Actually, had they done it the empress’s way, he and Emperor Jingren would have snuck out alone to view the lanterns, and then Emperor Jingren would have solved some lantern riddles and given him a few lanterns. The empress was confident that he would be able to protect Emperor Jingren. Even if anything happened at the lantern market, it wouldn’t matter. But it was Emperor Jingren inviting him out this time, and even though he was going incognito, he still needed to have some guards to protect him, as well as some senior officials to accompany him, so the whole procession made it unmistakable that someone important was out on the town.

Many emperors went out to share the celebrations of their people on holidays like the Lantern Festival, but Emperor Jingren hadn’t done it before. This time, he thought that if he didn’t choose to go himself, the empress was sure to force him out again, so he might as well embrace precedent; it would give him a chance to see the lives of the common people too.

But while an emperor could go out into the world in disguise, an empress had to stay in the palace like any other wife, behaving as a dignified empress ought to. Therefore, the empress once again transformed into a guard and walked beside Emperor Jingren, while Jing Xixian walked at his other side.

As commander of the Embroidered Guard, Jing Xixian knew many secrets unknown to others. He knew that Emperor Jingren had a personal bodyguard who was identical to the empress, skilled enough to take down a hundred Embroidered Guardsmen alone. With the empress to protect Emperor Jingren, there was a lot less pressure on them. During the assassination attempt at the hunting grounds, the imperial guardsmen who had lost Emperor Jingren had for the most part only had their salaries deducted, and none had been seriously penalized. That was because the empress could stand in for a hundred men, deal with seventy-eight assassins single-handed without letting a single hair on Emperor Jingren’s head come to harm.

In the past, protecting the emperor when he left the palace had been a matter of great anxiety for the Imperial Guard; but now, Jing Xixian wasn’t concerned in the least. With the empress here, he could also enjoy the lanterns.

Considering Su Huailing’s luck, Jing Xixian had also brought her along on this outing. She was following the company dressed as a page, keeping her eyes demurely cast down, not daring to raise her head.

Hearing that Emperor Jingren planned to leave the palace incognito, Grand Secretary Lin, Chancellor Li, and Senior Official Tan had all come along, each of them doing it in the name of protecting His Majesty, but actually taking the Lantern Festival as an opportunity to display themselves before the emperor and demonstrate their abilities. Since Emperor Jingren’s show of strength before the officials on New Year’s Eve, these three ministers had reconsidered their opinion of him.

After New Year’s Eve, the three of them had met up to consult with each other and suddenly found that for the past half year, they had been having a great deal of trouble getting anything done at court; many of their subordinates and adherents had stopped listening to them, and their own wings had been clipped. Yet up till now, they hadn’t even noticed.

All of this had been done without making any waves. This alarmed the three honorable officials. It wasn’t that they weren’t loyal and patriotic; but after enough time in office, anyone would have done a few things that were against the law. Adding it all up, it amounted to enough to earn any one of them a death sentence and the forfeit of all their property. They had to seize every opportunity to observe this youthful but extremely astute emperor and fathom his intentions before they could stabilize their positions at court and ensure that they would one day die natural deaths.

With these three added to it, the company grew. Fortunately, a big crowd of retainers was a requisite for any highborn young master or mistress going out on the town; there were many such enormous companies wandering the lantern market, so these people didn’t attract any particular notice.

The empress had been planning to enjoy this last night before court assemblies began with Emperor Jingren, but their company was so huge that there was no room for him to play around. He could only follow Emperor Jingren in silence, protecting his young emperor.

The lantern market was extravagant, and the faces of all the capital’s citizens were wreathed in smiles. It was clear how happy their lives had been this past year, and how much hope they had for the future. These smiles were more precious to Emperor Jingren than any treasure: the best New Year’s gifts the people could give him.

On the way, Emperor Jingren’s spirits also rose. He took a liking to a simple and cute piglet lantern. The lanterns made by the common people themselves weren’t so exquisite; they were all in the shapes of ordinary domestic beasts. And the very fact that the character for “house” contained the character for “pig” showed that, for ordinary people, this animal was the mark of a successful household. Emperor Jingren thought the silly pig lantern was simply adorable. The riddle was easy to guess, so he gave the answer, took down the lantern, and gave it to the empress.

The empress was taken aback.

He’d had no idea that Emperor Jingren liked piglets. No wonder none of the exquisite lanterns in the palace—those with auspicious symbols on tinted glass, those painted with images of beautiful women, or those made in the shape of the rabbits of the moon—had appealed to him.

As they went, Emperor Jingren also took a liking to a stand selling sugar sculptures and was particularly pleased with one in the form of a door god. He bought it but did not eat it; instead, he gave it to the empress and told him to hold it.

When the emperor’s tastes were too peculiar, it was hard for his subordinates to figure out how to please him. Grand Secretary Lin, Chancellor Li, and Senior Official Tan followed him around, watching him buy a New Year’s cake here and a spring roll there: all crude products that could be purchased for a few copper coins, yet it was clear that Emperor Jingren was delighted with them. After buying them, rather than eat them, he gave them to one of the guards following him. Soon that guard was covered in snacks and trinkets, but when other guards approached trying to carry things for Emperor Jingren, he acted as if he couldn’t see them, continuing to drape that one guard in items.

Gradually, they came to the stand operated by students of the Imperial College. A once in three years conference was being held this year, and the capital was filling up with scholars from all over the land, who were even now matching their erudition against that of the Imperial College students.

Emperor Jingren, intrigued, went over to listen to their battle of essays. Jing Xixian found a chair, and Emperor Jingren sat down, then took the door god sugar sculpture from the guard next to him. He didn’t even lick it, just bit its head straight off and held it in his mouth.

The empress was startled.

He vaguely remembered that Emperor Jingren had once said approvingly to him that he made one feel as safe as a door god… Never mind. It was only a vague memory, so he was better off acting as if he had forgotten.

Students of the Imperial College were either exceptionally talented, or privileged sons of the wealthy and noble. These two camps usually split up, so that even at the lantern market they had two stalls, right across from each other. They had been competing to guess each other’s lantern riddles, but a crowd of out of town scholars had arrived and taken all their lanterns—those of the privileged students, that was. The privileged students hadn’t come to the lantern market to make money; they only wanted to compete with the talented camp. But weren’t the out of town scholars mocking them by taking all their lanterns? Weren’t they implying that their riddles were too shallow?

The most erudite of the privileged students came forward to engage the out of town scholars in an intellectual battle. At first, the other camp from the Imperial College watched the fur fly, but it turned out they were being too complacent; some especially talented out of towners defeated the privileged students, then turned around and said that all the Imperial College’s students were useless. Now the talented camp could no longer stay comfortably on their side of the river watching the fire burn on the opposite shore; they came forward, rolled up their sleeves, and joined in the struggle against the scholars.

Of course, they were all men of learning, so naturally all the blows were struck with words rather than fists. The Imperial College students fought in two camps, with the privileged side occasionally attacking the talented side and the talented side focused on fighting the out of towners but now and again biting back at the privileged side. The out of towners had a particular dislike for the privileged students, who mostly came from money, but what they kept saying was “you Imperial College types,” so the privileged and talented sides had no choice but to alternate between joining forces against them and assailing each other. The three-sided battle grew instantly to glorious proportions, attracting many spectators.

Emperor Jingren and his party ought to have drawn ire by openly sitting down to watch the fun and even eating snacks, but among the spectators was someone even more arrogant than this. Prince Huainan munched melon seeds as he watched, and even shared them with some people from the Court of the Imperial Clan. From time to time he laughed uproariously, so at last the three groups of combatants stopped arguing and aimed their gazes at him.

“And who might you be, sir?” One of the talented students was quite astute; he understood that even an ant crushed beneath the foot of the emperor might be the personal pet of a chancellor of state. The humblest figure here wasn’t someone they could afford to offend. And Prince Huainan was luxuriously dressed. Though he seemed a little eccentric, he exuded high status. The distinguished bearing that came of being raised in the imperial clan couldn’t be matched by the average person.

But some people were less observant. A young man in a robe made of even finer fabric than Prince Huainan’s charged forward and shouted, “Who cares who he is? He spat melon seed shells on my shoes. He’s asking for it! Do you know who I am? I’m the chancellor’s son!”

Prince Huainan’s laughter grew louder. He had already noticed Emperor Jingren sitting next to him watching the battle, as well as the three courtiers surrounded by guards so they couldn’t intervene. He came forward and bowed to Emperor Jingren, not kneeling because the emperor had gone out incognito. “Brother, you have to help me! That’s the chancellor’s son!”

Trapped among the guards, Chancellor Li’s face was nearly bloodless. The two old men next to him smiled craftily, which made him so angry he wanted to grab hold of his ridiculous son and give him a good beating.

“Certainly I’ll help.” Emperor Jingren was surrounded by imperial bodyguards, making it impossible for Young Master Li to break through with his pages to attack Prince Huainan. “But you must tell me what you were laughing at just now.”

“I just thought it was funny to see people fighting in the middle of the street.”

“What part did you find funny? What has this battle of wits today told you?” asked Emperor Jingren.

Prince Huainan handed his bag of melon seeds to the page who had followed him. He arranged his diction and said, “Brother, you know I’m very ignorant. I could hardly understand any of the words they were saying, but I understood the sense. The idea is that there’s always someone more talented out there, and that these scholars who come from all points have more brilliance put together than the Imperial College students, so the Imperial College students were at a disadvantage. But what I don’t understand is, if they were facing a stronger opponent, why did the Imperial College split up into two camps and attack each other instead of joining forces against the external enemy? Maybe if they were working together, they could have scored a victory from a position of weakness. But instead, despite their weakness, they tried to defeat each other in front of outsiders, airing their dirty laundry before the whole capital. The enemy was on their doorstep, and they still put pacifying internal strife ahead of fighting back the invasion. What else could they expect but the enemy employing divide and conquer tactics and thoroughly routing them?”

“You’re right.” At last Emperor Jingren looked at Prince Huainan with a faint smile of approval; this had not happened once before.

Seeing that Young Master Li was still eager to teach Prince Huainan a lesson, Emperor Jingren said, “State Chancellor Li, you may come forward.”

The guards made way, and the grim-faced Chancellor Li emerged. The clamoring brat stopped and said in shock, “Dad, what are you doing here?”

Chancellor Li shot his son a glare, then simply knelt before Emperor Jingren and said, “Your Majesty, my unworthy son has no virtue. Feel free to punish him, Your Majesty!”

His gesture stunned the scholars. Everyone sank to their knees before Emperor Jingren; even Prince Huainan performed a full obeisance.

But while everyone had their heads bowed, Emperor Jingren gave Jing Xixian an approving smile.

Receiving encouragement from the emperor, Jing Xixian gave Su Huailing, concealed in a corner, a thumbs up.

The empress observed all these interactions and let his lips curl up in a faint smile. It seemed that today’s farce had also been staged by the young emperor.