Chapter 42

 

A medium-sized double-decker pleasure boat that could accommodate twenty to thirty people was parked on the waterside of the lakeside pier. It had a glazed roof and mica windows, and was decorated with utmost luxury. Even the wood used for the doors and windows was not ordinary wood. When one got on board, one could smell the faint natural sandalwood scent emanating from the hull, which seems to come from a precious kind of yellow sandalwood from Jiaozhi (Vietnam).

The palace eunuch standing at the bow took her into the cabin, and she found that not only the doors and windows, but all the wooden furniture in this cabin, from the big beds, screens, desks, to small Ruyi stand, were made of this yellow sandalwood. As for the other utensils, such as the gold-ivory plate filled with fresh fruits on the desk, the gold-plated and silver-plated wine jars, tea pitcher, vases, as well as gold-plated and silver-plated goblets, bowls, spoons and chopsticks… they were also rich and luxurious, truly dazzling to the eyes.

It turned out that this boat was a pleasure boat that His Highness the Crown Prince ordered to be built and sent to welcome Prince Ning back to the capital after he left office. Before this, it had never been brought to the middle of the lake. The many young men and women who came today originally planned to go on a cruise, but they didn’t expect that Ashina and County Prince Shizi led a team to play polo, so the cruise plan was cancelled.

Li Wanwan, though usually carefree and always lamenting not being born a man, often found her younger brother too timid—afraid of this, hesitant about that, yet, how could she not love her one and only brother? Although Lu Wenjun had a rather spoiled personality and was a generation higher than the siblings, the three had grown up playing together and had a very good relationship. That morning, after Li Hui’s horseback accident, they both were filled with regret and fear. While Prince Ning did not overly blame his granddaughter and niece, the two of them were deeply ashamed and had lost interest in playing any further. Both planning to leave, but they were dissuaded by Feng SilangSilang is not his name, it just means he’s the fourth in the family, but calling it Fourth Young Master is long, the son of the Feng family, who encouraged them to take a boat ride to lift their spirits. Moreover, he wasn’t alone—taking advantage of the end of the banquet when everyone had gone to Liangfeng Terrace, he secretly invited Prince Kang, Li Ze, to join them as well.

Feng Silang was the youngest son of Feng Zhenping, who had an extraordinary literary talent. When he was a teenager, he wrote poems and essays that were praised by famous scholars in Chang’an. Therefore, he was quite loved by Feng Zhenping. The Feng family had high hopes for this son. In addition to hoping that he would pass the imperial examination and become a Jinshisuccessful candidate in the highest imperial civil service examination in the future, they also hope that he could marry Li Wanwan. If the marriage was successful, to become in-law with Prince Ning would always be a great help in the future.

As for Prince Kang, Li Ze, he had also reached the age where marriage and the selection of consort were being discussed. Recently, he knew that he might marry one of Wang Zhang’s granddaughters. He had seen that girl before. She was plain-looking and he didn’t like her. Moreover, he had always been infatuated with his cousin Lu Wenjun. Although she had an arrogant temperament, she was undeniably beautiful. Now that he knew he would marry into the Wang family, he realized that marrying Lu Wenjun, with her noble lineage—her mother being the grand princess and her father a high-ranking official in the Imperial Secretariat, from the esteemed Lu clan, famous alongside the Cui family—would make it difficult for her to accept the role of a concubine. But he had not completely given up. Just now, encouraged by Feng Siliang, knowing that she was also on the boat, he saw this as an opportunity to win her favor. Thus, he quietly slipped away from the main group to join them.

Xuyu saw that the two girls on horseback that morning were in the cabin.

Li Wanwan sat on a sandalwood bed decorated with gold flowers, while Lu Wenjun leaned against the window to look at the lake view. There were two other young men. One of them was Prince Kang, and the other was about the same age that she had never seen before, but the palace eunuch had already informed her in advance at the bow of the boat that he was Feng Silang, the son of the Feng family. At this moment, Prince Kang was accompanying Lu Wenjun, while Feng Silang was trying to amuse Li Wanwan. However, no matter what he said, Li Wanwan never answered and was not interested until Xuyu came in, and then she turned her two dark eyes and looked at her.

After Xuyu bowed, then stood aside. Li Wanwan immediately sat up, exchanged glances with Lu Wenjun, and asked Prince Kang and Feng Silang to leave.

The two looked unwilling.

Lu Wenjun frowned, “We’re asking him to paint our portraits, so what are the two of you doing standing around watching? How are we supposed to feel at ease?”

Although Prince Kang was a prince, they were all relatives and had grown up together, so they spoke casually in private. Not to mention, Lu Wenjun knew that Prince Kang was interested in her, so she was even less polite.

Prince Kang had no choice but to turn to Xuyu and ordered her to paint properly. He then went out of the cabin with Feng Silang.

As soon as the two of them left, Lu Wenjun immediately went over to close the door, then sat down next to Li Wanwan, looked Xuyu up and down a few times, and started whispering to Li Wanwan.

It was unknown what she said, but Li Wanwan sneered and hit Lu Wenjun hard. The two of them laughed so hard that they almost fell from the couch.

The fragrant wood with a refreshing aroma, the cabin decorated luxuriously and comfortably, and the beautiful, innocent and lively girls.

Xuyu looked at this scene and couldn’t help but curl up the corners of her lips slightly, and her mood became cheerful.

Lu Wenjun stopped laughing first, pointed at the painting table, and asked Xuyu to paint the two of them.

Xuyu asked what kind of scene they wanted the painting depicted. Lu Wenjun said it was up to her. Xuyu then walked to the table, spread out the plain paper, ground the ink and mixed the colors, and painted the scene of the two girls playing and fighting on the bed.

As she was painting, the people opposite her were talking among themselves in a low voice, as if she didn’t exist.

“I heard that the Wolf Court Prince has asked the His Majesty for a marriage. What do you think? Will His Majesty really make one of us a princess and marry him?”

Lu Wenjun asked Li Wanwan, using a small silver skewer with a gold rhinoceros head to pick up a lychee that had been split in half and had the core removed from the ivory plate, and sent it into her mouth.

Li Wanwan swallowed the rich and sweet fruit and shook her head: “I don’t know. Anyway, I don’t want to! My grandfather and my mother will definitely not want it either!”

“But if His Majesty chooses you, even if Uncle and Sister-in-law doesn’t want to, I’m afraid there’s nothing you can do.”

“Who said it would definitely be me? It could very well be you! When you get married, you’ll follow that man to herd sheep every day, sleep on the ground, and drink fishy raw goat milk! Oh, and give birth to a wolf cub that can start running as soon as it lands on the ground!”

After hearing this, Lu Wenjun’s face changed. She dropped the small silver stick and rushed towards Li Wanwan, tickling her non-stop: “Okay! I always thought you were a good person, but you made fun of me like this!”

Li Wanwan kept groaning and hiding, and finally begged Lu Wenjun to stop, and only then did she could breathe.

After playing around just now, Lu Wenjun herself was out of breath. After resting for a moment, she knelt by the edge of the bed and, in a disdainful tone, continued, “I will never marry someone like that! People who sleep in felt tents are all stinky and smell like mutton, and they have lice on their bodies!”

A look of disgust appeared on her pretty face.

“I also heard that he had affairs with many of the singing girls in Pingkang Lane, and I don’t know how many brocade bags he had received from them!”

At this point, her expression was more than just disgust; it almost turned into gnashing of teeth in hatred.

Li Wanwan laughed: “You still say you don’t like him? If you don’t like him, how come you know all this?”

Lu Wenjun’s cheeks flushed with anger, and she fiercely pounced on her and tried to tickle her again. Li Wanwan hurriedly jumped off the bed and hid behind Xuyu.

“Don’t worry about me first! Isn’t he acquainted with Master Pei? Master Pei is also a good friend of that Hu person! You asked me to call him here just to ask him questions, right? He is here now, and there’s no one else in the cabin, so why are you still pretending? Just ask what you want to ask already! I won’t laugh at you!”

Lu Wenjun had seen Chengping at a family banquet before and had a good impression of him. She also heard that he had asked the emperor for a marriage. If Li Wanwan was unwilling to marry, there was a chance that the person chosen would likely be her. She wanted to get close to him, but for some reason, he seemed to always avoiding her, which made her angry and curious. At this moment, Li Wanwan’s words revealed her thoughts, and she calmed down instead. She looked at Xuyu and said, “Do you know him? Is he really smelly and infested with lice, and still mingles with those singing girls in Pingkang Lane?”

Xuyu shook her head: “It’s impossible to have lice. As for mingling with singing girls…”

She really couldn’t guarantee this. Going in and out of brothels and mingling with singing girls there was not considered obscene in the eyes of people today. It all depended on the man’s personal preference and whether he was keen on it.

She paused and said vaguely: “I really don’t know about this. I’m not familiar with him.”

A look of disappointment flashed across Lu Wenjun’s beautiful eyes.

At this time, Li Wanwan walked up to her, put her arm around her shoulders and coaxed her, “It’s fine! If this person is beyond hope, you can pick someone else. I think today’s Master Pei is very good! And there’s also the son of the Yuwen family who recently came to the capital. They are all very good-looking. Which one do you like, if you can’t say it yourself, I’ll help you talk to Grandaunt!”

Lu Wenjun was coaxed into laughing: “You’re still talking about me! Think about yourself first! If you have a crush on a man, be sure to tell me. No matter how much I like him, I won’t compete with you!”

Li Wanwan didn’t care and waved her hand.

“What men? None of them are any good! Even if they’re not the kind who curry favor with the powerful and treat you well, they still value you as their property! I don’t want any of them! I only hate Heavens for making a mistake, letting me be born a woman! If I could switch bodies with my brother, both he and I would be better off! Since I can’t be a son, I’ll just muddle through for a few more years. When I get older, I’ll become a Taoist nun, and live a carefree life, wouldn’t that be better?”

Lu Wenjun made a face: “I heard that the more famous the Taoist nuns in the capital, the more men they interact! Could it be you also want to be like that in the future, unrestrained, doing whatever you want, and be with whoever you want?”

Li Wanwan curled her lips in disdain and walked back to Xuyu’s side. She looked at the painting she was working on and was immediately attracted by it. After looking at it for a while, she pointed at the smiling girl in the painting and asked, “Is this me?”

Although it was just the first time they met, Xuyu intuitively liked these two girls who were a few years younger than her. When painting Li Wanwan, she focused on her heroic spirit and nodded in agreement.

“What a great painting!” Li Wanwan smiled, “I look so pretty!”

Xuyu almost laughed out loud, but quickly held it back.

Lu Wenjun, who was sitting on the couch, heard this and hurried over to look at what she had drawn. Suddenly, the boat shook, and the ink on Xuyu’s brush splashed onto the paper, leaving a trail of ink dots.

 

The boat had reached the center of the lake. The wind and waves were stronger than those on the shore, and the hull had been shaking slightly, but it was all normal swaying.

But this time it was a little different. It shook so violently that not only did Xuyu splash out the ink, but Lu Wenjun, who was walking over, also lost her balance, her feet slipped, and she fell to the ground with a cry.

“What’s going on!”

Li Wanwan stamped her feet angrily, turned around to open the door, and was about to ask what was going on when Li Ze and Feng Silang rushed over in panic, shouting, “Oh no, the boat is leaking!”

Xuyu was startled, put down her brush, helped Lu Wenjun up from the ground, and walked out of the cabin together.

She thought it was just a common leak – although it sounded outrageous. How could the boat sent by the crown prince for today’s amusement would leak? But she never expected that the truth she learned soon was even more terrible than she thought.

A moment ago, the boatman on the lower deck discovered that water was steadily flowing into the bottom of the cabin. He went down to check and found that a section of the hull could not withstand the impact of the wind and waves in the center of the lake and broke apart, leaving a hole several feet long and several fingers wide.

With such a huge breach, the water would surge in very quickly. When the boatman found that the bottom of the bilge had flooded, it was already beyond repair and he could only watch the water creep higher and higher and the boat gradually sink.

If this trip went according to the original plan, there was no need to be too scared, because it was impossible for there to be only one boat traveling, there must be many other boats around.

However, now the boat had reached the middle of the lake, with a vast expanse of water surrounding it, and a distant shore. At the speed at which the boat was sinking, it would take at most an incense stick of time, and it would not be able to reach the shore at all.

Prince Kang Li Ze, Feng Silang and the two county princesses were used to wear fine clothes and eat delicious food, always escorted by servants when they go in and out. None of them knows how to swim.

What was even worse was that since this was a private trip, they did not bring many people with them. Besides them, there were only six to seven guards and palace eunuch, plus five to six boatmen on the boat.

After asking around, they found that most of these palace guards were from the north, and only two of them could swim, while the rest were landlubbers.

The sky was also a hindrance, the originally sunny weather in the morning had turned cloudy in the afternoon. At this moment when the boat stopped in the middle of the lake, the sky was even more overcast. The wind blew and the waves surged, making the blue water lost its color and became dark and boundless, as if a summer rain was about to come.

Everyone on the boat was in a panic. Feng Silang rushed to the bow and yelled at the shore, shouting for help. However, his voice was torn into pieces by the strong wind in the center of the lake as soon as he uttered it. He kept yelling until he was exhausted. Finally, he fell down on the deck with a pale face, his teeth chattering, and he was trembling: “Your Highness! You have to think of a way! Are we going to drown? I don’t want to die! I don’t want to die! I will become a Jinshi next year!”

Li Wanwan was holding onto the hatch, feeling at a loss. Seeing Feng Silang like this, she was furious. With her eyes wide open, she managed to steady herself, staggered to Feng Silang, raised her boot and kicked him while cursing, “You useless pus! If you want to die, die first! Don’t take us with you!”

Feng Silang was kicked by her and fell to the deck, whimpering and crying.

“Your Highness, what should we do? What should we do? Think of a solution quickly!”

Lu Wenjun’s face was pale. While calling Li Wanwan, asking her to come back, she turned to Li Ze and asked for help in a trembling voice.

Li Ze also looked pale.

When Feng Silang was crying just now, he said nothing. At this moment, a cold look flashed across his face, and he suddenly gave an order, ordering the palace eunuchs who could not swim to jump into the lake themselves.

Those people reacted, knowing that he was trying to slow down the sinking of the ship, they turned around and tried to escape. Li Ze drew out his sword and stabbed the chest of the palace eunuch closest to him, then kicked the half-dead man into the water. He then turned around and shouted at the remaining guards who were still standing there and hadn’t reacted: “What are you waiting for? If you don’t want to die, do as I say!”

The men shuddered, gritted their teeth and chased after them. After a brief scuffle, several people who could not swim were thrown into the lake. Seeing them struggling and waving their hands in the water, and soon disappearing, Lu Wenjun was so scared that she also collapsed to the ground, hugging Li Wanwan and crying bitterly.

However, what help could reducing the load of few people provided?

In a moment, the belly of the ship should have been filled with water, and the hull suddenly dropped a bit, sinking at a speed visible to the naked eye.

Li Ze also began to show anxiety and kept walking back and forth on the deck.

A moment later, the water surface had risen to within a few inches of the side of the boat. As the wind and waves surged, more lake water continued to flood in, and everywhere was getting wet.

Feng Silang, who had just collapsed on the deck, was hit in the face by a wave of lake water that surged onto the deck. He coughed, got up and rushed into Li Wanwan’s cabin. When he came out, he was seen dragging a table that seemed to be able to support his weight and pushing it into the lake. The table floated up and down on the water. He desperately lay on the table and grabbed the legs of the table with both hands.

Li Wanwan and Lu Wenjun were stunned.

Xuyu felt something was wrong and shouted, “No! Come back quickly!”

These pieces of furniture were dense and hard, and may float if thrown into water alone, but they definitely could not support even the weight of a child, much less a grown person.

Feng Silang turned a deaf ear to the words and pushed his legs hard, sliding forward on the tabletop on the water. In an instant he freed himself from the sinking pleasure boat and left without looking back.

After drifting several feet away, the table under him slowly sank.

“Help! Help!”

He looked back desperately at the people on the boat, hoping that someone would lend him a helping hand.

“Save–”

His last voice was swallowed by the surging lake water, and he quickly sank.

Suddenly, the table that had just disappeared slowly floated on the water surface again and swayed away with the waves.

Feng Silang was completely submerged and disappeared.

Li Wanwan finally couldn’t hold it in anymore and burst into tears.

“Your Highness! What should we do? The ship is about to sink!”

A guard asked Li Ze anxiously.

Li Ze’s eyes turned red like a trapped animal. He looked around and suddenly saw something. He yelled, “Cut it down! Cut it down quickly!”

What he was pointing to was a wooden pole at the bow used to hoist the flag.

The pole was made of ordinary poplar wood, about the thickness of a woman’s arm, but it seemed to be the only available object that could be used to support floating on the water at the moment.

The guard drew his sword, chopped it off quickly, and placed it on the lake. Li Ze ordered a guard to go into the water to try it out. The man hugged the wooden pole and sank a little, but it was able to support a person’s weight and not be completely submerged like Feng Silang just now.

“Hurry! Go down!” He pointed at the guards and the boatmen who were kneeling beside him.

“And you all, get down!”

“Push it to help me get ashore! When I come back, you will all be rewarded handsomely!”

Li Ze yelled. Everyone immediately jumped into the water and held onto the wooden pole.

Li Ze walked quickly to the side of the boat and was about to get into the water. At this moment, behind him, Lu Wenjun cried out, “Your Highness! Don’t you care about us at all?”

Li Ze stopped and looked back at Lu Wenjun who was crying and Li Wanwan who was looking at him with wide eyes. He gritted his teeth and said, “County Princess, Sister, you hold on! When I get ashore, I will bring people back to rescue you immediately!”

After he finished speaking, he turned his head away, went into the water, hugged the wooden pole tightly, and ordered to leave.

Soon, pushed by the seven to eight people, the wooden pole carried him away up and down, and the crying of the two girls could no longer be heard in the wind.

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