Little Pink Starfish

Linglong Is a Good Big Sister

When the Old Madam learned that her beloved grandson could stand and walk again, she murmured a Buddhist prayer. She didn’t like the look of Yu Xiaoxiao, but her heart ached for Gu Xinglang. Seeing him truly able to get out of bed and stand with Xiao Wei’s support, the Old Madam cried her heart out. She immediately ordered someone to send word to Wangxiang Pass—this news needed to reach the old master and Second Young Master Gu.

By that afternoon, word of the prince consort’s full recovery had spread throughout the entire capital.

Emperor Xianzong was pleased when he heard it. Just as he was considering what gift to send his daughter and son-in-law, Qinghai said with a smile, “Your Majesty, the First Prince, Second Prince, Third, Fourth, and Fifth Princes have all left the palace to visit the prince consort.”

“They all went?” Xianzong asked.

“All of them,” Qinghai replied.

Xianzong sat in silence for a while, then said to Qinghai, “Don’t you think there’s something odd about these sons of mine?”

Qinghai immediately knelt down. Was he supposed to agree that the princes were acting weird?

Xianzong shook his head. Ever since his sixth son left for Zhu Ri, his remaining five sons had gotten along too well for his comfort. He hadn’t even named a crown prince yet, and they were all playing happily together? He clearly remembered when he was a prince—his own father had already chosen a crown prince, and still the brothers fought like rabid chickens, to the death. So why were his sons so… friendly?

Qinghai dared not speak. But in truth, with a figure like the Grand Princess Linglong around, even if His Majesty had ten more sons, none of them would have the guts—or opportunity—to fight.

Driven by a sincere desire to raise competent little brothers, Yu Xiaoxiao had been busy lately—not just caring for Gu Xinglang, but also micromanaging her younger siblings. Despite being basically illiterate, she frequently ran into the palace to read with them. Not only that, she took them on “field trips” to experience the lives of commoners (aka food hunting expeditions), taught them sibling harmony through “educational beatings,” and even collaborated with the palace tutors to create custom development plans based on each brother’s interests. (And if the tutors didn’t agree, the princess’s opinion trumped all.)

So, the current situation with the princes in the palace looked like this:

• When Yu Xiaoxiao saw the First Prince beating up a eunuch, she concluded he liked martial arts and threw him to the Gu family guards for military training.
• The Second Prince kept scamming his uncles and palace servants out of money—without any teaching, he already knew how to use an abacus. The princess decided he was a natural-born financier and handed him over to Boss Qian.
• The Third Prince liked destroying flowers and plants all over the palace, so Yu Xiaoxiao figured he was into botany and decisively sent him to one of Boss Qian’s farms outside the city to learn farming from the peasants.
• The Fourth Prince had a hobby of tearing up every paper he saw—and even eating it. Yu Xiaoxiao interpreted this as an excessive love for books and immediately assigned him to her idle husband, Gu Xinglang, for literacy lessons.

On that note, Xianzong and Yu Xiaoxiao had differing opinions. Xianzong believed the royal tutors—learned scholars—should be teaching his sons. How could a general like Gu Xinglang compete with them? Yu Xiaoxiao argued that the Fourth Prince was still a little squirt. Using top-tier scholars to teach a toddler to read was a waste of resources. Her Xiao Gu knew how to read and had beautiful handwriting—wasn’t he perfect for the job? Plus, he had nothing else to do.

Xianzong couldn’t convince his daughter. He wanted to keep the Fourth Prince safe in the palace, but his daughter would just walk in and whisk the boy away. No one could stop her. He couldn’t argue, couldn’t win in a fight—what else could he do but hand over his son to be “corrupted” by the son-in-law?

The Fifth Prince was a bit older than the Sixth Prince, Yu Ziming. If the Fourth Prince was still a little brat, then the Fifth was even brattier. Consort Rong once thought her son was safe from all this, but Yu Xiaoxiao felt it wasn’t right to neglect the fifth when she was already involved with the other four. So she brought the Fifth Prince to her side. While Gu Xinglang taught the Fourth to read, she sat with the Fifth Prince and ate snacks.

Xianzong sighed heavily and said to Qinghai, “Fine, I’ll go visit that boy tonight.” With all his sons at the Gu estate, staying in the palace alone was meaningless.

Qinghai’s face twitched. Never mind that His Majesty was the emperor—what kind of father-in-law constantly hung around his son-in-law’s house?

“They really like the princess,” Xianzong added with another sigh. “Linglong’s a good big sister.”

Qinghai’s face twitched harder. All the consorts in the harem hated the Grand Princess. The princes now wanted to be generals, bankers, agricultural experts… And the youngest two were stuck to the princess and her husband every day. It was unlikely they’d ever dream of being emperor. Did His Majesty know how much heartbreak he was causing the harem?

Xianzong leaned back and started going through memorials. He had no choice. Just thinking about Mo Wen’s quiet stay at Yongsheng Temple gave him anxiety. If he wanted to survive, he had to make sure that when Yongsheng Temple and the Five Kingdoms eventually ganged up on them, Fengtian wouldn’t be flattened. And how do you withstand a beating? You need a strong army. And what supports a strong army? National strength. And how do you build that? Xianzong could only cry. If not for survival, he’d never be this diligent, never let himself suffer through all these good-governance nonsense papers his daughter kept advocating.

At this moment, the five princes were lined up in front of Gu Xinglang’s bed, all staring at his legs with wide, blinking eyes.

• First Prince Yu Ziqing: “Brother-in-law, when can you take me to the battlefield?”
• Second Prince Yu Zibai: “Brother-in-law, are you still spending a lot on medical bills?”
• Third Prince Yu Zizhou: “Brother-in-law, you really can walk? I’ll show you my farmland.”
• Fourth Prince Yu Zichu: “Brother-in-law, are we still doing dictation today?”
• Fifth Prince Yu Zishen, sucking his fingers and staring at Yu Ziyi in Gu Xinglang’s arms: “Brother-in-law, hug!”

This batch of kids and their poor brother-in-law…

Yu Xiaoxiao scooped up the fifth prince and dropped him on the bed. “Okay, your brother-in-law will hug.”

“Hug!” Yu Zishen pounced on Gu Xinglang like a little bear cub.

“You’ll have to bear with it,” Yu Xiaoxiao said to Gu Xinglang. “There’s only one man in the palace—my dad. So when they see you, it’s like spotting an endangered species.”

Gu Xinglang: …