The Wife is First

Ch32 - Experimenting

“Jing Chen was ambushed on the border area of the Southwest.” Emperor Hongzheng picked up the confidential letter on his desk, and his gaze looked profoundly at Jing Shao. 

“Second Imperial Brother he, did he get injured?” Jing Shao asked in shock, seeing Emperor Hongzheng’s calm appearance, he realized that his brother should not have run into something life-threatening, and only then did he slightly calm down a bit.

Emperor Hongzheng controlled his gaze, then handed the letter in his hand over to him: “Look at it yourself.” 

Jing Shao quickly opened the thin piece of paper, skimming over the conventional greetings, and anxiously search for words indicating he was “safe”.

“… Fortunately, the guards given by the third prince risked their lives to protect me, Er Chen was not severely harmed, and will return to the capital within a few days.” Seeing this line, Jing Shao exhaled and then read it again from the beginning, before returning the letter to his imperial father.

The meaning of the letter was that the situation was already becoming clearer, and regarding the assassination, there were only a few words. But with what kind of nature Jing Chen had, it meant that it must have been an extremely treacherous occurrence. Jing Shao slowly clenched his fist. If these were the people sent by the Southwest King, if they were not able to accomplish the goal this time, they would definitely return with a new plan of action. The southwest territory was three thousand li away from the capital, and he didn’t know what hidden dangers there might be along the way. As he pondered over this, his thoughts wildly whirled through his mind.

“Imperial Father, for those three thousand li,  the mountains are tall and the journey long. Er Chen will be bold, asking Imperial Father to allow Er Chen to take a troop of soldiers and horses to meet Second Imperial Brother.” Jing Shao knelt on the ground and said earnestly. 

“Jing Chen has already said there are no problems, get up now.” Emperor Hongzheng sat back on the throne, picked up the petitions on his table and began to read through them.

“Imperial Father!” Jing Shao refused to get up. Leaving aside the Southwest King, who never did things by halves, since this kind of an incident happened, perhaps it was someone else using underhanded methods, in any case making the Southwest King their scapegoat. 　　　 

After a long time, Emperor Hongzheng glanced at the Jing Shao who was still kneeling, and sighed helplessly, “Zhen has already sent people to go!”

Only after hearing this did Jing Shao feel relieved. The fifty soldiers he had sent to protect his brother would surely still be following him, and since this dangerous situation had occurred, they certainly would have revealed themselves. In addition, there were also the men sent by his Imperial Father, so unless some soldiers and horses were brazenly dispatched to chase the party down to kill them, they should not meet any more danger. 

Jing Shao came out of the imperial study and ran into An Xian, Emperor Hongzheng’s closest Elder Eunuch, with a little eunuch who was holding a tray with tea. It seemed that they had just come from the tea preparation  room and, seeing Jing Shao, they quickly bowed in greeting.

“Eunuch An,” Jing Shao politely smiled, “even after so many years, you still like to do things yourself.”

We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.

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Outside the imperial study, there were many people and eyes. It was difficult to inquire about anything, so Jing Shao said a couple of sentences then left.

“He’s almost twenty years old, besides leading troops and fight battles, he doesn’t know how to use his brain to think about other matters.” Emperor Hongzheng took a sip of the tea that An Xian had steeped and said.

An Xian looked at the emperor’s expression carefully and smiled saying, “Doesn’t Your Majesty like his forthright nature?”

Emperor Hongzheng put down his tea cup and drew back the corners of his lips slightly: “He is actually an affectionate one.” He did not tell Jing Shao that the assassins, not able to complete their task all killed themselves, and that they could not find any clues. If the first question Jing Shao had asked today was who had attempted the assasination, then he would not be able to escape the suspicion. Fortunately, this son of his did not let him down. Despite often getting angry like a child, towards his brothers, he never harbored any intentions of harm. 

When Jing Shao came out of the palace gate, he saw two carriages heading towards the side door. He presumed that it was just some womenfolk entering the palace, so paid them no attention, getting onto Xiao Hei, returning to his palace.

These two carriages were the carriages of the North Marquisdom and Mao Dukedom.

“Quan-zi was ignorant and injured your heir the day for yesterday, I wonder if he’s a little better now?” Duchess Mao smiled lightly, but the expression on her face did not have a hint of apology.

“This matter occurred a few days ago, could it be that Duchess only learned of it the day before yesterday?” The North Marquess looked at her coldly, the heir of the Mao Dukedom had injured Mu Ling Bao, things could not be smoothed over with just a few words, it had been so many days, but not even a servant from the Dukedom was sent to visit, clearly showing that their intent was to bully.

When the two people met, they exchanged blows, a tit for a tat. The two young mistresses standing behind them also stealthily sized each other up. The palace maids sent by the Empress seeing this, only looked elsewhere and did not speak.

Jing Shao returned to his palace, and it was not yet noon. Once he entered the East Court, Duofu greeted him with a bitter face: “Wang Ye, Wang Fei has not awoken since you left, this servant did not dare call people to disturb him.”

Jing Shao saw his plump and white face all wrinkled together, couldn’t help but laugh at him and say, “Didn’t you take care of all the things in the inner household before? Wearing this kind of face, who are you trying to show it to? 

“Wang Ye doesn’t understand, the inner households’ affairs are managed by the Wang Fei so carefully and rigorously.  The tasks for each day have increased by so much more than before. Just looking at the account book, this servant’s head hurts.” Duofu really admired the Wang Fei, there were so many entries and transactions in the account book every day, unexpectedly it was all clearly divided. If there was a problem, then it could be seen with just a glance. Now the people managing things all did not dare to deceive them, and whenever an issue arose, it would be dealt with regardless of the importance. He dealt with these matters for the entire morning, feeling as though his head was about to explode

“You are just accustomed to being lazy, look at An Xian, he doesn’t have such a plump body.” As Jing Shao spoke, he had already reached the bedroom door. He waved his hand to stop the Duofu who still wanted to continue complaining, and quietly pushed the door open to go in. 

The windows in the room were closed, the lighting inside was a lot darker than outside. The light blue curtains were tightly closed, and the beauty on the bed within the canopies was not visible.

Jing Shao changed out of his court uniform, and slowly pulled open the curtain. The person on the bed was currently sleeping peacefully, one arm placed on top of the brocade quilt, exposing half a shoulder. On the fair skin were imprinted small red marks, looking extremely alluring. Climbing onto the bed, he slipped the cold arm back into the blankets, and lay next to him, gathering the blankets with the person in them to his embrace, he placed kisses all over the soundly sleeping, handsome face. 

Mu Hanzhang wrinkled his brow, slowly opening a beautiful pair of hazy eyes: “You’re back…” His slow intonation, which had the slightly nasal sound of someone who had just woken up, was extremely cute.

Jing Shao stole another kiss from those still-swollen lips and embraced the man tighter in his arms: “Is your body still uncomfortable?”

Mu Hanzhang slowly became clear-headed, the weakness he had felt in his body before was already better now, but his waist and thighs still ached. He looked up at the person holding him and moved his head to his shoulder, searching for a comfortable position: “My waist is still a little sore.”

Jing Shao was stunned, Junqing is… acting spoiled? After digesting this fact with great difficulty, Jing Shao immediately sat upward a little, to let his Wang Fei lie on his chest, helping him massage his waist over the quilt.

Powerful big hands, kneading over the quilt, the strength was just right, relieving the bursts of pain, extremely comfortable. Mu Hanzhang could not help but narrow his eyes, secretly hooking up his lips at an angle Jing Shao could not see.

“Brother was attacked by assassins,” Jing Shao rubbed as he told Mu Hanzhang about the matters that had happened today, “Do you think it could have been the Southwest king?”

Mu Hanzhang frowned and was silent for a moment. “No,” he said.

“Why not?” On the way back, Jing Shao carefully combed through his memories of what happened at this time in his previous life. At that time, he was fighting the southern barbarians in the Yunnan-Tibet region, but he was still aware of the big events that occurred in court. He had heard nothing about an assassination attempt on an imperial envoy.

“There is something fishy about the robbery of the tribute. The reason why the Southwest King would make no secret of it and inform the court is because he has long been clear about the circumstances in the Yunan-Tibet region.” Mu Hanzhang’s gaze was collected as he spoke, “He just wants to reduce his tribute, not start a war.”

Jing Shao’s hands that were kneading and massaging paused,  after going through everything that had happened recently, he suddenly understood. Because the southwest is close to the Yunnan-Tibet region, the Southwest King knew the situation with the Southern barbarians best. He knew that when the imperial court decided to attack the barbarian they would probably ask him to send troops. Since he did not want to suffer losses, the Southwest King first found a reason to get his tribute reduced. If the court had him send troops, then they must take it as a condition. If they did not have him send troops, he would just make up for any missing tribute.

If they were not the assassins of the southwest king, but those two brothers of his who wanted to fish in troubled waters, then this matter would be easy to deal with. They would not dare to take any risks once the envoy left the southwest, as they could not shift the blame to someone else anymore. However…

As Junqing was able to see this, then his Imperial Father would definitely be able to see it clearly. Today he was summoned to the imperial study… Pondering about this, Jing Shao couldn’t help but start to cold sweat. His Imperial Father was trying to test him!

When Mu Hanzhang saw him forcing a smile, he could not help feeling a bit distressed: “What you discussed today, Imperial Father will definitely not doubt you.”

Jing Shao bowed his head and looked at the person in his arms, looking at him with eyes filled with concern. He moved closer and kissed those beautiful eyes. “I’m all right.” The so-called Father Emperor, in fact, should be called the Emperor Father. No matter when, he will always be the emperor first, and then the father second! Having suffered a lifetime’s loss in his last life, this life he should have become aware.

The next day, the North Marquis sent people to gift them muskmelon from the northwest.

“It’s strange that the North Marquess would unexpectedly send us muskmelon.” Jing Shao pinched a piece of already cut melon. The melon planted in the northwest ripened early, and was also bigger than the ones planted in the Central Plains. The taste was also very sweet. The North Marquis’s military power was in the northwest, and he bought a lot of land there, growing melons and fruits.

“I heard servants who sent the melon say that when Mother came back from the palace yesterday, the smile on her face was never broken.” Mu Hanzhang handed him a bamboo skewer, and unconsciously, when he spoke of his “Mother”, he could not help but reveal bitter smile.

The empress bestowed the Mu family’s young lady with a pair of jadeite bracelets, but only bestowed an embroidered purse to the young lady of Mao Dukedom. Lady Du felt that this position of the Wang Fei of the Fourth Prince was most likely her daughter’s. Just by chance, the muskmelons from the northwest had come, because she was in a good mood, she sent some to them.

“How do you know that?” Jing Shao saw the glance his Wang Fei gave his wet fingertips, and could only wipe his hands, then use the bamboo skewer to eat.

“There’s that quick-mouthed third aunt, I’m afraid everyone in the North Marquis’ Household knows it.” Mu Hanzhang sighed, the servants who sent the melon were familiar with Lan Ting. When they saw her, they began talking non-stop about this matter, if it continued like this, he was afraid that it wouldn’t be three days before the whole capital city would know that the Mu family’s young lady would become the Fourth Prince’s Wang Fei. 

“Your third aunt is a real character. Next time I want to spread a rumor about Jing Yu, we’ll just let her do it!” Jing Shao couldn’t stifle his laughter. This Third Madam must truly have some hatred against the North Marquess.

“Saying nonsense again.” Mu Hanzhang shook his head helplessly, but thinking about it, perhaps the third aunt’s actions were really intentional. If Mu Suzhi was married to the fourth prince, then it would still be fine, at most it would cause people to say that the North Marquess loved to brag; If she was not married over, the North Marquess would really lose a lot of face!