Living leisurely in Tang Dynasty

Chapter 59

Although Lady of Talents is not considered a high ranking concubine in the harem, it still an official title awarded by the Emperor and people of this position also serves as a female official when needed.

When the Emperor bestowed such a person to Li Yuanying, many were flabbergasted. The first person who lost sleep over this is the whistle blower followed by courtiers like Wei Zheng.

Yes! The Emperor do greatly favors his youngest brother BUT this action of giving away his concubine on a whim is hard to stomach by straightforward people like Wei Zheng.

In his earlier days, Li Er’s actions were equally outrageous when he brought in the late Prince La’s consort into his harem. This time he’s not courting his younger brother’s concubines but is now giving away his own. What nonsense is this? Whatever little bit of good reputation they’ve worked so hard to build up will now all be wasted due to Li Er’s ridiculous doings!  

The first person to roll up his sleeves to find trouble with the Emperor is Wei Zheng.

Initially when Empress Zhangsun was gravely ill, she decided to look for her successor herself. She looked carefully into family background, looks and worked on all the needed procedures. The new successor was just waiting to be brought into the palace but somehow Wei Zheng discovered dirt about this lady in which she previously had prior marriage arrangements with someone else. He immediately wrote to strongly object to this union.

As a result, the whole incident was left hanging.

Later when Empress Zhangsun passed, the Emperor had to choose a suitable concubine to preside over the affairs of the inner palace. However, all his courtiers were not happy about this and that and commented about this and that.  As the Son of Heaven, his family affairs are state affairs. With so many eyes looking at him, how can he be allowed to make chaotic mistakes!

Wei Zheng was so aggravated that he couldn’t eat dinner. He locked himself up in his room and suffocated himself trying to look for ways to get Li Er to retrieve Lady Wu back from Li Yuanying.

Wei Shu initially didn’t know what was happening and so she carefully placed a futon next to grandfather to find out. Soon she realize that it had something to do with Li Yuanying.

Wei Shu has seen Lady Wu a few times but she has never formally spoken to her. Hearing that this person was sent to Li Yuanying’s side, she was a little curious: “I wonder what kind of person she is.”

Wei Zheng was a foreign minister and obviously wouldn’t know what a concubine hidden in the deep palace would look like. “How would I know?”

Wei Shu said firmly: “His Royal Highness Prince Teng will not ask for someone casually. There must be a reason for it. I’ve heard His Highness mention about her before, saying that she is someone with great knowledge. Every time he wants to find a book, she can accurately help him with it.” Wei Shu’s thoughts coincided with Yuanying’s: “If his Majesty is giving her away so casually to Prince Teng, then  he must not value her very much. If that’s the case, it is better to let her go to Prince Teng. Such a person being trapped in the palace for a lifetime is a waste.”

“Since she has entered the palace, she should tolerate the life of loneliness. If His Majesty allows this today, I worry to know how many would follow after his example.” (Wei Zheng)

Seeing that grandfather was determined, Wei Shu stopped talking. She decided to send a letter to Li Yuanying to give him a heads up, lest he gets caught off guard by her grandfather.

From Wei Shu’s point of view, since Lady Wu is not important to the Emperor but is of use to Li Yuanying, it is naturally better to go to Prince Teng’s side.

She hid under a tree and quickly wrote what she knew in the letter, not forgetting to express her support. If they want to maintain their big academy, they need powerful and knowledgeable people. Since Yuanying had praised Lady Wu for being smart, then it’s a right decision to rope her into this mission.

Without grandfather’s help Wei Shu  had no way of sending the letter into the palace. However, there were Prince Teng’s vassals in the library. She was on friendly terms with them and so went straight to the library to ask that her letter be delivered as soon as possible. Grandfather might hand over his protest early tomorrow morning!

The people serving Prince Teng had been doing so since he was a young child. They knew that Prince Teng had only given away one gold badge and it was to Wei Shu. They wouldn’t dare to neglect her request and so quickly sent someone to the palace before the gate was locked.

Seeing how responsive they were, Wei Shu felt relieved and walked home in the sunset. Wei Zheng has already finished his emotional exhortation done in a letter format for tomorrow’s court session and was brewing tea.

“Why did you go out again?”

Wei Shu of course wouldn’t admit that she went out to tip off her friend. She sat and took over the job of making tea and carefully put tea powder into the boiling water.

“Grandfather, you are drinking tea given by his highness but now you want to ruin his plans!”

Wei Zheng glanced over and snorted.

“I have still not scolded him yet for kidnapping you out to play. This two brothers are now doing stupid things, how can I not criticize them? It will be too late when the world does it instead!”

Wei Shu knew she couldn’t out-speak her grandfather and so just concentrated on making tea.

Very quickly the aroma of tea filled the room.

Li Yuanying is quite unpredictable, sometimes heartless and sometimes caring. If he has something good, he will surely share some with people he likes.

This tea was given by Li Yuanying. Back then, Yuanying asked that it be exchanged with a few jasmine petals from her garden, saying that they bloomed well and smelled good. He wanted some for his mother.

The next day,  the boy came again with pots of flowers as apology. He said that mother scolded him for plucking the flowers. It takes great effort to grow such beautiful flowers.

Those pots were now placed in Wei Shu’s room.

According to Yuanying, he had secretly dug them from the forbidden garden and he had purposely chosen those that the Emperor fancies. Each flower is worth a fortune. Such flowers, Wei Shu wouldn’t dare display openly for fear of it being recognized as the Emperor’s missing flowers !

Wei Shu brewed tea with ease and poured a bowl for herself and grandfather. She held her bowl and smelled the aroma. Using this bending action as camouflage, her lips secretly curved upwards showing two small dimples.

……

Since everyone outside the palace heard the news, it’s impossible for the palace to fall behind.

Lady Wu packed up the her humble belongings and moved to Li Yuanying’s place. The number of people serving Prince Teng is fixed and naturally the room vacated for Lady Wu is not as good as her original residence.

Lady Wu can’t be called by her usual title anymore and should be called “Wu Mei” as she is now the head of female officials in Prince Teng’s mansion.

Given that the real Prince Teng’s mansion is still not ready, she didn’t have much to do.  She is now only in charge of governing Li Yuanying’s servants.

Li Yuanying only told his mother about the news after everything is done.

Lady Liu’s heart was beating like a drum in anxiousness. That person is the Emperor’s concubine, how  can her son ask for her? This is not right!

But the official decree from Li Er has already been given to Wu Mei. Lady Liu didn’t have the guts to ask the Emperor to call it off so she could only accept  everything uncomfortably. When she finally met Wu Mei and realized that she was well-mannered in words and deeds;  not impatient, not timid or arrogant and capable in everything, Lady Liu felt a little more relieved.

However, she is still slightly uneasy when facing Wu Mei in person.

Even though Lady Liu was a woman herself, she too falls into a daze when looking at Wu Mei. She was so beautiful that sometimes people loses their senses looking at her.

If a girl like this was born into an ordinary family, she would have commanded a crowd of admirers even before she could reach adulthood!

Seriously, why did the Emperor bestow such a woman to her son? Is it to test him? Lady Liu was puzzled but seeing her son happy, she held back her words. Since the person is already here, she couldn’t change anything. She just prayed that she survives until the day her son leave for heaven and then she will no longer have to worry about these things.

Li Yuanying was happy. He got what he wanted and really doesn’t care what his brother thinks. The brain is on his brother’s head, let him think whatever he wants. After dinner he went for a walk and someone came to report that Wei Shu had sent a letter.

Hearing this, the boy was overjoyed and couldn’t wait to read it. The letter was written casually on simple paper and it didn’t look like Wei Shu wrote this letter seriously. He was glad that Wei Shu really understood him and thinks the same way.

Li Yuanying took the letter and without holding back, ran to Wu Mei to show off the tacit understanding between him and his friends.

“Sister Shu said in her letter that Old man Wei will have a scolding showdown tomorrow! Why don’t you leave the palace with my token in the morning for the library or Sunflower garden? Go settle down outside first and see if you can get used to the work. I’ve handed over everything outside the palace to Dong Xiaoyi. Although he is smart, he is not as capable as Dai Ting. It should be better for you to take over.” (Li Yuanying)

Wu Mei had no reason to object and nodded in response.

Since she had made the decision to move over to Li Yuanying’s side, she will have a hard life if she ever had to return to the palace. It is best to leave early to avoid the turmoil in court.

Wu Mei looked at Li Yuanying: “Your Highness won’t let them force me back, right?”

“Of course. As long as you want to stay with me, I won’t let the Emperor go back on his promises.”

He studied the Book of Rites with Wei Zheng for half a year. Although he might not be as cunning and sly as Wei Zheng, he is still confident that he can keep Wu Mei safe!

Wu Mei trusted the boy and went back to her room to think about how to improve the library and Sunflower Garden.

Since Prince Teng trusted her. She needs to live up to that trust.

After Yuanying arranged everything, he read Wei Shu’s letter again. The more he read it, the more he felt that this little friend was in perfect harmony with him. He didn’t immediately think about how to deal with Wei Zheng but instead wrote a return letter to sister shu with great interest. He intended to send it to her early next morning.

Anyway, if Wei Zheng wants to spray his anger, he will direct it to the Emperor first. No need to worry!

Early the next morning, Wu Mei and the person who deliver Wei Shu’s letter rushed out of the palace.

At the same time, Wei Zheng stopped Li Er early in the morning and began his scoldings.

There was no court session today and Li Er thought that it would be a relaxing day for him. Unluckily, he got a full fledged scolding from Wei Zheng instead about this and that not being appropriate.

Wei Zheng brought up old issues too, saying that the Emperor was careless before too for bringing in his brother’s wangfei and even wanting to make her Empress. Now is a different era and our rule has been slightly effective so how could  you try to ruin the royal family’s reputation? Don’t you think you are over-pampering Prince Teng? You are directing him onto a bad path!

Wei Zheng grumbled all the way to the council hall. After inviting him to have a seat, he continued his rambling. Unfortunately for the Emperor he’s not suppose to get angry at this little old man,  so he could only endure!

That day when Li Er asked Wu Mei about her decision, it was because he had doubts on whether she had any ulterior motives. Later, when he heard from Yuanying that she explained the whole situation to him, the Emperor felt that although this woman can scheme, she had no hidden evil intentions. So if Li Yuanying wanted her, let her leave. After all, there’s no shortage of women in the Harem.

It’s just like what Wei Zheng is complaining about, Li Er is not very particular about these things. In the late Sui Dynasty wars were frequent and in his youth, his brothers fought to death for the throne during the Xuanwu Gate incident. Since he had experienced so much about life and death already, how can such a trivial thing compare?

The Emperor is getting annoyed and so he retorted angrily: “This is not something the common people can follow even if they wanted to. Just take your family as an example, do you have a Lady of talent who can be given away to your brother?”

The Emperor’s statement made Wei Zheng choke.

His salary is not much, if it weren’t for the housing subsidy given by the Emperor, he probably wouldn’t be able to afford a house in Chang’an. His sons and daughters needed to get married and the family budget is tight. Where would he find money to bring home a concubine? Besides, he’s not that kind of person. His wife has been by his side since day one, how could he do such a heartless thing?

His Majesty managed to deal a blow to Wei Zheng and so took advantage of his victory to push the blame on Li Yuanying: “You don’t know! Yuanying that brat is shameless. He said that if I didn’t agree with him, he would secretly build ships and set sail. Go to sea and never come back!

When I threaten to change his fief to the West, he said: ‘Then I’ll raise a lot of camels, and keep travelling west. Never coming back’!”

His Majesty sighed and said in a sad and helpless tone. “Dearest Minister Wei, the late emperor entrusted me with this younger brother and told me to take good care of him. Since he has demanded, should I destroy our relationship over a mere lady of talent?”

Notes from the author:

Little Prince: ? ? ? ? ?

Little Prince: Shameless! ! ! ! !