novelraw Chapter 656 - 645: The Cuckolded Prince
Chapter 656 - 645: The Cuckolded Prince
That night, Ye Qiu slept peacefully and refreshed, while Lin Jingxian, watching over him, seemed rather dispirited, with large dark circles under her eyes, looking extremely haggard and exhausted.
Ye Qiu snorted with a hint of ridicule, "How can she not look haggard? She spent the entire night on guard against any move I might make, as if she really thinks she’s some Heavenly Immortal whom I can’t do without."
However, pretenses still needed to be maintained. Feigning surprise, Ye Qiu said, "Princess Consort, what’s happened to you? Are you ill?"
Given how much his predecessor adored Lin Jingxian, he wouldn’t normally address her so politely, but since she herself said it was improper to call her by name directly, he continued to refer to her as Princess Consort.
Lin Jingxian responded with a good-natured smile, "Perhaps I caught a cold from not covering myself properly with the blanket last night!"
That’s just like her, always finding excuses for Ye Qiu for her own faults—saying she didn’t cover herself properly with the blanket, is she suggesting that he stole her blanket?
"Then I’ll immediately send for the Imperial Physician to examine you," Ye Qiu said with feigned urgency, his tone tinged with reproach, "The palace maids by your side really are lacking in vigilance, not even knowing to cover you with a blanket at night."
Ye Qiu wasn’t wrong in his comment. In households like theirs, unless specifically instructed otherwise, there were always maids and eunuchs on standby by the bedside, so if Lin Jingxian claimed she herself didn’t cover up properly, wouldn’t that be the fault of her maids at Luoxia Courtyard?
Hearing Ye Qiu’s words, Lin Xianjing’s expression stiffened, fearing he would take it out on her attendants, and hastily said, "It’s not their fault. I felt hot last night and didn’t let them cover me. Prince, there’s no need to summon the Imperial Physician. I just need to rest for a couple of days, but it means I won’t be able to serve you these next few days, please don’t blame me, Prince."
"Why would I blame you?" Ye Qiu helped her up, advising her in a lecturing tone, "Princess Consort, not to criticize you, but not only that maid named Mu Jin from before, all these servants in your courtyard are just too negligent. They must think that you, a Princess Consort, are easy to bully, which is why they dare to act so boldly. But since you’re protecting them, I won’t say much. However, if there is a next time, I won’t be so accommodating. I might just sell them off, and have another group of well-educated palace maids sent from the palace to replace them, so you, a high and mighty Princess Consort, won’t have to suffer from your servants’ attitude."
Listening to Ye Qiu’s well-meant words mixed with threats to rectify her household, Lin Jingxian felt a surge of anger but couldn’t express it openly. Everyone knew her husband was a simpleton; although easy to deceive, he was someone who would carry out his word, and it was precisely his impulsive actions that had earned him many unfavorable assessments.
However, he was a Prince, and even if his actions were poor, he would at most receive reprimand from the Holy Emperor, whereas the fate of her attendants could be abruptly sealed.
Lin Jingxian took a deep breath and spoke in defense, "Prince, after all, they are maids that accompanied my dowry, how would it look to others if you were to punish them?"
Before she could finish speaking, Ye Qiu interjected fiercely, "Who would dare to laugh? I’d tear down their house!"
Buffoon, idiot!
Inwardly, Lin Jingxian cursed, her contempt for Ye Qiu growing. How did she end up in a marriage with him? She and the Crown Prince had already established a connection; why did it have to be disrupted? How could Ye Qiu, this foolish Prince with neither background nor intelligence, be worthy of her?
She felt injustice in her heart, but outwardly she still had to soothe Ye Qiu, "Prince, it would be beneath your dignity to confront others over such a trivial matter. They are just a few servants, how could they dare to bully me? And for just one instance of negligence, to be punished by the Ancestral Affairs Office seems a bit too severe. Why not give them this one chance? I believe after this lesson, they definitely wouldn’t dare to be negligent again."
As Lin Jingxian spoke, the kneeling palace maids and eunuchs around her all showed grateful expressions, while Ye Qiu indifferently curled his lips: "Fine then, there won’t be a next time."
He even sighed with emotion: "Princess Consort, you are just too merciful."
Lin Xianjing curtsied and smiled with gentle and virtuous grace: "It’s because you, Prince, are kind that these servants get a chance to redeem themselves."
"Hmph!" Ye Qiu glared at the servants with annoyance, then let Lin Jingxian attend to his washing and dressing.
Lin Jingxian was eager to see Ye Qiu off, but thinking about the one thousand silver taels he had rewarded her for no reason the day before, she felt reluctant. She thought about how to phrase it in order to take over the stewardship of Prince Wang Mansion. She regretted having previously declined the opportunity for stewardship in order to focus on nurturing her pregnancy. But Ye Qiu liked her so much, wouldn’t he surely offer it with both hands if she just brought it up?
"Prince, next month is the birthday of your tenth brother. Do you need me to handle the gift-giving for you?" In reality, between the nobles of the Imperial Family, there were established protocols for gift-giving. Her bringing it up was nothing more than a pretext for Ye Qiu to casually agree, which would logically lead to her taking over the management of the household.
Ye Qiu saw that she was clearly eager to manage the household affairs, yet stubbornly refused to say it herself, and he scoffed inwardly.
In her former life, she used his money to cover for the Crown Prince. In this life, he’ll make sure she won’t have the chance to reach for it again!
Looking at Lin Jingxian’s longing gaze, Ye Qiu looked at her with pained affection: "However, the matter of sending gifts is trivial. Just let the Chief Historians handle it. You just gave birth not two months ago and just got somewhat chilled recently; you needn’t overexert yourself."
The Chief Historians, in history, were officials assigned by Emperors to Princes or Princesses to handle their mansion affairs. Generally, there were left and right Chief Historians directly appointed by the Emperor, responsible for managing the proceedings of Prince Wang Mansion or Princess Mansion.
As for the present day, since the feudal system had been abolished, the Princes no longer needed to go to their fiefs, and thus the Emperor’s control over Chief Historians was not as strict as before, and their power was not as significant. If the Princes had anyone they particularly liked, they could ask the Emperor and replace the Chief Historian with someone of their preference.
The two Chief Historians in Ye Qiu’s mansion were people he had personally selected; one was Chief Historian Du, a Scholar who, no matter how he tried, could never become a higher-level scholar, and the other was a man named Tang Jin, the son of his mother’s cousin. He remembered the ridicule he faced from many when he requested the Father Emperor to appoint these two as Chief Historians for his mansion. Yet, he had been the subject of ridicule since birth and didn’t take it to heart.
They laughed at him not just for his lack of power and vision, but for picking those two after all the pondering.
Let’s not mention Du Ling, who, despite repeatedly failing the examinations, was still a man of letters, a Scholar. But Tang Jin, born of a merchant family, even his name seemed common to the point of being contemptible.
Of course, there were other reasons behind the ridicule. For instance, the Tang Family was the maternal family of Ye Qiu’s mother, a merchant’s daughter who however ended up giving birth to a Prince and was later given the rank of a concubine. In death, she was even buried with the status of a concubine, much to the bitter envy of her harem peers who were of equal status.
A merchant’s daughter, what made her deserving of such great honor?
Not only his mother, he himself, a Prince, had been the object of much ridicule from birth up until now. Later on, as people noticed his indifferent and miserly character, they looked down on him even more, thinking that he indeed carried the lowly blood of merchants.