Your Majesty, please do not disturb, the empress only wants to engage in business

Chapter 178 Sense of Contrast

Inside the sleeping quarters of Yuxiu Palace.

Yao Jinse's long hair was loose, and her head rested on Xie Yun'an's shoulder. She was like a boneless cat, limp in Xie Yun'an's arms.

Xie Yun'an was asleep with one arm around her waist and the other on her forehead.

When Hu Shijie entered the house, it was still dark outside, so candles were still burning in the outer room.

As soon as he entered, this was the scene before him. The gauze curtains and beaded curtains covered most of the bed in the bedroom, and he could only vaguely see two figures and a few pieces of clothing scattered on the ground.

After all, no eunuchs or palace maids had come in last night, so no one had cleaned up the mess scattered on the ground.

Bai Tan stood like a pillar behind Hu Shijie, pretending to be dead.

Seeing Bai Tan's reluctance to step forward, Hu Shijie gritted his teeth and had no choice but to step in himself, calling out in a voice that was neither too loud nor too soft: "Your Majesty! Your Majesty?! It's time for the morning court session!"

He called out a few times, but no one answered. Just as he was about to raise his voice to wake the person up again, Xie Yun'an's hoarse voice came from inside the room: "What are you shouting for? It's too noisy. Just say that I am unwell and I am exempt from court today."

Hu Shijie immediately shrank his neck.

Since His Majesty ascended the throne, he has always been diligent in his duties. This is the first time he has skipped the morning court session. Of course, skipping the morning court session is not unacceptable, since His Majesty is not feeling well and his health is not good. No one can say a word against it.

However, the Emperor stayed at Yuxiu Palace last night, and as a result, he felt unwell early the next morning and even skipped the morning court session. If this gets out, who knows what people will say.

I'm afraid even Consort Rong, the Empress, and even the Empress Dowager... won't be able to get through to them easily, right?

This was the thought in the mind of the emperor's personal eunuch, and Yao Jinse was naturally even more nervous than him. In fact, Yao Jinse woke up earlier than Hu Shijie came in, and she heard Hu Shijie's voice and Xie Yun'an's response clearly.

She saw that Xie Yun'an was sleeping very soundly, so she didn't move. She just changed the position of her head to avoid making Xie Yun'an's shoulder go numb.

She originally thought Xie Yun'an would rise to power like this, but she didn't expect that Xie Yun'an would even say something like skipping court sessions. Of course, Xie Yun'an did this kind of thing quite often in the later stages of his reign, but he had only been on the throne for a year, and Yao Jinse couldn't let this kind of thing happen to her.

As the saying goes, everything is difficult at the beginning, but no matter how difficult something is, the person who sticks out will never have a good ending.

In the original novel, Xie Yun'an was exempted from court for the first time because it was Qiao Yanran's birthday. He drank too much that night, so he was exempted from the morning court the next day.

Looking back now, Xie Yun'an did drink a bit too much last night.

Yao Jinse watched as Hu Shijie lingered outside for a while, seemingly accepting the situation and preparing to leave. She then spoke up to advise him, "Your Majesty is always diligent in state affairs. If you abruptly skip court, the former officials may have many complaints. It's still early. Why don't you get up, take a bath, and change your clothes to relax? If you're still not feeling well afterward, then we can discuss skipping court."

Hu Shijie was overjoyed to find that his own words carried little weight, unlike those of someone else. He watched as figures moved about inside, and sure enough, in no time, the Emperor emerged from the gauze curtains, his robes rolled up, and he stepped barefoot onto the carpet.

"Take a bath!" In the side hall, someone had already prepared hot water and a bathtub. It was originally intended for use last night, but since it wasn't used last night, Bai Tan and the others took turns staying up all night. The hot water in the small kitchen never stopped boiling throughout the night.

The emperor's bathing was naturally attended to by special eunuchs. These eunuchs knew the emperor's habits well, as the emperor had been drunk before. With a massage from one of the bathing eunuchs, Xie Yun'an's headache caused by the hangover was relieved by more than half.

As Yao Jinse said, the fatigue was relieved after bathing, and people naturally felt more energetic and were able to get up and attend court again.

However, Xie Yun'an still sighed.

Being an emperor also has its difficulties. Although he enjoys unparalleled wealth and honor, the feeling of being constantly constrained is not pleasant.

Although he had been aware of these circumstances for a long time, the reality still made him feel somewhat uneasy.

However, the suggestion Yao Jinse made last night was, I must say, a good idea.

When Yao Jinse used a chopstick of food and a glass of wine to shut him up last night, he was actually a little angry. But after Yao Jinse finished speaking, he quickly came to his senses.

He had been planning for many years to finally sit in this position. He wasn't completely helpless about the matter between the Empress and the Empress Dowager, but perhaps because he hadn't paid attention to these trivial matters in the harem for too long, he couldn't come up with a good solution yesterday.

It wasn't until Yao Jinse demonstrated it to him with food and wine last night that he realized what was going on.

There's no need to share the Empress's power. Family members know their own affairs. Doesn't he know his own mother?

Even if the Empress Dowager wanted to manage things, she didn't necessarily have to manage the affairs of the harem. He had misunderstood before. After all, the harem was only so big, and it was easy to fall into a trap. Now that he thought about it, there were actually many extra tasks for the Empress Dowager to manage.

Find some real work to give to the Empress Dowager, so that she has something to do. Then, the Empress Dowager will naturally have no time to keep an eye on the power in the palace held by the Empress.

After bathing and changing his clothes, Xie Yun'an dressed neatly and changed into his dragon robe. He originally planned to leave directly, but then he suddenly remembered that Yao Jinse would usually prepare some food the next morning after each time she served him. So he turned back to Yao Jinse's bedroom.

The room had been cleaned up and was no longer as messy as before. Yao Jinse had also put on a palace dress again. The moon-white palace dress was embroidered with more than a dozen outstanding red plum branches. When Xie Yun'an came in, Yao Jinse was taking out a jade hairpin with gold tassels from the box and inserting it diagonally into her hair bun.

Some daylight had already appeared outside, seeping in through the window through the paper, making Yao Jinse's wrist appear the same color as the jade bracelet on her hand, which made Xie Yun'an's eyes light up.

They usually met during the day, and in Xie Yun'an's eyes, Consort Lin was used to being dignified during the day and looked as boring as the Empress. But at this moment, she was quite beautiful.

When Yao Jinse saw Xie Yun'an enter, she quickly stood up, flicked her wide sleeves to bow, but halfway through, Xie Yun'an reached out and lifted her up.

"There's no need for so much formality. I just came in to take a look. You seem to be in much better spirits today."

Upon hearing this, Yao Jinse smiled shyly.

"Thank you for your concern, Your Majesty. Your Majesty is in a hurry to attend the morning court and it is not convenient to delay. I asked them to prepare a red date and bird's nest honey soup. It is a medicinal diet recipe from the Imperial Hospital. It is nourishing and moisturizing to the lungs. Your Majesty, please drink it before you go."