Reborn After Widowhood – Chapter 167
Chapter 167
By mid-Tenth Month, the wound on Chen Jingzong’s right shoulder had completely healed, leaving only a thin scar an inch long.
Chen Jingzong laughed as Hua Yang looked at his scar.
Hua Yang: “What are you laughing at?”
Chen Jingzong: “I have at least ten scars of varying sizes on my body, and this one is the most glorious.”
Hua Yang was puzzled: “Where is the glory?”
Chen Jingzong: “First, it was caused by General Qin’s Divine Might Fierce Water Spear. Most of the others who were injured by this spear are no longer alive.”
Hua Yang: …
Therefore, even though General Qin was good at giving gifts and flattery, which was inconsistent with the integrity of a gentleman, Chen Jingzong still admired him sincerely and was even proud of being stabbed by the general’s spear.
Chen Jingzong: “Second, other injuries would at most make you shed a few golden beads, but this injury earned your love-struck word.”
He had seen grand princess’s golden beads several times, but this was the first time he heard her love words.
Hua Yang couldn’t stand him mentioning this matter, so she pushed him away and said, “Who is in love with you? I am the Grand Princess and you are the Prince Consort. You are mine. It’s just a fact. How can it be considered love-struck?”
Chen Jingzong: “Prince Consort can be divorced, but you said in front of the emperor and all the cabinet elders that I am yours, and you didn’t hesitate to have a conflict with the Chief Minister and General Qin for this. Even if you like the new and hate the old and look at others in the future, will you have the nerve to divorce me? Once you say that, you can only grow old with me, then isn’t in love-struck?”
What a bunch of nonsense! Hua Yang covered her ears.
Chen Jingzong turned her over and began to kiss her contentedly, from grand princess’s disdainfully furrowed brows to her flushed cheeks, and finally to her soft and sweet lips despite her harsh words.
.
After recovering from his injuries, Chen Jingzong began his busy life of going out early and returning late.
It was still a cold winter, with howling north winds, and the water poured out would freeze into ice in the blink of an eye.
Hua Yang didn’t like to go out when it was cold. It was usually her mother-in-law, two sisters-in-law, or her aunt who came to visit her. Even so, Hua Yang still caught a cold. In the middle of the night, she started to have fever, but she herself still asleep, and it was Chen Jingzong who noticed it. When Hua Yang woke up, the doctor hired by the Grand Princess Mansion was already sitting by the bed, feeling her pulse through a layer of gauze.
“This is a common cold. I will write a prescription right now. Please give Grand Princess a bowl of medicine first and see if the fever can be relieved tomorrow morning.”
Wu Run accompanied the doctor to boil the medicine.
Chao Yun brought a cup of warm water, and then Chen Jingzong lifted Hua Yang’s shoulders and fed her.
Hua Yang felt drowsy and weak. She asked the time and was about to fall asleep again.
She was in low spirits, and Chen Jingzong did not force her to speak. After the medicine was boiled and brought over, he fed it to Hua Yang’s mouth spoonful by spoonful, coaxing the dazed grand princess to take a large bowl of it obediently.
While Hua Yang was sweating and feeling chilly at night, Chen Jingzong stayed up almost all night, guarding her wholeheartedly.
Hua Yang slept until noon the next day. When she woke up, she saw Chen Jingzong, who usually had disappeared long ago, still lying outside, sleeping with his full clothes on.
As soon as Hua Yang moved, Chen Jingzong woke up. Without saying a word, he touched her forehead.
“Fortunately, it’s not hot anymore.” Chen Jingzong put down his hand and looked at her helplessly: “I’m the one who’s busy all day and night, and you’re pampered at home every day, how come you’re the one that got sick?”
Hua Yang glared at him.
How could this kind of thing be explained. People’s physiques are different.
The four close maids came to serve the grand princess first. They wiped her sweaty and greasy body from the night, changed her into clean and comfortable clothes, and even changed the entire set of bedding.
Hua Yang still felt weak, so the doctor took her pulse and prescribed a milder prescription.
Chen Jingzong sat beside the bed and had breakfast with her.
Hua Yang: “I’m surrounded by people. You go to the guard station, there’s no need to stay and take care of me.”
Chen Jingzong: “I have sent someone to ask for leave. There is nothing important at the guard station anyway.”
Hua Yang stopped trying to persuade him.
After drinking the medicine, she fell asleep again. When she woke up again, it was bright outside the window. Chen Jingzong was sitting on the ground outside the bed curtain with a military book in his hand.
Hua Yang didn’t move and just looked at him silently.
In the winter of her previous life, she also caught a cold, but it wasn’t a serious illness, so she forgot exactly when it happened.
But Hua Yang remembered that the only people around her were Wu Run and the four maids. She did not send any message to the palace or the Chen Mansion, so naturally, those two would not come to visit her.
Logically speaking, Wu Run and the four maids have been with her since she was a child. They were like half a family member to her. It should be enough to have them take care of her.
But Hua Yang, who was lying sick on the bed, felt very lonely.
When she was sick as a child, her father emperor and mother empress would come to visit her. After her brother could run and jump, he would even stay by her bedside, looking at her eagerly with his pair of clear black and white eyes.
After she got married, her in-law family treated her with great respect. If she fell ill, it would become a big deal in the Chen family, and her mother-in-law and two sisters-in-law would come to see her every day.
Hua Yang sometimes felt annoyed and didn’t like those meaningless socializing, but when she moved back to Grand Princess Mansion and rarely experienced such visits in a year, she felt lonely again.
Not to mention Chen Jingzong. No matter how weak their relationship was at that time, as long as she was sick, Chen Jingzong would always stay with her, just like now.
Maybe she stared for too long, Chen Jingzong suddenly looked at her.
Hua Yang pulled the quilt up and wiped the corner of her eyes without a trace.
Chen Jingzong put down the book, lifted the gauze curtain, and when he sat down, he found that grand princess’s face had appeared again and her eyes were a little red.
“Uncomfortable?” Chen Jingzong asked doubtfully, his palm already on her forehead.
Hua Yang: “No, I just thought Father Emperor.”
Chen Jingzong understood that when people were sick, they always became more delicate than usual. Not to mention her, even during the years when he was in Lingzhou, every time he had a headache or a fever, he would think of his family in the capital.
He wouldn’t do that now, but she had always been more delicate, not to mention that her father emperor was no longer around, and her only two closest relatives were in the palace, each busy with their own things.
“When you get better, I will accompany you to the palace.” Chen Jingzong touched her head.
Hua Yang closed her eyes, and after a while, she hugged his hands.
Chen Jingzong paused, quickly lifted her quilt and lay down beside her.
The grand princess came closer and pressed herself against him.
.
When Hua Yang recovered from her illness, the majesty of the grand princess was also returned to its original state. She would never again rush into the arms of her prince consort with red eyes.
Chen Jingzong felt a little regretful, but only a little. After all, he preferred the grand princess who would glare at him and say a few sarcastic words to him at every turn. And at night, seeing the grand princess who was so arrogant and noble crying under him during the day, with no dignity in her phoenix eyes anymore, that feeling was a thousand times better than when she would occasionally throw herself into his arms.
“Tomorrow is a day off. I’ll go to the palace with you.”
Afterwards, Chen Jingzong brushed away the hair stuck to her cheek and kissed her.
Hua Yang: “I don’t want to go. It’s not the beginning of the month.”
Chen Jingzong: “That’s your home. Who says you can only go there at the beginning of the month?” She was obviously missing her family when she was sick, but when she recovered, it became that awkward temper again.
Hua Yang: “That’s the kind of person Mother Empress is.”
Chen Jingzong: “Just say that you miss her. How could she not be happy?”
Hua Yang: “Why didn’t you say that to Father?”
Chen Jingzong: …
Hua Yang: “By the way, you saw Father at the court meeting this month. How is his health?”
In autumn and winter, cold winds were rampant. Her father-in-law was older than her and was always busy every day, so he was more likely to be attacked by cold winds.
In her previous life, her father-in-law suffered from a hidden illness. Not to mention this winter, he often took a day or two off throughout the second year of Yuanyou. Then next year, the One Whip Law was implemented, and her father-in-law became more stubborn. If her father-in-law could take it easier, perhaps he would not have died of illness in the fall.
Chen Jingzong: “He looks fine. He was full of energy when arguing with Cabinet Elder He.”
Hua Yang laughed first, and then felt relieved. It seemed that asking Imperial Doctor Li to eliminate her father-in-law’s hidden illness that year had indeed helped improve her father-in-law’s physical condition.
On the second day, Hua Yang was coaxed by Chen Jingzong into the carriage to the palace.
While she talked to her mother empress, Chen Jingzong followed Emperor Yuanyou to the imperial study.
Emperor Yuanyou was a little surprised: “Why did Sister come to the palace today?”
It was not that he didn’t welcome his sister, but his sister had always entered the palace on the first day of every month for the past two years. Suddenly there was a change, could it be that something happened?
Chen Jingzong sighed, “Grand Princess caught a cold a few days ago. She kept calling for the late emperor, Niangniang, and Your Majesty in her dreams. She clearly missed home, but she pretended not to care when she woke up during the day. She even refused to let this minister pass on any news to the palace. Even when going to the palace today, this minister had to talk his mouth off before coaxing Grand Princess to get into the carriage.”
Emperor Yuanyou was stunned.
He remembered that when his sister was not yet married, even if she accidentally bumped her arm against the table and bruised it, their father emperor would bring the imperial physician to visit her. When he rushed over to see, father emperor would care about his sister in a gentle voice and mother empress persuaded him not to worry too much. As for his sister, when she was in pain, she would tear up, but when the pain subsided, she would smile and watch mother empress dislike father emperor for making a fuss.
When father emperor was alive, his sister often returned to the palace to live for a long time. Since father emperor passed away, his sister changed it come to the palace on set dates.
Did she think mother empress doesn’t like her coming too often?
Or did he neglect his sister, causing her not dare to act recklessly?
Compared to the past, and thinking about the fact that his sister was sick this time, and there was only one prince consort by her side to take care of her diligently, Emperor Yuanyou felt a surge of sadness in his heart.
After a moment of silence, Emperor Yuanyou said to Chen Jingzong: “Since Sister misses Zhen and Mother Empress, you can go back first. Zhen want to keep her for a while this time.”
Chen Jingzong: …
Emperor Yuanyou raised his eyebrows: “Why, you don’t want to?”
Chen Jingzong looked a little scared but not too scared, and asked tentatively: “How long does Your Majesty plan to keep Grand Princess?”
Emperor Yuanyou smiled and said, “Sister can stay until she wants to leave the palace.”
Chen Jingzong looked resentful.
Emperor Yuanyou showed no mercy: “It’s a good opportunity for you to return to the Chen Mansion and stay there for a while, so that you can show your filial piety to the two elders.”
Chen Jingzong accepted the order reluctantly.
But Emperor Yuanyou soon discovered that his good brother-in-law did not listen to him at all, but stayed directly in the guard station. Except for returning to the capital to attend court meetings, he would also visit his sister to ask when she would leave the palace. In total, he only stayed in the Chen Mansion for two nights and had two reunion dinners.
He told this to his mother and sister.
Hua Yang ate her meal as if it was nothing.
Empress Dowager Qi spoke for her son-in-law: “It’s freezing cold, and it’s too tiring to travel morning and night. It’s understandable that he likes to live in the guard station.”
Emperor Yuanyou: “Before Sister enter the palace, why didn’t he feel tired? It shows that in his heart, serving Sister is more important than serving his parents.”
The young man wanted to cheer his sister up, but instead of smiling, his sister glared at him.
Empress Dowager Qi picked up a for her son and said, “Eat it. This dish tastes good today.”
Emperor Yuanyou: …
The author has something to say:
Old Four: Give me back my wife!