By the time Yu Lingxin left the Golden Guard, the sun had set and the moon had risen, with starlight spread across the earth. The carriage wheels rumbled heavily over the remaining snow, emitting a creaking, teeth-grating sound.
The markets had not yet closed at this hour. He traveled lightly and simply, instructing his men to pass through the bustling East Market.
The clamor of voices rose and fell. Snack stalls billowed with hot steam, adding a touch of human warmth to the cold winter night.
“I want a sugar figurine…”
“I want a sugar figurine.”
“I want a sugar figurine! Waaaah—”
A little girl’s childish crying cut through the crowd.
“Oh dear, don’t cry, don’t cry—your face is all messed up. Uncle has already sold out. How about tomorrow?” Her mother coaxed softly, while her father also lowered his voice to soothe her. “Tomorrow Daddy will come early and line up. I’ll definitely buy one for you, alright?”
Yu Lingxin lifted the carriage curtain and saw the father lift his daughter into his arms while the mother wiped her tears. The family of three headed home together. He stared fixedly for a long while, until the cold wind stung his face, before finally letting the curtain fall.
It was only after returning to the palace that Yu Lingxin learned Jiang Nong had generously forked out a substantial sum—without touching the Inner Treasury of the Imperial Household, she must have used her own dowry.
How could there be anyone in this world as earnest as her—exhausting herself for the throne of her enemy?
He returned just in time for the evening meal. He searched inside and outside the main hall and finally found Jiang Nong by the window in the Eastern Warm Pavilion, still bent over her drawings.
Yu Lingxin sat down beside her and pushed the candle stand closer to her. “Worthy Empress, you’re even more devoted than I am. How about I give you the throne someday?”
If any other emperor said this to his empress, it would be a clear dissatisfaction with the empress meddling in court affairs—a warning and a knock. The empress would surely respond in terror: Your servant dare not.
But Jiang Nong was different. Apart from formal occasions, she would not give Yu Lingxin that face. Her brush moved as she didn’t even look up. “Then I suppose I’d be bringing glory to my ancestors. My mother always dreamed of becoming Empress Dowager—it would finally come true.”
Yu Lingxin sat on the mat, leaning back and supporting his body with his arms, his joints cracking audibly. “They all used to say I relied on women and lived off my wife’s money. Now it seems they weren’t wrong—I truly have to depend on my wife’s dowry to make ends meet.”
Jiang Nong finally looked up.
“Wow, I’ve truly never seen anyone as narcissistic and thick-skinned as you. I am not your wife, and I certainly am not using my dowry to subsidize you. Why do you sound so proud when you talk about relying on a woman’s money?”
Yu Lingxin raised his left hand and promptly collapsed onto her lap, wrapping his arms around her waist. “Why shouldn’t I be proud? Being able to live off a woman is a skill in itself. Could anyone else do it? The reason they attack me over this is simply jealousy—they can’t have what I have. And if I treat it as a point of pride, then every time they bring it up, they’re publicly praising me. If I punished them for it, they’d stop praising me—wouldn’t that be a loss?”
Jiang Nong was once again left speechless by his shameless sophistry. She even remembered that in her previous life, Yu Lingxin hadn’t been this brazen—otherwise, she would have certainly remembered it clearly.
Just how had he cultivated this mindset that the whole world owed him?
Servants brought tables into the Eastern Warm Pavilion to set out the meal. Jiang Nong took the opportunity to push him off her, straightened her clothes, and mocked him, “Don’t get your dog smell all over me.”
Yu Lingxin actually thought seriously for a moment, then replied, “If I were to be a dog, I’d rather be a mastiff.” Then he got up to see what was for dinner.
Jiang Nong pressed her forehead, feeling a wave of heat rising. She took a sip of the cooled tea beside her, then opened the window to let the cold air rush in for ventilation.
During the meal, Yu Lingxin learned where Jiang Nong’s money had come from. Besides the funds for compensating the three parties, eighty percent had been left to relieve the disaster victims.
Yu Lingxin praised her: “Using someone else’s money to gain a good reputation for yourself—your cunning is no less than mine. You have great potential to be my partner in crime.”
It didn’t sound like a compliment. Jiang Nong held back from dumping her rice bowl on his head.
Evening meals should be light. Moreover, with the national treasury depleted, every coin had to be spent wisely. The dinner was very simple: cucumber and meatball soup, steamed millet, pickled cabbage, roasted venison, along with some vegetables grown in the greenhouse.
Both Yu Lingxin and Jiang Nong were easy to please when it came to food—not picky at all. The difference was that Yu Lingxin thought everything tasted about the same and would stop once he was full, while Jiang Nong, apart from the occasional gamey mutton dish, found most things quite delicious.
Her eating manner wasn’t crude at all; on the contrary, the etiquette instilled since childhood made even her meals appear elegant. Not a single sound of bowl or chopstick colliding escaped—but if one looked closely, her movements were actually quite swift.
Yu Lingxin still had more than half a bowl of rice left. He looked up and found Jiang Nong already adding a second serving. His tongue subconsciously pressed against the cheek she had slapped—it ached faintly. No wonder she had such strength.
This vibrant, energetic Jiang Nong—eating and drinking with gusto—was quite unfamiliar to Yu Lingxin. What he remembered was the gaunt, emaciated Jiang Nong from his previous life. At first, she had refused to eat willingly. Later, even when she wanted to eat for the child’s sake, she couldn’t keep anything down—the poison made her dry heave even when drinking water.
Yu Lingxin couldn’t eat anymore. He rested his chin on his hand and stared at her eating.
Jiang Nong kept her back to him for a good while. Only after she was full did she notice Yu Lingxin staring at her like he’d lost his mind—it made her skin crawl.
She held back for a while, but the weight of his gaze was impossible to ignore. Finally, unable to bear it any longer, she suddenly looked up and asked bluntly, “What are you looking at?”
Yu Lingxin didn’t answer. Suspicious, she asked again, “Did you poison my food?”
Only the soup was served separately. Jiang Nong pushed her own bowl of soup to him and swapped his for hers. Yu Lingxin then pushed both bowls back in front of her, his expression so deeply tender it was alarming, and said, “It’s nothing. Watching you eat like a pig—so heartily—I’m just so happy I could cry. Eat some more.”
Jiang Nong looked at him as if she’d seen a ghost. Eating like a pig—so heartily—I’m so happy I could cry. Who on earth could say something like that? Was that even human language?
She suspected that the night she had smacked Yu Lingxin’s face and told him he slept like a dead pig, he had taken it to heart—and now, at the first opportunity, he was getting his revenge.
It wasn’t impossible. Yu Lingxin was narrow-minded, vengeful, and mercurial. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have sought revenge against her across two lifetimes over such a trivial matter.
Yu Lingxin suddenly thought of something and clapped his hands in amazement: “Does this make us worse than pigs and dogs?”
Jiang Nong scrunched up her face, turned around with her bowl, and ate with her back to him.
How terrifying. She really needed to find a witch doctor to drive out whatever evil spirit had possessed him.
Seeing her reaction, Yu Lingxin raised an eyebrow in boredom. He told her the truth and she didn’t believe him. It was so hard being a good person.
After finishing her meal, Jiang Nong turned back around to discuss official matters with him. “The New Year is almost here. The imperial physicians say the Empress Dowager’s health has improved greatly. The Shanglin Garden is too cold. If possible, we should bring her back to the palace before the New Year. It would allow mother and son to reunite, and also prevent others from using it against you.”
Yu Lingxin showed little interest. “Then do as you see fit. Everything in the palace is yours to decide.”
The Empress Dowager was Yu Lingxin’s birth mother, Lady Wen. After giving birth to him, she had been disgraced and demoted, sent to labor in the gardens on the outskirts of the capital. Within a few years, she had gone mad. No one in the palace had attended to her, and they had long assumed she was dead.
It wasn’t until after Yu Lingxin ascended the throne that everyone remembered there was still an Empress Dowager outside the palace. They hastily dispatched imperial physicians and guards to find her.
Yu Lingxin had never thought of bringing her back. She was fine living outside the palace. Even before she went mad, Lady Wen had probably resented him. Even if she recovered, the two of them would have nothing to say to each other.
If Jiang Nong hadn’t remembered to ask about her whereabouts and sent Tongye to investigate—only then discovering that Lady Wen was still alive—Yu Lingxin probably would never have mentioned that his mother was still living.
Once the twelfth lunar month arrived, Tongye and Rong Mian jointly organized a month-long porridge distribution outside Fengye’s city walls. The emperor and his ministers led by example, and the local governors had no choice but to follow suit, opening their own granaries to provide relief.
On the eighth day of the twelfth lunar month—a clear, cloudless auspicious day—the snow on the roads glittered brightly like silver. Jiang Nong, sincere and amicable, strongly persuaded Yu Lingxin to accompany her to welcome Empress Dowager Wen back to the palace.
The emperor and empress traveled together, with the Golden Guard clearing the way and a grand procession. The people of Fengye were delighted to witness the spectacle, tucking their hands into their sleeves and craning their necks to see. From inside the carriage, all that could be seen was a sea of bobbing heads.
Jiang Nong had already spread word that their journey was to welcome back the Empress Dowager, who had been in seclusion at Shanglin Garden for many years. The people couldn’t help but praise them.
“I heard the Empress Dowager was too ill to be moved before, which is why they’ve waited until now to bring her back.”
“The Emperor and Empress are personally going to receive her, braving the hardship—truly filial and virtuous.”
“Not just filial—they are wise rulers too. Ever since His Majesty ascended the throne, the Golden Guard have followed the rules. In the old days, when were they ever so reasonable?”
“Exactly! Last month, they confiscated my stall without warning, and I had to pay a whole tael of silver to get it back. Heaven knows my whole family depended on that stall to eat. But this month, when I’d finally saved enough to redeem it, not only did they not charge a single coin, they even repaired my old broken stall!”
“There have been fewer pickpockets in the city lately too.”
“The Empress is equally virtuous—truly the mother of the people. She led the way in distributing porridge and cotton outside the city. Do you know how delicious that cotton was! Hehe, one piece could keep you full for three days!”
Someone immediately nodded in agreement, as if finding a kindred spirit: “Hehe, it was best when dipped in pickled mustard greens.”
“…”
“…I think the Empress gave you the cotton to make clothes with.”
In any case, the common people didn’t care who the emperor was—they probably didn’t even know his name. What they cared about was whether they had enough to eat and enough to keep warm. As long as they could eat their fill, stay warm, and live well, they would be pleased and loyal.
Winter days grow dark early. The procession alone comprised several hundred palace maids and guards, stretching from east to west for several miles—slow and cumbersome to move.
To reach Shanglin Garden before dawn, they had to set out early. Yu Lingxin had been dragged into the carriage by Jiang Nong at the crack of dawn. The carriage was warm and fragrant, and before long, he had passed out again.
Jiang Nong slapped his face vigorously, trying to make him listen to the people’s praises of them.
Yu Lingxin barely lifted his eyelids from within her palm, burrowed his face deeper, and muttered dismissively, “I heard them.”
When had his past travels ever been this noisy? Every household had shut its doors—not even a ghost could be seen.
“You heard nothing! Don’t you feel even a little moved? A little fired up? A little sense of responsibility? Don’t you want to aspire to be a wise and virtuous ruler?”
Even at this moment, Jiang Nong still hadn’t given up on reforming him?
The Guanyin Bodhisattva at the temple should really be sculpted in her image—so compassionate, so dedicated to saving all beings.
He actually thought about it seriously, then nodded: “I do feel moved…”
Jiang Nong let out a long, relieved sigh—only to hear Yu Lingxin continue: “So many people, so noisy. They should all be dragged away.”
Jiang Nong’s breath caught in her throat again. She gave him a hard slap.
Mud that couldn’t be plastered onto a wall!
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