That night, Ji Ling came back to Chengqian Palace, but he had no sleep all night.
The next day is the fifth day of the Lunar New Year, commonly known as Po Wu Festival. There are many taboos on this day in the Forbidden City, such as women are not allowed to go out easily.
So on the sixth day of the Lunar New Year, all the concubines went to Kunning Palace to congratulate the queen. Since they were reunited in the new year, Kunning Palace rewarded everyone with many auspicious things.
Because of the Yuhua Pavilion incident, Ji Ling paid special attention and looked up at everyone, especially the queen. Sure enough, he saw that she was slimmer and looked much more tired than when they first met in the second year of Yongzheng's reign.
The days of the new year go by very fast, and the Lantern Festival is here in a blink of an eye.
The fifteenth day of the first lunar month is the first full moon day every year. The full moon symbolizes reunion and happiness. It is also the most auspicious day since the beginning of the new year in the Forbidden City, except for the New Year.
In the daytime, the sun was bright and the weather was very good. Yinzhen held a banquet in the Yangxin Hall to entertain officials from various ministries and temples, bachelors of the Hanlin Academy, ministers, editors, reviewers, Zhan Shifu and others, the monarch and his ministers were one, laughing.
Unforbidden, he stayed until the evening, and even gave the imperial officials a special gift to watch the Aoshan lanterns, fireworks in the palace, and performances of "Ten Thousand Flowers in Prosperity" and "Sheng Ping Bao Raft" on the palace stage, which are all traditional plays of the Shangyuan Festival, and there are also
The folk opera troupe was juggling, performing the story of the Three Kingdoms, with gongs and drums, and music and music. Although the three princesses did not understand, they watched the excitement and felt very happy.
In Chengqian Palace, after returning from the Shangyuan Palace banquet, the dining room cooked the Lantern Festival again to suit the occasion - using fine glutinous rice noodles with walnut kernels, sugar, roses and cattails as fillings, sprinkled with water and rolled into balls as big as walnuts.
It is called the Eight Treasures Lantern Festival of the Inner Palace.
Ever since the last time she used wet dough as plasticine to make little figures, the third princess seemed to be particularly interested in the process of making all kinds of pasta.
At this time, she was standing in the dining room of Chengqian Palace, watching Xiao Dazi making Yuanxiao, shouting that she also wanted to learn - the dining room had water and fire, and Grandma Chen had told Ji Ling.
Ji Ling did not stop the third princess, but asked Xiao Dazi to go to another room to rub Yuanxiao, separate from the stove where the fire was lit, to avoid danger.
As for making Yuanxiao and cakes, since the third princess was very interested, she let her take a look - anyway, there is no harm in girls learning handmade cooking skills.
Now that Concubine Chen had spoken, a circle of servants surrounded the third princess and watched the Lantern Festival with her.
Although the third princess is young, she is the master after all, and standing next to the table like this, staring without blinking - Xiao Dazi's hands were trembling slightly when she looked at her.
Some Lantern Festivals even forgot to add the rose filling, so they just sprinkled water on them and rolled them into pieces.
But the third princess saw the clue and even reached out to knock on the jar with rose filling to remind Xiao Dazi.
Later, she simply washed her hands, stepped on the small stool, started directly, and followed Xiao Dazi to rub the Lantern Festival.
The place where the Lantern Festival is wrapped is actually the tea and fruit room. Under the shelf in the southeast corner, there are six large baskets of fresh fruits, which were sent to Chengqian Palace by the Ministry of Internal Affairs, such as Jiangnan mandarins, Fengwei oranges, Zhangzhou oranges, and Xiaojin oranges.
Orange, Xishan apple, soft pomegranate, the fragrance is overflowing.
Xiao Dazi signaled to the handyman next to him to bring a handful of Zhangzhou oranges to Grandma Chen.
Grandma Chen's smile turned into a flower. She squinted her eyes and waved her hand: "You're so polite, Mr. Da!" She said and still took it.
The third princess followed Xiao Dazi, following the instructions of a gourd, dividing the kneaded glutinous rice dough into many small pieces, inserting her thumb into the dough, rotating it in circles, and making each piece of dough into the shape of a small bowl, and then worked hard
I picked the fillings from the jar and filled them into the "small bowl" one by one.
The last step seems easy, but in fact it is the most difficult. You have to sink the filling downwards and seal it in circles to form a complete Yuanxiao.
The third princess struggled to raise her chubby hands, imitating Xiao Dazi, and even made seven or eight yuanxiao, but all of them were ruined - either the fillings overflowed from the gaps, or the entire yuanxiao was deformed.
Seeing that Xiao Dazi was doing so quickly, the third princess was extremely frustrated. Suddenly, with a wave of her hand, the little fat man swept all the dumplings and flour on the chopping board in front of her on the ground.
Nanny Chen was peeling the fruit beside her. When she squinted, she saw the corners of the third princess's mouth curled downward, as if she was about to cry. She quickly came up to coax the little master, thinking to herself, why is this necessary - you were born to be the master, just care.
Just eat and drink, don't do the work on a whim.
The third princess looked at the skillful and fast movements of Xiao Dazi's hands, and she stood aside and watched silently for a long time with her little hands behind her back.
She bit her lip, stood on the stool again, rubbed her eyes, waved her hand and said, "Come again!"
In the back hall of Chengqian Palace, Ji Ling was trying on the latest styles of spring clothes sent by the Ministry of Internal Affairs. They were all in bright yellow and green colors. At a glance, they looked full of spring.
The matching jewelry is also a beaded hairpin of the same color, and the style is delicate and elegant. As the season is spring and summer, the colors are mostly cold tones, which looks refreshing and pleasant.
Qixi bit the thread in her mouth and knelt beside her to collect the corners of her clothes.
Bixue was on the other side, opening the wooden box and saying with a smile: "Master looks good in these fresh colors!"
Ji Ling looked down at Qixi and told her: "Don't tighten it too tightly, just relax it a little."
Qixi spit out the thread and was about to speak when the third princess stumbled in like a whirlwind with a smile on her face.
Grandma Chen followed her and chased in.
Ji Ling saw that her daughter's body was covered in flour from her chest to her cuffs, and even her face was covered with a lot of white powder.
She held a plate in her two chubby hands and handed it to her to look at. She danced and said, "Eniang!"
Ji Ling took it and saw that the Lantern Festivals were all round and solid, of equal size, smooth and delicate.
She smiled, but before she could say anything, the third princess was already jumping for joy, hugging her legs and spinning around, pointing at herself as if offering a treasure and saying: "I wrapped it, I wrapped it!"
Ji Ling was pulled back and forth by her, smiled and handed the plate to Qixi, then bent down and picked up her daughter.
She carefully wiped off the flour on the tip of her daughter's nose and eyebrows with a handkerchief, then kissed her cheek and teased her: "Let's eat the Yuanxiao you made for lunch, if there is nothing else to do, okay?"
Aunt Chen was wiping her sweat behind her. After following Concubine Chen for so long, she could see that she had no intention of using the methods used to discipline princesses in the Forbidden City when facing the third princess.
.
If the third princess hadn't been at her current age, she would have been able to ask Aunt Jingqi to come forward - she, Aunt Chen, is just an ordinary nanny.
Grandma Chen didn't dare to say more - whatever the empress thought, she raised her as she wished.
She followed the young master and served her in a well-behaved manner. Even though there was no merit, there was still hard work. Why should she worry about it?
At noon, as the third princess said, she cooked the dumplings she had wrapped.
Coincidentally, the portion was just enough for two people. After the Yuanxiao was brought to the dining table, the third princess did not allow the slaves to do anything, and she divided the Yuanxiao into two bowls, one large and one small.
Ji Ling used a spoon to dig around in the bowl, only to realize that her daughter had put all the wrapped Yuanxiao in her big bowl.
She held a small bowl in her little hands, some of which had leaked the filling.