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"Wasn’t he unable to sleep well?" Gu Jiao raised her eyebrows and asked.
Eunuch Wei opened his mouth wide but couldn"t make a sound for a while.
From time to time, there were bursts of laughter from Aunt Liu, her younger sister, and the two daughters-in-law of the Zhou family in the main room, as well as the noisy sounds of their children and Little Jing Kong playing in the front yard.
In the past, any movement in the imperial palace made it difficult for the Emperor to fall asleep. But now, with such a commotion outside, how could the Emperor sleep so soundly?
The Emperor slept straight from the afternoon until the next morning, even skipping dinner.
Gu Jiao watched as the Emperor, with his tousled hair, rushed onto the carriage like the wind for the morning court session. She thought to herself, how could he not have slept well? He clearly slept much more than her last night.
She had been making black gunpowder last night and woke up the entire family with the explosions, but the Emperor remained snoring like thunder. The courtyard was filled with his dragon breath commonly known as snores.
"Hmm." Gu Jiao rubbed her chin, "I must have knocked him out in the middle of the night."
"Drive the carriage! What are you waiting for?" The Emperor slapped the coachman’s head. He was full of energy and definitely didn’t seem like he had been knocked out by the gunpowder.
Having had a good night"s sleep, the Emperor felt refreshed as he went to the Huaqing Palace to wash up and change into his dragon robe before heading to the imperial audience hall.
Empress Dowager Zhuang"s phoenix palanquin had also arrived near the imperial audience hall.
Eunuch Qin reminded her, "Empress Dowager, the Emperor has also arrived."
"So what if he has?" Empress Dowager Zhuang rolled her eyes.
Empress Dowager Zhuang, who bent her waist for five candied fruits, got off the palanquin and walked out with Eunuch Qin"s a.s.sistance.
The Emperor also got out of the sedan chair and looked at Empress Dowager Zhuang with a smile, bowing respectfully, "Son greets imperial mother."
Yesterday, he looked like a wilted cabbage, but today he was clearly in high spirits. Empress Dowager Zhuang gave him a faint glance and said, "It"s getting late. Don"t delay and go to the court quickly. Isn"t His Majesty usually here earlier than Aijia? Why are you so late today?"
The Emperor was embarra.s.sed to admit that he overslept in Bishui Alley. He couldn"t sleep well in his luxurious palace, but he slept like a log in Empress Dowager Zhuang"s rundown little room. If he said this out loud, he would truly despise himself!
He would never admit that the little room was more comfortable to sleep in, he must have been too tired from not sleeping for a few days.
As the Emperor pondered, he inadvertently caught a glimpse of Empress Dowager Zhuang holding an exquisite hand stove in her hand.
This was a dual-purpose hand stove, capable of holding charcoal in the winter and ice in the summer. When loaded with ice, it felt cool to the touch, making it a great way to relieve heat.
The Emperor suddenly chuckled and walked over, raising his hand to knock the hand stove out of Empress Dowager Zhuang"s grasp.
The hand stove landed on the stone floor with a loud thud.
It was made with a very tough material so it didn"t break when it slammed on the floor.
Empress Dowager Zhuang"s eyes turned cold as she looked at the Emperor. Just as she was about to get angry, several court officials walked over from nearby.
"Eunuch Wei, Empress Dowager dropped her hand stove. Why don’t you quickly pick it up for the Empress Dowager?"
"...Yes!" Eunuch Wei picked up the hand stove, which had become dirty from being on the ground. Naturally, he couldn"t just hand it over to Empress Dowager Zhuang like this, so he intended to wipe it clean with his sleeve.
But the Emperor suddenly took the hand stove from him and said, "Let Zhen do it." He took out a handkerchief and carefully wiped the hand stove, as if to make it shine. Then, he smiled and handed it to Empress Dowager Zhuang. "Your hand stove, imperial mother."
The court officials who witnessed this scene couldn"t help but marvel secretly that the Emperor was so filial to Empress Dowager! He even helped her wipe her hand stove.
Empress Dowager Zhuang felt the corner of her mouth twitch.
She took the hand stove from the Emperor with a cold face.
The Emperor reminded her with a smirk, "Smile, imperial mother, smile. Everyone is watching!"
Smile my b.u.t.t! What a big jerk!
Empress Dowager Zhuang forced out a fake laughter, "Hehehe."
As the officials walked away, Empress Dowager Zhuang"s smile disappeared in an instant. She disdainfully threw the hand stove that the Emperor had handed her to Eunuch Qin.
As she climbed the steps to the imperial audience hall, Empress Dowager Zhuang lifted her phoenix robe and covered her feet, and then stepped on the Emperor"s foot!
The Emperor: "Oww!"
With people all around, he tightly closed his mouth and swallowed that cry of pain back into his stomach.
His face twisted in agony!
Empress Dowager Zhuang smiled faintly and asked, "What"s the matter, Your Majesty?"
The Emperor was stiff all over and pinched his thigh, "Feet... Feet..."
Move your feet!
"Oh, did His Majesty twist his foot?" Empress Dowager Zhuang raised an eyebrow and then stepped on his foot again, causing the Emperor to silently scream in pain and almost pa.s.s out.
Empress Dowager Zhuang elegantly reached out and supported his arm, smiling with her eyes, "Let Aijia help you." Then, still smiling, she squeezed out a few words from between her teeth, "Everyone is watching, Your Majesty, smile."
The emperor"s smile was uglier than his cry.
The court officials couldn"t help but sigh—— Empress Dowager really cared for her son!
It seemed that after the misunderstanding about the Little Marquis of Zhao was resolved, the relationship between the pair of mother and son really improved a lot!
Gu Jiao knew nothing about the events taking place in the palace. After sending Little Jing Kong to the Imperial Academy, she went to the medical hall.
She found that the medical hall had more patients in the morning and was slightly quieter in the afternoon. The girl from the women"s academy who used to play the guqin occasionally from the other side of the wall was no longer heard.
She tried to teach Little Jiang Li to play the guqin, but this little girl was only interested in herbs and was even worse at playing the guqin than practicing calligraphy.
She had to give up the idea of having Little Jiang Li play the guqin for her.
Gu Jiao looked at the f.u.xi guqin case on the table. She tapped the case with her fingertips a few times, and then opened it, taking out the f.u.xi guqin with the burned corner.
Her slender fingers gently stroked the strings, but she did not play it in the end. She put the f.u.xi guqin back in the case, closed it, and left the medical hall.
She went to the martial arts school.
After several months of martial arts challenges, she had gone from a novice warrior to a martial master in the martial arts school, and was about to become a martial grandmaster soon.
It was said that there were only a handful of martial grandmasters even in the entire capital. They were very hard to come by.
Of course, this was jargon. For the common people, they were all just a group of martial arts experts.
When one reached the martial grandmaster level, they rarely made an appearance in the Jianghu. There was a martial grandmaster sitting in the Taihe Martial Arts School, but Gu Jiao had been here so many times and had yet to see even a single strand of his hair.Raz P."s Thoughts
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