Ning Chen felt he had gone a little too far himself.
He walked over.
“Uh… Princess, your subject was only joking just now. Why don’t you hit me a couple of times and work it off?”
The Ninth Princess made a small sound in her nose and turned her head away.
Ning Chen smiled ruefully. What was he doing, arguing with a child?
“Princess, the truth is that poem of mine just now had one more line… flying into the reed-flowers, gone from sight.“
The Ninth Princess was not in the least won over. “It’s not good. Not good at all… You’re plainly just humoring me. Next to the poems you wrote before, this one is far too poor.”
“Then shall your subject write the Princess another one?”
“No… Go away. I don’t want to look at you.”
Ning Chen’s face was helpless. He bent over. “Very well, then. Your subject takes his leave!”
Ning Chen was just turning to go when a cough sounded at the door, and the curtain lifted, and the Xuan Emperor came in with Eunuch Quan behind him.
Holy shit!!!
When had His Majesty gotten here? Why had none of the guards or maids outside announced him?
“Your subject, presenting himself to Your Majesty!”
Ning Chen made his bow at once.
The Xuan Emperor looked at him with his face showing nothing.
Ning Chen’s heart was pounding. Had His Majesty heard everything he’d just said?
The Xuan Emperor looked at him. “Ning Chen. Is my daughter so poor a match?”
This worthless thing. He actually dares say my daughter can’t find a husband… after all the trouble I went to.
Ning Chen’s mind went blank.
So His Majesty really had heard him… Had he been standing outside the door listening the whole time?
“Answering Your Majesty! Her Highness the Princess could topple a kingdom with her beauty, and her gifts surpass all common measure… Beauty and wisdom together, and nobody anywhere to stand beside her.”
The Xuan Emperor made a cold sound in his nose!
“Just now you said nobody would want my daughter?”
Ning Chen’s head felt twice its usual size. “Forgive your subject, Your Majesty. It was a slip of the tongue, and never what your subject truly meant!”
“Then if this emperor betrothed Huai’an to you, would you think this emperor too cruel?”
Ning Chen: “???”
The Xuan Emperor narrowed his eyes. “What is it? Does giving you Huai’an wrong you somehow?”
“No wrong, no wrong at all… It’s only — what is your subject, after all? Neither scholar nor soldier. How could he dare reach so far above himself as the Princess? He would ruin the Princess’s happiness.”
Fuck!!!
Only a fool marries a princess.
The imperial family has too many damned rules of its own. Once married, you have to pay your respects to the princess three times a day, on the dot.
Even so much as being intimate with her needs an application days in advance, and it only happens once she agrees to it.
And worst of all, marry a princess and you can never take a concubine… What would become of Yudie?
Set against all that, Yudie was gentle and considerate, sweet-natured and sensible — she simply couldn’t be better.
The Xuan Emperor’s face grew still uglier, thinking to himself: is my daughter really so beneath your notice that you’d run yourself down just to escape her?
“Ning Chen has insulted the Ninth Princess and given offense to the imperial family… Quan Sheng. Take him out and give him thirty strokes of the rod. You will oversee the punishment yourself.”
Something lurched in Ning Chen’s chest. He was coming apart.
“Your Majesty’s mercy… your subject marches out in two days. If he is injured it may hold up the whole march.”
The Xuan Emperor made a cold sound in his nose. “No matter! This emperor has worked it out for you already. Going downriver by boat, it takes about five days to reach Lingzhou. Add these two days, seven days in all, and by the time you get there the injury will have all but healed.”
Ning Chen: “???”
Fuck… does that mean he’s beating me no matter what I say?
“We thank Your Majesty for his boundless grace!”
Ning Chen smiled ruefully, and inwardly he was having none of it.
But what could be done about it?
The emperor’s authority stands above everything. If His Majesty wants to beat you, not only can you not resist, you must say thank you for it!
Eunuch Quan glanced at His Majesty, and His Majesty gave him a look, and Eunuch Quan took his meaning at once… His Majesty did not mean to punish Ning Chen in earnest. He only meant to frighten him.
“Young Master Ning. Come with me.”
Ning Chen got helplessly to his feet, and was about to go with Eunuch Quan to take his beating when the Ninth Princess spoke up.
“Father. Ning Chen was only teasing me just now. He hasn’t insulted me at all… Won’t Father let him off?”
“He came to help me make a paper hawk, and now he’s to be beaten for it. How unfair that is!”
Ning Chen looked at the Ninth Princess with gratitude. This little brat had a headstrong streak in her, but her heart really was kind at bottom.
The Ninth Princess only glared at him.
Ning Chen could only smile ruefully back. It seemed the little brat still had it in for him.
The Xuan Emperor looked at Ning Chen. “Huai’an has pleaded for you. Have you nothing to say?”
“Your subject thanks Her Highness the Princess! The Princess is truly a beauty with a kind heart, loved by all who see her, a flower that blooms wherever she goes…”
The Ninth Princess could not hold it in and burst out laughing. “Smooth talker. I think you deserve the rod after all.”
The corner of the Xuan Emperor’s mouth lifted, watching Ning Chen… this boy plainly had a clever tongue in his head. Why couldn’t he ever use it at the right moment?
“That will do. Since Huai’an has pleaded for you, this emperor will let you off for now!”
“We thank Your Majesty!”
Ning Chen gave thanks in a hurry. That was close… he had very nearly taken a beating.
“Don’t be too pleased too soon… You made Huai’an angry, and you must coax her out of it, or this emperor will still punish you.”
Ning Chen’s forehead filled with black lines.
Coax her how? Sing her a lullaby?
Seeing Ning Chen standing there like a block of wood, the Xuan Emperor grew irritated… Given the chance, and no good for anything.
“That poem you gave just now missed the mark… As your penalty, write another one.”
“Write a good one, and this emperor lets you off. Write a bad one, and go take your thirty strokes yourself.”
The truth was, the Xuan Emperor was not really afraid his daughter would go unmarried.
His real reason for wanting to marry the Ninth Princess to Ning Chen was to bind the boy tight.
Ning Chen was brimming with talent, already hailed in the capital as an immortal of poetry, and once his fame spread further, once he moved all the literary circles of the Great Xuan with a single word, his reach would be considerable.
And Old General Chen said he had the makings of a great commander besides… A man that outstanding could only be trusted completely once he was bound into the imperial family — and then he could be left in the crown prince’s hands.
Ning Chen felt a weight lift off him. Only a poem. As long as it kept him off the rod, that was fine.
“Your subject obeys!”
The Xuan Emperor asked, “How long will you need to write it?”
“Your subject has already written it!”
The Xuan Emperor could not help being startled. Not even a moment’s thought needed?
“Stand up and say it.”
“We thank Your Majesty!” Ning Chen got to his feet, straightened his robes, and said:
風雪壓我三兩年， 我笑風雪輕如棉。 人道京城花似錦， 偏我來時不逢春。
Wind and snow have pressed on me two years, three, and I have laughed at wind and snow as light as cotton. They say the capital’s flowers are like brocade, but it is my luck to arrive when spring has not yet come.
Something stirred in the Xuan Emperor and the Ninth Princess both, though neither could have said why.
The poem had nothing to do with snow at all. It used the weather to speak of a man, and it was airing a bitterness held inside.
The Ninth Princess looked at Ning Chen with an ache of pity in her eyes. Her brother the crown prince had once told her how hard Ning Chen’s life had been in the Ning household. He was writing about himself.
The Xuan Emperor let out a soft sigh. “A good poem… only the feeling in it runs heavy.”
Ning Chen said, smiling, “Your Majesty. Does your subject pass, then?”
“You may count yourself as passing… Ning Chen, you are brimming with talent, and Huai’an is fond of poetry herself, and you are close enough in age… This emperor grants you leave to come into the palace and call on Huai’an whenever you like, once you are back from the border.”
The Ninth Princess stared for a moment, and then her small face went red all at once. She had some vague notion of what her father meant by it.
Ning Chen, though, was raging inwardly. Isn’t this putting Fat Tiger in a spot? Don’t you have state affairs to be handling instead of playing matchmaker at random?
“Your subject obeys!”
The Xuan Emperor nodded, satisfied. “It’s time for the midday meal. Ning Chen, stay and eat with this emperor… Quan Sheng. Have the meal sent to the Fallen Phoenix Court. This emperor will dine here today!”
(End of Chapter 134)