В погоне за радугами

Глава 120

xxx

The princess's illness worsened after that night of weeping. She lay in bed in a daze for two days. When she regained consciousness, she refused to eat or take medicine, and just leaned against the headboard, lost in thought.

Later, the current emperor personally visited her at Yifeng Pavilion, although he was also in a daze and walked with difficulty.

He had food served to the princess, but she only glanced at it before turning away in disgust, showing no appetite whatsoever.

"Is it because you have no appetite?" the Emperor asked the princess with a smile.

The princess nodded.

His smile deepened, and as if by magic, he took something out of his sleeve and handed it to the princess: "Look what this is."

The princess glanced down, her eyes widening in surprise as she looked back at her father.

That was a dish of preserved plums.

“I heard you didn’t want to eat, so I brought this. Plums are an appetite stimulant, and you loved them when you were little… But you can only have two now, then eat some rice and vegetables, take your medicine, and then Daddy will give you the rest…”

The princess listened silently, tears streaming down her face in an instant. Before the emperor could finish speaking, she suddenly threw off the covers, got out of bed, and knelt before him.

“Father,” she looked up at her father, who was looking at her with a surprised expression, and said clearly, “I can separate from Huaiji.”

The Lonely City (The Princess Who Fell in Love with a Eunuch) Long smoke and setting sun, the lonely city, a knot tied in marriage

Chapter word count: 2320 Update time: 09-07-05 10:47

Hair tying

(2091 words)

My fate was decided in a mild atmosphere. The Emperor reiterated that he would not expel me from the capital, but only transfer me to a provincial office. He also brought up the matter of promoting me to the position of an official in the Tianzhang Pavilion again. I politely declined, saying, "The promotion of eunuchs has always followed a fixed procedure and must be done in order. My rank is insufficient to assume such an important responsibility. If Your Majesty were to grant me this promotion, the censors and remonstrators would surely raise objections."

The Emperor then asked me, "So what do you want to do?"

I said, “I was transferred from the Painting Academy to the Imperial Palace. Now I ask Your Majesty to allow me to return there. There is no need for me to take on any official position. I would be content if I could just be an ordinary eunuch in the Painting Academy, organizing the painters’ drafts every day.”

And so the matter was decided. I, who was originally an official in charge of the princess's residence, was transferred to the position of eunuch in the former provincial painting academy, a demotion of several ranks, and far removed from the inner palace. To outsiders, this was tantamount to a severe punishment. Therefore, when the imperial edict was announced, even the remonstrating officials could accept it and no longer mentioned my demotion.

During this period, Li Wei had already left the capital for Weizhou. Perhaps at his behest, his brother Li Zhang petitioned the emperor to allow Li Wei to divorce the princess: "Wei is foolish and unworthy of the emperor's grace. I beg for a divorce."

The Emperor and Empress tentatively asked the princess for her opinion again. I also took out Li Wei's painting and described to the princess the situation before and after Li Wei drank the imperial wine. The princess looked at the painting, ordered someone to put it away, but still shook her head: "I know he is a good person, but he is just not suitable for me. We are like two logs tied to the two sides of a cart. It seems that we can travel thousands of miles together, but we will never meet."

Therefore, on the day of Renzi in the third month of the seventh year of the Jiayou reign, the current emperor announced that Li Wei had been demoted from Imperial Son-in-Law Commandant to Military Commissioner of Jianzhou. At the same time, to show fairness, he also demoted Princess Yan to Princess Yi. According to Sima Guang's idea, his titles, fiefs, and salary were reduced.

The titles of princesses in the dynasty are similar to those of noblewomen. However, the names of the countries are different, and the titles and fiefs they receive are also different. Yi Kingdom is far inferior to Yan Kingdom. However, this punishment has almost no impact on the princess. For her at present, the least important things are fame, position and wealth.

The Emperor felt apologetic towards the Li family. Although Li Wei was demoted to Imperial Son-in-Law, the Emperor's favor towards him remained unchanged. He even bestowed upon him two hundred taels of gold and sent a message to him: "Even if a commoner is rich and noble, he may not necessarily become the husband of a princess."

With everything settled, it was time for me to say goodbye to the princess. The night before I left the princess's residence, the princess pleaded with Consort Miao to allow me to stay with her for one more night, so that the two of us could be alone and have a final word.

Seeing Consort Miao's hesitation, the princess smiled faintly, her eyes filled with desolation: "Sister, once tomorrow dawns, Huaiji and I will never see each other again in this life."

We had agreed that once we parted, we would not try to see each other again, not even during festivals. This was both to keep the promise we made to the Emperor and to avoid being overwhelmed with emotion if we met again.

Hearing her daughter say this, Consort Miao couldn't help but tear up, and nodded in agreement to her request.

That night, the Milky Way shone brightly, and the jade palace was spotless. The princess and I sat side by side on the steps of the corridor. The wind chimes tinkled under the eaves, and fallen petals were scattered on the fragrant steps. When the wind blew, she shivered with a delicate fragility. I spread my sleeves to protect her, and she leaned gently against my chest. We stayed like this, watching the fragrance of the night spread through the empty courtyard, and watching the moonlight soak the pavilion like water. We were silent for a long time, with only the distant sound of the water clock.

At that time, the peach and plum blossoms had withered, and the plum blossoms had faded, but a clump of crabapple blossoms was blooming brightly in the shadow of the locust tree in the courtyard, and the rose trellis by the short wall was also covered with white flowers. When the breeze passed by, the fragrance lingered.

The princess watched with interest, then removed her lacquered gauze crown and went into the courtyard to pick flowers to adorn it. I followed her, selecting vibrant blossoms for her to decorate the crown. In no time, her crown was filled with red and white crabapple and rose petals.

"Doesn't it look like a bride's floral crown?" she asked me with a smile, holding up the crown.

The crown of flowers was in full bloom, like red dye on a light veil, and it did indeed resemble a floral crown used at a wedding, so I smiled and nodded at her.

Her eyes sparkled, and she suddenly suggested, "How about I wear it now and we have our wedding ceremony?"

I was shocked and looked at her speechlessly.

“I heard Jiaqingzi talk about her wedding with Cui Bai. It was very interesting, and different from my wedding ceremony,” she said, with a look of longing. Her wedding ceremony was designed by scholars such as Ouyang Xiu based on the Zhou Rites, and it followed ancient customs quite well, which was indeed very different from the weddings of ordinary people.

“I also want a wedding like hers… Back then, it was a princess who married Li Wei, and now it’s Huirou who is marrying Huaiji…” Her eyelashes were lowered, and she asked shyly in a soft voice, “Huaiji, are you willing?”

I finally agreed to her request. Consort Miao had already dismissed all the servants at the princess's request, so now it was just the two of us in the princess's chambers. Besides, even if someone saw us, it wouldn't matter. Could things get any worse? Even death wouldn't threaten me anymore.

So she happily put on the flower crown, then went to the room to find a piece of colorful satin, tied it into a love knot, and had me and her each hold one end, which we then placed on our hands. She walked backwards and slowly led me into the bedroom.

“This is called a ‘handkerchief’,” she told me.

Then, we bowed to each other in the room, and then sat facing each other on the bed. Following her instructions, I cut off a lock of hair, and she did the same. We then tied our hair together with a ribbon, forming a love knot. Observing her movements, I suddenly realized that this was the "joining of hair" ceremony, also known as "tying the hair," a very important ritual in the wedding of a hundred children. When the princess was born, Ouyang Xiu said that the "joining of hair" ceremony "did not know its doctrinal meaning and was therefore unsuitable for later generations," so this ritual was omitted from the princess's wedding to Li Wei.

The princess then asked me to fetch two silver wine cups, which were connected by a colorful ribbon. We then drank from one of these cups together, a custom known as "cross-cupped wine." After we finished drinking, she told me that we should throw the wine cups and flower crowns together under the bed, and then observe whether the wine cups were upright or not. If one was upright and the other was upright, it meant "great fortune."

I did as she asked and we threw the wine cups and flower crowns together. She was very concerned about the result and urged me to get out of bed to check the wine cups. After checking, I found that the result was not satisfactory; the wine cups were all upside down on the ground.

"How is it?" Seeing that I was speechless, she asked nervously with her brows furrowed.

“Very good, one up and one down.” I said to her with a smile. At the same time, I quietly reached under the bed and turned a wine cup so that the rim faced upwards.

Still worried, she got out of bed to check and was relieved to see that the baby was lying on its back and on its knees. She smiled happily.

Without the guests' congratulations, the next step was to "close the curtains." We tacitly lay down on the bed fully clothed, keeping about half a foot apart, and neither of us touched the other for the time being.

After a long silence, she asked me, "Huaiji, what time is it now?"