newbobooks Chapter 123 The Substitute Bride 38 (The End)
Chapter 123 The Substitute Bride 38 (The End)
Childbirth is a life-or-death ordeal for women, but not for Ji Xiaosong.
The palace maids cleaned the palace thoroughly, and then Chu Qingyun, Chu Yuze, and the Empress Dowager entered.
Zixi and three other palace maids each carried one of the four newborn princes and walked behind.
Ji Xiaosong leaned against a soft pillow with a peony pattern, her black hair still damp with sweat, and her lips were so bright they looked like a pomegranate had been bitten open.
As the Empress Dowager lifted a corner of the brocade quilt, her hand supporting the gold-threaded nail guards, she suddenly found the nail guards an eyesore. So she gently placed the nail guards on a porcelain plate with lotus patterns, her wide sleeves of spring robes carrying a whiff of styrax: "I remember when Qingyun landed, she looked like a pink dumpling. These four, on the other hand, are quite robust."
As she bent down, the jade longevity hairpin hanging from her temple brushed against the swaddling clothes. Suddenly, she took out a piece of mutton-fat jade carved with pomegranate patterns from her bosom. "I offered incense to the Guanyin Bodhisattva who grants children for a whole season and placed it close to my heart."
Chu Qingyun's black dragon robe still had a few willow catkins clinging to the hem. This usually aloof emperor was now kneeling on the edge of the couch, his palm holding Ji Xiaosong's icy fingers: "The Imperial Hospital is having its apprentices prepare blood swallow porridge in the corridor, saying that the medicine is most nourishing at three quarters past dawn."
His voice suddenly became hoarse as he lowered his head to kiss his wife's sweaty temples. "Just now, during the political discussion, the Vice Minister of Rites had ink stains on his beard, and I stared at it for half an hour."
"Father must be distracted by thinking about Mother!"
Chu Yuze peeked out from behind the brocade curtain, his crown prince robes adorned with scattered crabapple petals.
The eight-year-old child knelt on the footstool, holding a celadon stew pot, and lifted the lid as if presenting a treasure: "Your subject has been watching the sweet fermented rice soup that the small kitchen has been simmering all night. Granny Zhang said this is the best for replenishing qi and blood."
Ji Xiaosong placed the warm jade against her neck with the Empress Dowager's hand. The spring morning light shone through the crimson gauze window onto her pale smiling face: "Mother, this jade is much more comforting than the bitter medicine you forced me to drink back then."
Turning her head to suck on the sugar water her son fed her, she suddenly frowned and chuckled, "Isn't Yuze probably mixed in a whole jar of acacia honey?"
Chu Yuze's ears turned red, but he kept a straight face. The jade pendant at his waist jingled softly with his movements: "The Grand Tutor said that the Book of Songs says, 'The gentle breeze comes from the south, blowing on the heart of the thorn.' Tomorrow, your son will go and pick thorn buds to make soup for Mother."
Before he could finish speaking, his father grabbed him by the back of his collar and lifted him onto his lap. Chu Qingyun pinched his son's chubby cheeks and said, "I cut down all the thorn bushes in the Imperial Garden long ago."
But when he caught a glimpse of his wife's fingers subtly hooking her son's sash, a smile finally spread across his eyes.
The Empress Dowager was arranging the four swaddled babies into a lotus shape when she heard this and lightly tapped the Emperor's forehead: "Still laughing? Who broke my sandalwood prayer beads three times last night?"
She took off a string of Canaan wood prayer beads from her wrist and gently slipped them onto Ji Xiaosong's wrist: "The monks in the Great Buddha Hall have been chanting the Medicine Buddha Sutra for seven days, and even the Bodhi tree has bloomed half a month earlier."
Outside the window, the drizzle tapped on the glazed tiles, and under the eaves, the golden bell carried by the bronze sparrow tinkled in the spring breeze.
Suddenly, Ji Xiaosong buried her face in Chu Qingyun's lapel. As the scent of ambergris mixed with the fragrance of medicine lingered around her nose, she heard her husband's heart pounding like a drum in his chest. The Empress Dowager's nails, stained with balsam juice, were gently combing her loose long hair, while Chu Yuze held her sleeve and hummed "Liao E" softly, just like the lotus lanterns floating on Taiye Pond during the Shangsi Festival that year.
*
The names of the four children were decided by Chu Qingyun after much deliberation: Chu Yu'an, Chu Yucong, Chu Yucheng, and Chu Yumin.
When they were three years old, Ji Xiaosong decided to have three more daughters.
The three daughters are all different: the eldest daughter, Chu Yuying, is aloof and noble; the second daughter, Chu Yusu, is elegant and gentle; and the third daughter, Chu Yuhuan, is lively and lovely.
The five older brothers naturally doted on their younger sister.
Spring:
Chu Yuze hid the memorial in his wide sleeve and secretly picked crabapple blossoms during a break from his lectures.
The fifteen-year-old crown prince held his younger sister Chu Yuying's hand and taught her to draw orchids on gold-flecked paper: "Ying'er, do you think the snow leopard presented by the Tibetan envoy yesterday looks like your second brother?"
Before he could finish speaking, Chu Yu'an came running over carrying a jade-inlaid bamboo horse, his black outfit damp with morning dew: "We agreed to teach Ying'er riding and archery today, so why did you come to the study again, brother?"
A bitter smell suddenly wafted from the glass pavilion. Chu Yuzong emerged from the depths of the apricot blossoms, carrying a medicine pot, with the "Prescriptions Worth a Thousand Pieces of Gold" tucked into his waistband: "Su'er coughed twice last night."
The silver bell on his wrist jingled softly with his movements, startling the swallows that were nesting under the eaves.
Chu Yusu chuckled as she hugged the hand warmer: "Third Brother has plucked the head of the Imperial Medical Academy's beard bald."
Summer:
Chu Yucheng dipped his bare feet into the blue waves, while koi fish nibbled at the lotus-shaped pastries in his palm.
Suddenly, a pale yellow dress flashed across the willow embankment. The young general Chu Yucheng leaped up abruptly, his wet clothes sweeping over a glass cup: "Huanhuan, stay away from the water!"
But Chu Yumin had already retreated behind the bamboo curtain with his little sister in his arms, holding a freshly picked lotus seedpod in his palm: "How about your fifth brother carves you a painted boat?"
The six golden bells on the girl's wrists rang out with a clear sound, startling the fireflies that filled the pond.
Autumn:
Chu Yuying's gold-embroidered cloak was half-stained with wine, and she threw the jade pendant with a cold face.
Chu Yuze stroked the sleeve embroidered with intertwined branches, then suddenly poured the entire pot of fine wine onto his dragon-patterned robe: "Brother is drunk."
Over there, Chu Yu'an was already "sparring" with the royal son whose fur coat was soiled, and the sound of drums in the training ground shook down three dogwood branches.
Winter:
Chu Yusu was holding a copy of "Collection of Yuefu Poems" under the plum tree, lost in thought, when she suddenly felt a slight warmth on her neck.
Chu Yuzong took off his white fox fur coat and wrapped it around her, wiping away the ice flowers on the window lattice with his fingertips: "The meteorite iron that your second brother brought back from the northern frontier, I used to make a warm inkstone for you."
A loud crash suddenly came from the west wing. Chu Yuhuan emerged from the pile of books with her face covered in ink stains, followed by Chu Yucheng carrying a brocade quilt and Chu Yumin carrying a food box: "You promised to copy 'Admonitions for Women' ten times!"
The Tale of Broken Jade:
The vermilion brush used by Chu Yuze for marking red ink had three small lotus patterns engraved on its handle;
Chu Yu'an's armor was lined with mosquito-repellent sachets, the stitches crooked like insects crawling.
The handle of Chu Yucong's pestle was wrapped with faded, multicolored silk.
Chu Yucheng's sword tassel was adorned with a half-eaten candied fruit;
Chu Yumin had a butterfly specimen tucked inside his book of military strategy, with the words "Huanhuan is seven years old" written in gold powder on its wings.
These secrets were discovered by Ji Xiaosong on a snowy night. The Emperor and Empress stood side by side outside the warm pavilion, watching their five sons weaving New Year's Eve lanterns around their sisters. Chu Qingyun suddenly pinched his wife's fingertips: "I should have let you give birth to a few more strings of little jade bells back then."
*
In this life, Chu Qingyun lived to the age of seventy before passing away, and Ji Xiaosong followed him thereafter.
Chu Yuze became the new emperor at the age of twenty, and Ji Xiaosong, just as planned, contributed to his son's path to becoming a great emperor for all time.
He was given a continuous supply of high-yield grain seeds, as well as gold, silver, and jade.
The year after Chu Yuze ascended the throne, the Champa rice seeds presented as tribute from Lingnan sprouted ears at Longshou Canal.
The young emperor stepped barefoot into the spring mud, still wearing the sachet embroidered by Ji Xiaosong around his waist, and hung the fragments of the "Essential Techniques for the Common People" and the Waterways Classic of the Western Regions on the dragon-bone waterwheel.
For ten years, all the granaries in the eight wastelands were engraved with the seal "Changfeng". When the camel bells of the foreign merchants resounded throughout Suyab, the children in the capital were still singing "Chu Lang's wonderful plan to secure the salt and iron".
Later, on the night the Ministry of War reported the Northern Di's surrender, Chu Yuze placed the tiger tally under the gilded Boshan incense burner given to him by his mother.
His hand-painted "Nine Border Horse Market Map" is imbued with the aroma of ginseng soup, and the two characters "mutual market" in red ink are so powerful that they seem to penetrate the silk back—just like when Ji Xiaosong taught him to dismantle the chain lock, exchanging millet for warhorses and tea and silk for weapons.
The Grand Historian of later generations added a note to the "Records of the Imperial Palace": During his sixty-year reign, he reduced taxes and levies to the least affected widows and orphans, and the tax revenue did not exceed one-tenth of the total.
The old palace maid still remembers that every year during Grain Rain, the emperor would bury three grains of rouge-colored rice in the imperial fields, saying that they were stars that fell from the Empress Dowager's skirt.