Chapter 106: Princess, We’ll Stay Together Until Our Hair Turns White

Yu Xiaoxiao and Gu Xinglang sent Xianzong back to the palace in his nightgown. The whole way there, father and daughter sprawled at the carriage windows looking outside while talking about Fengtian’s night scenery. Yu Xiaoxiao found everything fresh and new, while Xianzong rarely stepped foot out of the palace since he was a diehard shut-in. Faced with the brilliant lanterns of a Fengtian evening, the two of them had finally found a common talking point.

Gu Xinglang sat quietly on one side, listening in on their conversation. In truth, the things they talked about made him very worried about their IQ. What was so amazing about seeing everyone walk about at night after working all day? According to what he heard, even the fact that there were pedestrians in the streets was a marvel to the two. Could things go on like this?!

“Aye!” Xianzong’s eyes were sparkling as he looked at a pleasure house outside with a sigh. “Zhen’s never had a chance in my lifetime to go in there and look around.”

Yu Xiaoxiao looked at the two-storey building and pointed at the beauty wearing fine gauze standing by its entrance. “That should be a brothel, right?”

“Get off!”1 Xianzong glared at his daughter. “A girl should speak with elegance and refinement.”

Their carriage trundled on, soon leaving behind that solitary pleasure house located outside of the red-light district. Xianzong could only shake his head regretfully. “Such a wonderful building.”

“You have so many women in the palace,” Yu Xiaoxiao said, “Isn’t that already enough? Can you even sleep with that many as one man?”

Xianzong raised his hand and whacked Yu Xiaoxiao upside the head, furious. “Even though you’re married now, you can’t learn to talk like those Gu Clan martial fellows! How did imperial father teach you? Girls should be elegant, cultured, and restrained! Your imperial mother is watching you from above!”

Gu Xinglang felt a headache coming on after being inadvertently stabbed by the emperor’s words.

Xianzong stared at Yu Xiaoxiao’s expressionless face and managed to see (with difficulty) that her attentions were preoccupied. Once again, he spoke. “Your imperial mother would be sad to see you like this.”

Yu Xiaoxiao rolled her eyes. The empress shouldn’t be sad. If she saw the cruel female emperor of the last timeline, she’d probably want to bite this fatuous ruler to death.

“Zhen remembers that you’ve studied books before,” Xianzong said, changing his target to Gu Xinglang. “Just what have you been teaching Linglong these past few days?”

Gu Xinglang’s headache intensified. What was he supposed to say?

Yu Xiaoxiao moved to shield Gu Xinglang from view. “Grandpa, big brother, and second brother are all pretty swell. Grandma and the sisters-in-law are all very good and Little Xun’er and the rest are really cute. The Gu Clan’s kitchens aren’t bad either and their food is super tasty.”

Xianzong privately guessed that the most important thing to Yu Xiaoxiao was her final statement.

Gu Xinglang took this chance to speak up. “Your Majesty, you should still make some arrangements for His Sixth Highness’s departure to Zhuri.”

“What kind of things does Zhen still need to do?” Xianzong asked.

Gu Xinglang replied, “Most likely Esteemed Consort Zhao will be too sad to think about arranging His Sixth Highness’s retinue to Zhuri. May Your Majesty quickly select the candidates.”

Yu Xiaoxiao thought that made sense. It wouldn’t do for LIttle Sixth to go to Zhuri without a single familiar face. “That’s right, imperial father. I think the four men by your side today aren’t bad. Have them go with Little Sixth to Zhuri.”

!@#!(@#**E!2

The four shadow guards outside the carriage all wanted to curse out loud. Princess, just how much do you hate us?!

Xiao Zhuang and Xiao Wei looked at their previous commander and colleagues with sympathy in their eyes. You might as well resign yourselves. It’s already fortunate that you haven’t died after falling into Her Royal Highness’s pit.

Xianzong’s eyelid twitched. “Linglong, do you think imperial father has a lot of shadow guards by my side?”

“It’s your own son we’re talking about here,” Yu Xiaoxiao said. He’s not going to be a bastard like Zhao Qiuming who couldn’t care less about his son, right?

Xianzong mused over it before he said, “Zhen’s in a rather good mood right now. Can you talk to Zhen about this tomorrow instead?”

Yu Xiaoxiao only trembled. She suddenly wanted to thrash him to death!

“W-what do you want to do?” Xianzong could sense the killing intent from his daughter but didn’t really believe that she’d beat him up. Still, he shrank back involuntarily.

Yu Xiaoxiao’s killer intent even made Gu Xinglang shiver. He quickly grabbed her hand and pointed out the window. “Princess look, someone’s sending a lantern down the river.”

Currently, their carriage was crossing over a bridge. Yu Xiaoxiao followed Gu Xinglang’s finger to see a matron setting off a small float with a candle inside. The white cloth of the boat had been folded into a lotus flower and shone ruddy beneath the flames as it drifted north with the river current.

Yu Xiaoxiao saw the river lantern floating away and asked Gu Xinglang, “What’s the story behind that?”

Xianzong replied, “Since the lantern’s white, it must be a memorial light, right?”

囧, went Gu Xinglang. He was so preoccupied with distracting Yu Xiaoxiao from beating up the emperor that he forgot white lanterns were memorial lights.

“What’s a memorial light?” Yu Xiaoxiao asked.

Xianzong stuck out his neck to look at the matron by the riverside, noting her mourning robes. He explained, “That matron’s husband passed away, so this lantern can take her spouse’s soul to the Yellow Springs.”

Yu Xiaoxiao had noticed the woman’s white robes as well. So it turns out people in this world commemorate the dead like that.

“Stop staring,” Xianzong tugged at Yu Xiaoxiao. “Why are you looking at something so unlucky?” So speaking, he glared at Gu Xinglang.

Gu Xinglang pretended not to notice.

Yu Xiaoxiao’s sights were fixated thoughtfully on the woman by the river. She suddenly turned to Gu Xinglang and asked, “If I die, what would you do?”

Gu Xinglang was left muddled by his wife’s question. Who would curse themselves to die for no reason, ah?

Yu Xiaoxiao said, “Would you send off a river lantern for me too?” In her last moments in the apocalypse, she had suicide-bombed herself with a bunch of zombies into the sky. She probably didn’t even have pieces of her body left. Still, that probably economizes things for that damned dog man. But in this world… Yu Xiaoxiao looked at Gu Xinglang. I don’t know if he’d send off a lantern for me?

“What kind of nonsense are you thinking of now?” Xianzong cut in brusquely, already angry again. “How old do you think you are? You’ve just gotten married and you’re already thinking of death?”

Yu Xiaoxiao glanced at him and said, “People can die at any time. Who knows? Maybe I’ll walk out the door tomorrow and meet a zomb–oh, I mean, a carriage accident?”

“What kind of carriage could kill someone with skills like yours?” Xianzong retorted.

“My body’s still made of flesh and blood, alright?” Yu Xiaoxiao dearly disdained this fatuous ruler.

Veins popped out on Xianzong’s forehead as he resisted the urge to beat her up. He couldn’t win against her in a fight, after all–but neither could he vent on his son-in-law. In the end, he shouted outside the carriage, “Are you lot taking a stroll? Zhen wants to go back to the palace!”

The carriage immediately sped up.

Gu Xinglang reached out a hand to grasp Yu Xiaoxiao’s own. She looked back at her man beneath the dim carriage lighting, which made Gu Xinglang’s expression especially gloomy.

“Xiaoxiao, we’ll stay together until our hair turns white,” Third Young Master Gu told her quietly.

去 – qu, or literally “Go!” or “Leave!” but used in this context as an exclamation that more or less means “Stop that!” or “Hey!” or similar.
The original text was a Chinese curse that was difficult to translate, so I used an equivalent expression to show the same emotions.