Chapter 76: The Old Prince Next Door 29

When they woke up early the next morning, Su Huandan was stunned to see Prince Chen sporting a pair of dark circles under his eyes. This man couldn’t have stayed up sitting there all night, could he?

Was that really necessary?

To Prince Chen, it was absolutely necessary. He was in a terrible mood right now.

The thought of those imperial princesses and the way they had turned out made him realize it was all due to a lack of proper upbringing.

Learning etiquette was not easy. Prince Chen felt it was a grievance to make a child study such things, but childhood only lasted a short decade or so, while the vast majority of one’s life was spent navigating the adult world.

If a child didn’t learn proper manners and skills, who knew what kind of life they would lead?

The Grand Princess had died several years ago, buried with the highest honors. After her death, her children held grand sacrifices for her during festivals, but Prince Chen knew their hearts weren’t in it. Those rituals were merely a show for the imperial family.

Even her own children were as perfunctory as possible toward their late mother.

Then there was the Eldest Princess, who had completely lost control. Her two paramours got into a fight, and she, calling them her “precious darlings” and feeling heartbroken for them, went to break it up. In the chaos, she was accidentally beaten to death by the two men.

Good heavens. The imperial family had just learned of the Eldest Princess’s death – a death that was exceptionally undignified – and were still pondering how to handle the matter.

The First Prince Consort, however, acted swiftly. He executed all of the Eldest Princess’s paramours and the illegitimate children she had borne them, claiming they were all being sent to be buried with her as funerary sacrifices¹.

The entire court fell silent over this. The Emperor wanted to lose his temper and demand why the First Prince Consort had killed those children. Even if they were sent away to live as commoners, they could have at least contributed to the population growth of the Great Jing Dynasty.

But he couldn’t say those words out loud.

Because the Eldest Princess’s behavior had been too excessive and violated all moral codes, the court officials didn’t think the First Prince Consort was in the wrong. The man had been suppressed for decades; surely he was allowed to vent his frustrations afterward?

It was only because everyone in the imperial family disliked those illegitimate children that they tacitly accepted the First Prince Consort’s actions and didn’t punish him.

So, while the Eldest Princess lived a life of unbridled pleasure, her death brought ruin to her favorite children. One wondered if she would regret her actions once she reached the Underworld.

And the Second Princess?

She was practically provoked to death by her own daughter.

That daughter of hers had been unable to get married for a long time and was desperate for a husband. Eventually, following her father’s wishes, she married a scholar. That scholar was a smooth talker, and within three years, he had swindled the Second Princess out of her entire fortune.

The Second Princess had no choice but to ask the Emperor to intervene. The Empress Dowager was still alive then and stepped in to recover the assets.

As a result, the Second Princess was cursed out by her own daughter. Now, mother and daughter were not on speaking terms, living like bitter enemies.

Recently, the Second Princess had become so ill she couldn’t leave her bed. She kept shouting that after she died, all her properties were to be returned to the imperial family, firmly refusing to leave a single thing to that heartless daughter.

The Second Princess was a case of someone who hadn’t learned well in her youth, so it was inevitable that problems would arise when it was her turn to raise a daughter. If she hadn’t learned how to live her own life properly, how could she teach a child?

Seeing these cautionary tales, Prince Chen felt he had to harden his heart and make his daughter learn the rules.

However, when the Etiquette Matron arrived and Prince Chen expected his daughter to suffer, the matron was instead dealt with by the Princess Consort.

“Can you teach or not? Once or twice, maybe even three or four times is fine. As long as the child learns it, that’s enough. Why must she kowtow a hundred times? Who set this rule? Teaching requires proper methods. If you’re so capable, why don’t you try kowtowing a hundred times yourself? Let’s see if you don’t faint!” Prince Chen watched as the Princess Consort gave the Etiquette Matron a thorough scolding, until the matron’s face turned dark and she declared she was quitting.

If she wanted to quit, she could get lost.

Prince Chen was only too happy to see her go.

The Princess Consort made a lot of sense. As long as the child learned the various etiquettes, it was fine. At most, she could review them once a year so she wouldn’t forget. For such a small child, a kowtow was a physical strain – how could you ask her to do it a hundred times in one go?

How could a child endure that?

The Crown Princess was in a difficult position. This was the standard model the Etiquette Matrons used to teach the imperial princesses and commandery princesses. What should be done?

“It’s simple. Find a matron with outstanding manners and send her over. Tell her exactly what the Commandery Princess² needs to learn, list it in a booklet for the Princess Consort to see, and let the matron discuss the teaching methods with the Princess Consort. Two generations of princesses in our imperial family haven’t been raised well. Although the little aunt in Prince Chen’s manor is only a Commandery Princess for now, that’s only temporary. Once I… bestow favor, she will become a Grand Princess. It’s time the imperial family had a princess who can actually be presented with pride.” After the Crown Prince finished speaking, the Crown Princess nodded and then lowered her head in silence.

The imperial family lacked children and tended to spoil the princesses, neglecting their education. Once those princesses married out, they were like birds released from a cage, acting with such reckless abandon that their behavior completely disgraced the imperial family. It was a good thing that someone was finally thinking about educating them properly.

What if she had a daughter in the future?

The thought of her own daughter turning out like the late Grand Princess or the Eldest Princess was suffocating.

With a different matron, both Prince Chen and Su Huandan found things much more agreeable.

Exactly. The child would study in the morning, and the teaching shouldn’t be so rigid. The afternoon was for the child to play. When she was tired and taking a break, the matron could talk about the rules. The child learned happily, though the matron found it… a bit more exhausting!

But the rewards from the Prince’s manor were quite generous.

Besides, if the Commandery Princess was a bit too lively and active, it didn’t matter if one matron got tired after a day. They could simply hire several more matrons to work in shifts.

That was how their chubby daughter’s education began.

She was still young, so some of her movements weren’t perfectly standard yet, but she would surely master them as she grew older.

The child was very clever and wasn’t lazy; she was just energetic and couldn’t sit still.

By the time the chubby daughter was eight years old, her speech and behavior were quite refined. Even when she was running around like mad, she did so with an elegant and pleasing grace.

The war in the Northwest also came to an end, and Zhou Zeyu returned to the capital.

Upon his return, he first went back to Prince Chen’s manor to see his parents and sister. He stayed at home for a night, and once the sense of strangeness with his sister had vanished, he finally went to the palace.

Zhou Zeyu’s military talents were extraordinary. He had joined the army at fifteen, and over the years, he had managed to wipe out half of the Tartars on the grasslands.

The able-bodied young men had been almost entirely wiped out, and the remaining elderly, weak, women, and children had fled into the depths of the grasslands.

The Northwest border of the Great Jing Dynasty would be stable for at least twenty years.

After meeting the Emperor and reporting on the situation in the Northwest, Zhou Zeyu handed over his command seal and grinned, baring his teeth. “Are those people still alive?”

The Emperor and the Crown Prince knew exactly who he was talking about the moment they saw that smile.

He meant the people who had dared to embezzle the medicine his father had sent him.

“We’ve kept them all for you. How do you want to handle it? Execution of the entire clan³ or exile?” the Emperor asked Zhou Zeyu.

Zhou Zeyu sneered. “Killing them would be too easy. Find a crime worthy of banishment. Send the men to the Southwest to join the army, and exile the women to the Northwest. Have the official matchmakers see to it that they are married off to the older soldiers.”

With years of continuous warfare, the Great Jing Dynasty was short on people. It was better to keep their miserable lives and put them to some use.

Not everyone needed to be killed to satisfy a grudge.

The Emperor breathed a sigh of relief. This proposal truly spoke to his own heart.

Translator’s Notes