Living leisurely in Tang Dynasty

Chapter 119:

The palace had a lively new year celebration. After the festivities were over Chenqian acted on his promise and got the ministry to transfer Chen Xin to work for Prince Teng.

Chen Xin had obviously heard much about Prince Teng and she was extremely cautious. Since she is now a court musician, she needs to follow orders. On paper she is a court musician that is managed by an official department but in reality her fate is not that different from those of street performers. A few words from the Crown Prince or Prince Teng will determine the fate of her life.

Yuanying had been playing wildly for days and had actually forgotten about her. Seeing the musician, he exclaimed to mother: Chenqian is a man of his words, he really act on his promises.”

Hearing the way Prince Teng referred to the Crown Prince, Chen Xin maintained a poker face pretending to not hear anything.

Yuanying requested the girl to stand up and quickly introduced her background to Lady Liu.

When mother saw Chen Xin’s beauty she was alarmed, thinking that her son is picking up on the late Emperor’s bad habits. Hearing the whole story, she calmed down and paid careful attention on his plans.

“I’m preparing to start off with the poem about WenCheng. I’ll arrange for a play to reenact WenCheng’s wedding.”

The script is ready and so he only needed to hire actors for the play.

“Once the customers get used to eating whilst listening to poems, I’ll arrange for multiple new sets of poems every month. Oh right, mother you need to start reading poems too. In the future the dishes at the restaurant needs to have auspicious sounding names. Your dishes are really popular so the name must match its reputation!”

“Mother is already old and you want me to study poems?”

“Mother you are not even thirty, what do you mean by old?  You will live a long life! You need to constantly improve. You can’t give up just because it’s hard! The dishes you have created are selling well, if you don’t name them for me then I who is away studying hard will have to take time out to do it?!”

Lady Liu couldn’t win this argument and so had to agree to it.

After convincing mother, Yuanying brief Chen Xin about his plans. He has been listening to the pipa since young and can easily gauge her skills. Although the girl is only about 15 or 16, he followed the system’s recommendation and made her the music director. She will be responsible for the restaurant and all its branches music and performances.

Running through the system, Yuanying had a clear plan for Cheng Xin. He shared with her the importance of her position and painted a cherry picture: Just let me know if you lack money or talented people. Doesn’t matter if the talent you want is a court musician or a talented commoner, as long as Cheng Xin wants them the young Prince will get it for her. She has no worries except to make good music and attract crowd to the restaurant. If her musicians do a good job, Yuanying will work hard to give them the opportunity to perform for the Emperor in the future.  

By that time, I’m afraid all scholars will want the music team at the restaurant to sing about their poems!

After the explanation,Cheng Xin who was calm suddenly felt passion. She gave her respect to the Prince sincerely. She has been taught to play music and to please the powerful since young but has never thought that she would be entrusted with such an important tasks, let alone have such freedom.

If she could, she prefers to play her Pipa all day long without having to worry about pleasing others. If there really comes a day where scholars desires their poems to be composed by her then she can die with no regrets!

“If you are willing then do your best. If you have friends to recommend just list them down and I will request for them later.”

Nodding, she quickly handed over a list that included the skeleton of her entire music team. Now they just need to recruit folk performers to perform. She promised Prince Teng a lively Feng Thai Restaurant during the Lantern Festival.

Since the Prince is handing over such a big task to her, she must show results to prevent him from being disappointed!

While Yuanying originally found Cheng Xin beautiful, he felt that she lacks vigour. It is only when she plays the pipa that she looks slightly lovely. Now seeing the brilliance in her eyes looking like she can’t wait to show off her skills, Yuanying was happy.

“Then I’ll wait to see how you’ll make Feng Thai lively.”

She left with hundredfold confidence.

Li Yuanying was satisfied with the arrangement but soon heard bad news that Wei Zheng is ill.

Wei Zheng is 63 with a strong body but just a little skinny. It’s unexpected that he is ill just as it started to snow and couldn’t even get out of bed. Yuanying became anxious, wasn’t he healthy? Why is he suddenly ill?  First, he was worried about Wei Zheng’s health and then he was afraid that Wei Shu’s eyes would be swollen from crying. He immediately inform mother that he will be leaving the palace in the snow.

The road was difficult as it was paved with snow and the horses almost slipped several times. The people accompanying him were frightened and advised that they should make the trip after the snow has subsided but the young prince refused to listen and rode his horse to Wei Zheng’s house.

This time Li Yuanying sudden visit did not get much reaction. The whole Wei family was filled with sadness. Although Wei Zheng’s sons are grown and considered somewhat promising, the backbone of the family is still Wei Zheng. When he fell ill, everyone panicked.

Wei Shu has obviously cried and looked a little haggard. Seeing Yuanying covered in snow, she looked out and saw howling wind and snow. Wei Shu’s voice was a little hoarse but she pulled Yuanying to sit by the stove.

“It’s snowing so hard, why are you here Your Highness?”

Yuanying was worried that his freezing body would make Wei Zheng sick so he didn’t rush to see the patient. He looked at Wei Shu with concern. Seeing that her eyes were red, he naturally expressed his worries: “I’m worried about your grandfather and you. Your grandfather raised you himself so you will definitely be upset that he is sick.”

The Prince then instructed his people to bring down all the precious medicinal herbs he brought over.

“People are most afraid of illness when they are old. This time if he recovers he will need to take care of his body”

Humans are quite typical, they hold back tears when no one comforts them, but when someone do tears kept falling.

When Wei Shu heard “I’m worried about you” her tears began to fall and she cried sadly.

Wei Shu had always been strong and  Yuanying had never seen her cry. Seeing this, he immediately panicked. He reached out and patted Wei Shu’s back: “Don’t cry. Old Wei will definitely get better. Should I call the imperial doctor?”

Wei Shu felt embarrassed started wiping away her tears, but more she did it the more tears fell.

“His Majesty had already asked the imperial doctors to visit. The doctors mentioned that if he can pull through then grandfather will be fine but if he cannot then he will never wake up again.”

Yuanying answered firmly: “He will definitely be fine!”

Seeing that his body is now dry he pulled her inside to visit Wei Zheng.

The rest of the Wei family is also away that Li Yuanying is here. Normally Wei Ying would have banter with him and snatch his sister back. But seeing Wei Shu cry uncontrollably, Wei Ying stayed silent. Sister has held back from crying in front of them and he didn’t know how to comfort her. It’s a good thing that she has let out her feeling and not keep all her sadness in her heart.

Although the doctors had visited, Yuanying still sat down and reached for Wei Zheng’s pulse. As a person gets older, their internal organs weakens and the body repairs slower. The body is bound to have issues here or there.

While analyzing Wei Zheng’s pulse, Yuanying used his system to perform a full-body scan and  found that Wei Zheng’s body was far worse than Li Er’s. It’s a wonder how he scolds the Emperor every day under such circumstances. He really did not have things easy!

Without second thought, Yuanying used all his points from the dinosaur fossils on Wei Zheng’s treatment plan and he exchanged medicine for him. When the others were not paying attention, he whispered to Wei Shu: “You cover for me and I’ll give him some medicine.”

Wei Shu was taken aback.

Seeing that Yuanying is serious, Wei Shu struggled internally on whether she should trust him. When it comes to grandfather, Wei Shu who usually trusts the boy fully is still doubtful. But remembering that the doctors were helpless and left everything to fate, she quickly agreed to cover for him.

The two worked together to feed Wei Zheng the medicine and stared at Wei Zheng’s closed eyes. Seeing that he showed no signs of waking up, tears began to well up in Wei Shu’s eyes again but she did her best to it hold back.

Sensing that Wei Shu is about to cry, Yuanying became anxious and began to talk nonsense and threaten Wei Zheng: “Old Wei, if you don’t wake up, I will bring Sister Shu to the Tibetan Empire tomorrow to play and you will not be able to chase after us. Do you know how far away that is from Chang’an?” It’ll take months to get there!”

Wei Shu stretched out her hand and told him to stop talking.

But Yuanying couldn’t stop talking.

“I have thought about this for a long time. I want to bring Sister Shu to climb a snow-capped mountain, a very high one. It will take us a year and a half. But then don’t you whine about it”

Not sure if Wei Zheng was annoyed with the boy but his eyelids actually moved. When the boy saw it, he immediately asked someone to invite Sun Simiao over. We are nearby the Thousand Gold Hall so he should be able to arrive soon!

The others did not see the moving eyelid and they politely stepped forward to invite the young prince out for some tea and to stop disturbing the patient. If their father really did her Yuanying’s blabbering he would be mad at him to the point of death!

Although Yuanying hadn’t said enough, he read the air in the room and obediently left with Wei Shu to wait for Sun Simiao outside.

Sun Simiao had actually visited earlier and shared the same diagnosis as the other doctors whereby Wei Zheng’s condition is left up to fate. Hearing that Prince Teng is asking for him, he sighed but still carefully packed up and visit the Wei family home again.

Sun Simiao arrived so quickly that the boy had only finished half a bowl of tea absentmindedly.

Yuanying happily pulled Sun Simiao inside: “Master, you’re here! I just saw Old Wei’s eyelids moving. Please check to see if he’s waking up!”

Sun Simiao nodded at the others in greeting and took Wei Zheng’s pulse. Just as he got started, he found that Wei Zheng’s condition had greatly improved. His blood vessels were smoother and his pulse much stronger. Sun Simiao’s solemn face softened and he said: “Your Highness is right, Grand Master Wei should wake up soon. All he needs to do is to take care of himself and there should be no serious illness with his body.”

Li Yuanying was overjoyed.

Wei Shu was happy but tears fell. Ever since grandfather fell ill, she had been worried every day that the pillar of the Wei family would fall!

When Yuanying saw Wei Shu crying again, he was not as helpless as before. He just felt that Wei Shu was still a girl. No matter how she didn’t like to cry, she would still shed tears when sad. He thought for a while and hug her like how he would with one of his nieces:”Don’t be sad, don’t be sad, Old Wei will be fine soon! If he doesn’t wake up, I will really take you to the Tibetan Empire to play!”

Li Yuanying coaxed the girl with much concentration that he didn’t notice Wei Ying glaring at him with murderous eyes.

After Wei Shu stopped crying, Yuanying stayed for a while. It wasn’t until Wei Zheng woke up that he returned to the palace with peace of mind.

The next day, Li Yuanying rummaged through his small warehouse again, selected the good medicinal materials that the system thought could help Wei Zheng recuperate his body, and left the palace to go to the Wei family again. Unexpectedly, it took him some time to find the medicinal materials. When he arrived at the Wei family, the Wei family already had other guests.

The author has something to say:

The young prince:? What guests?