Prince Heng, Lang Bo, was Wenren Qiao's regular dining buddy. The two men shared similar personalities, and both had only one wife and one daughter.
Although he and the emperor did not share the same birth mother, he had no interest in the throne. While everyone else was scrambling for it, he ran to the Late Emperor and told him he wanted to leave the palace to travel across various nations.
Seeing that he had spent half a year continuously begging to be let out of the palace, the Late Emperor finally agreed.
Only after the New Emperor firmly secured the throne did he drag his family back from outside. Upon his return, he happily moved into his prince's residence, spending all day mingling with the capital's notorious good-for-nothing prince, Wenren Qiao.
Today's morning court was no exception; the two of them stood side by side.
Prince Heng was so amused by the inner complaints of this little girl Wenren Luoshui that he finally couldn't help running over to huddle with his good brother Wenren Qiao to whisper.
As for these two numskulls, the emperor was genuinely lenient with them too, as long as they didn't make noises that affected the atmosphere of the morning court.
If they loved to huddle together and whisper, let them huddle.
Wenren Luoshui looked at the two heads huddled together ahead and silently ran to ask the system.
[My dad is openly chatting with someone right in the imperial court like this? Is he really not afraid of being kicked out?]
No, no, Your Ladyship, you don't understand this.
When your prince father was young, he came to morning court and found it too boring, so he turned around to drag the people around him into conversation. When the emperor told him to stop, he even said the emperor wanted to control his free thought, making the emperor so angry he almost vomited blood.
There was another time when he came to morning court, and perhaps his breakfast had been a bit too salty. He took a pear out of his bosom and began eating it right in front of the emperor.
When caught by the emperor, he actually thought the emperor wanted him to share half the pear, finishing it in a few huge bites and almost choking himself to death.
The officials present were all complaining in their hearts about Wenren Qiao's past outrageous antics, but unfortunately they couldn't just speak up at will. Otherwise, the entire morning court would become livelier than a vegetable market.
[Salty Fish System: I just flipped through some gossip related to this Prince Heng. Does the host want to hear it?]
[Sure, tell me about it.]
Prince Heng, who was chatting with Wenren Qiao: *...*
No, little girl, instead of continuing to dig up gossip on my imperial brother, why are you running over to dig into mine?
You really only slaughter people you know!
Unfortunately, Wenren Luoshui could not hear his inner voice.
[Salty Fish System: This gossip has nothing to do with Prince Heng, nor with his daughter, but rather with the concubine-born younger sister of his wife, Princess Heng.]
[Uh... Could it be that Princess Heng's younger sister has taken a fancy to her brother-in-law?]
[Salty Fish System: No. Princess Heng's maternal family background is not high at all; her maternal family merely ran a small medical clinic in Qingzhou City. Back when Prince Heng was traveling, he ran into Princess Heng by chance, and the two of them instantly hit it off. At the very beginning, Prince Heng didn't expose his identity, and Princess Heng only took a fancy to him as a person, so the two of them simply held a very simple wedding.]
Hearing the system recount the romance between him and his wife, Prince Heng smiled like a total fool.
Unable to bear this foolishly happy look of his, Wenren Qiao raised his foot and unceremoniously delivered a heavy stamp on his foot.
Don't go showing affection in front of him; he and his own wife were also absolute true love!
Prince Heng: *...*
The Emperor: *...*
Could he renounce his bond of brotherhood with these two jinxes?
Knowing the two of them truly made him feel a mix of love and hate!
[Salty Fish System: Prince Heng and Princess Heng have lived together in harmony all these years, and every time her family comes to the estate to visit, she and Prince Heng treat them with utmost care. Her father also has only one concubine, a woman who, strictly speaking, is a distant maternal cousin of Princess Heng's father.]
[Salty Fish System: This concubine grew jealous of everything Princess Heng now possesses. After her own daughter married off, she nagged in her daughter's ear every day, claiming that everything Princess Heng currently possessed was actually stolen from the destiny of this concubine-born daughter. She even claimed that back when she gave birth to her own daughter, a wandering Taoist priest had said her daughter was endowed with great destiny. Why did he say that? Because the daughter born to this concubine was born with a birthmark on her face resembling a phoenix.]
[Salty Fish System: That wandering Taoist priest was actually a disciple expelled from his sect. To swindle money, he spent all day disguised as a priest, wandering everywhere. Saying that the concubine's daughter was endowed with great destiny was merely a way to swindle more money. At first, the concubine was also skeptical, but until Prince Heng brought Princess Heng back to the capital and had his status as a prince restored, the concubine's mentality became unbalanced.]
[Salty Fish System: Then, thinking back to when her daughter was seven years old, Princess Heng had fetched the finest imperial physician from the palace to help the concubine-born sister treat the birthmark on her face, and that birthmark really was cured by that physician. Seeing Princess Heng living a better and better life, yet after her own daughter got married, she kept running back to complain to them about her mother-in-law's mistreatment, the concubine pondered and decided that the reason her daughter was having such a miserable time now was entirely because Princess Heng had once had someone cure her daughter's face.]
[So every time Princess Heng's concubine-born sister returned home to complain to her family about her mother-in-law's mistreatment, the concubine would tell her that the reason she was living such a miserable life now was because Princess Heng had seized the destiny from her body. She even claimed that if it hadn't been for the princess curing the birthmark on her face, she might have already entered the palace to become a imperial concubine by now, instead of being mistreated by her husband's family like this.]
The Emperor: *...*
What is the meaning of this?
Did they think the imperial palace was a vegetable market? Anyone who wanted to enter could just walk in?
A person with a birthmark on her face would be weeded out in the preliminary selection registration round!
[Salty Fish System: After a long time, coupled with the fact that she truly was living an unsatisfactory life in her husband's family, she genuinely came to resent Princess Heng, believing that her current suffering was caused by Princess Heng acting on her own accord to cure the birthmark on her face.]
Prince Heng: *...*
What kind of moron is this?
Back then, he had also seen his wife's concubine-born younger sister who had the birthmark on her face. That birthmark was fully half the size of her face, mottled with patches of black and red.
Because of the birthmark, she didn't even dare to go out and play since she was a child. Back when he followed the princess back to her family home, that concubine-born sister had looked at him with a timid expression.
His own wife kindly pulled strings and invited an imperial physician from the palace to cure her face, yet now that her life was going poorly, she actually resented his wife?
If not for his wife curing the birthmark on her face, whether she could even manage to get married nowadays was a question.
The emperor cast a sympathetic glance at this ill-fated younger brother of his. This could hardly be called good intentions leading to bad results.
This was entirely running into an ungrateful wretch!
The surrounding officials silently thought to themselves that it was fortunate their own households didn't have such muddle-headed, indiscriminate concubine-born daughters. If they did, they would definitely beat such people to death.
[What kind of robber logic is this? When their own life goes poorly, they push the blame onto others? Why don't they reflect upon themselves instead?]
Prince Heng nodded wildly. Exactly, exactly. Still Luoshui lass who knows how to talk.
[Wait, System, you haven't finished yet, have you? Isn't there a follow-up to this?]
[Salty Fish System: Go flip through the original text yourself. The Main God has notified us to attend training.]
With that, the system's voice vanished from Wenren Luoshui's mind. Following this, a book appeared before her, and Wenren Luoshui found the page where the system had just stopped.
Prince Heng, standing to the side, felt such anxiety in his heart. Having just praised his eldest niece, why was she dawdling again now?
Whatever follow-up you saw, spit it out already!