The next day was my mother's birthday, and this year it was bigger than ever, and I got up earlier than usual, and arrived at the Zhenguan Hall before the inner wife entered the palace.

At that time, her mother was still sitting in front of the makeup mirror, Tuan'er was combing her hair, and Wan'er was reading the gift list on the side - she was thinking about "the prince entered the treasure mirror, the new translation of the Sanskrit scriptures in twelve volumes, two heavenly horses, gold and silverware, ten things in steps, and one hundred kinds of longevity", and suddenly heard her mother smile and asked: "What did Princess Changle enter?", and said without thinking: "Princess Changle entered the hand to copy a hundred volumes of Buddhist scriptures." ”

The mother raised her eyebrows and said, "Gone?"

Wan'er said, "It's gone." Picking up a scroll from the scroll next to him, he ordered the two palace people to unfold it in front of his mother, who squinted at it and said, "My son's gift is getting more and more stingy." ”

I was wearing a big dress, and it was not good to rush to my mother at will, so I lifted my skirt and blessed my mother, and said with a smile: "They are all hand-copied Buddhist scriptures word by word, and how can they be stingy if they can't be bought by any amount of money?"

The mother smiled and said, "Then someone boasts that his calligraphy is precious? As he spoke, he smiled kinder and more kindly, and instructed him to leave and right: "Find out all these Buddhist scriptures and hand them to me in the evening." ”

As soon as Tuan'er was about to respond, he saw Wan'er bow down and said: "The things that the prince, King Ji, and Princess Changle have entered are all in the side hall, and if Your Majesty wants it, you can present it now." ”

When my mother heard this, she ordered all the scrolls to be brought. After a while, there were palace people who came in with a few tables, and many people brought the Buddhist scriptures, scrolls, calligraphy and paintings presented by Li Sheng, Li Rui and me, and spread out the scriptures I copied first.

The mother first glanced at it casually with a sneer, and when she saw that each of the Sanskrit columns on it was equipped with several columns of Chinese characters, she showed a look of surprise and ordered someone to take the scroll closer and take a closer look— This is my own idea, because everyone dedicates Buddhist scriptures to their mothers, Li Sheng and Li Rui often copy Buddhist scriptures by hand to celebrate my mother's birthday, I did it as it was, but it was not a success, and I am not like them to open the palace to ask for money and money, to have people, to be brilliant quite difficult, think about it, but let me think of a clever way, is to learn the books of later generations, the original text and all the translations that may be found on the market are copied in one place, which is convenient for my mother to study, but also seems that I am really sincere in reading the scriptures and praying for blessings.

My mother really liked this arrangement, and after reading the volume seriously, she unconsciously read a few sentences in her mouth, and asked me as she covered the volume, "Did you make all this yourself?"

I smiled and said: "The scriptures were found by Tuo Pei Lansheng and Fang Qi, and they also borrowed a lot from the prince's brother and the secretary of the province. ”

The mother smiled and said, "You don't like to read every day, but you can come up with such a clever way to read books." ”

I said: "I don't like to read, it's for myself, I want to study, but it's for my mother, how can this be the same?" As soon as the words fell, I heard my father say: "I'm afraid that you don't like to read, so you always think of some lazy ways, but in the name of your mother, get out of here, stand on duty, don't be lazy." When I looked up, I saw my father wearing a crown and helping Yang Zigao to come over. His spirit this year is obviously not as good as last year, often bedridden, even I can only see each other in three or five days, today he is dressed ceremoniously, his steps are even slower, he walked for a while, stopped again, and asked, "Where is the prince?"

Gao Yanfu said: "The prince came in the morning, and now he has gone to the front of the station. ”

The father nodded and sat down beside the mother. I saw that he seemed to have something to say to his mother, so I first retired to the place where the inner wife stood on duty - my father had an order, and the wives and daughters of the clan and the five grades of the hundred officials and above entered the palace to celebrate, so the palace stood in the dark.

Apart from me, only my aunt and aunt, and a few cousins and cousins were allowed to enter the temple and rest.

My aunt and grandmother are not many of them alive, and the one closest to us is the princess. Another aunt, Princess Yan'an, had a general relationship with us, but she was very close to my father - my great-grandfather was quite discouraged about political affairs after the Xuanwumen incident, so he handed over all political affairs to my grandfather and concentrated on giving birth to children in the inner court. These two aunts and grandmothers were born to Gaozu in his later years, and they are not much different in age from their fathers, and they are called aunts and nephews, but they are actually like sisters and brothers. Princess Yan'an is of high birth, has the best relationship with her father, and usually has a bit of self-reliance on the lessons of her elders, Li Rui and I don't like her very much, but the princess is witty and lively, and often brings a lot of gadgets to me and Li Rui, so I am quite close to my mother and us. Needless to say, the two aunts of Qinghe and Xin'an, one is the youngest daughter of the first emperor, and the other is the youngest daughter of the queen mother.

There is another thing about this Yan'an princess, on the day I was born, my father happened to receive the good news that the army repelled Tubo, so my father was happy, so he named me "Taiping", and wanted to make me the princess of Chang'an, because the ministers said that Chang'an County is an important place in Gyeonggi, and it cannot be lightly given to her subordinates, so my mother said that she would change the title to Princess Changle, but she renamed it with the title of this aunt and grandmother- Now heavy filial piety, I am a junior, should have let my aunt and grandmother, but my mother directly made a will, and changed the aunt and grandmother to the princess of Yan'an, this dynasty did not have the county of Changle, but my mother also directly drew one from the rich place in Jinzhou, and gave the name Changle, and when I grew up to ten years old, I selected three hundred and fifty large households with more than seven dings from this Changle County as the real seal, and for the first time broke Gaozu's "princess closure is limited to three hundred" Last year, when I became a monk, my father added 300 households to me, and all of them were four or five families. Although Princess Yan'an is the eldest princess and has 900 households, they are all just three Ding's and other families, and Dingkou is not as good as my junior, so this aunt and grandmother are more indifferent to me than other juniors. In fact, it is true that none of us rely on these feudal households to live, even if we calculate the rent of three horses of silk every year, and not counting last year's drought, silk and rice are expensive, only according to the money of a horse and a half of silk, and the income of the household is only five or six thousand yuan a year, and the number of silk satin rewards I got last year has been this amount, not to mention the rewards of those gold and silver coins, but the more this is the case, the more this aunt and grandmother will probably look at me more unpleasantly- It was last year that my mother asked about the price, and today I saw Princess Yan'an, I seriously thought about it and calculated my income, it was not good, and when I calculated that I was living so well, I suddenly became a little sad, but it was for Yang Niangzi and Wei Huan. Yang Niangzi has been stealing property for many years, and she has only stolen tens of thousands, but she has paid the price of being killed with a cane; Wei Huan's father's money for a month is not enough for me to reward a small palace person. They are still the people I think about, read and think about, and the people on the tip of their hearts, and their families are also eunuchs. For example, those ordinary palace people and ordinary people, I am afraid that the situation will only get worse. In the distant future, although there is also a gap between the rich and the poor, and there is also a class gap in society, after all, most people still have enough to eat, and I wonder if most of the people here will be able to eat enough? What kind of life will they live? Will young people be like me in later generations, lazy and slippery all day long, and only care about games and fun, will parents also worry about teaching "find a good job, marry a good man/marry a good wife, and give birth to children for us as soon as possible"? Even if I can't go out of the palace now, when can I go out, not to those high-gate mansions, but to go to the market and see how ordinary people in this era live, speaking of which, Wei Huan seems to have said that he would take me to the East Market for a walk, but he has never been there.

I stood in the middle of the temple in a daze, and although my face was perfunctory with my relatives, my heart gradually drifted beyond the palace walls.