Living leisurely in Tang Dynasty

>The child looks to be about a year old and couldn’t speak properly yet so he cried and shouted: “Ball Ball, mine, the ball!”

Yuanying realized that this was his other grand-nephew, Li Xin who was younger than Li Xiang.
He follows after his father and was plump but he is much cuter than his dad.
The child was crying loudly and looked a little pitiful.
Yuanying squatted down and pinched his cheeks covered in tears.

“What’s the matter?”

Little round ball (Yuanying’s nickname for the child) cried for a while before looking at Yunaying with his black eyes and blinked.
He didn’t recognize the boy and started to flatten his lips to cry again.

“I am your young grand uncle.”

Little round ball couldn’t understand the whole thing so he repeated only the second half: “Young Uncle?”

“The rank is wrong.
Just call me YaoYao like my other grand-nephew.”

 “Yaoyao!”

Li Yuanying answered and asked why he was crying.
Little round ball choked and say that his beloved ball had fallen into a hole.
The servant next to him quickly explained that Little round ball was playing with a small ball.
At the nearby rockery, a small hole has formed and the ball fell in and couldn’t be retrieved.

Li Yuanying went over to observe.
The opening of the hole was hidden by vegetation so it was normal that no one had noticed it.

“If it’s lost, just forget about it.
YaoYao will send you a new one another day!”

Little round ball stubbornly choked back tears: “Ball Ball!”

Seeing that he was persistent, Yuanying asked someone to fetch water and pour it into the hole at once.

Although the servants were puzzled, they obeyed and went to fetch water.

Li Tai happened to leave his study room and saw servants carrying water to the rockery.
Frowning he asked people to find out what was going on.

When he got to know that it was Li Yuanying’s instructions, Li Tai’s heart was burning full of anger.
He followed behind to see what young uncle was doing in his house!

Li Tai took a look and saw his son being very affectionate with Li Yuanying.
The child was saying something incomprehensible: “Yao Yao! Ball Ball! Come out!”

“Just wait, the ball will come out soon.” He then explained to Little round ball patiently, “The ball is light.
Just like how a leaf will float on water, the ball will also float on water.
Once there is more water in it, your ball will float up!”

Although Little round ball didn’t quite understand the logic, he was just happy to hear that his ball would float up.

Li Tai watched the intimate interaction between his son and young uncle with a gloomy face.
This guy has a thing for coaxing children.
Sizi and all the other kids love him so much that they call for him every day!

Yuanying didn’t notice Li Tai’s arrival.
He continued to order servants to pour water into the hole.
Although the hole is quite deep, it is not too big.
After one round, the ball emerges.
The servant guarding the hole quickly picked it up and presented it to the toddler.

Little round ball happily took it and pulled Li Yuanying to play with him.

“I can’t play anymore, I need to meet your eldest aunt.
Next time I’ll  play with you.”

He extended his pinky finger to Little round ball.
“Come, let’s make a pinky promise.”

 Seeing that Little round ball didn’t understand, Yuanying demonstrated using his left and right pinky fingers.
 

The child immediately understood and stretched out his tiny short finger towrds Li Yuanying.

After coaxing Little round ball, he noticed that Li Tai, the big round ball is present.
Li Yuanying handed his grand-nephew over to Li Tai and said hello: “Qing Que, since when were you here? Why didn’t you say anything?! Here take your son back, I’ll come and play with him next time!”

Since young uncle managed to coax his son into a happy state, Li Tai couldn’t say anything bad to him.
Not to mention he has a humble and polite personality to maintain to the public.
All he could say was that he welcomes him to visit anytime.

Yuanying said goodbye to the little round ball and travel towards Zhangsun’s family mansion.
He intends to invite his eldest niece Changle to visit Sunflower Garden soon.

Changle married into the Zhangsun family at 13 years old.
Now she is already 18 or 19 and dressed up as a proper lady.
Hearing that Li Yuanying would visit, she welcomed him in person.

Changle’s appearance and temperament mirrors that of Empress Zhangsun.
Two years ago, His Majesty suddenly wanted to award the clans and contributing heroes with lands.
This means that once a place was given to you, the family will always own it for the generations to come.

Zhangsun Wuji and his supporters were not in favor of such a practice.
After persuading him to no avail, he requested that Changle to reason with the Emperor.
After much effort,  Li Er finally retracted the hereditary order.

It can be seen from this that Changle is very similar to Empress Zhangsun.

Since Li Yuanying didn’t managed to meet her last time, this time he shamelessly  made an appointment.
As soon as they met, he said with sweetness: “Long time no see, I miss you so much!”

Changle bluntly replied: “You said you missed me but last time I went to the palace, you went out to play by yourself.”

With Li Yuanying, Changle did not follow formal etiquette but casually invited him to sit down.

Notes from the author:

Little Prince: Steal away your teacher.
Then steal away your son!

Fourth nephew: ? ? ? ? ?