Living leisurely in Tang Dynasty

elf being the older brother hadn’t noticed that Yuanying had such talent!　　

 After the children has finished eating, his Majesty requested that Li Yuanying tells another story to soothe the children’s emotions.
Li Yuanying felt that since he got to eat a royal meal for free it was no loss to him if he told another story.
 

This story called the “Little Princess’s Birthday” is also very warm and moving.
It’s about a beautiful princess who is about to celebrate her birthday.
In order to make the princess happy, her subjects presented a particularly ugly boy to dance for her.
The princess was amused by the boy’s funny dance and threw him a white rose.

 After listening to this, His Majesty nodded approvingly and thought that although the story was a little flat, it was not bad.
At least it taught Sizi not to judge people by their appearance.
Everyone in the world has their value!

Li Yuanying stopped for a sip of water before continuing with the story.

The little boy had mistakenly thought that the princess liked him so he broke into the palace to express his feelings only to find a mirror on the way.
The little boy was poor and had not seen a mirror.
He was startled when he saw himself in the mirror: “What kind of monster is this?!” After he confirmed that the “monster” in the mirror was indeed himself, he was very sad.
At that moment he heard the princess smiling and telling her friends: “It’s funny how he dances.”

The little boy then realized that the princess just thought of him as nothing but a clown and died of a broken heart.

At the end of the story the princess learning that the little boy can no longer dance to amuse her became angry and said: “From now onwards, anyone who plays with me should not have a heart!”

The Emperor: “……”

The way Li Yuanying described the little boy’s determination when he broke into the palace was very realistic.
The moment the little boy’s dream was pierced by harsh reality was naturally very heart-breaking.
After hearing the whole story Sizi, Hengshan, Chengyang cried again.

The remaining Li Zhi sat on the side in silence fearing that his father would be furious and that his three younger sisters would have swollen eyes from crying so much.
He didn’t know what to do.

Upon seeing the tense atmosphere Li Yuanying hurriedly got up and tried to escape: “This was indeed a long and arduous journey.
Lord brother you must be exhausted hence I will take my leave and not bother the Emperor anymore!”

Seeing his three precious daughters crying tearfully, his Majesty weakly cursed: “Get out!”

I don’t know who that Wilde is but how dare he write such stories! If this happens again even if I had to get someone to dig the ground, I will find Wilde!

……………………………

After successfully escaping, Li Yuanying was led back to his residence and took a comfortable nap.
When he awoke in the evening, Li Zhi had quietly came over with his three younger sisters.

The three young girls were all wearing clothes that are easy to move in and had their hair tied into a bun making them look like young boys.
Being children they have all but forgotten about their sorrows in the afternoon.
Sizi happily rushed towards Yuanying holding a map drawn by Li Zhi: “Let’s go orienteering, ninth brother has arranged it!”

Most would find Sizi hard to understand as she is only six years old but not Li Yuanying.
He understood her intentions right away!

This activity was planned in the carriage on the way here and is called “Jiucheng Palace Play Plans”.
First Li Zhi will sneaked to His Majesty’s study to draw a map of Jiucheng Palace and have servants bury tools at designated check points.
Then they split up, reporting to check points and the first to arrive at the final destination wins!

Li Zhi was not a bold person, it’s absolutely impossible for him to sneak into the Emperor’s study unnoticed.
He instead chose to confessed everything to his father and asked for a map.
Now that Li Zhi has drawn two maps and sent someone ahead to prepare the check points, the team can start playing immediately!

Now here comes the awkward problem all three of his sisters wants to be on Li Yuanying’s team and not his. 

As soon as Sizi and Hengshan heard that they were to split into teams they immediately hold on to Li Yuangying’s hand refusing to let go.
 Luckily Chengyang was a good natured child and saw Li Zhi all alone so she decided to join his team.

So the team was split like this”

Team ONE – Li Zhi and Chengyang; eleven and nine years old.

Team TWO -Li Yuanying, Sizi and Hengshan; nine, six and five years old.

Li Yuanying was not dissatisfied with having two young teammates with him.
Instead he felt that Li Zhi being bad at directions was at a disadvantage even with Chengyang in his team.
Furthermore, his goal is not to win but to reach the location of the inscription. 

The reason why he suggested playing this game was just to get the children to be active, move their muscles and use their brains.
The result was not important, what’s important was to participate!

Li Yuanying held the map, pondered then explained the route to Sizi and Hengshan.
Finally, he put out his palm on top of the map.

Sizi understood instantly and stacked her little palm on his.

Hengshan followed suit and did the same.

“Let’s Go!” shouted the three children.