Yan Ling was with his wife and daughter. He was lying on the steps when he was startled awake by the sound of footsteps outside.
"This is the Prince's residence, it's none of your business," Madam Yan said irritably.
She was sitting on the footstool by the bed, watching over Niuniu, and didn't seem to be asleep yet.
Yan Ling frowned and said, "In the middle of the night, someone from the Prince's mansion is coming?"
As expected, the Prince of Jin has no intention of doing anything good!
They're about to be expelled from Beijing, yet they're still so unruly.
It seems that perhaps it was a twist of fate that led him to the right person.
The Prince of Jin was not as isolated and powerless as he appeared.
Madam Yan said, "Didn't I come to Your Majesty for help in the middle of the night? Perhaps someone in a family has fallen seriously ill, or a woman is about to give birth, and they have asked Your Majesty for help."
This palace is where one lives like an empress.
She's come to understand this in the last few days: without the Empress, the Prince can't live.
Yan Ling deeply agreed.
"You're here to keep Niuniu," Madam Yan added, "Don't meddle in the affairs of the Prince's mansion."
"We can't just ignore this! You woman, you've dragged our whole family onto that prince's sinking ship..."
Just thinking about it gives me a headache.
Madam Yan sneered, "I have nothing to do with you anymore!"
"You're really pushing your luck!" Yan Ling glared at her fiercely. "Those two got married, and you're trying to break them up by yourself?"
Dream on.
"Alright, go to sleep now." Yan Ling sat up impatiently and said, "I'll watch over Niuniu, you sleep for a while."
"I don't need you to look at me, I look down on you," Madam Yan said. "Go to sleep. If you doze off at court tomorrow and the Emperor spanks you, I'll see if you still have any face left."
"The Emperor doesn't care if I doze off! What business do I have at court? Even among those civil officials, I usually just doze off too."
Madam Yan: "... Can't you be a little more sensible!"
"A man's success comes from ability, not words." Yan Ling pulled Madam Yan up from the footstool. "Go to sleep!"
Madam Yan knew that he was worried about her.
This man couldn't compare to a prince, nor did she try to; but compared to most other men, she had few complaints.
"Keep a close eye on things, I'll just take a nap," Madam Yan instructed anxiously.
"My own child, this is my own child too." Yan Ling muttered unhappily, "Stop talking so much nonsense, go to sleep!"
He was watching over his daughter when he suddenly heard a somewhat familiar shout from outside.
It was a man's voice, but only once.
Who was it? Yan Ling couldn't remember.
Huaishang said, "It's him, he's finally online."
However, if he had a choice, he would rather live forever in everyone's memories than appear in this manner.
Huaishang has gone mad!
It's no exaggeration; he's genuinely gone mad.
Madam Yao, accompanied by a young maid, brought the person over in the dead of night, asking Tang Zhuyun for help.
Huaishang the room, he chased everyone out.
"Go, all of you go! Nobody's allowed to take it from me!"
Then he reached into the brazier to scoop up the charcoal, but was stopped by the Prince of Jin.
Tang Zhuyun was dumbfounded.
Madam Yao frowned, "He had a fit of hysteria today. One minute he was saying he wanted to go to war, and then he bumped into the prince; the next minute he was saying there was gold everywhere, and he was mining..."
Hearing the commotion, Xiu'er came over and said in a coquettish tone, "Huaishang, you bumped into the prince, but it's alright. You didn't hit anything vital, so don't be afraid. You don't need to pretend to be crazy."
The pretty young maid behind Madam Yao said timidly, "Sister, Fifth Master isn't pretending to be crazy, he really is."
Xiu'er was stunned for a moment.
It wasn't because the maidservant interrupted; after all, she herself had done this quite often.
To her surprise, the young maid was pretty and Lovely, and clearly worth a lot of money.
Could Huaishang afford, or rather, could someone persuade Madam Yao to buy, such a fine maid?
No, it's eerie.
Xiu'er thought that this must be a maidservant assigned by the Huai Family.
Huaishang, seeing that the brazier was full of gold, assumed that the Prince of Jin was trying to steal the gold from him, and became enraged, looking as if he was about to fight the Prince of Jin.
The Prince of Jin twisted the man's hands behind his back and pressed him onto the table, looking at Tang Zhuyun and saying, "Why don't you take a look at him?"
Song Jingyang might be able to pull Huaishang?
If he was really faking it, the Prince of Jin said he would definitely teach him a lesson.
Just as Tang Zhuyun was about to step forward, Huaishang, being unruly, raised his foot and kicked backward, almost hitting him.
Enraged, the Prince of Jin restrained him with one hand and grabbed a feather duster from a nearby bottle with the other, then proceeded to beat him mercilessly.
Madam Yao: "Good for him! Let's see if he can come to his senses!"
Tang Zhuyun: "..."
Undoubtedly their biological child.
The little maid covered her face, too ashamed to look.
Xiu'er found this maidservant increasingly strange.
I can't quite put my finger on what's strange about her, but she just doesn't seem like a proper maid.
"A-Yun," the Prince of Jin called out to Tang Zhuyun again.
As Tang Zhuyun stepped forward, she said, "I have a guess in my mind now. Please allow me to take her pulse again."
After taking his pulse, she sighed and said, "Just as I thought. It must have been tough for him..."
Huaishang's sudden onset could only mean that she had eaten poisonous mushrooms and was experiencing hallucinations.
But it's not mushroom season!
From which nook and cranny did they unearth these ancient poisonous mushrooms Huaishang?
"After all, he's her own flesh and blood, "Madam Yao asked. "Your Highness, what's wrong with this Gouzi?"
Tang Zhuyun: "...(This Gouzi) is fine. Did he eat some mushrooms?"
Madam Yao: "I don't know! I don't eat with him, and he always complains about how expensive this and that are... Mianmian, do you know?"
She asked the maidservant beside her.
Mianmian said, "I found the mushrooms in Fifth Master's treasure chest..."
Madam Yao: "He lets you touch his things? He won't let me touch them! But that's good, from now on you'll be taking care of him."
Mianmian: "... Because I smelled something stinky, there was a dead rat inside. So I tidied it up..."
What kind of junk is that!
Huaishang would throw in anything he thought he might need in the future, and over the years, it became an eyesore.
Mianmian planned to throw them all away.
As a result, Huaishang returned, and the plan was aborted.
Huaishang looked at the small bunch of dried mushrooms, unable to recall their origin, but he just had to eat them—it would be a waste not to!
Then Huaishang went mad.
Madam Yao: "Those mushrooms were a gift from someone in the southwest. But I was afraid they might cause illness if eaten improperly, so I had them thrown away..."
Who would have thought that Huaishang would be rescued again?
Mianmian said, "That's right."
"What's right?" Madam Yao asked.
"That's right, Fifth Master has a habit of checking everything you throw away again..." Mianmian whispered.
Tang Zhuyun indicated that she did not want to speak.
"Have someone keep an eye on him," she said helplessly. "I'll prescribe some more medication for him; he'll be fine once this phase of his madness subsides. His hallucinations right now are probably just what he craves deep down."
To achieve great things, and to find money...
Thank goodness, it wasn't a deadly mushroom.
It was alright, so Huaishang ate it all by himself.
The melody echoed in Tang Zhuyun's mind: Red umbrella, white pole, lying together on the plank...
The Prince of Jin seemed to be deep in thought.