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Translation: marchmallow
Feng Sheng didn’t exit the palace with Princess Consort Liang and instead made a detour to Xianfu Palace.
She had brought Jin ge’er along when she entered the palace, but it was inconvenient to take him with her to Kunning Palace, so she left him with the Imperial Noble Consort.
At Xianfu Palace, Little Sixteen was playing with Jin ge’er.
Little Sixteen was already three years of age. Because the Imperial Noble Consort raised him well, he was no longer as thin and tiny as when he was first born, but compared with Jin ge’er, he was really scrawny.
On the contrary, Jin ge’er, who might have taken after Prince Wei, was not only tall, but he was also stocky and was only a head shorter than his little uncle. He had just learned how to walk after a short time and was scurrying around the palace hall, tiring out Little Sixteen who had to keep chasing him from behind. Anyway, the two children were playing well, and Little Sixteen’s boredom was thus alleviated.
As soon as he saw Feng Sheng enter, Jin ge’er dashed over while calling out to his mother. This child learned to speak early and could already address his parents before he even reached a full year old. Now, he could call his grandmother and his imperial grandfather very smoothly, causing the Imperial Noble Consort to look askance at Little Sixteen for a good while because he had not learned to speak as early as Jin ge’er did.
“Running around again. You’re all sweaty.” Feng Sheng held him up and fished a handkerchief from her sleeve to wipe his sweat with.
“Jin ge’er, can you say my name?” Little Sixteen followed him soon after, but Jin ge’er looked unwilling. He desperately twisted his little head just so he wouldn’t face this little uncle.
“He actually knows how to say it.” The mother exposed her son.
“Then why don’t you want to say my name? Luckily, I saved some pastries for you to eat.” Little Sixteen was deeply hurt. He loved his little nephew and always saved some pastries and toys to give him.
Feng Sheng smiled and poked her son’s forehead. “Can’t you see how much your little uncle loves you? Still not saying his name?”
Jin ge’er cast Little Sixteen a glance and turned his head away in disgust. “Ai……”
“What did Jin ge’er say?”
“You’re short.”1
Feng Sheng had no idea what to say, fearing that it would strike Little Sixteen’s confidence. This moment, a peal of laughter escaped from inside. It was from the Imperial Noble Consort.
“Jin ge’er dislikes you for being short. See what happens if you don’t eat your meals properly?”
It wasn’t that Little Sixteen had poor appetite, only that he hadn’t quit breastfeeding. Feng Sheng initially had no idea that such was the case and only learned about it when Jin ge’er was over a year old, around the time when she asked the wet nurse to supplement Jin ge’er‘s diet with porridge. Children of many great and influential families drank breast milk until they were three or four, some even until they were seven or eight. Those in the imperial palace were alike in this regard.
For the common people, breast milk was an excellent resource. Prince Wei also believed that drinking more breast milk was highly salubrious and didn’t find the urgent need to add food to Jin ge’er’s diet. However, Feng Sheng grew up among the common folk, and no children from her ilk drank breast milk for this long. They were fed food early, and their bones grew to be very strong.
On top of that, Jin ge’er had an enormous appetite. The breast milk from two wet nurses that remained was no longer sufficient for him. He ate a lot but quickly grew hungry, so Feng Sheng began feeding him porridge.
After tasting porridge, Jin ge’er was no longer willing to drink bland and tasteless breast milk. He would clamor to be fed meals, wanting to eat all kinds of delicious food every day. After two months of eating like this, he grew taller and stronger. When the Imperial Noble Consort happened to mention that Little Sixteen was growing up to be rather scrawny, Feng Sheng suggested that she add some food and not just breast milk alone.
She knew that as children grew, milk wouldn’t fill them up, so how could it fatten them up? This reminded the Imperial Noble Consort that Prince Wei was not raised the way other princes were. In the year she had given birth to Prince Wei, the Empress’s second prince passed away, so few paid attention to them.
There was also a wet nurse, but she didn’t dare use her. She could only feed Prince Wei with her own breast milk until he was almost a year old. When her milk became insufficient, she started adding porridge to his diet. As he grew older, she gave him whatever it was she was eating. At that time, she had feared that her son’s health would be deficient, but contrarily, Prince Wei grew up excellently. He blossomed to be a strong child and was quickly able to walk steadily. Even Noble Consort Liu’s second prince wasn’t his equal in stature.
By the time he turned five, he started learning martial arts from a great master, and even this great master commended that he was well-nourished and had good bones.
Considering these, the Imperial Noble Consort also altered her way of thinking and bid the servants to add food to Little Sixteen’s diet. However, Little Sixteen was unwilling to eat, only wanting breast milk and, at most, some soft pastries. Feng Sheng quietly observed him and saw that Little Sixteen’s teeth didn’t grow well and were very sparse. Jin ge’er’s teeth, in contrast, had the likeness of porcelain.
She barely had any medical knowledge, but she understood this based on reason. It was similar to how beasts of burden were selected depending on their teeth. Only those with good teeth had the capacity to eat well and grow strong. Bad teeth indicated that they were in poor condition because they were poorly fed.
As a matter of fact, the Imperial Noble Consort had taken great pains to get Little Sixteen to eat more. Even Jin ge’er had heard it and was aware that his little uncle wouldn’t grow tall if he didn’t eat well.
Little Sixteen received a serious blow and scampered away clutching his little wooden horse. Seeing that his little uncle stopped chasing him, Jin ge’er instead started chasing after Little Sixteen.
The child was too young, but he was very strong. He grabbed Little Sixteen’s clothes and pulled him over. He then hurriedly patted his own little chest. “Eat. Be taller than Jin ge’er.”
“Our Jin ge’er is so intelligent. He knows how to persuade his little uncle to eat.” Over there, the Imperial Noble Consort was talking to Feng Sheng, grinning from ear to ear as she said this.
Little Sixteen looked at his Consort Mother, then at the little fattie across from him. He had no desire to become as fat as Jin ge’er and thus didn’t like to eat, but Jin ge’er was slowly starting to grow taller than him.
With a face rife with indignation, he blurted out, “My stomach is hungry. I wanna eat.”
“Eat, eat!” Jin ge’er echoed.
……
Xianfu Palace had a small kitchen. Any food could be cooked on the spot, so it didn’t take long for the dishes to be prepared and set.
Little Sixteen was still young and couldn’t eat anything too hard, so the kitchen made small wontons. As soon as Jin ge’er caught sight of them, he immediately had the appetite to eat, so he clambered onto the kang and sat upright. At first, Qian Ru instructed a palace maid to feed him, but unexpectedly, Jin ge’er wouldn’t let her. Instead, he took a small spoon to scoop it up.
He seemed to have been taught how to use it. With extreme caution, he tested it first with his spoon and instantaneously pointed to the bowl, saying it was hot.
Feng Sheng smiled and walked over. She retrieved an empty bowl from the palace maid, picked out all the wontons, deposited them in the empty bowl, and set it in front of him.
“Quickly eat. Don’t make trouble.” She said as she patted her son’s back.
Jin ge’er then ate by himself. He scooped one up and blew it, took one bite after another, and another bite after another, gobbling them up with great gusto. Little Sixteen on the side looked dumbfounded. Noticing that he hadn’t touched his bowl, Jin ge’er ladled one with a spoon and handed it over.
“Eat.”
Little Sixteen looked at him and then at the wonton that had thin skin and packed with meat. He hesitated, then bit half of it.
“Tasty.”
Looking at his little nephew’s plump face, Little Sixteen nodded. “Tasty!” He then turned to the palace maid feeding him and said, “I want to eat by myself.”
The palace maid was somewhat hesitant and took a peek at the Imperial Noble Consort.
The Imperial Noble Consort said, “Go. Pick it out for him. Jin ge’er is eating all by himself. Little Sixteen is still his little uncle.”
The palace maid proceeded to sort the wontons separately. She put a spoon in a bowl and placed it in front of Little Sixteen. Little Sixteen, who had never eaten on his own, was actually quite excited to grab ahold of the spoon, but he felt strange holding it between his fingers. He observed Jin ge’er, studied how to hold the spoon like he did, and finally felt comfortable with it.
When he scooped it up, the wonton was stable, but it fell out as soon as it reached his mouth.
Seated opposite him, Jin ge’er, who had eaten until his face was smeared with soup, was giggling gaily. Little Sixteen was extremely upset and incensed, feeling as though his own little nephew was mocking him. He wanted to order the palace maid to feed him, but he was too embarrassed to be perceived as someone dumber than Jin ge’er, so he reached for the spoon and scrimmaged with the bowl of small wontons, unbending in his struggle.
On the other side, when the Imperial Noble Consort saw the two children eating quite well, she withdrew her gaze and spoke with Feng Sheng.
Feng Sheng raised the incident that transpired at Kunning Palace earlier.
The Imperial Noble Consort remarked, “Being in a high position has its own merits. Take Her Majesty the Empress, for instance. She is tenacious and unyielding. No one can defeat her. If the First Prince hadn’t dragged her down, she definitely would have been able to live smoothly.”
Feng Sheng said nothing.
The Imperial Noble Consort cast her a glance. “What, do you pity that Ma-shi?”
“Not really.”
“The one to be pitied is Sun-shi.” The Imperial Noble Consort smiled and continued, “Don’t think too much. Such is life, and this woman is not as fragile as you imagine her to be. The Empress wanted to make an example of Ma-shi. She didn’t just use her to ‘kill the chicken to warn the monkey’, but also to secure Sun-shi’s position. When it all comes down to it, everything was someone else’s fault, yet Ma-shi was bestowed death, and Sun-shi would raise her three remaining children. After all, whether or not the First Prince valued Ma-shi, she had already established her position in the manor. Ma-shi ran the affairs in the manor for a long period of time and must have had her own confidants. Coupled with the support of the Empress in the palace, Sun-shi raising her three children is tantamount to taking over all of Ma-shi’s influence.”
“Mother also thinks Ma-shi is innocent?”
“Whether or not she’s innocent, at least on the surface, it can only be like this.”
Feng Sheng was, in all seriousness, anything but stupid. A single hint sufficed for her to deduce and discern a multitude of things, but when it came to the shameful secrets in the rear court and struggles in the imperial harem, since she had too few encounters with such things, she really wasn’t adept at fathoming them out. Most of the time, she would seem to have a vague comprehension of them, but it always felt as if they were veiled by a layer of muslin. Laying it bare in a few words like this, the Imperial Noble Consort impressed upon her everything at once.
Ah, yes. Whether or not there was some other mastermind behind the scenes, Empress Chen, and even the First Princess Consort, still would have made such arrangements. In this way, the First Princess Consort would have a firm foothold that could rival Ma-shi‘s influence, and the Empress would no longer need to worry about the tumultuous state of the First Prince’s household.
Linking all these together and with Empress Chen making such big moves, was there another conspiracy?
Noticing that Feng Sheng seemed to have some misgivings, the Imperial Noble Consort smiled and said, “She can’t afford to stir trouble now, but she at least can’t allow herself lose too much. A prodigal son who returns home is worth more than gold. Many years have passed since that incident transpired, and it is no longer that big of a deal. As long as the First Prince is willing to change, we can’t say for sure what will happen. After all, he is the main wife’s eldest son.”
The Imperial Noble Consort phrased it rather ambiguously, but the meaning couldn’t be clearer. The case of withholding salt for interest and silver meant nothing to a prince. With the identity of an imperial descendant, so long as he didn’t commit treason, there was nothing unforgivable in the Jianping Emperor’s heart. The Central Palace’s mistake was that they bit off more than they could chew. It might have been that they sat up high for so long that they couldn’t bear the grievances and frustrations and thus lost the good hand they inherently possessed in the process.
Now, the cards were reshuffled all over again. As long as her son could resolve on improving, who would dare say that the Empress couldn’t be the type of mother who could depend on her son’s honor? After all, it was evident that the Jianping Emperor had no intention of establishing an heir apparent for the time being. A trash crown prince still surpassed all of the younger brothers below him——apart from his identity as the eldest legitimate son, there were also the thoughts the Jianping Emperor had spent on him a few years ago.2
“Ah, in this palace, one’s survival never really hinged on how ruthless one could be, but rather on how well one could keep one’s composure. Your Imperial Father’s body is healthy and secure, and he will surely live to a ripe old age.”
The Imperial Noble Consort spoke a lot today. She usually never said this much to Feng Sheng. Feng Sheng naturally understood her implied meaning, then she conferred with her about the academy’s affairs.
Over there, Little Sixteen and Jin ge’er had already finished eating their wontons. Today, Little Sixteen was very determined not to fall short and ate everything in his small bowl. The Imperial Noble Consort was elated when she found out, and then told Feng Sheng that she should bring Jin ge’er to the palace more often so that both uncle and nephew could become each other’s companion.
After that, Prince Wei arrived to fetch his wife and child. Little Sixteen was reluctant to part with Jin ge’er and kicked up a fuss, refusing to let him go. Prince Wei said he would leave his son in the palace. Hearing that he couldn’t return home with his parents, Jin ge’er was immediately unwilling and quarelled to go back.
The ultimate compromise was that Little Sixteen would live in the Wei Prince Manor for a few days. Anyway, Prince Wei and Feng Sheng also wouldn’t treat him unkindly, so the Imperial Noble Consort had nothing to worry about.
Translator’s Note:
I know nothing about childrearing, so I’m not 100% confident about the translations regarding this. The chapters as of late have had sort of this slice-of-life feel to them interspersed with political intrigue, though very subtly. Anyway, things will happen in the next few chapters, so stay tuned!
1 Jin ge’er says 唉 (āi) the first time, which is an interjection to indicate a sigh. The second time, he says 矮 (ǎi), meaning short or low.
2 This was phrased rather vaguely. The “thoughts” could mean that the Jianping Emperor favored the eldest prince initially, or it could also be the incident in Chapter 88 where the Jianping Emperor was upset at how the Imperial Household Department treated the First Prince after he was stripped of his crown prince position.