Chapter 27
When Cui Lanyin said she planned to take care of Prince Wei in his old age, Aunt Xia and Aunt Gao struggled to hold back their laughter for a long while before finally stammering out, "The Second Miss is truly a most filial one."
"Don't you two dare laugh," Empress Dowager Chen said, pointing a finger at the pair. "With that lonely, aloof temper of Prince Wei's, her words are not as baseless as you think."
The more they thought about it, the more sense it made. Up to now, Prince Wei had not shown the slightest interest in taking concubines, and even Emperor Xuanning had stopped bothering about the matter. Empress Dowager Chen had always kept out of Prince Wei's private affairs, so if things went on like this, Prince Wei really might end up spending the rest of his days all alone.
Outsiders might not know, but the people close to Empress Dowager Chen were well aware that Prince Wei was a rebel at heart, who refused to be bound by all those stuffy rules and rituals. The old saying that "the greatest of the three unfilial acts is to leave no heir" meant nothing more than idle chatter to him.
If Prince Wei did not love nothing more than staying cooped up in his residence dozing off, who knew how many earth-shocking feats he would have pulled off already.
Aunt Xia hesitated and asked, "But what about the future..."
Empress Dowager Chen waved her hand dismissively. "One generation does not meddle in the affairs of the next, let alone this is three generations apart. By then I will long be gone, and I will not trouble myself with what happens after I am gone."
A hush fell over the chamber. Sensitive as she was, Cui Lanyin could tell there was a deeper undercurrent in their conversation that she could not quite follow. Nothing in the palace was ever simple, and the safest thing to do was to pretend she had not heard a thing.
As noon drew near, Aunt Xia really brought over an imperial menu for Cui Lanyin to choose her dishes from. Cui Lanyin took it cheerfully, saying, "I thought Aunt Xia had forgotten all about it. I was even wondering if I would look greedy if I asked, so I will just pick the dishes I truly like."
She ordered crystal pork knuckle, crispy vegetable rolls, Longjing shrimp, and steamed buns with three diced fillings.
Aunt Xia was very fond of her unpretentious, straightforward manner. There were people who would put on unnecessary airs and try to second-guess Empress Dowager Chen's tastes to order dishes they thought the Empress Dowager preferred, then force themselves to eat food they did not even like, which would completely kill Empress Dowager Chen's appetite.
After placing her order, Cui Lanyin went over and slipped her arm through Empress Dowager Chen's, saying, "It is just about time to take a stroll on the veranda to enjoy some sun before the meal, Your Majesty."
Though she phrased it as a question, her hand held Empress Dowager Chen's firmly, leaving no room for refusal.
"Somebody stop her," Empress Dowager Chen said, turning to Aunt Gao and Aunt Xia for help with a helpless look. "What is the point of sunbathing at this hour?"
Aunt Gao and Aunt Xia just pretended not to see, and instead directed the palace attendants to carry over low tables and chairs to the veranda.
In the end, Empress Dowager Chen was half-led, half-supported by Cui Lanyin to the front veranda, and sat down in a chair to bask in the warm sunlight.
Cui Lanyin picked up a piece of pastry and handed it to Empress Dowager Chen, then took one for herself and took a bite, saying, "Your Majesty, why not keep a few parrots on the veranda? Then you will have some little companions to keep you company when you are sunbathing."
Empress Dowager Chen swallowed the pastry in her mouth and teased, "I think you are the one who wants to play with them."
"Oh, Your Majesty, you do not have to say it out loud," Cui Lanyin said, waving her hand at the spacious veranda. "Such a large front veranda is such a waste to leave empty. If I had a space this big, I would keep lots of parrots. In the morning, they would greet me with 'Second Miss, good fortune', when I go out they would say 'Second Miss, prosperity awaits', and in the evening they would wish me 'Second Miss, rest well'. In my spare time, they could even recite a few poems for me. It would be so lively and delightful."
Empress Dowager Chen did not give her a definite answer, but just took another piece of pastry Cui Lanyin handed her and ate it.
Before they knew it, they had each finished two pastries. Aunt Gao could not help but speak up, "If you keep eating pastries now, you will not have any room left for the lunch later."
Cui Lanyin said with a grin, "I swear the pastries and the meals go into two separate stomachs. Even if I eat a few more pastries, my appetite for the proper meal will not shrink at all." Even so, she moved the pastry plate a little further away from Empress Dowager Chen.
When she noticed Empress Dowager Chen's eyes still lingering on the pastry plate, she thought to herself that elderly people all seemed to love pastries so much that they would rather skip a proper meal to have more of them. Lady Tan had been the same way, and her heart softened. "You can have a couple more pastries after your midday nap."
Empress Dowager Chen immediately turned to Aunt Gao and said, "Did you hear that?"
Aunt Gao nodded with a smile. "I heard every word, Your Majesty. I will make sure you get as many as you want then."
Satisfied, Empress Dowager Chen called over Qian He and said, "Go pick out some pretty parrots later."
Qian He answered with a smile. He had been standing by all this time, and he knew perfectly well that Empress Dowager Chen was only agreeing to keep the parrots because she saw how much Cui Lanyin liked the idea. He was just wondering if he should later ask Cui Lanyin if there was any particular breed she preferred.
Just then, the palace attendant on duty at the gate came trotting over to announce, "His Royal Highness Prince Wei is here."
In the Palace of Fu Ning, the only prince referred to simply as "His Royal Highness" was Prince Wei. Qian He, Aunt Xia and the rest of the group were taken aback for a moment, then all beamed with joy and hurried over to welcome him.
Qi An, who had been busy with chores inside the hall, also rushed out and followed after them.
The group had just stepped down the veranda steps when Prince Wei rounded the front hall, heading towards them with two unfamiliar attendants in their twenties.
Cui Lanyin followed behind the others and curtsied to greet him. She felt rather awkward seeing Prince Wei at this moment.
After Prince Wei had finished paying his respects to Empress Dowager Chen, Cui Lanyin poured a cup of hot tea and handed it to him, behaving as meek as could be. "Your Imperial Uncle, please have a cup of warm tea."
Aunt Xia was just about to say that the tea was too hot, but she watched as Prince Wei picked up the cup and drank from it, sip after sip, as if it was perfectly fine.
Cui Lanyin then turned to Aunt Xia and asked, "We should add a few more dishes for His Imperial Uncle's share of the meal, right?"
Aunt Xia was in a spot of trouble. It had been years since Prince Wei last shared a meal with Empress Dowager Chen, and she had no idea how to bring the matter up in front of him.
But before she could say anything, Cui Lanyin had already told Prince Wei what dishes she had ordered earlier, and then asked, "Your Imperial Uncle, would you like to add steamed pork with rice flour, oil-scalded chicken, and spinach with sesame paste?"
Not just Aunt Xia, but Qi An, Qian He, and Aunt Gao all pricked up their ears. Empress Dowager Chen's hand holding her teacup paused for a moment before she said, "Don't trouble him..."
Before she could finish her sentence, Prince Wei spoke up. "I am hungry. Bring more rice." He had agreed to stay for the meal.
Qi An and the rest stared at him in disbelief for a second, then quickly broke into grins and hurried off to get things ready.
Empress Dowager Chen huffed, but did not say he could not stay.
Qi An did not even bother to assign the task to others, and personally rushed to the imperial kitchen to add the extra dishes and bring the food over.
Meanwhile, Qian He led the attendants to set the dining table. It was not long before Qi An came back with two other attendants carrying the food trays, and Aunt Xia and Aunt Gao laid out the dishes on the table.
This was the first time Cui Lanyin had seen Empress Dowager Chen's four most trusted attendants all bustling about together since she had started visiting the palace.
Cui Lanyin helped Empress Dowager Chen take her seat, and Prince Wei sat down on the right hand side of Empress Dowager Chen, while Cui Lanyin took her seat on the left.
Faced with the two of them who just kept their heads down eating silently, Cui Lanyin found it hard to swallow her food. Empress Dowager Chen was never one to insist on absolute silence during meals. The last time she dined with her, the two of them had chatted away easily, but today the atmosphere was completely different.
It was not that she had to keep talking nonstop, but she just could not stand the heavy, oppressive silence hanging over the table. She was sure that if they finished the meal like this, she would end up with indigestion.
She picked up the serving chopsticks, took a piece of the steamed pork with rice flour, and placed it on Empress Dowager Chen's plate. "This is very soft and full of flavor, Your Majesty. Please try it."
Empress Dowager Chen glanced at the steamed pork on her plate, but did not touch it, and continued eating the steamed lion's head on her own plate.
Cui Lanyin did not mind. She then picked up the serving spoon, scooped up a lion's head, and put it on Prince Wei's plate. "Your Imperial Uncle, have this one. It is very fresh and delicious."
Seeing that Prince Wei did not move, she stretched her foot out and gave his boot a little nudge. Luckily, the table was not that wide, and her foot could just barely reach the tip of his boot.
Prince Wei finally lifted his head. Under Cui Lanyin's unblinking gaze, he picked up a lion's head meatball, dropped it into his bowl, and ate it along with two mouthfuls of rice.
Empress Dowager Chen paused her silver chopsticks, which were already reaching for the sliced fish in sweet and sour sauce, before she pulled them back to pick up a piece of steamed pork with rice flour from her plate and brought it to her mouth.
The four attendants standing by, Qi An, Aunt Xia and the other two, were on the verge of tears of joy.
Cui Lanyin did not stop while she was ahead. She reached out and placed a three-diced bun on each of their plates. This time, the two of them moved in perfect sync, picking up their buns and taking a bite at the same time.
After finishing the bun, Empress Dowager Chen praised, "The buns today taste better than the ones we had before."
"Indeed," Prince Wei echoed.
A gentle look spread across Empress Dowager Chen's face, and her appetite picked up. She took another three-diced bun and ate it.
As for Prince Wei, he not only finished two bowls of rice, but also ate up the remaining half plate of three-diced buns.
When the meal was cleared away, the three of them sat sipping tea to aid digestion. Every time Qi An and the other attendants walked past Cui Lanyin while waiting on them, they would send her a look of utter adoration, as if thinking that their own child was perfect no matter how you looked at her.
After half a cup of tea, Empress Dowager Chen said to Prince Wei, "I have finished taking inventory of my dowry. I plan to return it to the Chen family in the next couple of days."
Prince Wei did not look surprised at all. He only asked, "Is two thousand taels a month enough for you?"
Empress Dowager Chen looked rather taken aback, "Can you really spare that much for me?"
"Yes, and I can give you more next year," Prince Wei replied.
Empress Dowager Chen fell silent for a moment, then said, "I don't have that much to spend. One thousand taels a month will be enough."
"If it's not enough, you can always ask me for more," Prince Wei insisted on giving her two thousand taels a month. Empress Dowager Chen did not object any further.
Cui Lanyin sighed to herself in her heart. Neither of them knew how to say something nice like "No one will be short of money, least of all you" or "Money gives you the confidence to stand on your own". Even a line like that would have been nice.
Even if Empress Dowager Chen returned her dowry, after decades of being empress and then empress dowager, she would never be short of money. The fact that she was accepting Prince Wei's stipend now was nothing more than her wanting a show of acknowledgement and care from him.
But the years of tension between the two of them could not be smoothed over in just one or two interactions. Making it this far today was already a small but solid step forward.
Cui Lanyin then asked, "Who will be sent to the Chen family to handle this matter?"
Her question stumped Empress Dowager Chen. The current Duke of Dingguo was her own nephew, and Qi An and the other three had served her for many years. Every member of the Chen family would treat them as elders. If they showed up to return the dowry, it would look very unseemly, as if she had no one around her but a group of old, worn-out servants to rely on.
What she minded even more was that a matter like returning the dowry should be handled by her own blood descendants. If outsiders caught wind that there was no younger generation of her own to take charge of this, they would think that she was leading a desolate old age, with no descendants to stand up for her.
Prince Wei was the most suitable person to take care of this, but Empress Dowager Chen could not bring herself to ask him face to face.
Cui Lanyin only asked the question because she had already thought of all this. She reached out and pushed Prince Wei's back gently, saying, "Uncle, you can go!"
The look Empress Dowager Chen turned to Prince Wei with was bright with suppressed delight, "So you'll go? You can pick whatever day you're free."
Cui Lanyin saw Prince Wei's back stiffen for a moment before he answered in a low, firm voice, "I will come tomorrow."
Since it was her own uncle, she would naturally be the one to look out for him. Cui Lanyin turned around to stand right in front of him with a big grin, "By then, Uncle can just sit comfortably in the carriage. Your niece will step forward to handle all the talking for you."
Empress Dowager Chen also knew that this matter was a little awkward for Prince Wei. Hearing Cui Lanyin's suggestion, she nodded repeatedly in agreement, "Yes, that's right. Your uncle isn't good at dealing with this sort of thing. You've got the quick tongue to smooth things over. Once this is done, I will have some precious gifts to reward you with."
When they left the palace and walked to the horse bridge to wait for the carriages, Cui Lanyin was about to climb onto the carriage she had arrived in, when Prince Wei grabbed her by the back of her collar. "Come with me," he said.
Thinking of the family rules, Cui Lanyin meekly followed him onto the front carriage. Before she could even get seated properly, she started to defend herself, "Uncle, when we offended Prince Duan and Prince Kang, the Empress Dowager stood firmly by our side without a moment's hesitation. We can't be half-hearted towards her in return, right? All she wants is a close younger family member to rely on. This isn't some huge troublesome thing. You don't even have to do much, just show up to set the presence. I'll take care of all the rest, okay?"
Our little Yinyin has started to take charge of her dear uncle now!
Thank you so much again, my dear babies, for all your support. Today's launch as a paid serial went so smoothly. Sending you all my love [kiss kiss]
