The Seventh Prince's eyes glistened. "Imperial Father's boundless grace is like rain nourishing mountains and rivers. I shall enter the palace shortly and kowtow to him in person!"
The guards behind the Seventh Prince were also overcome with delighted surprise.
Ordinary people might not understand why the Seventh Prince reacted so strongly to this verbal decree, but they were no ordinary people. They knew just how much weight it carried.
Not every prince could pass freely through the restricted palace gates.
Only princes of the first rank could!
In other words, this long-marginalized prince had been granted a taste of first-rank treatment!
He enjoyed that treatment now, but what about the future?
Might he actually become a prince of the first rank?
Conferring that rank was no trivial matter. Even the emperor could not grant it casually. Thus, before doing so, the emperor would often test the waters-for example, by granting someone privileges resembling those of a first-rank prince, then observing the reactions of the ministers and imperial clan. If their opposition was not fierce, he could proceed naturally with the investiture.
Permission to pass through the palace gates was therefore a precursor to such an investiture.
Once he became a prince of the first rank, every shackle that had previously bound him would fall away like bamboo splitting beneath a blade.
And that was only the first point.
The second lay in another hidden implication within the verbal decree.
"Pay respects to your birth mother!"
The Seventh Prince's birth mother was of lowly status, merely a changzai-not even a concubine of the pin rank, far below a consort, much less the empress.
Apart from having borne His Majesty a son, she was nothing.
She still performed menial chores in the palace.
A mother like her was not considered worthy