Chapter 112: The Spicy Ninth Princess Consort 9

The days of nurturing her pregnancy were much quieter. Su Huandan no longer needed to pay respects to the Empress Dowager or Consort Yi, and the Ninth Prince had personally taken over many of the household affairs.

It made sense. He only went to the Upper Study for his studies every day and didn’t leave the palace. With his wife pregnant, if he didn’t take the initiative to manage the household, did he really expect to live a life of leisure?

What a beautiful dream.

Su Huandan claimed to have a headache one day and felt weak and exhausted the next. In short, she was uncomfortable everywhere, yet she insisted she couldn’t feel at ease leaving the household management to the servants.

What could the Ninth Prince do?

He knew Su Huandan was doing it on purpose, but he couldn’t help but cherish the child in her belly. He was terrified of any accidents.

Thus, during the period Su Huandan was nurturing her pregnancy, the Ninth Prince lived a life dominated by her whims.

“Don’t resent me for being demanding or constantly assigning you tasks. If I weren’t pregnant, I wouldn’t need you, would I? Besides, your family has too many relatives. During festivals, not a single one can be overlooked. Otherwise, how could there be so many chores at home?” Despite how few collateral princes were active in the imperial court throughout the Qing Dynasty, the reality was quite different.

The Aisin Gioro family was truly populous. Many old fellows had significant backgrounds; even if they held no official positions, you couldn’t ignore them.

This added a considerable amount of household expenditure and chaotic busywork.

What could the Ninth Prince say?

Could he say Su Huandan’s logic was wrong?

He couldn’t, as these were all his family’s affairs.

Could he say these people shouldn’t be alive?

Just try saying that out loud.

The first person to deal with him would be his Imperial Ama.

In this era, every family feared having a small population or weak clan influence.

The Ninth Prince also thought about brushing Su Huandan off by handing the tasks to He Yuzhu or his wet nurse.

As a result, He Yuzhu fell to his knees with a thud.

“Master, please have mercy. This servant is truly at his wit’s end.” I have to get up with you in the middle of the night and be on call twenty-four hours a day. I rise earlier than a rooster and sleep later than a dog. I really can’t take on any more burdens.

The main issue was that He Yuzhu hadn’t trained enough capable subordinates yet; otherwise, he could have shouldered more of the load.

As for the Ninth Prince’s wet nurse, she was quite eager to manage these affairs. But this wet nurse had grand ambitions. When the Ninth Prince first asked if she could handle it, she replied:

“The Fujin is simply narrow-minded. These matters should have been handled by us servants in the first place. Prince, you might as well hand the household management rights to me. Let the Fujin worry less so she can focus on nurturing the pregnancy properly.”

At first, the Ninth Prince didn’t take these words seriously, thinking the servant was just trying to share her master’s burdens.

However, he didn’t agree to hand over the management rights to her.

But the wet nurse was greedy. She tried to swap genuine items for fakes, intending to pocket the real goods from the gift lists to enrich herself, only to be caught red-handed by Su Huandan.

The Ninth Prince’s face turned as black as thunder. He felt he had never been so humiliated.

Especially when Su Huandan said indifferently, “No wonder you’re so easily fooled. Your guard against those close to you is far too lax. Do you think those close to you will never lie? That they can’t be bribed? Don’t think your status as a prince can suppress everything. I think you’ve been protected too well by your mother.”

That was why he was so careless.

Since the Ninth Prince would become one of the famous “Nine Dragons^[1]” in history, Su Huandan didn’t believe he was a complete fool, only that he was foolish in certain aspects.

How old was the Ninth Prince now?

Not even nineteen…

He was shrewd, possessed depth and calculation, but often, he didn’t think things through comprehensively.

This was also related to his upbringing.

After all, his mother was still a favored consort, and the Ninth Prince hadn’t encountered much true malice.

This time, the Ninth Prince directly sent the wet nurse to his mother to be dealt with, because this person was the wet nurse his mother had originally assigned to him.

Consort Yi looked at the kneeling wet nurse and sneered. She had wanted to deal with this woman long ago, but her younger son always insisted on how good this person was, making it difficult for Consort Yi to act.

This time, she had her younger daughter-in-law to thank.

The relationship between imperial consorts and the wet nurses who raised their children was quite complicated.

In the beginning, no one but a trusted confidante would be sent to the child’s side.

But as time passed, the princes had to move to the Princes’ Quarters at the age of six. Compared to their biological mothers, these young princes might even view their wet nurses as their own mothers during their early years.

And among these wet nurses, there were always those who didn’t know their place. For their own benefit, they would sow discord between the mother and son.

This was why the consorts eventually grew to dislike these wet nurses.

The Ninth Prince’s wet nurse was exactly that kind of person.

Why did the Ninth Prince often say to Consort Yi, “Mother gives all the good things to Fifth Brother. It seems only Fifth Brother is your real son”?

These words were whispered into the Ninth Prince’s ear by his wet nurse.

Consort Yi suffered in silence. She couldn’t be close to her eldest son, so what else could she do besides sending him more things?

But she could swear on her life that whatever she gave the eldest, she gave the same to the youngest. Yet the youngest couldn’t see it.

The blame lay entirely with the wet nurse.

But the younger son protected her fiercely. Consort Yi waited and waited, and only now had this opportunity finally arrived.

She truly wanted to kill her, but she couldn’t yet.

To save her son’s face, this person couldn’t be killed on the spot, which was quite frustrating.

“Since you have committed such a grave error, the palace can no longer keep you. Leave the palace. I will have someone send you back to the Gorolo Clan. Rest assured, since you raised the Ninth Prince, the Gorolo Clan will certainly provide for your retirement.” How pleasant those words sounded.

The wet nurse didn’t believe Consort Yi would actually kill her, so she left peacefully.

Consort Yi’s trusted maid personally escorted her back to the Gorolo Clan. Upon arrival, she told Consort Yi’s mother, “Her Ladyship said this person deserves death, but we must consider the Ninth Prince’s reputation. Therefore, provide her with good food and drink, and let her ‘enjoy her retirement’ with medicinal tonics at every meal.”

Consort Yi’s mother thought to herself that this was indeed the right way to handle it.

Within the Gorolo residence, a suite in a small two-entry courtyard had been cleared out. The interior was decorated with extreme luxury, and six young maidservants were assigned to wait on the wet nurse personally. She was provided with the finest food and drink, and every meal included tonic supplements, keeping her in pampered comfort.

However, any sensible person knows that a constant diet of rich meats and heavy food can cause health issues, let alone consuming supplements with every single meal.

The tonics of this era were never counterfeit; the ingredients were exquisite and potent. Used correctly, they could save a life, but used in excess, they could take one.

When the Ninth Prince saw that his Fujin was nearing her due date, he felt incredibly uneasy and restless. He thought of his wet nurse again and considered inviting her back to care for the Fujin. However, he soon learned that after leaving the palace, the wet nurse had been overindulging in food and drink, even demanding supplements at every meal. Now, her body was so over-fortified that she could no longer even get out of bed.

The Ninth Prince instantly remembered why the wet nurse had been kicked out of the palace in the first place: it was because of her greed.

Greed and gluttony were traits so deeply ingrained in the wet nurse that they could never be stripped away.

Consequently, upon learning of the wet nurse’s current state, the Ninth Prince’s heart turned completely cold toward her.