials requested that he be given the honorific title of Emperor Taizong, who was in accordance with the mandate of heaven and was wise and sagacious. Taizong granted their request.
Two months have passed in a flash.
Wanlan has been visiting the palace less and less lately, and Xu'er has also been taken out of the palace by her.
|Text| Every time Ding Shaowei went to the palace to meet the emperor, he would make a trip to the Prince of Qin's residence. Wanlan was always very welcoming. However, the more Wanlan spent with this Taoist priest, the less she understood him. The Taoist priest, who was sometimes indifferent and sometimes warm-hearted, seemed to be a person who embodied all the strangeness in the world.
However, this did not affect their relationship; occasionally, he would sit with Zehua for a while.
|Book|But the matter of Zhao Dezhao or Zehua's fate was never mentioned again.
In mid-September, Ding Shaowei went to the palace to bid farewell, and later parted ways with Wanlan at the foot of Kaifeng City.
That day, after the Taoist priest, who looked like an immortal, rode away on horseback, a light drizzle began to fall from the gloomy sky. Wanlan stood below the city tower, squinting at the white figure that gradually disappeared into the rain curtain, and remained motionless for a long time.
That rain fell for half of autumn.
As the temperature gradually drops in the damp air, Wanlan also starts to stay indoors less.
In the past few months, she had seen the Emperor less than ten times, while she had only met Zhao Dezhao once. It was on one occasion when Zehua brought a group of officials who had participated in the discussion of the Northern Expedition back to the mansion, and she had a brief encounter with that increasingly silent man.
That side of her horrified her.
She almost thought she was seeing a large tree that was slowly withering away.
She couldn't help but ask Zhao Dezhao, "Without Zehua to fulfill your expectations, are you really so desperate? Why not find a different goal in life?"
Zehua is getting busier and busier, while she is getting more and more idle, and her mind is becoming increasingly empty.
After dating Ding Shaowei for a few months, she gradually realized that many things cannot be controlled by planning.
You never know what the right thing to do is until you experience it yourself.
In October, the Imperial Uncle personally visited the Prince of Qin's residence.
This was the first time the Imperial Uncle had visited the Prince of Qin's residence since ascending the throne. His stated purpose was merely to reward Zehua with silver and silk for her recent work performance, but his other purpose was to question her about why she had not entered the palace.
Inside Qinming Pavilion, Wanlan looked at Zhao Jiong, who had a cold and indifferent expression, and said casually, "My mother said she likes peace and quiet, but I... am afraid of the cold." As she spoke, she waved the thermos in her hand.