Madam Hou

Chapter 164

The incident of the third and fifth princes falling into the water ended with the death of a dozen court ladies and eunuchs and a concubine who had a good relationship with Concubine Xue, and one of the executed court ladies was involved in Concubine Xue's palace, although that The dead concubine was charged with all the crimes, but Concubine Xue Gui was still banned in the palace under the name of lax discipline, and provided according to the rules, only as an ordinary concubine, and even the eldest prince was not allowed to visit.

And for all this, the queen is already very satisfied.Under her intentional showing of weakness, the faction of Ningguo Duke's Mansion appeared to be particularly strong. Under such circumstances, the emperor was able to punish Concubine Xue Gui instead of letting her go lightly, which was already beyond her expectations.

The empress never thought of taking advantage of this incident to completely defeat Concubine Xue Gui, no matter what, Concubine Xue Gui was an old man who had served him since she was in the residence, just like the emperor had affection for her, the emperor also had affection for Concubine Xue Gui.What's more, Concubine Xue Gui also gave birth to the eldest son of the emperor. In the five years before the birth of the second prince, the emperor had only such a son, and his affection for him was unusual.With the eldest son of the emperor, even if the Xue family loses power, Concubine Xue Guifei will not die easily.In the long run, Concubine Xue is down, and she dominates the harem alone, which is not a good thing for her.

Originally, she made a thorough investigation, but only wanted to cut off most of Concubine Xue Gui's hands and feet in the palace through this matter. If she could pass this matter and wear down some of the emperor's affection for her, that would be great.But now it seems that the emperor is already very dissatisfied with Duke Ning and Concubine Xue Gui. Now that he is punishing Concubine Xue Gui, isn't he telling others that Concubine Xue Gui is related to this matter?

In the battle for the throne, strength is very important, and the attitude of the emperor is also very important, especially when there is a strong monarch who does not like to be coerced.She wanted it, but she didn't believe that Ningguo Mansion couldn't think of it, but it was alluring power, so she was reluctant to let go of it.And power is easy to use, you can use them to deal with the people below, and when you meet the emperor, you will use it habitually.

Use your power to fight against the most powerful person in the world... The queen took a sip of tea and slowly curled the corners of her mouth, very good, very good, let them toss slowly.

The third prince led a group of maids and servants to the imperial garden, looking at the bright purples and reds all over the courtyard, he was in a good mood.

He has been imprisoned in the palace by the queen for the past few days and is not allowed to come out. He has been bored for a long time. He finally begged the queen by acting coquettishly and foolishly, and promised that he would never leave the servants and maids again. Only then did the queen agree to him coming out.Looking at the grass growing and warblers flying outside, looking full of vitality, I naturally feel at ease.

The third prince was bouncing around, touching a flower after taking two steps, and picking a leaf after taking three steps. The servant behind him followed him and said: "Oh, my little ancestor, you hurt your hands carefully, what do you want? Let the servants pick it for you, why do you have to do it yourself..."

The third prince suddenly lost the mood to enjoy the flowers, and it would be annoying to have them follow him.Throwing away the peony flower in his hand, he turned around and said to the chattering waiter, "Are you annoying? Talk again, and I'll have your tongue cut off!"

The servant hurriedly confessed: "This slave deserves to die, this slave deserves to die..." He slapped himself on the mouth as he spoke.

The sound of applause after another was even more disturbing to listen to.The third prince said angrily: "Come here, take a pair of scissors and cut off his tongue."

The servant immediately fell silent and stopped slapping.The third prince snorted, then turned around and left again.The servants and maids hurriedly followed, but no one dared to speak anymore.

The third prince continued to stroll around the imperial garden, and suddenly he saw a little man in a blue robe in a corner of the imperial garden, squatting in front of a peony flower, with his hands firmly on the stem of the peony flower Twisting back and forth, trying to pick off the peony flowers.Behind him, there were a few servants and court ladies standing. When they saw him coming, they quickly knelt down to say hello: "Greetings to the third prince!"

Hearing the voice, the little man quickly turned his head to look, saw him, let go of the peony flower, smiled and rushed over to hug his leg, giggled and said, "Third brother!"

The third prince touched his younger brother's head like an older brother, and said, "Have you recovered from your illness?"

The fifth prince nodded and said: "Okay!" Then he complained: "Why doesn't my brother come to see me, I always miss my brother."

"Uh..." The third prince didn't know how to answer for a while, let alone explain to him that Lanhe Palace is a place he can't often go to.But the fifth prince found a reason for him, and suddenly realized: "Oh, I see, is it because the empress is angry and doesn't allow you to go out? After I recovered from my illness, the concubine mother wouldn't let me go out.

The third prince hesitated and said: "That's right!" He looked at the peony flower that was twisted and hanging down by him, and quickly changed the subject: "What were you doing just now?"

The fifth prince pointed to the peony flower, and said: "I want to pick the words for my concubine to wear!"

The third prince said: "Why don't you let the maid pick it for you?"

The fifth prince hurriedly shook his head and said, "No, no, I want to pick it myself."

The third prince thought, she is beautiful, the peony flower is too tacky, it doesn't match her brilliance at all, she should wear the crabapple flower.The third prince's heart moved, and he said: "That flower is not beautiful, I will pick another one and bring it back to you." After speaking, he walked to a crabapple flower on the other side, picked the best flower on it, Excitedly took it back and handed it to the Fifth Prince.

The fifth prince shook his head, and said stubbornly: "Peony flowers are beautiful, I want peony flowers!"

The third prince thought for a while, and said: "Why don't you take both back and let Concubine Jingmu choose by herself."

The Fifth Prince bowed his head and considered for a while, and finally nodded.The third prince went to pick the peony flower back and handed it to his younger brother.The fifth prince held a flower in one hand, and said to the third prince: "Brother, I'm going back, you come to play with me in the future! I raised grasshoppers in my yard, and I left one for you. You are here, I will take you to see it!"

The third prince let out a reluctant "Oh".Although he has five brothers, he is not always close to other brothers.The elder brother didn't say anything, he pretended to be a dear brother in front of his father and outsiders, and turned his head to him with a knife.The second elder brother treated him like a pug, but he kept making small moves secretly, as if he didn't know.Even if he acts submissive in front of others, it's probably to make him bear the reputation of intentionally humiliating his brother.He didn't bother to argue with him face to face, he let him be a pug if he loved it, turned his head and told his father that the second brother was too lacking in mastery, and always treated himself as a slave to see who could ruin whose reputation.As for the fourth brother, he lay in bed for [-] days a year, and the remaining [-] days when he could see him were only a handful.Only the fifth younger brother, who is from the same mother as him, would neither play tricks on him, but also like to cling to him, making him full of his addiction to being an older brother.

"Xiao Wu!" A familiar female voice suddenly rang out. The Third Prince followed the voice and looked over, only to see a group of court ladies walking on the other side with a beautiful woman in their arms.The beautiful woman was still looking around, and occasionally said to herself: "Where did this child go?"

Hearing the voice, the fifth prince raised his hand and said, "Mother, I am here."

The woman seemed to have discovered them just now, and passed through from the other side.The fifth prince rushed forward, the woman supported the son who ran over, and said, "Why did you come here?"

The third prince felt that his palms were sweating, he spread his hands and wiped his clothes, and shouted in a dazed way: "Respect mother and concubine!"

Only then did Concubine Jing raise her head, and said calmly, "Little San is here too!"

"Yes..." He stammered a bit: "I, I went out for a stroll in the yard, and then I met Fifth Brother."

The fifth prince raised the flowers in his hand, raised his head and said to Concubine Jing: "Look, concubine mother, these are flowers for you, brother picked them, and Xiao Wu picked them."

Concubine Jing lowered her head and touched the head of her youngest son, saying: "You are so good!" After speaking, she raised her head again, and said in a slightly cold tone: "The flowers are very beautiful."

The third prince couldn't help being excited, as if he had praised him, but when he saw the maids and servants following behind him, he suppressed his excitement and said calmly, "It's as long as Jingmu Concubine likes it!"

Concubine Jing wanted to say something more, but she opened her mouth, but in the end she didn't say anything.Concubine Jing sighed in her heart, she took the fifth prince and said, "I'll take Xiao Wu back to the palace first, and you don't want to wander around for too long, lest the empress be worried!"

"Yes, respect mother and concubine."

After Concubine Jing left with the fifth prince, the third prince jumped up and down to stroll around the garden again, feeling so excited that he couldn't calm down for a long time.

And this excitement calmed down the next day when she and he saw Concubine Jing coming to greet the queen.Concubine Jing rarely came to pay her respects to the queen when he was around, but today he memorized the books quickly and could answer their meanings, so the Tai Tuo asked him to leave school first.When he came back, Concubine Jing was just going out. He looked at the bright red peony flower on her head, and his mood suddenly plummeted.

Seeing that he was in a bad mood, the queen couldn't help pulling him over and asking, "What's wrong today? Why are you unhappy?"

He tugged at the Queen's sleeve and shook his head, but he couldn't help but wonder why she didn't wear the crabapple flower he gave her, since the crabapple flower suits her better.Does she not like him?It was also the case when he fell into the water. She knew that they had to avoid taboos, but she could also pretend to pay her respects to the queen mother, and then came to see him, but she didn't come.She doesn't like him, she only likes the second sister and fifth brother.

The queen asked him again: "Is it because you didn't recite the book, so you were scolded by the Taifu?"

The third prince looked at the queen's worried expression, shook his head and said, "The Taifu said, there are some sentences in "University" that I didn't understand correctly."

When the queen heard that the third prince was unhappy because of this, she couldn't help laughing, and said, "Just because of this? What's the point of being unhappy? You are only eight years old, and you can understand most of the sentences in it, which is already very good .Look at your elder brother, he is 15 years old, and he may not be able to fully understand it. One bite of food can't make a fat man, let's take it slowly."

The third prince seemed a little embarrassed, twisted his body and buried his face in the queen's chest, but thought in his heart: Hmph, she doesn't like me and some people like me, the mother loves me the most, and also loves me the most, I will only be with the mother from now on.

The third prince writhed on the empress for a while, and said again: "Mother, I want to eat fried quail tonight."

The queen said softly: "Okay, then we will have fried quail tonight."

After waiting for a few days, when the third prince came back from school in the South Study Room again, he heard Aunt Qingzhu inside talking to the queen while changing flowers.

Aunt Qingzhu said: "... There is a strange thing today. When the servant girl went to the flower and wood room today, she saw the painted pottery next to the concubine Jing. She was asking the little servant how to raise crabapple flowers with water. The servant girl asked her to learn how to do it. What, she said that a crabapple flower that Empress Jingfei raised with water was about to wither, and she wanted to ask if there was any way to feed her."

The queen said: "Why, Concubine Jing likes to grow begonias again? Can someone cut a new one and put it in the water to grow it? Why bother."

Qingzhu laughed as she talked: "The servant also said the same, but you guess what Caitao said, she said that the others were not as good-looking as the one she kept. I don't know what kind of opinion the concubine Jing kept. .”

The queen laughed too.

The third prince suddenly felt that the sky covered by dark clouds was actually sunny!
The third prince jumped into the door happily, and said while walking: "Queen, I still want to eat fried quail today."

The Queen smiled and asked, "Why are you so happy today?"

The third prince said: "Father praised me today, and even rewarded me with an inkstone!"

"Oh, you should be very happy."

When going to bed at night, the third prince was so excited that he couldn't sleep.He thought: She raised the flowers he gave, and she still liked him.And that time when she fell into the water, after she jumped into the water, she found a piece of wood for him to hold before going to rescue Fifth Brother. Perhaps it was because of this extra sip of water that Fifth Brother fell ill.It's just that as soon as she pulled Fifth Brother to the edge of the pool, the servants came. Seeing that he was still in the water, they thought she had saved him first.

He thought, if she likes him, he will like her too, just as he likes his mother.There are also the second sister and the fifth brother, he will definitely treat them well in the future.

The third prince thought sweetly, and then fell asleep!

(End of this chapter)