If the princess with the lowest presence is the third princess, then the prince with the lowest presence should be the fifth prince.
The eldest prince is the eldest son and cannot be ignored. The second prince once had such a powerful adoptive mother and will not be forgotten. There is no need to mention the imprisoned third prince. The fourth prince and the sixth prince are both legitimate sons and no one dares to ignore them.
Looking around, it is the Fifth Prince stuck in the middle, not very noticeable.
Even though his adoptive mother, Concubine Qi De, came from a prominent family, she was naturally cold and low-key, and was not favored, so the Fifth Prince was raised to have a quiet personality.
As for how quiet it was, one year during the Lantern Festival, the princes went out of the palace to play at the temple fair. Everyone was having a lot of fun, and after having a meal at the restaurant, they prepared to join in the fun by guessing riddles.
The fifth prince didn't like crowds, so he suggested staying in the private room of the hotel and waiting for them to come back.
As a result, the others forgot about him after they finished their tour and went straight back to the palace. It was not until Concubine Qi De sent someone to ask why the Fifth Prince had not returned that everyone realized they had lost him.
It was so urgent.
The fifth prince was only accompanied by one eunuch and two guards. If anything really happened, no one would be able to take responsibility.
Ye Jun quickly sent people to look for him, and the prince also followed.
Fortunately, the shop owner saw that the Fifth Prince was of extraordinary status, and did not kick him out because of closing time. He still kept him in the private room.
When he saw the palace guards coming to pick people up, he realized that these young masters were all princes in the palace, and he was shocked.
Before leaving, the prince gave the shopkeeper a handful of golden melon seeds as a reward for his good care of the fifth prince.
Perhaps it was because of the dragon's aura, the restaurant's business has been booming since then.
However, nothing happened outside the palace. After returning to the palace, Ning Chen angrily punished the other princes.
There was no severe punishment, just ten slaps on the hands and then copying books.
The fifth prince felt embarrassed when he came to plead for his brothers.
"Father, please don't blame my brothers too much. It's because my son is too dull. If I had gone with my brothers, this wouldn't have happened."
Ning Chen sighed.
He was also very worried about the Fifth Prince's personality. He had to find a capable wife in the future, otherwise how would he establish his own family
Obviously, after this incident, Concubine Qi De also discovered the child's shortcomings, and later she paid more attention to training him when teaching him.
Although he has made great progress in dealing with people and things, he has not been able to change his quiet personality since childhood.
This preference for quietness continued into his criteria for choosing a wife. After comparing many, he finally chose a legitimate daughter from Concubine Qi De's mother's family.
She is a typical lady from a noble family, dignified and gentle, with an elegant temperament and good looks.
The fifth prince was very satisfied.
He and his wife lived in harmony after marriage.
The two of them often read books and drank tea together, quietly sitting for an entire afternoon.
Qi was truly virtuous. Because she was pregnant and difficult to serve, she took the initiative to select two concubines to live in her house.
Among them, Ms. Lian was a very lively person.
She was very smart, good at speaking, and had the innocence of a little girl. On her first day in the palace, she had already made the Fifth Prince's wife very happy.
The fifth prince, however, thought she was too noisy and preferred the quieter Wang.
Qi was worried that the Fifth Prince's behavior would hurt Lian's feelings, so she advised him to go once in a while.
The Fifth Prince has always respected his wife, so he naturally gave her face and took the time to visit her.
Unexpectedly, I met Lian climbing a tree.
The two of them stared at each other in shock.
Although Lian was flustered, she still hurried down to pay her respects.
"I pay my respects to Your Highness. I am sorry for my impoliteness. It is a pity that no one has picked these persimmons. If it were a few days later, I am afraid they would fall and break."
As he spoke, he took out two rosy persimmons from the cloth bag tied to his side.
The white and slender hands holding the bright red persimmons looked particularly beautiful against the setting sun. The woman's face was also flushed, and her eyelashes fluttered like butterfly wings because of anxiety.
"Leave this kind of thing to me from now on. Be careful not to fall and hurt yourself." The fifth prince said softly.
Seeing that he didn't blame her, Lian breathed a sigh of relief and bowed quickly.
"Thank you for your concern, Your Highness. I will remember it."
The fifth prince nodded, turned around and walked towards the courtyard where Lian lived.
After walking two steps, he turned back and took a persimmon from Lian's hand.
In this way, each of them held a persimmon and walked into the yard one after the other.
Lian had experienced the initial embarrassment, but now she had calmed down and was enthusiastically introducing the things in her courtyard to the Fifth Prince.
For example, the wooden hairpin was carved by her herself, the dried flowers on the windowsill were dried by her in the fall, and she has a ginger cat named Egg Yolk.
The fifth prince poured a cup of tea and sat there quietly listening.
At first I thought it was noisy, but later I found it quite interesting.
The main thing was that while Lian was muttering to himself, he did not forget to do the job at hand.
He timed the addition of tea just right, then silently moved the dessert plate to another place, pushing the one that the Fifth Prince liked in front of him.
Since this time, the fifth prince has come here often.
Lian appeared very happy and enthusiastically told him everything she had done in the past few days.
From big things like the prince's wife making her two new clothes and new jewelry, to small things like Egg Yolk kidnapping a wife, a civet cat, whom she named Banban.
The fifth prince wanted to say that her naming was a bit perfunctory, but seeing that Lian was smiling happily, he didn't say anything.
Lian's intelligence was not reflected in her scheming, but in her ability to read people's expressions. This led to her being harmed by others without realizing it after she became favored.
She got pregnant, but someone put drugs in her food and she had a miscarriage.
The fifth prince was furious, but he had not been involved in the affairs of the backyard for many years. This was the first time he encountered such a thing, and he didn't know where to start.
At that time, the Crown Princess Qi had just given birth to her eldest daughter and was still in confinement, and she could not afford to overwork.
So Qi asked the fifth prince to go to the palace and ask Concubine Qi De for help.
The Fifth Prince did as he was told, and Concubine Qi De sent her capable nanny to the Prince's residence to investigate the case.
It was finally discovered that Wang, who entered the mansion with Lian, became jealous and committed the crime.
The fifth prince, who had been quiet for many years, simply tied up Wang and threw her into the Ministry of Justice, ordering the government to act in accordance with Nanqi laws.
This move alarmed the palace, and even the crown prince who had already ascended the throne was quite surprised.
I didn't expect that this brother who is always dull-witted could be so decisive.
But in the end I didn't intervene. After all, I didn't do anything wrong. It just didn't look good.
It was also after this that the Fifth Prince's backyard became much more well-behaved, and from then on the Fifth Prince almost always went between the main courtyard and Lian's house, and never went anywhere else.
The legitimate wife, Qi, is a young couple, gentle and virtuous, and their days are plain and warm. The concubine, Lian, brings a different touch of charm to the quiet life, and makes people reluctant to give her up.
Judging by today's standards, the Fifth Prince could be considered a two-faced scumbag, but in that era, he had a harmonious relationship with his wife and concubines and a happy family.
The biggest setback was when Lian became ill giving birth to her third child in her middle age and died less than a year after giving birth.
Lian’s death dealt a heavy blow to the Fifth Prince, who was depressed for two or three years before he slowly got over it.
From then on, the fifth prince only went to the main courtyard.
And Qi was indeed virtuous. She taught the three children left by Lian with all her heart, and spent her entire life managing the backyard in good order for the Fifth Prince.
The fifth prince married a virtuous wife and will live a happy life.