Chapter 297 - Lofty Packaging (1/2)
After receiving An Hao's report on the current situation at the border, the Emperor dragged Lei Xing along with him to the royal study.
It was a complex problem with a simple solution, Prince Rui was not a prisoner so he could leave whenever he wanted to. Therefore, the Emperor could not give the order to forcefully detain him here as An Hao was asking.
If Prince Rui wanted to walk into a death trap, they technically could not stop him. But they could house him if he had the good sense to avoid the danger. After all, he was still considered a royal guest so the Emperor instructed An Hao to relocate him to Jingli - a city near the border and ”recommended” that Prince Rui should wait for Princess Nalan and the other Zou representatives to arrive there and then depart with the group.
Although the Emperor was not yet informed of a fixed date for their departure, they should be leaving within the week, especially if they knew Prince Rui was waiting for them. With their presence there, Prince Houyi would have to be more discreet in his endeavors and would be less likely to blatantly attack Prince Rui en route... Unless Prince Houyi planned to kill all witnesses and with his own sister, Princess Nalan part of the entourage, it was unlikely he would do that given their relationship.
Although the Emperor could also send an envoy to escort Prince Rui, he did not want to risk his own people going into shaky enemy territory like that. He also doubted am escort from Long country would dissuade a Prince who was hungering to cause discord between their nations.
As for the issue of locating Monk Du, while the Empress dowager was in a hurry, the Emperor himself was in no rush at all. Thanks to this monk search, his mother had been behaving herself the last few weeks and the Emperor was enjoying the peace of mind having leverage over his crazy mother brought. Also, he honestly doubted they could locate and capture people who could apparently disappear in a flash like that.
As for the matter of spies in the camp, An Hao did not expressly mention his suspicion of spies the way he recounted the events made it possible for the Emperor to get the message. For that, the Emperor simply wrote a vague statement that An Hao could handle the other matters as he deemed fit.
Once he was done writing his response and he handed it over to an eunuch to send it off. The Emperor and Lei Xing then moved on to the issue of the harem dismissals.
While Lei Xing was still in a bit of a daze of disbelief over the whole issue, she still went ahead to help the Emperor with writing out the edicts since he had a lot to write - twenty-four edicts to be exact for this matter alone.
Two for each wife, the first edict to remove their status as an Imperial wife and erasing them from the royal register. Then the second edict to appoint them as honorary princesses and adopting them into the royal register, as well as giving them their titular names.
The Emperor wrote the first removal edict for Li Ru and then Lei Xing settled in to write out the remaining eleven, copying the Emperor's words, only changing the name and title of the recipient.
While the Emperor worked on the second set of edicts, which was more complicated as they needed to think up their title names because apparently the Emperor had not planned that far. After successfully writing the first two edicts for Li Ru and Zhao Lan, the Emperor drew a blank and just sat there, his brush hanging in the air with a frown on his face.
After a while, Lei Xing noticed the Emperor had stopped writing, she turned to him to see his frown and promptly asked, ”What's wrong?”
The Emperor blinked, glanced at her, pursed his lips, and then awkwardly said, ”Names...”
Lei Xing raised an eyebrow in confusion and then she went wide-eyed and her mouth hung open, ”You still don't know their names?!”
The Emperor's frown deepened, he did not like the accusatory tone in her voice and felt the need to defend himself, ”Well...I'm a very busy person and I have never interacted with them. I only know of the two Noble consorts because you keep mentioning Li Ru and as for Zhao Lan, well that one I've known about since she was a child s-”
”You've what now?” Lei Xing cut in, knitting her brows in surprise.
The Emperor raised an eyebrow in confusion, ”I've what?”
”You just said you've known - how come I didn't know about this?” She asked blinking and frowning at him in confusion.
The Emperor snorted, ”Well, you know she's the late Empress's niece...” Lei Xing nodded and the Emperor continued, ”...and you know I was ”raised” by said late Empress for years...” Lei Xing slowly nodded again, suddenly feeling like an idiot.
”So...so you two were childhood friends -” Lei Xing inhaled sharply and then asked, ”Childhood sweethearts?” Putting a hand over her mouth, even more shocked.
{...So I'm the mistress here? I always liked the childhood sweethearts trope, shit! I ruined the ship - Ohhh, she must hate me O_O')... How did I not make that connection?! >_
The Emperor frowned and removed her hand from her face, ”Don't let your mind run, we were NOT childhood friends, much less anything else... She was simply an occasional existence in the late Empress's palace, one I ignored.”