Matters in the palace had always been handled by the empress; for the sake of convenience, the empress ought to be notified of the situation with Su Huailing. Of course, she could easily be notified by sending someone to her with a message; Emperor Jingren had no need to go explain things to the empress in person.

But the emperor and empress were on good terms, and Emperor Jingren had just spent a peaceful night with the empress. He thought about it and decided to go tell the empress himself tonight.

So that evening, Emperor Jingren didn’t turn over any token but went straight to Qifeng Hall. All the consorts and concubines had their own sources of information. Not long after Emperor Jingren decided to go to the empress, the four consorts learned of it.

For Emperor Jingren, today was an ordinary day. But for these people in the palace, it was a terrible day. The empress had confiscated all their incense. The four consorts were in fact all on tenterhooks, afraid lest Emperor Jingren should decide to turn over one of their tokens tonight. If they didn’t have the incense then, were they really supposed to bodily enter the fray? Many people objected, but what good were objections? The empress’s actions were perfectly reasonable. Even if they took this all the way to the empress dowager or the emperor, it would do no good. Anyway, Emperor Jingren had always been biased in favor of the empress. He was sure to support her.

This time, because he hadn’t made a spur of the moment decision, when Emperor Jingren arrived, the empress was already magnificently dressed and waiting for him. But the empress’s magnificent attire… Emperor Jingren looked the empress over in silence and at last said only, “In the future, except on formal occasions, there is no need for you to dress so elaborately. What you were wearing this morning looked good. It suited you very well.”

“Receiving Your Majesty is a formal occasion.” Smiling, the empress loosened Emperor Jingren’s clothes for him and removed his outer robe, revealing a bright yellow inner robe. He seemed a little thin, a whole size smaller than the empress.

“Your Majesty has lost weight,” the empress said in concern. “Your Majesty attends to so many pressing affairs every day. You must look after your health. But it isn’t enough to pay attention to what you eat. You also need to limber up regularly. Martial training isn’t necessary, but just moving around is good for your health.”

This warmed Emperor Jingren’s heart. The consorts and concubines also expressed concern about his health, but their method of showing concern was always to send him food, drink, and medicine, as if he were a pig they were fattening up. Their true goal wasn’t to promote his health but to demonstrate how good their private kitchens were. Emperor Jingren wasn’t so naive that he would believe all that food had been personally made by the consorts and concubines. With their pampered hands and their wrists that couldn’t even hold up a vegetable chopper, how could they really do any cooking? When they said they had made it themselves, they probably meant they had put the food on a plate at the very end. Emperor Jingren understood all this; there was simply no need to expose it.

But the empress was different. If she thought Emperor Jingren needed to eat something, she would instruct the imperial kitchens to make the best type. And now, she was not only concerned about Emperor Jingren’s diet, she was also concerned about him in other ways that had nothing to do with vying for his favor. This pleased Emperor Jingren.

When he thought of the empress’s bold and martial appearance this morning, Emperor Jingren felt worked up. He thought that this kind of empress was quite good. She had her own sort of beauty. It was different from those common painted lovelies, but there was no denying that the empress was beautiful.

Emperor Jingren suddenly took the empress’s hand. It wasn’t a soft hand, but rather rough, with calloused fingertips and palm, which must have come from years of weapons training. It wasn’t mild and fragrant, but it was moving in its own way.

“We will do our best to move around in the future. Do you have time to accompany us in this?” Emperor Jingren asked, looking up at the empress.

Naturally this kind of request couldn’t be refused. Smiling, the empress said, “It would be my honor. Actually, I have some insight into this. Morning exercises are best. Why don’t you join your subject wife for morning exercise tomorrow, Your Majesty?”

“Of course.” Emperor Jingren smiled too. He lightly stroked the empress’s palm with his fingertips and said very suggestively, “Actually, tonight…we would also like to limber up with you, Empress.”

Of course, the emperor didn’t need to ask permission when he wanted to sleep with one of his wives; he could just hold her down and get on with it. Emperor Jingren was in fact saying this only for the sake of sentiment. It was already quite remarkable that he could be tempted by an empress who was taller, sturdier, and stronger than him.

But the empress quietly removed her hand from his and cast down her eyes. “It is that time of the month for me. I am unable to serve Your Majesty.”

Emperor Jingren’s expression was a little taken aback.

The palace had people responsible for keeping track of the women’s menses; if one of them couldn’t receive him on a given day, her token wouldn’t be brought to Emperor Jingren. Emperor Jingren understood this. Of course, there were some women who must have had bleeding disorders, as their tokens never appeared; Emperor Jingren had no interest in learning of the mysteries behind this.

Only one person had no need to present the emperor a token carved with her name like the consorts and concubines. According to custom, the emperor had to spend the night with the empress a few days each month, even if they did nothing but chat. So the empress’s menses… It wasn’t that there was no record, but the timing was quite variable, and it depended entirely on the empress’s account of herself.

Emperor Jingren’s face showed clear signs of disappointment. He truly had a deep reverence for his first wife and wanted to have respectful martial relations with her. But if they couldn’t, then that was that. There would be time for it later.

Generally speaking, a woman’s husband shouldn’t stay with her during her time of the month, but Emperor Jingren didn’t want to leave, and the empress didn’t mention it, so the two of them sat around casually, discussing things inside and outside the palace.

Emperor Jingren explained the matter of Su Huailing. He said, “Regardless of whether Su Huailing is a spy, by law she ought to be executed. But Yan Xu swears up and down that this woman has extraordinarily good fortune. If that is true, the situation must be approached with a view toward the long run. Though it is said that the wise man has no truck with portents and spirits, there are some things one must still take care about. On close examination, this thing is most peculiar. In order to determine whether Su Huailing is truly what Yan Xu says she is, we have sent her to the cold palace, and dispatched people to keep watch and see whether she truly can avert all disaster.”

The empress was a little startled when she heard that Emperor Jingren had sent Su Huailing to the cold palace, but her expression quickly returned to normal. After hearing Emperor Jingren out, she nodded. “I will dispatch people to look out and make sure no one interferes with Your Majesty’s plans.”

Emperor Jingren felt very secure. With this, he put the matter of Su Huailing aside.

Everyone thought that the emperor, as the most powerful man in the realm, could do anything he wanted. But in reality, that wasn’t the case. To be an emperor, especially to be a good ruler, one had to keep many restrictions in mind. For example, he knew very well that a certain chancellor of state had too much influence, yet for the sake of stability, he had to leave him where he was; he could only make careful plans to shake his power bit by bit while supporting another faction to rival the chancellor. At the same time, he had to make sure that faction did not grow too powerful and produce another chancellor of state like the first. Only by skillfully maintaining an equilibrium among his courtiers could he truly do what he wanted and benefit the people.

Currently, State Chancellor Li monopolized power at court, while Grand Secretary Lin, who had Emperor Jingren’s support, appeared weak; he always came off the worst in clashes with the party represented by Chancellor Li. Moreover, the upright party was utterly inflexible in certain areas, making it difficult to realize some of Emperor Jingren’s decrees.

Lately, Emperor Jingren had wanted to promulgate a new law that would raise the class of merchants and take money from the hands of certain merchants who were extremely wealthy but of low class, and put that money back in the hands of the farmers. The specific method of doing this was raising business taxes and lowering agricultural taxes, as well as purchasing cattle in certain areas with infertile soil that the locals could rent during spring plowing. These measures would benefit the nation and the people, but raising business taxes would hurt certain people’s interests, so some powerful merchants were sure to interfere behind the scenes. In order to make it easier to put this law into effect, Emperor Jingren had decided to first give advantages to some merchants, for example that if a merchant family paid over a certain amount in taxes, their descendants would be eligible to participate in the imperial examinations.

Society was divided into the four classes of scholars, farmers, artisans, and merchants. Of these, merchants held the lowest position; they belonged to the inferior class. Once you belonged to the inferior class, no matter how rich you were, your descendants were ineligible for the imperial examinations. Emperor Jingren’s action could be described as a break with historical tradition; the upright party swore they would rather die than accept it, and Grand Secretary Lin had struck his head against a pillar on the spot, wanting to go down in history for protesting with his life.

“That old clod Lin Hongxi!” Because it felt so comfortable to pour his heart out to the empress, Emperor Jingren grew angrier and angrier as he spoke. “He buries his head in the sand when he’s supposed to be dealing with Chancellor Li, but when we want to put a new law into effect, he’s the first to stick out his neck, as if he’d like nothing better than for us to cut off his head to put the final seal on his loyalty!”

“Your Majesty is acting for the good of the nation and the people.” The empress didn’t join him in grumbling about Grand Secretary Lin but supported him with her confidence in his methods.

“He’s injured his head, so we have permitted him to go home to rest. The new law has been temporarily shelved. That old clod was smiling when they carried him out!” Emperor Jingren said furiously.

An empress ought not meddle in politics, but seeing Emperor Jingren infuriated because he couldn’t put his new law into effect, she said tactfully, “Actually…Your Majesty could very easily foist this on Chancellor Li, with no need to meet the upright party head on.”

Emperor Jingren was no fool. At the empress’s slight hint, he understood what she meant.

Looking at his thoughtful expression, the empress smiled and said, “Your Majesty, it’s late. You should rest.”

“All right…” Emperor Jingren nodded pensively, but he showed no signs of lying down. Therefore, he found himself pushed down onto the bed by the empress, and he heard the empress’s slightly frustrated voice in his ear—

“Go to sleep.”

It seemed as if she were scolding him, but her concern for his well-being was evident. Emperor Jingren felt rather comfortable. He simply tossed aside his own quilt and lay down under the empress’s.

The empress was very still.

Did he have to put his arms around her waist? If he went any lower, the game would be up!