From CEO to Concubine-Chapter 166: Mystery Upon Mystery
Liu Yao’s birthday was fast approaching. It caught Yan Zheyun by surprise when Noble Consort Dao gently took him aside after one of the inner palace assemblies and mentioned it to him in private. It was kind of her. Should anyone have caught wind that the emperor’s prized, pampered consort had no idea that his birthday was nigh, Yan Zheyun was certain that tongues would wag hard enough to reach the morning court and come tomorrow morning, there would be new memorials on the emperor’s desk asking him to demote Imperial Noble Consort Yue who was not befitting the role.
But the truth of the matter was that Yan Zheyun could hardly be blamed. He had tried asking Liu Yao about his birthday in the past but it was difficult to do without prying too hard and Liu Yao had always been evasive. Yan Zheyun hadn’t been certain about whether he was committing some terrible astrological taboo here by inquiring about what could be the emperor’s bazi; the answer was probably affirmative.
As such, he hadn’t dug too deeply, figuring that nearer the date he would catch wind of it and have ample time to prepare a small something for Liu Yao separately, not realising back then that he might be the person in charge of all the preparations.
Even though he knew that he was living in a world where he had a protagonist halo and that novel-logic had to take precedence over being realistic, it still felt crazy that he had scaled the entire harem’s ladder in a year or so.
After he’d gotten over his shock that the emperor’s birthday was only a month away, Yan Zheyun finally realised what struck him as odd.
"How come the departments haven’t come to me with details of the preparations?" he asked with a frown. 𝙛𝒓𝓮𝒆𝔀𝒆𝙗𝓷𝒐𝙫𝒆𝙡.𝒄𝓸𝓶
Noble Consort Dou glanced up from her embroidery and glanced carefully at their surroundings. They were in a pavilion in Aiyun Palace but due to a need for extra propriety given the differences in their genders, their servants were still around to attend to them and it would only invite suspicion to dismiss them for privacy reasons.
As such, Noble Consort Dou didn’t say much and Yan Zheyun tried his best to understand what he could and did not press her for more information.
"His Majesty does not celebrate his birthdays in the inner palace," she said quietly. "The state banquet held with the front court falls under the purview of the Ministry of Rites and we do not have to do much for it."
She didn’t explain why and he didn’t ask.
"So we don’t have to organise anything."
"Yue Langjun is correct."
Which meant that she was letting him know this out of kindness, for which he ought to thank her.
"Yue Langjun does not need to," was her even reply when he tried to. The little furrow on her brow tightened and a hesitation flitted over her face as she looked at him like she wished to say something but was uncertain whether she really should.
"Noble Consort Dou can speak her mind," he reassured. "This consort is not so ungrateful that I cannot recognise that you have my best intentions at heart."
"His Majesty...does not see his birthday as a happy occasion." Her voice was barely above a whisper. "Should Yue Langjun choose to broach the subject...please proceed with caution."
Not a happy occasion. It wasn’t hard to see why, given Liu Yao’s relationship with his mother. But that was where the mystery lay for Yan Zheyun. Yan Zheyun had watched palace dramas before where the emperor and the dowager were related by circumstance but not by blood. In that event, it was understandable that their relationship might not be built upon strong foundations.
But as far as Yan Zheyun was aware, Liu Yao’s birth mother was the empress dowager. Was she so disappointed in his preference for men, in his lack of an heir, in his decision to strip power from the old noble clans that she had chosen to turn against him?
An unhappy squawk emitting from his arms jolted him out of his thoughts and he gazed down at the red shock of fur curled up on his lap, which was now looking up at him with big reproachful eyes.
"My apologies, Xiao Zuzong1," he said, using the name that the young maidservants who had found the fox in his hunting tent had chosen for the tiny hellion. He hadn’t known that they’d adopted the fox in secret until there was no way for them to conceal it on the way back from the hunt. Knowing next to nothing about them except that they were not like domesticated dogs and cats, Yan Zheyun had been highly reluctant to allow them to keep it in Aiyun Palace, especially since he had no idea whether the vets of this era had any idea how to check for rabies or other transmittable animal-borne diseases. But the fox had been remarkably affectionate towards him, to the point of heartlessly spurning the heartbroken maidens that had washed it and fed it and given it a warm bed. At the same time, these young girls, all of whom came from clean but impoverished backgrounds according to Head Eunuch Cao’s checks, reminded him so much of the little sister he missed so sorely that Yan Zheyun found it difficult to say no to their small request.
So it was that after thorough examination by the best imperial animal physicians, the same ones who tended to the health of Liu Yao’s warhorse, Yan Zheyun had relented and allowed them to keep Xiao Zuzong on the condition that they would be responsible for its well-being.
Xiao Zuzong, however, had taken an instant liking to Yan Zheyun’s arms, where it now spent most of its time napping...unless Liu Yao came back and chased it away.
There is always a higher mountain1. Dragons were probably higher up the food chain than foxes...
"Is Imperial Noble Consort Yue planning on talking to His Majesty about a celebration?" Noble Consort Dou asked tentatively. When Yan Zheyun looked at her, she sighed. "To be truthful, I’ve considered it in the past but have never managed to muster the courage to broach the subject," she confessed. "But...for the Son of Heaven to not even have a family banquet in his name on what should be one of the most celebrated days of the realm..."
Yan Zheyun could see where she was coming from. In ancient times, the emperor’s birthday was no trifling matter, and yet on this day each year, Liu Yao passed it without acknowledgement from those who ought to be closest to him. Yan Zheyun thought about the massive celebration thrown in the fourth prince’s honour last year, a state banquet that he was wholly undeserving of. Little Ninth Prince Liu An was still not ready to appear before the court officials in the capacity of a prince of the first rank but the family banquet Noble Consort Dou had arranged for him had been a modest but heartwarming affair.
Liu Yao deserved better. Yan Zheyun was going to give it to him but on terms that Liu Yao would want rather than forcing him to attend a party that he didn’t want to be present for.
"I’ll find a way to talk to him," he said at last. "But not at the moment. He’s got enough on his mind as it is." He didn’t elaborate on what was troubling Liu Yao at present and Noble Consort Dou knew better than to ask.
In truth, Yan Zheyun didn’t have a clear idea of what was going on in the morning court either. He was busy assisting Liu Yao with planning the education reforms behind the scenes and with monitoring Liu An’s study progress. Liu Yao was exhausted all the time these days so he’d resolved not to be too nosy about work either, choosing to let Liu Yao tell him what he wanted to and being a harbour where Liu Yao dock in at the end of a gruelling day and rest to his heart’s content.
What Yan Zheyun had heard about though, was the spate of murders that had left the Court of Judicature1 flummoxed and the capital in the throes of fear. The victims were of a myriad of backgrounds, with no discernible pattern between them apart from the fact that they were all handsome, young men. They were found dead with their organs ripped out of their body gruesomely. Some had an eye missing, others a liver or a kidney, but the other thing they had in common was that they were all missing a heart. This led many to speculate that it was a crime of passion. Whatever it was, Liu Yao had imposed a curfew, the first in a long while in the capital.
For the reputation of the Court of Judicature and in conjunction, the trustworthiness of imperial authority, they had to solve this case as fast as possible.
Yan Zheyun couldn’t weigh in on this as he had no expertise in the area. What he could do for Liu Yao was ease some of the other burdens that he carried; sometimes it was hard to remember that Liu Yao was an emperor, the most precious, exalted person in the lands, and not some Asian version of Sisyphus.
Yan Zheyun had heard also that the morning court, perhaps out of pettiness, was calling for Liu Yao to hold back on educational reforms in light of the military instability of the North. It was no secret that they were displeased with Liu Yao’s decision to send Great General Pan back to the front instead of a general more aligned with the old noble clans, and it was unsurprising that they would use this as an opportunity to resist Liu Yao’s other policies. The Ministry of Revenue made it their life’s work to cry about how empty the imperial coffers were at the moment whenever asked to fund any new projects.
Compared to war, compared to crime, money was Yan Zheyun’s old friend. He came from money. He knew it intimately. More than that, he knew how to make it, how to manage it when it passed into his hands.
After Noble Consort Dou took her leave, Yan Zheyun wasted no time in heading over to the study to continue working on his latest proposal. Liu An had been his beta tester, so as to speak, but now he was convinced that widespread dissemination of mathematical knowledge was vital for the improvement of the kingdom. It wasn’t as though maths hadn’t been discovered yet; far from it. But its association with the lowest class—merchants—meant that it wasn’t highly regarded. Certainly, it was not part of the curriculum that scholars had to master to become court officials. Some unorthodox members of the court might dabble in it as a hobby but if there were ledgers that needed to be sorted or numbers that had to be crunched, then the morning court could rely on a separate society of mathematicians that were hired for that sole purpose and nothing more.
Yan Zheyun had thoroughly reviewed the current system and concluded that this was one of the main reasons why the Ministry of Revenue was such a hot mess. It was akin to managing the finances of a company with zero ability to read the accountancy books. Not only were they fully reliant on the goodwill and capabilities of the accountants they hired, but they were also taking blind stabs at resource management, allocating budget without any accurate feasibility reports.
Sure, they gave Liu Yao ’advice’ on whether it a project could be funded successfully or not but on what grounds? Given the nonsense they spewed in court regularly, Yan Zheyun didn’t trust them to be able to add and subtract anything more complicated than a month’s expenditure without fucking up.
And if they weren’t fucking up, then they were just so rotten to the core with corruption that they looked like they were trying to screw Liu Yao over by targeting his GDP hard.
The Ministry of Revenue was already oversaturated by the old noble clans and it was premature to expect Liu Yao to uproot them wholesale with a mass retrenchment and replace them with people more suited to the task.
But...Liu Yao could be open to the idea of a new audit department, one that was trained specifically in the task of calling out discrepancies in the kingdom’s financial statements, a watchdog set on the haunches of the Ministry of Revenue for the sole purpose of keeping them on their toes.
Yan Zheyun laughed softly to himself as he began his first draft. Liu Yao would be more than open to the suggestion. In fact, he daresay that Liu Yao would enjoy it very much.
A saying that means there is always someone out there that is better; a reminder not to brag or become over-complacent about one’s achievements. Literally translates to ’Little Ancestor’. The Court of Judicature was mentioned earlier in its judiciary capacity when they were asked by Liu Yao to judge Noble Consort Li’s case. But they had another role where they also investigated and judged high profile criminal cases that were too complicated for magisterial review.
