Shadow (1)
The begonias bloomed overnight on the first of April. This made everyone in the city know that Princess An was born on the first of April and her favourite flower was begonia.
Mu Mingtang had switched all the regular fragrance incense with fruit incense as soon as she realised there was a problem with them. Every day, a box of high-quality fruits was bought, which cost them a lot.
Although the money was spent like running water, Xie Xuanchen’s condition had obviously improved.
According to little Taoist, the treatment was still far from complete, but Xie Xuanchen had adjusted to it. He had even started practising martial arts to recover his strength.
When Mu Mingtang found that Xie Xuanchen was practising martial arts to increase his strength, she was at first shocked, then worried.
‘What will happen if the Emperor…’
The relationship between the Emperor and Xie Xuanchen was complicated and the Emperor’s eyes and ears were everywhere in their mansion. So they had to be extra careful with whatever they did.
The news of Xie Xuanchen retraining in martial arts must not reach the Emperor, but at the same time, it was impossible to stop it from happening.
Unexpectedly, before the Emperor had time to do anything with Xie Xuanchen, another major event happened. The Beirong Emperor sent envoys to the Ye Dynasty to discuss the peace between the two nations, and the leader was Ye Luyan, the eighth prince of Beirong. The peace negotiation team had already entered the Ye Dynasty and was about to arrive in the capital.
This incident caused an uproar in the entire capital. The army of Beirong, which ruled the Sixteen States of Youyun, was powerful, and the Beirong Emperor had been eyeing the Ye Dynasty for some time now.
Because of the Ye Dynasty’s current Emperor weakening the military, the Ye Dynasty was not as strong as it had been when Xie Xuanchen’s father, the former Emperor, had been in control.
The martial warriors were dispatched one after another because the Emperor was terrified of military personnels. Therefore, he had unknowingly put the entire nation in danger as he supported literature and discouraged martial arts.
Border problems had always been the first-class problem of the imperial court, and all civil servants were helpless in front of the battle report. It was unexpected and unimaginable that the Beirong Emperor, who possessed significant military power, had decided to initiate peace negotiations with them.
This was not a trivial matter. From the Emperor to the commoners, everyone was tense and attached great importance to the peace negotiation. After the Beirong envoys arrived in the capital, the Emperor welcomed them with a grand gesture and held a magnificent welcoming banquet for two consecutive days.
Everyone who had been invited to the banquet was well-dressed for fear of losing the court’s face in front of the Beirong people.
On the day of the banquet, the palace was decorated with lanterns and garlands of flowers, making it very luxurious. The banquet had not yet started, and the female members who arrived early were sitting in the flower hall to rest. After they gathered together, they couldn’t help but to talk about recent interesting events.
The most famous topic among them was the incident that happened on the day of Princess An’s birthday.
One of the ladies at the banquet casually brought up the incident that occurred on Princess An’s birthday at first, and that quickly caught everyone’s attention.
“Did you hear how Prince An celebrated Princess An’s birthday? Even my sisters, who lived outside the city, heard that Zhuque Street had become a sea of begonia flowers overnight, giving the impression that Empress Wu had hosted a flower feast in the dead of winter.”
[TL Notes: It is said that the Empress Wu, China’s first and only female emperor, gave the command to force hundreds of flowers to bloom in the dead of winter.]
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