The scene quieted down again, and for a long while, no one spoke.
A few seconds later, Shen Hu’an suddenly laughed and spoke to the Hun Crown Prince with a bit of regret, “Prince, forgive me, my brother-in-law has always been weak and hasn’t practiced riding and shooting for a long time, so he shot a little sideways.”
Lin Shiheng put the bow back into the quiver, and his face also appeared apologetic. He saluted the Hun Crown Prince sitting above and spoke with a warm voice, “I am a civil servant, and my riding and shooting skills are far inferior to those of our soldiers. Since the Prince wanted to compete, we should have had those soldiers who are far better than I come to compete, but it was the prince who somehow came out to compete. So although I am weak, I am still the husband of Princess Huyang and can be regarded as an in-part imperial family member, trying out is only making a joke of myself. I hope the Crown Prince wouldn’t take offense.”
The Prince of Huns, who wanted to hit the other’s face but was hit in his own face, looked stiff, and he was unwilling in his heart. But now that the other party had already given him the steps to dissent, if he doesn’t go down, he may not be able to get down at all later. So, he could only follow with a smile, expressing that there are truly plenty of talents in this country, that even civil servants were so powerful, so of course, they didn’t mind at all.
Lin Shiheng smiled, performed another salute, and sat back in his seat. However, when his hand was raising the cup, his pair of long and slender eyebrows slightly and unnoticeably furrowed.
Shen Huyang, who had been watching him with sparkling eyes, quickly leaned toward her husband. “Fuma, is there any discomfort?”
“No harm was done.”
The blue clad scholar still had a warm smile and appeared graceful, but his lips slightly moved as he whispered, “Just some soreness in my shoulder.”
Shen Huyang felt more and more distressed. If it wasn’t for helping her, Fuma wouldn’t have had to do it himself. She was quite aware that for the sake of his own health, Fuma would typically never touch bows and arrows or any other things that required physical strength.
Right now, there were so many people and so many eyes, so she wouldn’t be able to just go back with her Fuma immediately. She could only whisper a consolation, “Fuma bear with it for a while longer, wait until we get back, I’ll help you with the medicine.”
Then, after the hunting activities were over, Shen Hu’an, as the organizer, kindly sent the Huns to the touring station. When he finally returned, he was planning to look for his Brother-in-law, only to find that Princess Huyang had already returned to the Princess’s residence with Fuma.
Shen Hu’an hurried over to the Princess’s residence as it was already getting late. He happened to see his Sister and Brother-in-law enjoying the moon while playing the zither. From time to time, they even looked at each other, laughing with each other.
Shen *single dog* Hu’an suddenly felt that his eyes were blinded by the light.
Although he always felt that he should leave obediently and not be a third wheel, he couldn’t resist the curiosity in his heart. He couldn’t resist coming forward to salute and ask why his Brother-in-law, ask why the frail scholarly brother-in-law could actually shoot with such precision.
Under the moonlight, Lin Shiheng was even more surprised than he was. “Why would Your Highness ask this question? Just because I am a civil official does not mean that I do not know how to ride and shoot.”
Shen Hu’an: …That seems very reasonable.
But why did he still feel that something was wrong somewhere?
“Your Highness is already the Crown Prince, you can no longer be as narrow-minded as you once were. Civil servants can also ride horses and shoot arrows, and military attachés can also speak eloquently. It’s not set in stone, just like His Highness’s own uncle, Lord Liu, isn’t he also a civil official but he still led the guards to guard the peace of the borders, no?”
Shen Hu’an recalled in his mind his nine-foot-tall, bronze-skinned, bright-eyed, and bearded Uncle.
Then look at the facial features and delicate smile before him, his brother-in-law in flowy blue clothes.
The smile on his face gradually cracked.
Lin Shiheng continued, “Now that His Majesty has entrusted Your Highness with the full authority of the imperial government with the intention of letting Your Highness deal with political affairs in advance, yet it seems that Your Highness is still young in the end. I have specially selected dozens of books for Your Highness, so please take them back and study them carefully.”
Shen Hu’an, who had become the Crown Prince, a proxy for the imperial government, has long shed himself from the psychological rejection of reading books. After all, he would now regularly face a group of 100 top notch officials selected throughout the whole country.
And particularly ever since his chance encounter with Old Minister Shang outside the palace, where Shen Hu’an specially invited the other to eat baked wheat cake at a stall to show his frugality, sitting down with the other to eat at the stall as well.
While waiting for the baked wheat cake to be ready, Old Minister Shang extended the topic to ‘the origin of baked wheat cake’, ‘the life of the inventor of baked wheat cake’, ‘what else tastes the same as baked wheat cakes but looks different’, ‘the inventor of the food of that was almost the same as baked wheat cake’, ‘a minister X in X country who also liked to eat baked wheat cake’, and ‘what book that minister of X country write’, and so on.
If it weren’t for that fact that one should speak when eating and sleeping, and that Shen Hu’an had tactfully indicated he was going to go back to the palace after eating the baked wheat cake, he feared that he would hear the whole life story of that minister from X country that liked eating baked wheat cake.
From this, he also came to clearly understand how bullish the court officials really were.
Then thinking about it some more, except for some hereditary positions, all these ministers had to have passed the five levels all the way to the imperial examination to smoothly remain in the capital, getting to where they were at now.
So it could be said they were a collection of the entire country’s elite, and he, Shen Hu’an, shall henceforth be the one to command these elites.
Shen Hu’an’s mental journey at that time was as follows:
[*picture of Alexander the Great*]
[If you don’t study hard, you’ll be seen as a straw bag, right?]
(TNote: straw bag/straw man = all façade, no substance.)
[Brother-in-law’s severity turned out to be all for this moment.]
He had thought he already understood the learned attributes of the courtiers in the court.
Yet unexpectedly, a new door was opened by his most respected Brother-in-law today.
After Shen Hu’an returned with the books in his arms, he instructed people to find out who else in the court had any fantastical skills.
As it turned out, a top student would always be a top student.
Although most academic tyrants were partial to a subject, there were also omnipotent types.
As Lin Shiheng had taught, he should just look at a person based on their appearance and official position. Just because a person can handle ‘A’ beautifully, didn’t mean that he could only handle A. Instead, that person may also be able to solve B, C, and D.
And sust because some officials couldn’t handle ‘A’ might not imply he can’t handle other things. After all, the Emperor would only think ‘there is a shortage of people in this place’ and not ‘you are suitable for this place’ when arranging affairs.
Therefore, some officials who were ineffective in many people’s eyes were actually wronged, because that wasn’t actually their area of expertise!
Shen Hu’an became obsessed with tapping into the various skills of the people under him, and he wouldn’t hesitate to use them.
It was also a good thing that the Emperor was now obsessed with beauty, and he treated this act of his son’s, who had been established as Crown Prince, without much concern.
What he thought was very simple. He was still alive anyway, so if something were to go wrong with his son, he could just solve it later.
However, His Highness the Crown Prince didn’t cause any trouble.
Even his prestige in the court gradually rose. After all, many officials who had been ineffective because they were assigned to fields that they weren’t good at rekindled their enthusiasm after being assigned to suitable posts by the other. So they were even more grateful towards Shen Hu’an, the Crown Prince.
His Highness the Crown Prince’s reputation for being good at appointing people also began to spread.
He may not be able to take the benevolent ruler route, but he can still develop the greatest effectiveness out of a person.
This was the imperial court, a time when fame was valued, and the majority of people wanted to make a name for themselves in history. Meanwhile, His Royal Highness, the Prince, gave them this opportunity.
So when the Emperor, unfortunately, fainted while still on top of a woman and his life was in danger, while many ministers mourned on the surface, in their hearts, they looked forward to the Crown Prince’s smooth ascend to the throne.
Perhaps the older officials still had some feelings and reluctance for the Emperor, who had also been an inspiration when he first ascended to the throne, but the young officials had little feelings for the Emperor who was only good at balancing power, but mindless with justifying one’s faults.
Of course, even if they didn’t really feel it in their hearts, their faces’ still had to look gloomy.
A group of people knelt in front of the hall until the imperial physician came out and relaying that the Emperor wanted to see the Crown Prince and Princess Huyang.
The forgotten Fourth Prince had long understood that his momentum was gone and obediently knelt without even daring to raise his head.
Shen Huyang entered the hall with her younger brother.
The Emperor truly deserved to be an Emperor, as even as he was about to die, he was surrounded by beautiful women. And what made Shen Huyang angry was that these beautiful women were somewhat similar in appearance to her Consort Mother.
Fortunately, the Emperor soon told these beautiful women to step down, leaving only the three of them in the hall.
The Emperor started nagging at Shen Hu’an, telling the other how to govern the country, then not minding that Shen Huyang was there at all, directly said that he should be kinder to the Fourth Prince in the next two years. Then after these two years, when everyone has relaxed their vigilance, finish the other off, lest he gets any bad ideas in the future.
During this time, the Emperor was really kind to Shen Hu’an. Although he couldn’t understand what the other was thinking, when he entered the door and saw that the other was already like this and couldn’t even move anymore, that the other was going to die but still held on to his breath to teach himself like this; Shen Hu’an’s eyes still couldn’t help turn red, and his heart was full of sorrow.
However, just as he was mourning, he heard Emperor Father explaining that he should kill his Fourth Brother, who hadn’t done anything yet.
Shen Hu’an: “…”
Is Fourth Brother not your biological son, Emperor Father?
Then the Emperor skipped this very brutal topic and began to chatter about waiting until he passed, then allow those women who looked very much like Consort Liu to be buried along with him, and that he and Consort Liu should be buried together.
Shen Hu’an: “…”
He tactfully suggested, Emperor Father you have the Empress. Although the Empress had passed away already, she still had the name of the Empress when she died, even if you were to have a joint burial, you should be buried together with the Empress.
The Emperor showed a look of disgust on his face. Because his tongue was stubborn, it was only after a long while of vagueness that he expressed that the Empress was a vicious woman and he didn’t want to be buried with her.