Ms. Doctor Divine

II

11

“The Eighth Son is also very spoiled, arrogant and impulsive. He is never in a reasonable mood. He chopped the arm of an officer’s daughter off, just because he got irritated. It ruined the girl’s whole life. Also, he was born by Jiang Shuang, so he is part of the Jiang Family.”

“Lord Ling is definitely the most suitable one. He is smart, honest, and filial. He is gentle and a very suitable heir. He will be accepted by the ministers and civilians for sure.”

The Empress Dowager made an analysis about the princes.

As for the other princes, they were either too young or had a mother with too low a class. So they were never mentioned when princes were spoken of.

They would never get any title in their life, but they would have a free and leisurely life back in the court.

The King shared the same idea as the Empress Dowager. And he and Honored Princess Jing were in love with each other too, so Lord Ling was always the most suitable candidate. However, it was the first time for him to set up the heir, so the King felt quite nervous. Nevertheless, after receiving the answer from his mother, the King felt much more assured.

So he was in a good mood at the moment.

He had taken revenge upon the Jiang Family, and completed the mission. So he said, “Mother, please don’t share the information with anyone regarding this matter. I will tell Honored Princess Jing and Lord Ling about it personally. And I will get busy with the preparations for the endowment soon as well.”

The Empress Dowager smiled and looked at the King with interest. “Are you still prepared to give Honored Princess Jing a surprise at this age?”

At that moment, the Empress Dowager suddenly felt that the King had become young again.

He was like this when he was younger – he preferred to hide the surprise and reveal it later.

Only now did the Empress Dowager smile truthfully.

For a moment, the King had no idea how to answer so he nodded with a smile.

He had been on the throne for as long as 23 years. He was 19 years old when he took the throne, and now he was already 42. He was no longer young as before.

The reason why he liked surprises in the past was because he was still a young, naive prince.

He started to miss the old, happy times he spent with Honored Princess Jing.

The Empress Dowager felt assured seeing how the King reacted. She got up and returned to Cining Palace.

*

*

*

The moment the Empress Dowager was gone, the King asked De Fu to get new tea and started to read the petitions on the table. Lord Ling had read through them the night before, and he should have delivered them to the town by this point, if the attack had not happened.

The King opened the petitions, then he smiled.

Lord Ling was very discreet, and he would circle out the important points from the petitions, so that he could be fast in understanding what was written in the petition.

When the petitions were all marked, he wrote his own opinions on another petition as well as the solutions.

However, when the King read what he had written, he understood that the solutions were quite dull, carefully-made, but obviously ineffective.

Well...