By the time she was released from Shou’an Palace, the hour for the midday meal had already passed.
The sun at this hour was scorching—dazzling and blazing, making it hard to keep one’s eyes open. Xiaodie, who had been waiting outside for a long while, ran up with flushed cheeks, holding a fan to shield her mistress’s head and face, her worried gaze sweeping over her.
Only when she saw that Shang Fuqu, apart from looking a bit listless, carried a small food box and didn’t have a single hair out of place, did she finally breathe a sigh of relief.
“I’m fine.”
Shang Fuqu knew what she was worried about and reassured her, “Her Majesty the Empress Dowager was just… testing my talents.”
Xiaodie’s face fell even further. “What talents does a Lady-in-waiting have?”
Others might not know, but how could she not? Her young mistress had been hopeless at writing poetry since childhood.
Shang Fuqu: …
She was trying to comfort her, and instead the girl was disheartening her.
“Oh, right, my lady, do you remember that beauty you bumped into when you entered the palace?” Xiaodie suddenly asked, looking somewhat uneasy.
Shang Fuqu: “What about her?”
She only remembered that the woman’s clothing was made of fine material, and her jewelry was all the current fashion—she must have come from the capital, and from no ordinary family.
“While I was waiting outside just now, she was standing right over there.” Xiaodie pointed. Under the blazing sun, even the willow leaves by the courtyard were wilting. In weather like this, a delicate beauty could never have stood there for long.
“She originally wanted to wait for you so you could leave together, saying something about how a fight leads to friendship, and that she wanted to chat with you… She was like a completely different person from that day.”
From Xiaodie’s awkward expression, one could see just how drastic the change had been.
“I politely tried to talk her out of it, but she wouldn’t listen. In the end, the sun was just too harsh—she couldn’t bear waiting any longer, so she left on her own.”
“Don’t worry about her.”
Taking the fan, Shang Fuqu gave it a few light waves. Summers in the capital were hotter than in the south—stuffy and airless. She wasn’t used to it; the climate didn’t agree with her.
“Just keep out of her way.”
After all, the Emperor couldn’t stay by her side forever.
Keeping to the shade the whole way, Shang Fuqu returned to Handan Pavilion. Her hibiscus-like face was flushed crimson, light clothes damp with perspiration, and the hibiscus flower in her hair drooped limply onto the table.
Xiaodie, feeling sorry for her, brought a basin of water and wiped her down with a wet cloth to cool her off. “You’ve always hated the heat, my lady, even back home. Who knew the capital would be even hotter than where we’re from!”
“The selection this year was rushed, and the palace wasn’t prepared in time. It’ll probably be a while yet before they distribute the ice basins. Please bear with it a little longer, my lady.” Xing’er opened the small food box—inside was a plate of soft, mint-flavored cold cake.
It was dusted with a layer of frosted sugar, fine as fresh snow.
She was surprised. “This is a gift from the Empress Dowager?”
Shang Fuqu nodded. “Her Majesty said she’d kept me too long and hadn’t realized it was past the midday meal, so she told me to take this and have something to eat on the way back.”
She didn’t know how much the other consorts ate, but she herself could never get enough.
This beauty who had accompanied her—not only had she been chosen to light the lamps on the very first night, now she’d even received a gift from the Empress Dowager. Xing’er was still basking in the joy when Shang Fuqu pressed a string of coins into her hand and instructed:
“Use this reward money to find a palace maid who isn’t afraid of the heat and have her run to the eastern kitchen. Have some mung bean water boiled and sent over with the midday meal.”
After a moment’s thought, she added, “Not too sweet.”
Xing’er hadn’t expected that with two victories in a row and the advantage on their side, her mistress wasn’t thinking of striking while the iron was hot and pressing her advantage—she was only counting on her fingers, looking forward to what to eat for dinner.
Someone of the lowest rank, like a Lady-in-waiting of the lowest rank, had no standing to boss anyone around. If it weren’t for the Emperor having kept her company on his first night, those people probably wouldn’t have spared her even a single glance.
Fortunately, Shang Fuqu wasn’t a picky eater and had no dietary restrictions.
The palace cooks’ skills were guaranteed, so every day’s food box was full of surprises, like a mystery box.
Purely in terms of competence, Xing’er, who had received professional training, far outshone Xiaodie. She quickly found the right person and returned, and after carefully mulling over her words, she still edged cautiously up to Shang Fuqu’s side.
Fanning her, she said, “My lady, when the mung bean soup arrives later, perhaps… this servant could bring a portion over to His Majesty?”
She had only been serving this beauty for a few days and hadn’t fully figured out her temperament. In the rear palace, there were plenty of examples of people who looked gentle and kind on the outside but were actually wolves in sheep’s clothing.
But at the moment, her only worry was that Shang Fuqu might truly be as mild as she appeared.
The beauty lounging in the recliner, cooling off, responded drowsily with half-lidded eyes, “Why send him any? We paid for that—it didn’t come free on the wind.”
“The delivery fee costs money too.”
She had picked up a pile of odd yet oddly fitting phrases from those books, and now she left Xing’er utterly speechless.
After a long while, Xing’er spoke again, trying to rouse her fighting spirit, “My lady, but if you send a bowl over, His Majesty might come to visit us. Without favor and children in the palace, one can barely take a step and will be trampled underfoot forever… You don’t want to remain a Lady-in-waiting of the lowest rank your whole life, do you?”
She truly didn’t want that.
But in that book, she had fought for it—and ended up with her ashes scattered to the wind.
Zhao Shuran was the heroine of the book; competing against her would be harder than climbing to the heavens.
The person in the recliner suddenly opened her eyes, startling Xing’er.
Southern beauties were born with mountain-brow, water-eyes, their gazes as if veiled in misty rain—a charm unique to the water towns. Even her anger felt like a light breeze on the face.
She wasn’t angry, and she seemed the same as usual, yet somehow it made one’s heart shiver.
“Don’t say such things again in the future.”
Struggles and matters of life and death meant nothing to her, but behind her stood the Shang family.
Her father was merely a copyist, mediocre in ability and timid by nature. At the slightest disturbance, he’d want to burrow back into his rat hole. Compared to those people in the capital, he could probably be crushed with a single finger.
In Great Chen, the Empress and the Empress Dowager held real power and took part in court affairs. A struggle for such a position was never just one person’s affair.
Even if she had thoughts of it, now was not the time.
“Xiaodie.”
Pulling the fan up to cover her eyes, Shang Fuqu called out loudly, “When the sun sets later, go personally to fetch the evening meal. I want to eat early today and sleep early.”
After all the exertion from last night through this morning, catching up on sleep was essential.
Having finished copying the remaining scriptures, Shang Fuqu drank the rest of the half bowl of mung bean soup. Compared to when it had first arrived at noon, this bowl—chilled in well water all afternoon—was even cooler.
Shaking out her blanket, she lay down comfortably on the bed, and just as she was about to open her mental screen to scroll a few pages before sleeping—
The lantern hanging by the door suddenly dimmed again.
In the eerie silence, Shang Fuqu tilted her head, and her gaze landed squarely on Qi, who was standing there.
Lantern in hand, he wore a complicated expression and gave a couple of dry laughs. “My lady… you’re still going to sleep this early.”
“Ah, please tidy up—His Majesty will be here shortly.”
Shang Fuqu: …
The moment Qi left, she quickly sat up. After a dazed moment, she suddenly snapped awake and scrambled off the bed to search for the Three Character Classic with its blue cover, not even bothering to put on her shoes.
“At birth, human nature is fundamentally good…”