Chapter 1010: Owe me first and scram (2/2)
Ever since knowing he’d regain his shadow arts one day, he had spent nights sitting alone in the courtyard, waiting with quiet anticipation.
“Alright, I’ll have Vice-Head Shen arrange a few for you when the time comes,” Gu Beiyue agreed easily.
Tang Li was thrilled. “Many thanks, many thanks!”
“It’s no matter,” Gu Beiyue deferred.
Tang Li sat down by his side with a grin. “Doctor Gu, you know so much that you’ll make your future wife a lucky woman.”
Gu Beiyue startled before he smiled back without a word.
“Doctor Gu, you’re not young either. When are you planning to get married? Any girl that takes your fancy?” Tang Li asked next.
Gu Beiyue continued to smile wordlessly.
Tang Li grew serious. “Doctor Gu, you’re the only heir left of the Shadow Clan. You’ll have to hurry up and grow new shoots.”
Finally, Gu Beiyue’s smile faded. Still, he only nodded mutely. Tang Li didn’t notice anything amiss as he recalled something else and pressed, “Doctor Gu, if Ning Jing gas a girl, we’ll call her Tang Jing; if it’s a boy, then he’ll be Tang Ning? What do you think?”
Were all expectant fathers like this? So happy with no end of topics to talk about? Gu Beiyue smiled faintly and said, “Tang Ning’s not bad, but Tang Jing’s name overlaps with Ning Jing’s, which is improper.”
Realizing this himself, Tang Li knitted his brows and muttered, “Then I’ll have to think of other options.”
“Have the boy be called Tang Ning. If it’s a girl, let Ning Jing name her,” Gu Beiyue said before adding, “Leave some things for her to worry about.”
Tang Li smiled rather abashedly as he rubbed his nose and rose to his feet. “Doctor Gu, it’s getting late. You should rest early!”
Gu Beiyue sent Tang Li off before returning to his seat. He looked up at the crescent moon in the skies and showed a rare expression of melancholy. Naturally, he was disconsolate about his talk with Tang Li. As the only heir to the Shadow Clan, he couldn’t let the bloodline die out! No one else on this continent was more saddened by the issue of a male heir except for none other than Tianan Country’s sovereign, Long Tianmo.
Not long after civil war broke out in Northern Li, Western Zhou’s Emperor Kangcheng sent Princess Duanmu Jin to Tianan for a wedding alliance. Tianan already had its own empress, and Duanmu Jin wasn’t even born from the first wife. According to tradition, it was exceptional that she had been made a noble consort at all. But who knew that Long Tianmo raised her a level beyond that to Imperial Noble Consort (皇贵妃), second to only the empress herself and her assistant in ruling over the royal harem.
If Tianan’s court was like the past, which consisted of Mu Liuyue, the empress dowager, and great empress dowager, then they would be a force to be reckoned with. At most, Mu Liuyue would be stuck fighting one-on-one battles against Duanmu Jin. But the empress dowager was already insane and never left her palace gates, while the great-empress dowager was too advanced in years to bother with harem business. Furthermore, Long Tianmo selected 30 new concubines from his concubine selecting ceremony.
Four were raised to Noble Consort (贵妃) with four more Consorts (妃子) below them. Following that were the six Imperial Concubines (嫔妃), six Noble Ladies (贵人), five First-Class Female Attendants (常在), and five Second-Class Female Attendants (答应) to fill out the harem.[1]
Amongst the populace, there were even jokes that the emperor had to build up another palace for his harem before holding the concubine selection. It was much livelier there now, with various court factions coming to life as well. Mu Liuyue and Duanmu Jin’s first faceoff wouldn’t be simple. They hadn’t even met face to face, but the harem was already in an uproar.
Long Tianmo might have picked all those concubines, but he had never spent the night at any of their quarters, much less summon them to serve him. For the sake of avoiding the mama sent by his grandmother, he had lived in the imperial study for the past ten days. Despite this, Great General Mu visited him daily. Tonight, the two of them were discussing the Northern Li civil war and the alliance between East and West Qin. The general had no plans to withdraw, but simply fell on one knee to a bow.
Seeing this, Long Tianmo felt a headache coming on. Great General Mu was a smart man who had never cried injustice on behalf on his daughter or asked for sympathy. He always used the excuse of expanding the imperial family’s roots to urge Long Tianmo to spend his nights in the harem and spread the “rain and dew.”
Long Tianmo stood in front of his study desk and ignored him, preferring to look coldly at Mu Qingwu on the sidelines instead. The young general immediately dropped his head. He was in a tough spot too!
“Your Majesty, the late emperor at your age already--”
Before Great General Mu could finished his repeated entreaty, a eunuch announced from outside, “Your Majesty, the Imperial Noble Consort was bitten by a venomous snake!”
1. For the curious, the concubine system here follows that of the Qing Dynasty, but the actual PGC story (and its costumes/dress/hairstyles) emulates that of earlier Chinese dynasties.