Shengjing Noble

Chapter 375: Fooling the Emperor

The emperor had spoken personally, so Su Lanxin didn't even have the chance to escape.

She gritted her teeth and said with a guilty look: "Yes...I will write it right away..."

Under the expectant gazes of everyone, Su Lanxin moved step by step to the desk and looked at the writing brush, ink, paper and inkstone with an embarrassed look on her face.

She tried to hold the pen, but she could only use the modern pen-holding posture.

I've been traveling here for so long, and all I've done is eat, drink, play, and scheme. How could I have learned these things?

She sighed in annoyance, feeling like everyone's eyes were staring at her, making her extremely uncomfortable.

However, since the emperor had spoken, she dared not not write. In the end, she gritted her teeth and wrote the poem on paper. Her handwriting was crooked and ugly, like a ghost's scribbles.

Su Lanxin felt disgusted when she looked at what she had written, but she still tried to make amends: "Your Majesty, I just scratched my hand with the strings of the zither, so I wrote like this... Please forgive me, Your Majesty."

The emperor thought, she is a daughter of an imperial family, so how ugly can her handwriting be?

So he smiled and said, "It's okay, Eunuch Liu, just hold it up for everyone to admire."

Eunuch Liu stepped forward, and Su Lanyin held back her laughter as she handed him the calligraphy.

The moment he saw the words, Eunuch Liu's face, which had remained calm despite the collapse of a mountain, suddenly turned red. He wanted to laugh but didn't dare to. He could only hold it up to show the emperor, the empress and the queen mother first.

The expressions of the three people who were thought to be at least pleasing to the eye suddenly turned cold, and the emperor's was the ugliest.

Everyone was immediately curious.

Eunuch Liu lowered his head, pursed his lips, turned around, and pointed the calligraphy at the table.

Everyone looked up and was stunned for a moment, followed by a discussion.

"This isn't a word, it's just a scribble! Even cursive writing can't be this sloppy, right?"

"I think it's just sloppy grass. If you throw a piece of meat on it, my dog ​​will lick it better than she writes!"

"I saw that she couldn't even hold a pen, but she could write poetry? Maybe she stole it from someone else?"

……

The last sentence completely angered Su Lanxin. She couldn't help but raise her voice: "I didn't steal other people's poems. I wrote them myself. I... I just hurt my hand and it was inconvenient for me to write!"

Ye Lanyin said: "Since it's inconvenient for my sister, let me write it."

Without waiting for Su Lanxin to react, she sat down, picked up the pen, dipped it in ink, and wrote out the complete poem quickly and neatly.

After it was finished, Eunuch Liu stepped forward and picked it up. When he saw the words, there was a flash of surprise in his eyes, and he turned around and handed it to the emperor.

Su Lanyin stood up and saluted: "May the Great Sheng Dynasty be like this poem, shining as brightly as the sun and the moon, and living as long as the heaven and earth."

The emperor took the letter and looked at it, with an admiring look on his face: "As expected of the county lady I conferred upon you, your handwriting is elegant and neat, I like it very much, but..."

He looked puzzled: "Su Lanxin didn't recite the poem in full just now, nor did she write the rest on paper, but why did you write a more complete one than her?"

Eunuch Liu unfolded the poem and placed it in front of everyone. Su Lanxin immediately became alert after reading it.

She stepped forward and grabbed Su Lanyin's arm, and asked nervously, "How did you write this poem?"

After all, she came from a different time, and this poem was pieced together in modern times, with no poet at all.

Moreover, she had never mentioned this poem to anyone before. Could it be that Su Lanyin also came from another world?

She was startled by this idea.

Su Lanyin just smiled faintly, pushed her hand away and explained: "I have seen this poem on an ancient nameless stele before, but I didn't expect that my sister would take it for herself and present it to the emperor. This kind of plagiarism is really despicable!"

Su Lanxin would never know that in her previous life, she had prepared a complete version of this poem as a gift for the empress dowager's second birthday banquet, and asked Su Lanyin to write it for her.

It's just that there were many words she couldn't write in this life, and she was too nervous, so she only wrote a few sentences and didn't finish.

Su Lanxin naturally didn't believe it. She said angrily, "You're talking nonsense. This is my poem! If you don't believe it, I can improvise a few to prove my talent!"

The emperor took a sip of the wine glass beside him with interest, and then said, "Okay, how about you compose a poem with this glass of wine in my hand?"

Su Lanxin was confident. After thinking about it, she indeed found a poem that was missing from the previous collection of poems.

So she stepped forward and said, "As you command! Please listen, Your Majesty. The wine is in the luminous cup. The pipa music is urging me to drink. Don't laugh at me sleeping drunk on the battlefield. How many men have ever returned from the battles in history?"

Hearing this, the emperor's face changed slightly: "The poem is good, but what I hold in my hand is not a luminous cup, nor is it a fine grape wine."

Everyone also noticed that something was wrong.

"This poem has a neat rhythm and is indeed a masterpiece, but the poem is tragic and does not fit the current mood."

"It's such a happy day for the Crown Prince's birthday, and Mo Xiao and several others are back. Is Su Lanxin deliberately cursing the Crown Prince?"

"Is this really a poem that a girl can write? The words express a fearless attitude towards death, and it sounds more like something a soldier could have written!"

Su Lanxin felt guilty, but still tried to argue: "I improvised this poem without considering it carefully. I hope the emperor will forgive me."

The emperor questioned, "Do you know the five essentials of poetry writing?"

Su Lanxin blurted out subconsciously: "What are the five key points?"

This caused Su Lanyin to mock her, "Sister, you can write first-rate poems, but you don't know the most basic knowledge of poetry, right?"

Su Lanxin was stubborn and said, "I...I rely on my talent!"

Su Lanyin sneered: "Sister, even if you can't write poetry, you can't plagiarize other people's works. Don't be confused for a moment and commit the crime of deceiving the emperor."

This statement really irritated Su Lanxin, and she asked angrily: "You said I can't write poetry, so why don't you tell me the five key points!"

Su Lanyin took a step forward and spoke confidently: "Refine words, imagery, artistic conception, rhythm, and parallelism! Your Majesty, I wonder if your answer is correct?"

The emperor nodded in satisfaction: "Yes, exactly."

Su Lanxin became even more flustered, and hurriedly explained: "Your Majesty, I was so nervous just now that I forgot..."

The emperor's expression turned unhappy, and he said seriously: "But you just said that you relied on your talent. Do you think I'm easy to fool?"

Su Lanxin knelt down quickly, but stammered and couldn't say anything: "I... I..."

The emperor said angrily: "Su Lanxin, I gave you a chance because you were kind enough to offer the gift, but what about you? You actually dared to fool me with a stolen poem. You are so audacious!"

"I know my crime, please calm down, Your Majesty. I didn't lie on purpose, I just wanted to offer my appreciation..."

Seeing her kowtow and admit her fault, the Queen Mother could not help but say, "Your Majesty, since this girl has no ill intentions, please do not pursue the matter. But you are not allowed to make such a mistake again in the future!"

Su Lanxin kowtowed and thanked her: "Thank you Queen Mother for your mercy. I will never do it again!"

The Queen Mother said, "Get up."