The Woman Behind Kangxi: The Biography of Virtuous Concubine

Chapter 77
The Imperial Garden is located at the northern end of the central axis of the Forbidden City. In the south, there is the Kunning Gate, which is connected to the Three Rear Palaces. The Pailoufang Gate and Shunzhen Gate surrounded by the gate are facing the Shenwu Gate in the northernmost boundary of the Forbidden City.Most of the buildings lean against the walls, and only a few exquisitely shaped pavilions stand in the garden, with a wide space.Ancient cypresses and old locust trees are planted all over the garden, and there are strange stone and jade seats, bronze statues of Jinlin, and potted flower piles, which add to the changes in the scene in the garden and enrich the level of the garden.The ground of the Imperial Garden is inlaid with pebbles of various colors to form symbolic patterns of Fu, Lu and Shou, which are rich and colorful.Duixiu Mountain is the place where you climb up during the Double Ninth Festival in the palace. The stacked stones are unique, and the path is winding. There are stone dragons spraying water on the bottom, and a royal pavilion on the top, where you can overlook the surrounding scenery.

Today's weather is just right, the wind is sunny, the ground is golden, butterflies and bees are flying around, the first time the beautiful girl Li Yao entered the palace, her name was recorded and she was very happy. She was young and did not understand the dangers of the harem. She was also innocent and lively, cheerful and outgoing, but because she was temporarily assigned to live with Dai Jia's Jin Xuan in the side room of the West Side Hall of Zhongcui Palace, she was very attached to Jin Xuan. The cry made people feel sweet, and Jin Xuan couldn't help but look at this little sister differently, and didn't feel that she took more care of her when she had nothing to do.

Because there are a lot of things going on in the palace recently, with the nobleman giving birth and the concubine Yi being pregnant, Concubine Tong inevitably neglected one end and lost the other end, so it was passed down from above that we have to wait until the young masters have gone to bed, and there is a formal Title, I am moving to another place to live, and now I want to live alone, let a few deacons and aunts teach the rules of the palace.

Today, my aunt finished teaching the rules of the palace early, so she gave them a vacation, so that I could dodge myself.So now that Li Yao can't be idle, she has long forgotten the rules taught by her aunt that she is not allowed to walk around in the harem at will. Seeing that the weather is very good today, she must take Jin Xuan to the imperial garden for a stroll. When I was young, I heard Er Niang talk about the picturesque scenery in the imperial garden, and now I must go there to see it when I enter the palace.

Jin Xuan was dragged by her life and death and had no choice but to agree to this little girl's request. Firstly, she really couldn't get rid of the pleading of this dog skin plaster, and she was afraid that she would make her quarrel all day long, and secondly, she was worried. So the little girl who didn't know the heights of the sky and the earth had no choice but to accompany her.Fortunately, it was noon now, and the entire imperial garden was empty, except for the occasional chirping of a few birds that had stayed for the winter, and there was almost no human voice.

So Jin Xuan walked slowly behind, letting Li Yao run wildly in front, and she just watched with a smile.Entering the palace, I heard that the master of the Yonghe Palace has given birth to a little prince, and now she is in the limelight, and it is rumored that she will be promoted again soon.Besides, everyone knew that she was as close as sisters to Concubine Tong, who was in power in the palace, and even the two empress dowagers of the Palace of Compassion and Ningshou praised her well. Few people in the palace could have such an honor.

She chuckled: The handkerchiefs we drafted together back then have now turned into phoenixes, but I am still unknown in this corner of the palace. I am really an old girl among the new batch of show girls. Except for Niu Hulu, the younger sister of Empress Zhaoren, who is about the same age as her, everyone else is much younger and more beautiful than her. I really don't understand why she was retained in the draft that day?
She stared at the pond water in the garden in a daze, and saw the wind-stained red leaves floating in the pond water, and suddenly remembered the allusion of "red leaves inscribing poems" that Ning De once told her: One evening during the reign of Emperor Xizong of Tang Dynasty, Jinshi Yu You strolled under the city wall.It was the late autumn when "the west wind blows the Wei River, and the fallen leaves are all over Chang'an". Withered leaves were all over the ground, and the wind whizzed away.The sky was getting darker and darker, he stood there blankly for a moment, feeling quite inexplicably sad.He washed his hands in the running water of the ditch, and the fallen leaves floating in the ditch slowly flowed out in the clear water. Suddenly, he found a large red leaf with ink marks on it, and he picked it up from the water.What surprised him was that there was a poem inscribed on the red leaf: "Why is the flowing water so fast, the deep palace is full of leisure. Thank you Hongye so that you can go to the world." The ink marks are still wet, and the handwriting is delicate.

He looked at the palace wall that reached into the clouds beside him, and guessed that it must have been done by a certain maid.Yu You took the poem home, but this incident made him unable to let go of it for a long time. Every night, he tossed and turned, seeing the illusory figure of the lonely woman in the palace.A few days later, he also wrote two poems on the red leaves and placed them in the flowing water upstream of Yugou: "I have heard that there are red grievances on the leaves, who should I send the poems on to?" It took a long time to leave.Yu You told this matter to several companions, and everyone laughed at him.

(End of this chapter)