Exile. Exile Ch 94

Fifth Prince didn't agree with this method. He was afraid if the baby was really Jiang Mao's, what to do?

But when Fifth Prince saw the expression of Consort Lou, he suddenly changed his attention. He smiled and said to the important ministers, “this is a good way, just follow this way. The child is not yet born, we will do it after birth. It's just the time for the fourth elder brother's funeral.” Then he turned around to look at Lou Jingyu. “Miss Lou needs to take good care of the fetus these days. Please let this prince knows whatever is lacking at anytime.”

Lou Jingyu's face was pale with fright. After a while, she replied with a shudder: “…Yes.” Lou Jingyu knew that this child was not Jiang Mao's, but in the presence of the cabinet ministers of the Imperial Court she had no choice but to agree with the matter of dripping blood to identify relatives, and dared not disagree.

If she did not agree, someone would certainly come out to punish her for confusing the Imperial Household's blood crime.

Fifth Prince took a look at Consort Lou's face; there must be something wrong with it. However, even if the child really belonged to the fourth elder brother, he was not afraid. It was about half a month before the birth of the child. He had Jiang Jun's help. Half a month was enough for him to do many things.

The matter of the child was thus put on hold.

The matter developed in unexpected ways. Consort Lou was not prepared enough, but some obstacles were certain. There was still half a month left, which was enough for her to prepare everything.

……

 The naked b.u.t.t Su Caicai was held by someone and brought to eat to fill his stomach.

Upon seeing Su Caicai's mouth, which couldn't be seen because of the food dregs, Li Jing took out a handkerchief to wipe his mouth. During this time, Su Caicai's mouth didn't stop chewing. He was really hungry.

“Grandpa, my Uncle Seven?” Su Caicai raised his head as he asked with mouth full. He was naked on the lower half, sat on sedan chair with his fat legs crossed.

Li Jing said, “I sent someone to inquire about it. I believe there will be news soon.”

Nodding, Su Caicai obediently said thank you.

……

When the matter was settled, the ministers left one after another.

Following Consort Lou to the end, Lou Jingyu was pale and sweating on her forehead. It was a day of being tossed side by side and frightened, which she couldn't stand.

At the moment, Consort Lou was worried about the matter of dripping blood to identify relatives, so she didn't notice the peculiar of Lou Jingyu.

“Aunt…” In the end, Lou Jingyu couldn't walk. She suddenly fell to the ground.

Consort Lou looked over. Once she saw, she was anxious. “Jingyu, what's the matter with you?”

The sweat droplets on her forehead rolled down. She gasped and grabbed her stomach with one hand. “Aunt… I, I think I'm going to deliver the baby.”

Consort Lou was shocked. “Going to deliver? How can you deliver at this time? No way.” With that, she whispered to Lou Jingyu, “can you bear it?”

Lou Jingyu shook her head in difficulty. How could she bear this kind of thing?

Consort Lou bit her lips and said, “bear with it. It will be good in a while. Even if you want to deliver, you can't deliver in the palace.”

If she gave birth in the palace, without any preparation, she would certainly become the meat on a chopping board, and could only be slaughtered.

When a sedan chair was brought, Consort Lou took Lou Jingyu to the Lou Residence.

……

After thinking and pondering about it, Li Jing took Su Caicai with him. The child's father had just pa.s.sed away, and his uncle was missing. Li Jing looked pitifully at the poor little man who didn't know anything.

Su Caicai had been tossing for half a day that he was soon tired. At this time, his legs were curled up, exposing the birdie in the middle, sound asleep, and even making a small snoring sound.

At the side, the palace eunuch who was serving him couldn't resist saying, “Daren, how about… wrapping a dress for Little Gongzi.” The child brought by Li Daren was still young. What to do if he was frozen being naked all the time?

Li Jing rarely got close to his children and grandchildren at home. Namely, he taught them how to read books on weekdays, hit them as punishment more often, and his child-rearing was quite rough.

Hearing that, he looked at the little bean sprout Su Caicai and said, “I'm afraid there is no such a small child's clothes in the palace.” The emperor was old and there had been no Imperial Son in the palace for a long time.

Upon seeing the palace eunuch nodding, Li Jing thought for a moment before he said, “trouble Mister to bring a little blanket over.”

When the blanket was brought over, Li Jing took off Su Caicai's outer garment, leaving only a pure white garment, and then wrapped him in the blanket.

However, the problem came again. Li Jing was old and could not hold Su Caicai at all. For lack of a better option, Li Jing had to ask the eunuch, “trouble mister to help look after the child for a while. This old man's spirit is willing but the flesh is weak. This old man will pick him up after the audience with His Majesty.”

This eunuch was the Head Eunuch beside the old emperor, which was also among the small number of people loyal to the old emperor, so Li Jing was especially a.s.sured of this old eunuch. The eunuch said with a smile, “don't worry, Daren. Little Gongzi can't go wrong with me.”

Hearing that Li Jing was asking for an audience, the old emperor waved his hand to let the palace maids go.

Li Jing sat beside the old emperor, took out a memorial from his sleeve, and held it up. “Your servant have a discovery in regards of the successor of Yue w.a.n.g. This is before Yue w.a.n.g…”

Without thinking, the old Emperor didn't even look at it. He turned around and said, “I've left this matter to Fifth Prince.” The old Emperor didn't want to talk about Yue w.a.n.g's heir.

Li Jing was stunned and expressionlessly looked at the old emperor. The emperor's meaning was obvious.

He knew that the emperor was very afraid of Yue w.a.n.g before, but it was for the sake of the country and the great cause. But now Yue w.a.n.g was dead. He couldn't understand it; a four-year-old child without the help and support from others had no threat, why wouldn't the Emperor  willing to preserve Yue w.a.n.g's heir? Yue w.a.n.g died for the country!

Jiang Mao had requested to establish the heir for many times. How could the old emperor not know? It might be that he really didn't want to preserve such a bane. 

The old emperor chose to ignore it and believed after Consort Lou was disposed of, sooner or later the fifth prince would get his hands free to sort out this bane.

And the reason why no one had put their hands on this bane at present, was because everyone was afraid of the power of Yue w.a.n.g in the capital. When they had solved the side issues and had no worries about the future consequences, they would get to this bane.

The old emperor was very bitterly disappointed towards the fifth prince. But even if he was bitterly disappointed, there was only this seedling left. What could he do? As for Jiang Mao… a child who did not grow up in front of him since childhood, the old emperor couldn't regard him as his own child in his heart. What's more, Jiang Mao was still so unfamiliar and so powerful, which made him a little insecure.

Li Jing was about to leave the old emperor with his head hung down―he was loyal to the emperor, but he also respected the faithful officials and heroes. Yue w.a.n.g died for the country, but poor him couldn't even have a successor.

All of a sudden, a eunuch came to report, “Your Majesty, Miss Lou has given birth.”

Li Jing frowned at the words, then listened to the eunuch gasping as he continued: “it's right at the gate of the palace… Miss Lou had moved around for a while which strained on her body and had premature labor.”

As soon as the old emperor's eyes were dim, teacup in his hand fell on the desk and rolled for several circles before stopping. He was also a bit caught off guard, but he quickly responded, “What is the fifth prince's planning?”

“Fifth Prince has sent people from the Imperial Physician Inst.i.tution to attend to Little… Gongzi, determined to drip blood to identify the relatives in the main hall at noon.”

Li Jing, who was listening at the side, couldn't help sighing. To the last, the fifth prince still couldn't wait. That very little child was just born, still very weak to drip blood to identify relatives. He was rather too impatient and also not afraid to be told by others.

No matter what other people thought, the matter of dripping blood to identify relatives was settled. As for whose blood to drip, the fifth prince said that as the child's uncle, he was willing to suffer a little and donate a few drops of blood.

“No, this consort disagrees.” Holding the newly born, a little red baby, Consort Lou held on like grim death. “The baby is still so small, how can he suffer dripping blood to identify relatives?” Consort Lou wept, “This consort's son is gone, leaving only such a grandson, this consort really can't take the risk.”

“Without dripping blood to identify the relatives, who knows if the child is Yue w.a.n.g's?” Someone said, “besides, it's just a drop of blood.”

Consort Lou clenched her teeth and thought for a long time before she relaxed her bite and released what she held to say, “It's not impossible, only have to wait for the baby to grow up a little.” At that time,  she would have a solution.

“What? Still have to wait?” Everyone had been waiting for several days. They had waited for today, where they could solve this problem. After all, the insurgency had just been leveled, the country needed to be rejuvenated, and rights should be redistributed.

The baby was here. This was the most appropriate time. No one was willing to wait. In the end, the Imperial Physician had prepared the necessary supplies for blood dripping to identify relatives, and followed by the court eunuch holding the baby, preparing to carry out the test――All of these, Consort Lou couldn't stop them.

She was stupefied. Fifth Prince didn't give her any more face. Not only that, seeing that Fifth Prince despised her so much today, the ministers also looked down on her. This was intolerable to the former Consort Lou, but at the moment, she couldn't care about it.

The child was not Jiang Mao's, she knew of it. At this time, she hated Lou Jingyu in her heart. Why was she so incompetent? Why couldn't she even have Jiang Mao's baby?

“Wait…” Looking at the blood dripping from the fingertip of fifth prince into the copper basin, Consort Lou suddenly shouted.

There was no doubt that the child was not Jiang Mao's. If this went on, it was the same as slapping herself in the face.

“For the sake of the health of this consort's grandson, this consort is willing to give up this dripping blood to identify the relatives.”

Fifth Prince raised his eyebrows in somewhat good feeling as he looked at her. Would Consort Lou admit defeat so easily? He didn't believe what she said was for the goodness of the child.

“But in addition to my little grandson, this consort's Mao'er has a b.a.s.t.a.r.d.”

At present, Li Jing was also here, who came to have a look. He couldn't help frowning at this; b.a.s.t.a.r.d? He had seen that Yue w.a.n.g was very kind to that child and baby, and even requested to establish that child to be heir.

“Ladyship Lou, are you playing with this prince and the whole Imperial Court's civil and military officials?” The fifth prince knew that Jiang Mao had a b.a.s.t.a.r.d. He frowned and pretended to be angry. “First, you said that this unknown baby is the posthumous son of the fourth elder brother. In order for the fourth elder brother to have a successor, this prince is willing to drop blood to identify relatives, a real body test. Now that everything is ready, you said not to test and even mentioned a b.a.s.t.a.r.d?”

“That's right. After waiting so long, isn't that a joke?” As soon as the fifth prince finished, someone added after.

“Yes, yes. There are still many aging old Darens, who had never had a rest in the morning and had been waiting here for such a result.”

Consort Lou bit her teeth. “What can this consort do? The grandson of this consort is still small, it can't be helped.” After she wiped the tears, she added: “Isn't Fifth Prince the most clear about that b.a.s.t.a.r.d of my Mao'er? When Mao'er was alive, more than once, he wanted to make that b.a.s.t.a.r.d the heir.”

Fifth Prince frowned. “Is that the case? The prince was busy with the rebellion of the third elder brother a few days ago. I didn't pay much attention to it. Someone, go check to see if it was really like Ladyship Lou said that the fourth elder brother handed over an account book.” These were said in a completely ignorant look.

Soon, some people went, and everyone was waiting in place. At noon, they hadn't eaten any food. Finally, in the evening, those people came back.

“Reporting to Fifth Prince, your servant went through all the account books, but didn't find the one Ladyship Lou said.”

“How could it be?” Consort Lou was surprised at first, and then quickly realized. Yes, it had been so long, and so many account books but not one had been responded. It should have been destroyed by the fifth prince.

Fifth Prince hooked up his lips as he looked at Consort Lou.

“Yes, at that time, because of this matter, my Mao'er had been all over the place to press the matter. There must have been many people who knew about it.” Consort Lou was a little fl.u.s.tered.

Hearing this, the fifth prince glanced around the ministers, “who knows?”

Everyone at the bottom uniformly looked down. Even some people who were not the fifth prince's people dared not fight against him.

Your Highness the Eldest, Li Jing was struggling hard in his heart.

No one knew that he had Yue w.a.n.g's account book of request to establish heir. That's what Yue w.a.n.g left with him when he learned that Yue w.a.n.g's request to establish heir had repeatedly hit a wall and he wanted to help Yue w.a.n.g to put it forward.

His Majesty's meaning was very clear; he didn't want Yue w.a.n.g to have an heir. But after thinking about that child, who was only four years old and did not know anything; whose father died for the country, leaving him alone; if he was going to be looked after by Consort Lou as the grandmother with the position of Yue w.a.n.g, it was going to be different. At least, he was in a much better place now.

The fifth prince ran his eyes at everyone in the palace hall, “No one knows?”

Xah: That second last paragraph is the death of me… hope you are not having hard time reading it, or re-translate it. And FYI, in the original, Caicai was mentioned as 3-year-old… but he actually almost 4 as mentioned by Qingbai… Plus, 3-year-old and almost 4 has a big different for me… so I put 4…