Harem Daily Life

Seeing the annoyance that flashed across He Linzhang's face, Tao Yanyan asked Mingyue to take the children over to play first. After the children were far away, she asked softly, "Is there something on your mind, Your Majesty?"

After spending more time together, it will be easy to notice the other person's abnormal behavior.

This was the time when He Linzhang was the busiest, yet he actually had the leisure to come to the harem and even searched for her all the way to the Imperial Garden. Tao Yanyan judged that something must have happened.

Since there was no one around, He Linzhang no longer hid and directly told the censor about his impeachment of the queen.

Tao Yanyan said calmly, "Your Majesty, I renovated Jingci Temple for the sake of the royal family's reputation. I have no intention of suppressing the former queen, nor do I have any disrespect for her."

She glanced at He Linzhang's expression and continued, "The censors impeached me because they themselves were confused about their position. I am not afraid of them. However, if my actions have caused Your Majesty trouble, then... Your Majesty should reprimand me, or punish me with confinement."

After saying this, he said gloomily: "Anyway, we have to give them a solution, even if it's just superficial, we have to do it, right?"

He Linzhang looked at her with pity in his heart. He gently hugged her and said softly, "I understand that everything you did was right, and I understand how you feel now. The method you proposed sounds feasible and can silence the ministers' complaints, but I don't want to ask you to reflect on your mistakes behind closed doors."

Tao Yanyan looked up at him, his large eyes flickering. "Then what should Your Majesty do? How do you appease these imperial censors?"

He Linzhang chuckled: "I am the emperor. If I don't want to pay attention to them, then I don't have to. The worst that can happen is that they can impeach me as well."

Tao Yanyan was amused by his scoundrelly demeanor. "Your Majesty, are you completely giving up? Then the censors will be furious, fuming, and they'll be filing three memorials a day impeaching Your Majesty."

When the emperor and empress thought of that scene, they smiled at each other, showing their tacit understanding.

As soon as He Linzhang returned to the Qinzheng Palace, he drafted an edict, fining Zhang Yushi and others three months' salary on the grounds that they had spoken excessively and made irresponsible remarks about the harem.

After receiving the imperial edict, Censor Zhang and his colleagues were so angry that they jumped up and down. They originally had a memorial impeaching the empress, and now they had to work overtime all night and not sleep to write another memorial impeaching the emperor. While they were still hot with anger, they finished writing it and immediately sent it to the emperor's desk.

"Stubborn, absolutely stubborn!" He Linzhang threw the memorial to the ground. "It seems the Censorate really has too much free time. They're meddling in everything, even down to my bed!"

Zhang Fuhai didn't understand what was going on, so he bent down to pick up the memorials out of curiosity and "accidentally" took a peek. When he saw the sentence "I advise Your Majesty to focus on state affairs and not to be obsessed with the Queen's beauty", he curled his lips.

Eunuch Zhang: With Your Majesty at such a young age full of vigor and vitality, and the Empress being so stunningly beautiful, you, the Censor, still want to advise Your Majesty not to indulge in women?

Do you want Your Majesty to stay alone in the empty room every night, lonely and cold?

Or do you want to make His Majesty angry and difficult to please?

Are you going to punish His Majesty or me, the eunuch who serves His Majesty?

Humph, you are really stubborn and have no tact.

Eunuch Zhang sorted out the memorials on the ground and put them back on the side of the table, waiting respectfully.

"Hmph, if the Censorate is really too idle, I have a job to assign to them." After He Linzhang finished speaking, he narrowed his eyes, took out a blank imperial edict, and wrote it down quickly.

Eunuch Zhang stood by his side, reading the contents of the imperial edict clearly. He silently lit a row of candles for the imperial censors in his mind.

Not long after, the imperial edict was sent to the Censorate, and everyone almost fainted when they saw it.

Your Majesty is actually launching a nationwide inspection for a whole year, sending imperial censors to various parts of the Great Zhou to conduct research. However, this cannot be done in a high-profile manner, but must be done quietly to find out whether the officials in various places are doing things in a decent manner, whether they are dedicated to their work, whether the people are satisfied, and whether there are any unjust, false, or wrong cases.

There was wailing in the Censorate. This was a difficult job that was thankless and it was difficult to achieve political achievements!

"I told you all long ago that His Majesty dotes on the Queen, and we shouldn't try to impeach her to death. You didn't listen, so what should we do now? It seems like His Majesty is deliberately trying to cause trouble for us."

"Now that the incident has happened, what's the point of your hindsight? We discussed this all along. The Queen's family is the only one in power, and they're the only ones favored in the harem. This has caused His Majesty to even stop the selection of concubines every three years, which is against ancestral rules. We took advantage of this incident with the former Queen to find a fault in her and impeach her. You all agreed to this!"

"We underestimated the extent of His Majesty's favor for the Queen. Master Zhang, what should we do now?"

Everyone looked at Censor Zhang, whose face turned red as liver with anger.

He held the imperial edict issued today and pondered for a long time: "Your Majesty has ordered us to tour the country. Shouldn't we go? Put everything else aside and quickly come up with a plan and roadmap. Assign personnel. If we need to apply for money from the Ministry of Revenue, we should quickly prepare a budget. Those old foxes in the Ministry of Revenue are so stingy that they treat granting money like it's their life."

Censor Li choked and stepped forward, saying, "Last time, I impeached the Minister of Revenue. Don't assign me this budget report. I always quarrel with him when we meet. I will definitely not get the money if I go there to ask for it."

Censor Zhang sighed and continued, "As for the carriages and horses, we have to ask the Ministry of Works for them. For the guards, we have to ask the Ministry of War. For the list of officials from all over the country, we have to ask the Ministry of Personnel..."

When everyone heard this, they all waved their hands. One said that they had impeached the Ministry of Works before, and another said that they had caused trouble for the Ministry of War before. In short, the Censorate had offended all six ministries.

After the discussion was over and everyone's tasks were assigned, no one looked happy.

Some people are even calculating whether they should use their connections to change departments.

Otherwise you will offend people every day. It feels good when you write letters to scold them, but you will be disliked in private!

Upon learning of He Linzhang's plan to take personal revenge, Tao Yanyan looked at him with admiration: "Your Majesty, you are so clever! You look like a man who is treacherous, domineering, and like a wolf!"

He Linzhang: “…”

His ears suddenly felt warmed by the young queen's compliments. He slowly leaned forward, hugged her in his arms, and said affectionately, "What about Yan Yan? What kind of woman is she?"

Tao Yanyan's eyes flashed cunningly: "Extremely beautiful, cute and adorable bunny?"

He Linzhang thought of the pair of fox and rabbit ears, and his breathing became heavier. He kissed her deeply and did not let her go for a long time. Both of them were slightly out of breath.

"What about those ears? I haven't seen you use them since you gave birth to two kids. Where did you put them, huh?"

Tao Yanyan's face flushed red, and she pushed him away, but her eyes drifted towards a box on the bedside.

He Linzhang understood and stood up to take it. He found that in addition to the two pairs of ears, there was also a middle shirt embroidered with a little rabbit pattern.

He turned around and glanced at Tao Yanyan, then handed her the clothes and said, "How about changing into them now?"