Echoes of My Heart Throughout the Court

Checkout the new novel I started. In the Years When I Was a Father I Started this novel because I was looking for something to read after my last novel - I Don’t Want To Be Reborn and this came to be. I really wanted to read it, so I started the translation myself. There will be no fixed schedule for this particular novel. Please support on KoFi to provide you with more exciting novels.

Lian Hang wasn’t sure if he was imagining things, but he felt that the moment Xu Lang heard what he said and turned to look at the Whispering Words Teahouse again, a spark of light seemed to flicker in his eyes.

Xu Yanmiao turned back to Lian Hang, eyes full of anticipation. “Lian Lang! I’m really curious about what’s inside that teahouse!”

Lian Hang understood immediately. “Let’s go! Let’s take a look!”

He had never really been curious about it before, so he only knew vaguely of the teahouse’s existence, and nothing more.

But as the two approached the entrance, they were stopped.

Four ex-monks, now laymen, stood in two neat rows. Two wore martial attire, their muscles visibly bulging beneath their clothes; the other two wore scholars’ robes, with refined features and gentle temperaments.

—A lineup designed to precisely catch the eyes of passing young maidens, married women, and noble ladies alike. The goal: to avoid losing potential customers due to a single aesthetic type.

[Wow! Talk about targeted marketing!]

Xu Yanmiao was disappointed but respectful.

“Then I suppose we—” He had just turned to speak to Lian Hang when he saw a group of Jinyiwei in flying fish uniforms approaching from not far off. He quickly stepped aside to give them room.

The Jinyiwei made a beeline for the teahouse. Just as one of the ex-monks cautiously began to ask, “Honored officer, are you perhaps here to…?”—worrying whether to stop them if they tried to barge in—the Jinyiwei spoke politely: “Would you please relay a message to Her Highness, Princess Qinghe? There is an urgent matter requiring her presence outside.”

—Princess Qinghe had come under her real name.

Someone went inside. A moment later, Princess Qinghe appeared at the teahouse entrance, her smile thin and insincere. “What’s the matter?”

The Jinyiwei led her aside and whispered a few words. Whatever annoyance had been on her face vanished, replaced instantly with concern, her brows knitting together.

She returned to the staff inside and instructed them to treat her honored guest well, and asked them to relay a message: something had come up at home, and she needed to leave for now.

Just before departing, she caught sight of Xu Yanmiao standing curiously to one side. She mentally gauged his significance and raised her voice deliberately: “Xu Lang, accompany this princess to the palace! There’s an urgent matter!”

Xu Yanmiao entered the princess’s carriage, which sped toward the imperial palace at full tilt.

Inside, he learned what was going on. “His Majesty is ill?!”

Princess Qinghe sat on the right side of the carriage, frowning slightly. “Yes. They say he collapsed suddenly—now he’s bedridden and can’t get up.”

Xu Yanmiao hesitated. “But… did His Majesty summon me?”

“Nope,” Princess Qinghe leaned lazily against the side of the carriage, her smile charming. “I just figured, at a time like this, my father might want to see all his relatives.”

Xu Yanmiao: “?”

The Jinyiwei outside: “……”

So it turns out that, just like Prince Tang, Princess Qinghe also suspects Xu Lang might be His Majesty’s illegitimate son?

Well then, Your Highness, you guessed wrong.

—Whether it’s about the illegitimate son theory or the assumption that the emperor wanted to see Xu Lang in the first place.

The old emperor furrowed his brows the moment he saw Xu Yanmiao. “Why are you here?”

Xu Yanmiao replied, “Her Highness said Your Majesty was unwell. This humble servant was concerned. Fortunately, Princess Qinghe kindly offered me a ride.”

The old emperor shot a discreet glare at his meddling daughter.

Did she not realize he was actively avoiding Xu Yanmiao right now?! And here she was, bringing him right to his door!

After the glare, he turned back to Xu Yanmiao. “Fine. I’m alright. Now that you’ve seen me, you can leave. If you’re really that worried, go help sort through those useless memorials.”

Review memorials?!

Princess Qinghe, standing to the side, pouted slightly.

And they still say he’s not an illegitimate son.

Having heard the emperor’s words, Xu Yanmiao could only bow and take his leave. “Then I shall head to Wuying Hall.”

He caught a glimpse as he turned—he wasn’t the only one visiting the emperor. Several Prime Ministers and ministers were present too, along with a few second- and third-rank officials. Today was an official rest day, and those present had been at Wuying Hall earlier for a policy meeting. The rest of the officials, who hadn’t been involved in the meeting, still didn’t know the emperor was sick.

—The old emperor had deliberately kept the news under wraps, fearing Xu Yanmiao would find out.

[Though that’s odd… If the emperor is sick, why does he still seem so full of energy? Doesn’t look sick at all!]

[Let me see…]

[Ohhh! I thought it was something like a cold or fever, but turns out—he threw out his back.]

[Sounds pretty serious too. He can’t even bend down?!]

[Fortunately, the imperial physicians say it’s treatable.]

As Xu Yanmiao stepped out of the room, he could still hear the old emperor talking loudly to Princess Qinghe behind him: “Mmm! When you get old, your bones soften and your back starts acting up! No big deal! What could possibly happen to me—oh, right, go walk Xu Yanmiao out. Since you brought him here, you can see him off to Wuying Hall. Go on, go on—don’t let him catch my sick air!”

[The old emperor really loves his daughter—still worrying about passing on his illness at a time like this.]

The emperor was nearly pushing her out the door. “Go on now! Qinghe!”

[I wonder if the gossip system can pinpoint the root cause of the illness. I’ll dig around. The imperial doctors say it’s treatable, but who knows if the process will involve detours and suffering.]

[The old emperor’s nearly seventy—how much hardship can he still endure?]

The emperor suddenly sat up with a swoosh, then with a pained “hiss—”, flopped right back down.

The nearly seventy-year-old Empress Dou couldn’t help laughing and crying at once. “Stop flailing around. Getting scolded a little won’t kill you.”

The emperor’s tiger-like eyes welled up with tears. “Empress… you don’t understand…”

[Wait, what?! The emperor’s back pain is from… sleeping with the former Minister of Revenue?]

The emperor: “……”

Empress Dou: “……”

The officials visiting to check on the emperor nearly twisted their own backs.

What do you mean “from sleeping with him”?!

A certain sixty-six-year-old official with the surname Gao felt the shocked gaze of his lifelong wife and suddenly felt very bleak. “Empress… you have to believe me. I only slept next to him last night. It was just normal sleeping!”

Empress Dou: “……”

In truth, she was only shocked that just sleeping could cause back pain. Her thoughts hadn’t gone in that direction at all.

She didn’t realize that her husband’s thinking had started to shift—into bizarre and bewildering territory.

—After all, who in their right mind would suspect that a sixty-six-year-old man and a sixty-four-year-old man were still… ahem… tangling under the sheets?

…Surely no one would think that, right?

Empress Dou glanced sideways at the Prime Ministers and ministers whose expressions had turned rather odd, and she started to doubt her own judgment.

Surely… they couldn’t have actually believed it?

The Left and Right Prime Ministers, along with several ministers, noticed the empress’s gaze and suddenly felt an itch in their throats. They had a very strong urge to cough.

Meanwhile, the true culprit who started all this was still merrily working on expanding the Great Xia court’s capacity for accepting chaos: [Woooow! Swearing to the heavens! Whispered sweet nothings! Sleeping with toes touching! This is peak feudal emperor-level affection right here!]

[Minister Yuan must be overwhelmed with emotion—absolutely moved!]

The other ministers looked at Minister Yuan in stunned disbelief.

“You sly old fox!”

To think he managed to get the emperor to call him back so soon. Barely five months had passed!

Last time, the shortest stretch had taken half a year!

Minister Yuan gave a small, modest smile.

[And then, while they were sleeping toe-to-toe that night, he kicked the emperor right in the back in his sleep—AHAHAHAHAHA!]

Minister Yuan gave an awkward smile.

The emperor… also gave an awkward smile.

The two of them exchanged a glance, both wondering just how this incident was going to be recorded in the Veritable Records!

What should’ve been a touching tale of reconciliation between ruler and minister, of two men sleeping peacefully side by side, had now forcibly turned into “The Minister laid his foot upon the Emperor’s waist.” How was that even acceptable?!

Had their Great Xia’s official histories become unreadable? And now even the Veritable Records were going off the rails?

[Wait a minute!]

[So Minister Yuan, though touched by the emperor lowering himself, was still mad, and that kick to the emperor’s waist—was intentional?!]

[He knew he was a restless sleeper and deliberately didn’t tell the emperor?!]

[666! (Amazing!)]

Xu Lang was shocked. Xu Lang was deeply impressed.

Just how close did you have to be with the emperor to dare pull something like this?!

Meanwhile, the emperor was feeling a little dizzy.

It was over. Even “the minister placed his foot on the emperor’s waist” wasn’t enough anymore! Now it had to be: The emperor, in an attempt to apologize, shared a bed with the minister, sleeping toe-to-toe, but the minister, harboring secret resentment, purposely hid his poor sleeping habits.

What kind of heartwarming ruler-minister story was that?!

Under the strange gazes of his colleagues, Minister Yuan quietly, very quietly, turned his eyes away and started admiring the five-clawed golden dragon carved into a pillar.

As for Empress Dou, this was probably the first time she’d faced such an absurdly sudden plot twist. Her composed smile almost faltered.

[Oh? By the way, why did the emperor recall Minister Yuan to the Ministry of Revenue again?]

The others: Do you even have to ask? Of course it’s because the state treasury’s running low.

[Aha! So there’s a cash flow problem in the treasury!]

Others: See? We told you—

[Oho! The emperor designated Yunnan as the first southern region to pay taxes in silver. The main reason is its distance—every time they ship grain tax, at least one-third is lost to transport costs!]

[The summer tax won’t make it in time, so Yunnan’s first silver tax will be collected with the autumn levy.]

[So before the autumn tax, the emperor sent people to use silver to buy up Yunnan citizens’ copper coins, making it easier for them to later pay taxes in silver.]

[But Yunnan’s copper coinage was a mess. The people in charge of this exchange suffered serious losses, causing expenditures in silver to go up by at least 30%.]

[Tsk! That much? Are we sure it wasn’t embezzled?]

The emperor’s eyes lit up. He sat up a little straighter.

Even though he’d already had the Jinyiwei investigate and found no corruption—it really did seem to be caused by the messy currency system—but still… what if the Jinyiwei just didn’t find the truth?

[Let me check…]

The emperor: Yes, yes! Check it thoroughly!

[Nope, definitely not embezzled.]

[Yunnan’s… or rather the whole country’s private currency system is seriously disordered.]

The former Minister of Revenue suddenly let out a cold laugh—completely unrestrained.

The Left Prime Minister asked cautiously, “Minister Yuan… are you… alright?”

The former minister’s expression grew increasingly grim. “I’m great.”

You all better listen up—I’m gonna tell you exactly how I’ve been cleaning up the messes of Great Xia… and even the previous dynasty!

You think being Minister of Revenue is easy? That it’s just about managing money?

Do you know—according to little Bai Ze—the previous dynasty crashed their own economy through financial mismanagement?

Do you know it took me over thirty years to barely piece together a half-decent national economy?

No, you don’t know anything. All you know is how to stretch out your hands and ask the treasury for more money!

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