The rest of the day was a tangential conversation between the three men who had their own agenda.
At least Qing Yu knew the names and identities of the two women in the lake pavilion.
The woman in white was, as Qing Yu had guessed earlier, the first daughter of the Si family, named “Si Qingwei”, the daughter of the head of the Si family, Si Meng Song, and the cousin of the sixth prince, Feng Chaonan.
The fact that she is not within the third degree of consanguinity prevents Feng Chaonan from further tying the Si family to his chariot through the simplest of alliances. Now, even more so, because Feng Qiwu has a crush on Si Qingwei, there is a risk that this great help to the Si family will be poached.
The other woman, still guessing correctly, is none other than a princess. The Northern Zhou emperor had fourteen sons but no daughters, so his only daughter was treated like a jewel by Feng Tianming, who loved her with all his heart.
Because there was only one woman in this generation, this princess was brought along by the imperial family’s Tong Shen realm powerhouse, Feng Ming Xiao, and was personally nurtured.
The princess is named “Feng Ziling”, and with her support, she will stand out from the other princes and her chances of inheriting the throne will rise by at least 20%.
As Feng Ziling is the only daughter and has always stayed by Feng Mingxiao’s side, she does not understand the true cruelty of the first-prize race. To Feng Ziling, the coveting of the throne by the princes really disgusted her.
Unfortunately, the sixth prince, Feng Chaonan, had a very bad impression of Feng Ziling due to his undisguised ambition and his malice towards the other princes.
On the other hand, as Feng Chaonan’s main rival at this time, Feng Qiwu had always acted as if he had a low regard for the throne, which made Feng Ziling clearly favour Feng Qiwu, which was why Feng Qiwu had not been rejected just now when he went after him.
From the current perspective, Feng Chaonan has the upper hand on the surface, but secretly, the trend of collapse is already a bit obvious.
That’s all we know about the situation, and as the three of them pull the wool over each other’s eyes, the dinner party is about to begin.
With Feng Chaonan leading the way, Qing Yu and Feng Jiu did not encounter the dilemma of getting lost and arrived at Wanfu Pavilion on time to meet up with Ouyang Yan before the dinner started.
The group stepped into the Pavilion, which was more appropriately called a “hall” than a “pavilion”, and headed for their respective seats.
At this time, the Pavilion was already full of officials, and the civil and military officials had their own social circles, forming small groups.
When Ouyang Yan came in on behalf of the Shanhe Academy, all the officials, both civil and military, greeted Ouyang Yan with an arch of their hands. Ouyang Yan also returned the greetings one by one.
The seats at the top of the Pavilion of Ten Thousand Blessings were rightly reserved for the Emperor and Empress. The eldest princess, Feng Mingxiao, did not attend the dinner because she was unhappy with Feng Tianming’s sudden cancellation of the family banquet.
Below them are the seats of the many royal children. After that, the hundred officials were seated in order of rank.
In theory, Feng Jiu was the ninth prince and should have been seated ninth among the royal sons. However, Feng Jiu’s relationship among the imperial sons was not too good, and his relationship with the emperor was also not good, so his seat was placed at the very end by default.
For this arrangement, Feng Chaonan was happy to give Feng Jiu face, but Feng Jiu was the one who manifested his willingness to take the seat at the far end.
This was only because next to Feng Jiu was the seat of the representative of the Shanhe Academy, a school of great standing in Northern Zhou.
Feng Jiu, dressed in a white Confucian uniform, was sitting here, and if people were not paying attention, they would think that he was also representing the Shanhe Academy.
Moreover, after Feng Jiu had taken his seat, Ouyang Yan even talked to Feng Jiu in a cordial manner, showing his intimacy.
This scene fell into the eyes of many people who were interested. The people present were all old foxes who had been involved in official circles for many years, and they had all sorts of thoughts when they saw this.
At least, with the support of the Mountain River Academy, he was already more powerful than most of the princes.
“His Majesty is here!” The great eunuch accompanying him called out in a high, mid-range voice.
With this voice, the Emperor of the Northern Zhou, Feng Tianming, and his Empress made their grand entrance and, under the gaze of the crowd, ascended to the innermost and highest place and took their seats.
“Greetings, Your Majesty!” All the people present rose and saluted.
Since it was not a court meeting, they did not call out “Long Live” or anything like that, but just bowed gently.
“All the ministers are excused!” Feng Tianming waved his hand and said.
“Thank you, Your Majesty.”
All of them returned in unison, and everyone took their seats.
And next, the meat of the drama came.
“Mr. Ouyang, why don’t you see President Zhuge?” Feng Tianming began to take aim at the Shanhe Academy the first time after the crowd had taken their seats.
In response, Ouyang Yan was also prepared for this situation and rose to say back, “In reply to Your Majesty, during the last literary contest for the throne, my teacher was a*sa*sinated by two traitors, Ming Rui and Lu Qing Zhu, and has not recovered from his injuries, and today his injuries have returned again, so he could not come to the banquet, I hope Your Majesty forgives me!”
The truth is that if you want to say what Zhuge Longjue said, “I’m not well, I can’t stand the wind and cold”, you can’t do that. This kind of words, Zhuge Longjue just say it, Ouyang Yan will not dare to really say it out loud.
The reason was that he had a recurrence of an old injury, rather than a “physical illness”.
At least, Feng Tianming could not find a way to refute this reason.
Therefore, he could only change the subject and said, “Today is the 8th day of the lunar calendar, which represents the end of December, so I have specially invited all of you to come and enjoy the congee together.
What was surprising was that instead of the congee being carried by the palace maids, as expected, four powerful guards carried a large stone seat and slowly marched into the Pavilion of Ten Thousand Blessings.
On the stone pedestal, the golden silk wood of the imperial household was stained with a bright, blazing, yet smokeless fire, and a large urn full of congee was set on the fire, with evaporating water bubbling above it.
Four guards carried the stone pedestal to the centre of the Pavilion of Ten Thousand Blessings and placed it on the ground. There was not a single bump in the journey, and the guards’ footsteps did not look heavy at all. These guards were all skilled martial artists who had reached the point where they could lift heavy weights as if they were light.
After setting down the stone seat, the four guards bowed and excused themselves, while Feng Tianming continued his performance.
“Before we drink the congee, I have specially invited a Buddhist master to chant sutras and pray for my Great Zhou, may my Great Zhou, for a thousand years, be blessed for many generations.”
“A thousand years, a thousand years, a thousand years of blessings. A thousand years, a thousand generations, a thousand years of blessings. ——” The hundred officials shouted in unison in a very dignified manner.
Among the princes, a few of those who wanted to gain attention even shouted with red ears and blue veins on their faces.
It must be said that this level of effort made Qing Yu and the others, who were only pretending, sweat.
“Please invite Master Yuan Cheng.” Feng Tianming said.
The great eunuch beside him called out in a high and long voice, “Please Master Yuan Cheng~”
