PDLP Chapter 227 Flying Feather 1: The Butterfly Effect of Zhong Yao's Granddaughter-in-Law
Chapter 227 Flying Feather 1: The Butterfly Effect of Zhong Yao's Granddaughter-in-Law
The sun always shines a fraction shorter inside the State Affairs Hall than outside…
When Lu Xiangxian crouched down to enter, Sanlang Zian was trimming his nails with gleaming gold scissors, and shavings of nail polish, like pieces of jade, fell around the memorial on the "Recruitment System"...
Xiao Si took off her mask, glanced at Zi An with a look of disgust, and then huddled in a corner of the hall counting her prayer beads—the sandalwood beads spun faster in her hands than abacus beads.
Outside the hall, Qu Youjiu was yelling at a minor official about the ice tribute money... when he suddenly exclaimed, "Prime Minister Lu is here?!"
Sanlang Zian didn't even lift his eyelids before the golden scissors snapped shut.
Xiao Si added, "If you hadn't come soon, the divination for that political investment would have been completely ruined!"
Lu Xiang rubbed his hands together and smiled, bowing to Zi An, his beard still covered in snowflakes.
He went to the back of the table, took out a palm-sized piece of cinnabar, and slowly ground it with the ice water brought by the maid.
The red liquid flowed down the bluestone trough on the table, like a young wife's rouge box that had been overturned.
The north wind outside made the window frames tremble slightly, but the sound of Lord Lu's millstone grinding stone became the most reassuring melody.
On the day Princess Taiping sent someone to invite him, Lu Xiangxian was tracing the characters in the "Essentials of Governance in the Zhenguan Era." Just as the tip of his wolf-hair brush touched the phrase "Listen to both sides and you will be enlightened," the brush head attached to the handle snapped with a snap.
The maid wanted a new one, but Lord Lu waved his hand, dipped the broken pen tip in his ink, and continued writing, getting red ink all over his hand and splattering it on his sleeve.
He recalled the candle smoke in the secret chamber that year, which stung his eyes. The hair ornaments on Princess Taiping's hair swayed so swaying that he felt dizzy. Lu Xiangxian stared at the auspicious beast patterned bricks moving beneath her skirt—the beast's head had its mouth wide open, and the pearl it held was not as red as the vermilion he had ground.
"Third Prince revels every night, as you all have witnessed! A son born out of wedlock is utterly ignorant of manners!!" Princess Taiping's nail guards scraped against the sandalwood table, making a rat-gnaw-on-beam sound. "I wish to do what Yi Yin and Huo Qubing did; what does Chancellor Lu think?"
Cui Shi, standing to the side, covered the teacup with the lid: "Your Highness is wise!"
When Sanlang was still a prince, he visited Cui Shi's home many times and regarded him as a confidant, but Cui Shi was wholeheartedly devoted to Princess Taiping...
At this moment, Xiao Si's prayer beads suddenly broke, interrupting Lord Lu's thoughts, and the sandalwood beads rolled directly to his feet.
Just as Lord Lu was about to bend down to pick it up, he suddenly felt a chill on the back of his neck—Princess Taiping's executioners were panting heavily and ready to strike from behind the screen!
"Allow this old minister to speak out..." Lu Xiangxian straightened up, "It is indeed inappropriate to depose the emperor now. May I ask why Sanlang was able to ascend the throne in the first place?"
As Xiao Si touched the prayer beads she had picked up from her sleeve pocket, she was transported back to that sandalwood-scented dusk from years ago!
In June of 710, at the hour of Shen (3-5 PM), Sanlang, accompanied by a dozen plainclothes officers, sneaked into the Forbidden Garden and easily found his way to Zhong Shaojing's house. Zhong Shaojing was a calligraphy master who was practicing the "Declaration of Loyalty" in his study. However, Zhong Shaojing was the seventeenth-generation descendant of Zhong Yao, and at that moment, he seemed to be covered in ink, his whole body sticking together!
"Your Highness, please return!" Zhong Shaojing finally spoke, slamming the *Lingfei Jing* onto the table with trembling hands, splattering ink everywhere. "It's all my fault that these hands are only good for writing, but not for wielding swords!"
Suddenly, a woman in a long dress wearing an apron appeared from behind the screen, slamming a rolling pin down on Lord Zhong's desk with a "thud."
"How can you not even hold a sword?! Back when Grand Tutor Zhong accompanied Emperor Wu in pacifying Hanzhong, he never uttered such cowardly words!" Grand Tutor Zhong's wife, Madam Xu, stood with her hands on her hips, flour fluttering down her apron. "If you dare desert in the face of battle, I'll personally carry two kitchen knives and follow Prince Ping to the palace!"
That night, when the three brave captains of the Wanqi Camp sneaked into the house under the moonlight, they were nearly tripped by the rubbings of the Lingfei Jing fluttering all over the courtyard. It turned out that Madam Zhong had taken out all of her husband's treasures and hung them all over the courtyard as a "declaration against Wei".
Chen Xuanli chuckled, clutching the rubbing: "What a fine 'choose your side and die for your country, the gods will surely help you!' Madam Zhong, Lord Zhong's flying white calligraphy is more potent than poison!"
On the night of July 21, the guards under Xuanwu Gate were dozing off when they suddenly saw countless paper scraps of spirit paper flying everywhere.
Li Xianfu, holding up a large piece of calligraphy, shouted: "The Wei family poisoned the late emperor; this calligraphy is a death warrant sent from heaven!"
Before the words were even finished, hundreds of assassins emerged from the pile of scriptures, routing Wei's gang and sending them wailing and crying for their parents...
"When Your Majesty executed Empress Wei, you were soaked in the rain for more than half the night. When this old minister brought you ginger soup, you were shivering while holding the old records—you probably had a fever?"
Lord Lu suddenly pulled out a bamboo scroll with a shiny cover and continued, "Now that we're going to depose the emperor, should we follow the regulations of the first year of the Shenlong era? Or the precedent of the first year of the Jingyun era? In any case, Sanlang is innocent! He should not be deposed!!"
Xiao Si saw that Lord Lu, who was usually kind and easygoing, was indeed firm in his stance at this moment.
One day, she saw Lu Xiangxian squatting under the eaves of the government office watching ants move their nest.
The Imperial Guards' iron boots shattered one ice shard after another!
When Dou Huaizhen was dragged out, his official robes were soaked with snow water, turning a urine-yellow color. The lower-ranking officials, clutching their files, scurried about like ants in a swarm when the Kitchen God lifted the lid of his cooking pot…
"Prime Minister Lu is quite composed..." Sanlang's sable coat swept across the vermilion inkstone on the table, the red ink ripples reflecting the candlelight. "I heard that in the secret room that day, you gave Aunt Taiping a lesson in law?"
Lu Xiangxian stared at the reflection in the inkstone—the ripples on the water had distorted his weathered face into a withered lotus leaf: "Your Majesty, I was merely speaking the truth. The suffering you endured back then should not have been in vain!"
Saburo laughed with satisfaction, took off his mink cloak, and pulled out an oil paper package from his pocket.
As the hot sweet potato was broken open, steam billowed out! A sweet aroma, mingled with the smoky scent of charcoal, slowly spread: "Come on, Lao Lu, have a taste. It's simmered in old ginger soup over the stove, cooked to the same perfection as the one you brought over that night..."
Lu Xiangxian accepted the gift with a flattered expression, as if holding a hot potato, his white beard trembling.
Snowflakes pattered against the glazed tiles of the Hall of State Affairs, while the white mist exhaled by Lord Lu lingered between his brows, refusing to dissipate: "Yes, yes, Your Majesty, it's still the same old taste, unchanged!"
The iron talisman on the eaves jingled a few times, startling the snow accumulated on the pine needles into a soft rustling. Little Si also came to her senses, gazing at the icicles hanging from the dark green needles, reflecting the twilight. She was delighted, thinking that these icicles were even more translucent than the coral tree on her desk!
The wind whipped snowflakes into the vermilion-lacquered windowpane, where they melted right into the golden-yellow sweet potato that Sanlang Zian had bitten open: "This must be 'the pine and cypress know the cold of winter,' right? This Lu Jingchu is usable!"