Flowery Hair: A Maidservant

Chapter 157 Ciyuan Palace, could there be spies from Madam Yun?

"I think you deserve a beating. You haven't become more mature since your marriage, and you're only thinking about drinks," Consort Hui interrupted with a laugh.

He then quickly turned to the princess and said:

"You should know Consort Min's temperament. Even if she said a few things to you today, you don't need to take it to heart. She manages the six palaces and has been in a high position for a long time. It's inevitable that she will think that everyone in the world should act according to her wishes."

The princess rose and bowed respectfully, saying, "Thank you for your comfort, Mother. Your daughter-in-law understands."

"You two were personally requested by my son from the Emperor to marry into the royal family. You should live in harmony and advance and retreat together. Now that you have entered the royal family, you should do your best to produce offspring for the royal family as soon as possible. Nothing else matters."

The princess and the second young lady stood up, bowed, and replied, "Yes, we will follow Mother's instructions."

The palace of Consort Hui was very peaceful, probably because Consort Hui herself came from humble beginnings, and even now that she holds the rank of consort, she treats the palace servants with great kindness.

While the masters were talking, everyone in Ciyuan Palace was overjoyed. Tea and snacks were served in different varieties, and Huayan and Xingyu were greeted with smiles.

After talking for a while, Consort Hui suddenly said, "Today is the Lantern Festival, which should be a time for celebration throughout the palace. However, due to the drought in the north and the instability on the northwest border, His Majesty has canceled the palace banquet."

Prince Jin said in a deep voice, "Just now when I came out of the Funing Palace, my father summoned the ministers of the six ministries to the palace for a meeting."

"It's good that it's cancelled. You won't have to go through all that trouble at the palace banquet. Consort Min caused a lot of trouble in the palace before the new year because the eldest daughter of the Lu family was so ignorant of the times."

"General Lu is stationed in the southwest. Even if the Lu family is interested in this marriage, Father Emperor may not agree."

Hua Yan lowered her head and raised her eyebrows, recalling accompanying the Second Miss on her inspection tour of the shops in Lin'an. Jiangnan was far away and the emperor's reputation among the people was not very good. This was because the Crown Prince acted eccentrically, which aroused the contempt of many scholars, and the emperor had recently favored Consort Min, neglecting state affairs.

But whether it was disaster relief or border military affairs, the emperor was still doing his best.

However, the fact that the emperor did not summon any of the three princes during the meeting is quite intriguing.

I wonder what the Prince of Jin will think?

They had lunch at Ciyuan Hall at noon, while Hua Yan and the others were taken to a room that was a little further away from the main hall.

The lunch in the palace looked exquisite, but most of it was actually a bit cold when it tasted. A little inquiry revealed that there was no small kitchen in Ciyuan Hall. All the meals were prepared by the imperial kitchen according to a fixed daily menu, and then people from each palace would be sent to collect them on time.

The vast Ciyuan Hall has only one tea room, where simple snacks and drinks are usually prepared.

Only the Empress's Renming Hall and Consort Min's Zhaoyang Hall had dedicated small kitchens. The Empress Dowager of this dynasty passed away in the twenty-seventh year of the Qianyuan era, so the Cining Hall has remained vacant.

When Hua Yan was having her meal, she had seen most of the palace servants and eunuchs in Ciyuan Palace. Remembering that Madam Yun had mentioned that Yunshang Pei was just as useful in the palace, she suddenly couldn't help but have a thought pop into her head.

Could there be spies from Madam Yun in Ciyuan Palace?

The moment this thought crossed her mind, Hua Yan glanced at the moving palace servants with a somewhat observant look, naturally without discovering anything...

But the thought was unusually strong, so while Hua Yan was eating with her head down, she inexplicably took the Yunshang Pendant out of her bosom, put it in the purse she carried with her, and hung it at her waist, with a section of the jade pendant's tassel sticking out.

The tassels on the Yunshang Pendant are very distinctive. They are made by intertwining and weaving several strands of silk threads of different colors, and the knot is also a unique silk-wrapping knot found in Yongxiu Cloth Shop.

As a result, nothing happened until it was time to leave Ciyuan Hall and prepare to leave the palace.

Hua Yan chuckled to herself, realizing she had become somewhat obsessed.

In fact, she encountered no fewer than a dozen eunuchs along the way from Funing Palace to Renming Palace and then to Huifei Palace. They were all young and had fair and well-behaved appearances. For some reason, she thought of Chen Lin.

Back then, at the Zheng family's brokerage firm in Jinnan, he and more than a dozen other boys who had been sold into servitude were sent north. Hua Yan had a vague suspicion that they might have been sent to the palace to become eunuchs...

Hua Yan's guess was not without reason; in fact, Chen Lin was almost sent to the palace to become a eunuch.

Back then, their group was sent to a manor on the outskirts of the capital. Coincidentally, Madam Zhou and her eldest apprentice Mingwu went to find Zheng Shan. After meeting Chen Lin and the others, it was little Mingwu who took a liking to Chen Lin at first glance and suggested to Madam Zhou that they select a few people with good potential to keep.

Since Chen Lin was indeed suited to learning martial arts, his fate finally took a turn for the better.

Closer to home.

Seeing that Yunshang Pei couldn't catch any 'fish', Hua Yan put it back into her bosom and kept it close to her body.

At the beginning of Shenshi (3-5 PM), the prince returned to the palace with his entourage, and the gifts from the various palaces were placed in a carriage.

After they parted ways in the front hall, the princess walked ahead and looked back at the second young lady.

"I've heard that Sister Zhen received personal instruction from Granny Gao several years ago, and her demeanor before the palace today truly resembled that of a noble lady. This makes me curious, could it be...?"

The princess turned around and walked slowly to the second young lady, whispering in her ear, "Could it be that the Tang family had already foreseen that you would marry into the royal family years ago?"

Hua Yan stood behind, her fingertips lightly tracing Mingyue's clothes. Just now, when the princess approached, she could feel Mingyue's body tense up instantly.

The second young lady bowed, seemingly oblivious to the princess's deeper meaning.

"The Book of Songs says, 'Be virtuous and prudent in your conduct, and do not deviate from the proper etiquette.' I grew up in Jiangnan, where, regardless of aristocratic families, even ordinary people value etiquette highly and are taught from a young age. Is it different in the North?"

The second young lady responded by saying that she had been trained in etiquette and manners since childhood, without offering any explanation or justification.

Hua Yan nodded in agreement.

The response is acceptable.

The princess consort's question stemmed from the fact that the second young lady had been too composed during her audience with the emperor that morning, coupled with her suspicion that the Tang family had been plotting something all along.

In Hua Yan's opinion, it was best for the Princess to keep these words to herself; there was really no need to ask them aloud. The General's Mansion and the Tang Mansion's shift from covert to overt support for Prince Jin was something others might not know, but as the eldest daughter of the Jiang family, how could she not be aware...?

As expected, the princess didn't care about the second young lady's answer at all, and instead said with a slight chuckle:

"I was just asking for nothing."

However, I am quite interested in the milk tea that the Prince mentioned in my mother's palace.