This Young Master studies spring palace. (Part Two)
Translation Checker: jellypeaches
Editor: jellypeaches, Special_K
With thirteen provinces and a vast territory to oversee, the Zong Dynasty’s court affairs piled up like a mountain. Lin Bozhou doubted easily and did not trust others, so he did everything by himself. At times, during busy days, he had to approve hundreds of memorials a day.
It was normal for him to stay up late working overtime, and he usually lost track of time and did not sleep until very late into the night.
Tapping his forehead lightly in thought, he suddenly remembered something and turned sideways toward the daybed behind the folding screen.
From where he was sitting, he was not able to see Meng Huan’s movements.
“Is the madam asleep?”
Shan Xing replied, “I’m afraid so.”
“Mmm.” Lin Bozhou said, “Then let him sleep. You are dismissed as well. There are still things to be done tomorrow.”
Meng Huan: “……”
He waited for so long, but all he got was the line ‘then let him sleep’. He could not tell whether he was feeling speechlessness or outrage.
It was a little like being nervous for ages about having to run a kilometer for a physical exam, but when it was finally his turn being told there would be no running.
Meng Huan felt like the meme of confused Nick Young.
…Sure enough, the other man was still not interested in him. Darn it. Feeling complicated, Meng Huan vented his anger by hitting the folding screen with his fist, making a soft pow sound.
In the middle of the night, in the empty hall, even the working servants were asleep against the wall. Lin Bozhou dipped his brush in the ink, raised his hand and handwriting bloomed on the white paper.
Then came a pow sound.
When he heard this, he looked up and saw Meng Huan standing behind the folding screen, looking at him with a complicated expression and a tilted head.
Lin Bozhou stopped writing. “Why are you still up?”
“…”
Since he had been found, Meng Huan trotted over to the man’s side and said, “Your Royal Highness, if you do not sleep now, it will be dawn soon.”
Lin Bozhou was writing a confidential document. Seeing Meng Huan sitting beside him so familiarly, he narrowed his eyes. For a moment, he wondered for a moment whether he should dismiss the youth.
But the first thing Meng Huan did was pick up a pastry from Lin Bozhou’s table. “Can I eat this?”
“Yes.”
Meng Huan bit into the pastry and commented, “Red-bean filling? Oh well, better than nothing.”
Like a taotie, he quickly devoured the treat. He picked up another one and handed it to Lin Bozhou. “Does Your Royal Highness want one?”
We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.
“Rb.”
“Yt.” Zfcu Lejc raeoofv la fcalgfis lcab tlr wbeat.
“…”
Olc Dbhtbe ibkfgfv tlr fsfr jcv uglqqfv tlr ygert alutais, offilcu atf rlifcmf lc atf jlg.
Zfcu Lejc clyyifv ja tlr rkffar, jcv ecmbcrmlberis ibbxfv vbkc. Vfflcu atf wjpfralm kglalcu bc atf ajyif, tlr fsfr kfgf olzfv bc lcxfv kbgvr klat rlwqif nlubgber tbbxr jcv olcf ragbxfr.
—This was a letter from Lin Bozhou to the Zhezhi Governor, asking him to allocate grain to the Huanghuai region. At present, the court was in a state of intense party strife, and without his approval, even if orders were given from above, the people below would try to push it back.
Of course, his orders would also meet with a lot of resistance. So the less people that see his secret letter on agreeing to allocate food before it was officially announced, the better.
Meng Huan had been staring at the letter awfully long.
He should have already read the whole plan.
Lin Bozhou’s eyes gradually darkened.
Biting into the pastry, Meng Huan finally spoke up, sounding amazed, “Such beautiful handwriting.”
Lin Bozhou: “?”
Meng Huan’s eyes shone brightly. “Did Your Royal Highness write this?”
So OP, so very OP! As expected from someone taught by the teacher of the crown prince.
The people who provided assistance and support to Lin Bozhou’s father were from Zhanshi House and were all great scholars selected from the Imperial Hanlin Academy. One being the young successor of the top scorer in the palace examination.
After the abolition of Lin Luan’s crown prince status, the scholars were pushed aside by the new crown prince and emperor, so they had to follow Lin Luan to Guzhou, a vassal state. Once Lin Bozhou was born, the scholars devoted themselves to training him, teaching him everything they knew in the hope that the kid would become great.
This was the reason for Lin Bozhou’s masterful writing. In his early twenties, he was able to draft articles that rivaled imperial academy trained members of the cabinet.
Since seeing something once was better than hearing it a hundred times, Meng Huan touched the writing on the paper and praised from the bottom of his heart, “Husband, you are too amazing.”
“…”
Lin Bozhou closed his eyes in silence.
Prolonged silence.
He opened his eyes and wanted to say, Go eat your pastries in the back bedchamber. But then he saw Meng Huan gently tugging the letter off the table.
“?”
Lin Bozhou’s expression changed subtly as a cold glint gathered in his dark eyes. Under the table, he began to stroke the string of beads hanging from his wrist. If there was someone who was familiar with him present, they would know that this elegant attitude was usually on display when the Prince Regent was debating whether to kill someone or not.
…This handwriting is so pretty.
Completely unaware of the danger, Meng Huan held the page up to the light and scanned it again. As he did so, he began to read the words on the paper softly, “People’s welfare…”
As he was reading, he frowned. He widened his almond-shaped eyes and tried to identify this traditional Chinese character.
Still trying.
“…” Fine, he really got nothing.
Meng Huan only knew a handful of characters in this whole letter. The rest was written in traditional Chinese, and in semi-cursive script on top of that.
He put down the paper, he raised his head and saw Lin Bozhou looking at him with a smile.
…That smile was very strange, it brought chills down his back.
Lin Bozhou raised an eyebrow. “Read the letter aloud to me.”
Read the letter? Meng Huan was confused. “Why?”
“Read it.” Lin Bozhou gave a short order.
Although puzzled, Meng Huan picked up the letter again and coughed slightly as his eyes scanned up and down.
During his wait, Lin Bozhou did not hear anything.
“Mmm?”
The shadow beside him moved as Meng Huan, who had his pale fingertip on the paper, leaned over. He carefully pointed to the first character, and tilted his head like a kitten. “Husband, how do you pronounce this word?”
Lin Bozhou: “……”
It was just a simple character.
If the youth did not even know this word, everything in this letter was completely lost to him.
Meng Huan was also muttering, “Can I not read it? There are so many words that I do not know…”
Lin Bozhou sighed, “Fine, you don’t have to read it.”
Meng Huan felt slightly tired from his brief journey from the bed. Sitting beside the man, he propped his head with his elbow on the table and began to doze off.
When Lin Bozhou finished the letter, he sealed it with wax.
When Lin Bozhou stood up, he noticed the sleeping youth, curling up like a kitten and purring softly.
The youth’s wrists poking out of the cuffs were thin and lanky. Clearly, the food served in the house of the Minister of Rites was very average, so the youth’s development was also average. His body looked very lithe.
Lin Bozhou reached out and tried to pull the sleeping youth up.
But when he pulled on the thin wrist, the youth fell into his arms without him using much force.
Meng Huan lay in his arms with his forehead on his chest. It looked as if the youth had found a comfortable spot as he rubbed against the spot and continued to snore softly.
Lin Bozhou calmly said, “Get up.”
The youth stayed asleep.
Lin Bozhou gently pinched his soft jaw.
This finally woke Meng Huan up as he mumbled incoherently with his eyes still closed.
“Is Your Royal Highness going to bed?”
“Yes.”
After receiving the reply, Meng Huan gently pulled the man’s sleeve and led them to the bed like a lonely soul journeying in a dream.
Then he fell head first into the bed, sinking into the softness of the blankets.
“Ugh…” He also emitted a soft noise of discomfort in his sleep.
Lin Bozhou looked down and saw that the youth occupied half of the bed without leaving a spot for him to sleep. For a moment, he did not know what to say.
Taking one of Meng Huan’s legs, he pushed the sleeping man towards the inside.
Then, the next thing he saw was some kind of book peeking out from under Meng Huan’s body. It was colorful and thick.
Lin Bozhou picked it up, and read the poem first.
“A new world lies in a little pot; the iron ox plows the earth to plant a golden lotus.”
He understood the image now.
“……”
The spring palace picture book had obviously been read recently. He tapped the pages with a finger as he flipped through, noticing fresh ink marks on one of the pages.
It seemed that Meng Huan drew something over it, before crossing it out.
Did he make these marks? Lin Bozhou lowered his gaze.
Re-examining the pictures, there was one that he had to avert his gaze from. This kind of thing was popular in brothels. He only frowned at it.
Compared with the aloof and indifferent young man he had heard of, the sleeping youth in front of him seemed to be much more proactive.
When he first brought Meng Huan back to the compound, he only had the thought of leaving and casually keeping the youth in the rear courtyard like a pet. What he did not expect was this youth to appear before him repeatedly and constantly capture his attention.
The Young Master who used to swear loudly became the docile and soft youth of the present.
But, which one is the real you?
His line of sight was moved from Meng Huan to the spring palace picture book again. He lowered his eyes before closing them.
The translator has something to add:
Teo: So my TLC left extended notes about the poem line. This translator was like, is this how reader felt when translator put long-winded notes? Because I was very much fascinated. Let me know if you guys want to see it unedited or something lol
Translation update:
Gu Province => Guzhou
After some discussion with the crew, the author mixed fictional and nonfictional places, and some of them could be as big as a province or as small as a city, and all with the name ‘zhou’. It makes more sense to keep it as pinyin for consistency sake.
The word originally, it means ‘land between rivers’, or something like that, and after being frequently used as part of place’s names, it just stuck. So now in modern Chinese, it’s legal definition is a specific kind of minority autonomous region, but it’s also used for US states.
I was just trying to find something to read when I saw this updated! Thank you 🙏
I wonder how many times this clueless Meng Huan will get himself into near-death situations with Lin Bozhou without ever noticing haha…
Thanks for the chapter!
I want a HuanHuan of my own he’s so precious hfhfjdjddj
Thansk for the chapter. 😘
It’s so interesting! Why are they also use “zhou” for united states? Do they also use it for Japanese prefectures?
Thank you for your translation 💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚
That word could mean province, prefecture, state (USA), oblast (Russia) and many more, I think just the origin of the word that makes it so boardly use (like since it existed, why not use it). In the story, its used for city as well, and since I don’t want to assume if the nonfictional place is a city size or state size, pinyin will be good enough.
Oh! Thank you for your answer! It’s really interesting, I think I will read more about it
If it helps, my tlc tried to explain the word to me: it’s messy b/c the proper like,, “legal” delineation has changed a lot haha the character itself initially meant smth like “islet”!! if you look, it’s just dots added between the lines of 川, which means river, so the character originally meant “land between rivers” or smth like that, and then after being frequently used as part of place names it just kind of stuck ig 😂 in modern chinese its legal definition is a specific kind of minority autonomous region, but it is also used for us states,,, so theres no easy answer oops 😂
Update pleaaaeee sooo funny hahaha
Thank You for the chapter (´,,•ω•,,)♡
❤️❤️❤️