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ITVCFITB CHAPTER 43
Chapter 43: The Art of Husband-Taming?
The Double Ninth had come and gone; folks who’d finished admiring autumn chrysanthemums were already making plans to admire winter plum blossoms once the snows set in.
Luo Shuyu woke, pushed open the window, and a blade of cold slid straight into the room. He stuck his head out.
The world was dressed in white. Snow lay quilt-thick over the ground; icicles clung to branches, catching the light and glittering like crystal.
A perfect winter picture.
It was snowing.
This year’s snow had come early, earlier than usual. Mid-tenth month and already a true freeze. Winter would likely be long.
He turned to Li Mingjin, who was sipping hot tea. “Your Highness, come look, snow!”
Seeing how lightly Luo Shuyu was dressed and how he was letting the wind whip his sleeves, Li Mingjin lifted a white fur cloak and set it over his shoulders. “Don’t catch cold.”
After six, seven days of convalescence at home, most of Li Mingjin’s wounds had knit; only a few ugly scars remained. He was young and older scars had faded so much Luo Shuyu hadn’t really noticed before. Only when he wiped him down up close did he catch the faint, pale lines.
It had taken nearly a week for Luo Shuyu to dig out every last packet of the medicine Li Mingjin used to take. Whether he threw them away or hid them somewhere, Li Mingjin didn’t ask; he’d memorized the formula years ago, but he didn’t dare have more made behind Luo Shuyu’s back.
A gentleman’s word once given is as good as iron. He’d said he would stop, and he would stop.
Mostly, he dreaded seeing Luo Shuyu cry. Not a headache but a heartache, splintering into pieces kind of ache.
“Snow doesn’t feel cold,” Luo Shuyu said, reaching to touch the little icicles forming along the lattice. Cool, neat. “What does snow make you think of, Your Highness?”
He leaned in with the cloak and pulled Luo Shuyu into his arms, their temples touching.
“Snowball fights,” Li Mingjin said. “I loved pelting the little eunuchs when I was small.”
Luo Shuyu, meanwhile, thought of their last happy winter in the previous life. Leave aside the bitter end, every small kindness from before was etched into him. Near the due month, his belly had been heavy; nights sleepless; temper sharp. He’d glowered at Li Mingjin daily, snapping at everything.
He’d known even then that Li Mingjin treated him differently. One icy morning he’d found a note on the dressing table: ‘Yuer, open the window.’ He’d waddled over and pushed it open to find a lopsided snowman with a carrot jammed in its head. After days of gloom, he finally snorted a laugh and ate an extra dumpling at breakfast.
Last time, Li Mingjin had been the one to bend around him. This time, he’d be the one to bend around Li Mingjin.
Eyes bright, he spun around. “Your Highness, let’s go have a snowball fight!”
Bewitched by that look, Li Mingjin stole a quick kiss. “All right. Let’s.”
They were young; who doesn’t have a playful streak? Gravitas was for outsiders. In the Third Prince’s manor, no one fussed if they played, if the emperor heard, the most he’d say was they were still childish.
The first soft thud of a snowball leaving his hand made Luo Shuyu grin like a kid. He’d never let himself play like this, freely and happily.
A snowball clipped the brim of Li Mingjin’s hat. He blinked. “You really hit me?”
“Otherwise how is it a snowball fight?” Luo Shuyu laughed. “Be bold! Snow is fun.” Cold, too.
Bold he was: Li Mingjin scooped and lobbed, thumping one beside Luo Shuyu’s boot. He couldn’t bear to actually pelt his spouse.
Then he pivoted and winged one up toward the roof. Shadow Three, crouched there to watch the fun, took the blow full in the face.
“As a Shadow Guard,” Luo Shuyu called up, laughing, “your reflexes are sorely lacking. Can’t even dodge Your Highness’s snowball. Dock a month’s pay!”
Shadow Three clutched his chest. “Your Highness, at this rate I’ll have no pay left! Plead with Consort on my behalf!”
“Plead what?” Li Mingjin said, shameless. “Everything in this manor, including me, is under the Third Consort’s rule.”
Shadow Three: …No one has ever been this happily hen-pecked.
By noon, Luo Shuyu’s spirits were sky-high.
They didn’t stay out long. Afraid of a chill, Li Mingjin simply scooped him up and carried him back, not letting him walk more than a couple of steps. Luo Shuyu fretted more about the strain on his wounds.
“They won’t split,” Li Mingjin said. “I’m nearly fine. And you weigh nothing.”
“Braggart,” Luo Shuyu said, hands around his neck. “Take off your layers and let me check.”
Li Mingjin swallowed. “That can be arranged. If you undress me yourself, I’ll… reciprocate appropriately.”
“It's daylight,” Luo Shuyu said, rolling his eyes. “Think of the small couch.”
“It’s been days,” Li Mingjin muttered, aggrieved to the core.
Which only made Luo Shuyu laugh harder.
They’d just gotten properly snuggly on the couch when visitors were announced, sparing the couch from combustion.
The callers were Liang Jianxue and Chen Rong. Liang had family in the city and didn’t live in the manor, Chen Rong did. Tucked in a side courtyard a decent walk from the main, his sickliness disarming to anyone inclined to be wary.
One breath of cold air at the threshold set him coughing.
The sound made Luo Shuyu wince on his behalf; he had more braziers brought in and couldn’t let this rare talent catch his death here.
Liang edged his seat farther from Chen lest he be sprayed, his disdain showing, the air of a pedant who thought himself above the room. He also clearly disapproved of Luo Shuyu’s presence in the study, thinking a consort should stay tucked in the inner court. He kept his tongue between his teeth, though the servants had already spread the rumor that their prince had a temper, and the Third Consort was stricter still.
“Your Highness,” Liang began, “the Zhou envoy reached the outskirts yesterday and will lodge at the Ministry of Rites today awaiting an audience. Have you any plans?”
Li Mingjin popped a chestnut that Luo Shuyu had peeled for him. “Plans for what?”
“I hear they’ve brought a princess for the marriage alliance.”
He didn’t even lift his eyes. He cracked a shell, peeled another perfect chestnut, and placed it in Luo Shuyu’s palm. “And?”
Liang launched into a long, self-satisfied proposal. With every sentence, Li Mingjin’s face sank a shade. If the man didn’t have some ability, Li Mingjin would have ordered Shadow Three to bury his head in a snowdrift to cool it.
Chen Rong, meanwhile, kept serenely peeling and enjoying the sugar-roasted nuts. Fragrant. The Third Prince’s household knew how to live. He watched Liang with the tolerant curiosity one reserves for fools.
Liang’s voice dwindled. Soon only the soft crack of shells and the rustle of paper cones remained.
“Your Highness, I- my proposal…”
Li Mingjin’s voice was flat. “Anything else?”
Face going taut, Liang stammered, “N-no.”
“Then go home.”
“…”
“Steward Sun, see Mister Liang out.”
“…”
He still didn’t understand what he’d done wrong.
“Your Highness, I’m thinking of you. If you won’t listen, fine, but why throw me out?”
With a smile that wasn’t a smile, Luo Shuyu said, “The weather’s turning. His Highness worries that if the snow grows heavier you won’t make it home.”
Whether he meant snow or getting beaten until he couldn’t make it home, only the clever would know.
He really had walked in and put his foot on the rake.
What harebrained suggestions, urging Li Mingjin to take the Zhou princess as a co-equal wife, and make Zhou his future backing. Might as well wave a flag at the emperor: I want the throne. Even leaving aside whether Li Mingjin needed the help, saying it in front of Luo Shuyu alone was grounds for a thrashing.
After today, the Third Prince’s manor wouldn’t be seeing Liang Jianxue again. With one speech he’d offended both masters of the house.
Still, Luo Shuyu sensed someone else’s hand at work. “That wasn’t his own idea,” he said quietly.
Li Mingjin looked to chestnut-mellow Chen Rong. “Your thoughts?”
Chen smiled and shook his head. “None, Your Highness. But I agree with the Third Consort. Liang Jianxue has been unusually flush of late. Perhaps related.”
“Eating inside, feeding the outside dogs,” Li Mingjin said, tone turning cool.
“Don’t waste your anger,” Luo Shuyu said mildly. “It tells us he can be bought. Anyone truly dangerous wouldn’t be so crude, tossing silver at a staffer and sending him to blurt it out.”
Chen’s eyes brightened. “Has the Third Consort someone in mind?”
He did. That blunt, graceless shove had Shen Mingyun written all over it.
Shen Mingyun had indeed moved into the Fourth Prince’s manor, the two of them still deep in the honeyed days. The household was simple on paper, but he’d entered as a concubine, so the back courtyard would not be peaceful.
In front of Shen, Fourth Prince always wore gentility. Like Li Mingjin’s household, he had both women and pretty boys on the rolls, beauties each one. The first time Shen saw them line up and chirp “gege,” his face nearly twisted out of shape.
Fourth Prince, still in honeymoon mode, shielded him for now. The old “flowers” stayed.
“It seems unkind to turn them out in winter,” he said softly. “Let them pass the season. If you dislike them, they can move farther out.”
Shen, focused on quests, waved it off. The courtesans stayed.
And then he went straight to Liang Jianxue. With a few system props prodding at Liang’s greed, you got today’s performance.
So obvious a nudge that Li Mingjin dismissed Liang on the spot, no need to keep feeding him.
Shen Mingyun had no idea he’d already shown his hand.
Luo Shuyu didn’t tell Chen who had been pulling Liang’s strings. He was busy puzzling out why Shen would want to push a Zhou princess into the Third Prince’s manor.
It had to be a system task. Shen wouldn’t grasp the nuances between states otherwise.
But why did the system first try to stop his wedding to Li Mingjin… and now push for a co-wife? What did breaking up their marriage gain the system?
Had his rebirth forced the system to alter Shen’s questline?
In the book, quests had always orbited the “big shots” Shen wanted to romance. By the calendar, Shen should be off helping a Zhou prince through some crisis.
Was it that he and Li Mingjin were interfering with Shen’s future route, so the system needed Shen to damage their bond, nudging them apart?
Why?
In the text, the two of them barely mattered. They hadn’t even affected Shen and Fourth Prince’s romance arc.
He listed his hypotheses one by one, proving, then disproving. After half a day he’d caught only the end of the thread, no clue where it led.
If they could figure out why, they’d know how to defend against it.
What was it?
He had the thread pinched—but not the knot hidden deeper in the weave.
On the third day after Zhou’s envoys arrived, Li Mingjin attended the welcoming banquet at his father’s order.
The emperor still favored the Fourth Prince for the marriage.
Crown Prince, Eldest Prince, Fourth—all present. The Zhou princess, veiled, sat opposite Fourth.
Li Mingjin drank absently, indifferent to the Crown Prince and Eldest’s polite barbs.
The princess was a beauty, but both knew she wouldn’t be landing in their houses.
When the emperor entered, the banquet truly began.
There were the usual friendly contests, first arms, then arts.
Freshly healed, Li Mingjin sat back to watch.
He should’ve known he wouldn’t be left to it. Yuer had said as much before he left: You may not be able to sit this out tonight.
Someone called on him, Zhou’s envoy.
He slouched against the table. “What was that?”
The envoy, thinking he hadn’t heard, repeated himself. “I hear the Third Prince is accomplished in both letters and arms, one of Daxia’s rare talents…”
Li Mingjin’s gaze went black and steady. The envoy found his spine snapping ramrod straight and swallowed the rest of his flattering line.
Li Mingjin nodded anyway. “I am, of course, accomplished in both. My consort says so.”
The hall: “…”
In a state banquet?
Emperor Tiansheng chuckled despite himself. The message was clear: no interest in the Zhou princess, and a man ruled by his spouse besides.
The envoy blinked. Had his source misled him?
The princess snuck a glance at the Third Prince, meeting that cool stare and nervously twisted her fingers before looking down the bench at Fourth Prince’s gentle smile. The contrast was… calming.
By morning, the story was everywhere.
No one knew where the princess would end up.
Nor whether the emperor would truly pair her with the Fourth Prince.
But one thing was certain: all of the capital knew that the fearsome Third Prince was afraid of his spouse. He’d said in open court that his consort praised him as “accomplished in letters and arms.”
No prince had ever been that guilelessly frank.
Overnight, every storyteller had a new archetype for their “hen-pecked husband” tales.
The next day, Luo Shuyu attended Eldest Princess Consort’s snow-viewing party.
He arrived neither early nor late, dressed tastefully plain so as not to stand out.
Which did not stop every eye, overt or covert, from tracking him the moment he crossed the threshold.
He had barely taken his seat when a newly married young lady leaned forward and asked, bright-eyed, “Third Consort, might we ask your wisdom in… husband-taming?”
He blinked. “…Husband-taming?”
Author’s note:
Third Prince: “Wife! You sit on top and shout ‘Hyah!’”
Luo Shuyu: “…”
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