real empress from a noble family
Qiu Yelan got herself away temporarily by acting in a slick way. On the next day, the day of New Year’s Eve, she got up and went to greet General Ruan as usual and talked with him for a while. As Ruan Qingyan gave up his yard to her, he had to sleep in the guest room in General Ruan’s yard. When she got there, they would naturally meet.
By then, Ruan Qingyan had already wiped, dressed and groomed General Ruan. He was sitting in the outer room, reading. Qiu Yelan whispered a greeting to him and went inside to fulfill her duties as a granddaughter.
But today, just when General Ruan started to look tired, before Qiu Yelan even had the chance to leave, the maid Dongran came in from the outer room and said, “Young master, there was a palace servant on the door and he left after passing a word.”
Ruan Qingyan acknowledged with a “hmm”, and seemed to make a gesture to Dongran, asking her to be quiet. Then, there was a sound of a table and chair moving, as well as footsteps. It seemed that he was taking Dongran outside for a word.
Qiu Yelan rolled her eyes and whispered to Su He, “You stay here to accompany my grandfather for me. Just a moment!” Then, she hurriedly said to General Ruan, “Grandpa, I’ll be right back. Just wait for me!”
She ran outside, holding her skirt corners in her hands. She saw Ruan Qingyan leading Dongran walking away along the corridor. Fortunately, it seemed that the message was not said yet.
Qiu Yelan ran up to them and yelled, “Cousin, what did the palace servant say? I want to know too!”
Ruan Qingyan frowned when he heard her following. Just when he was about to refuse, Qiu Yelan simply dropped her dignity and held on to his arm, shaking. “Cousin, cousin! I wanna know too! As you said, I am your only female cousin, so you have to treat me like family.”
“Let go! Let go! Where’s your manner?” Ruan Qingyan wanted to shake her off but was quite reluctant to do so. So, he tried pulling Qiu Yelan off, only that she held on even tighter. He yelled and sighed for quite a while until he gave up finally, and said, “Go back to the room if you want to know. Don’t cause a scene here.”
After entering the small drawing room, Dongran felt a little funny, but she did not dare to laugh out loud. She looked at Qiu Yelan and said, “Actually, the news happened to be related to you, Your Grace.”
The other two were both shocked. After looking at each other, Ruan Qingyan asked with a deep voice, “What is it?”
“The Empress Dowager ordered the Commandery Princess to join the feast tonight at the palace!” Said Dongran.
Ruan Qingyan’s face turned iron-blue, and he looked at Qiu Yelan, “Did that Jiang guy do this?”
“Not necessarily.” Qiu Yelan paused for a moment and said, “He just said that he would arrange for me to meet with Madam Gu, but the meeting is not necessarily at the palace feast… There are many people at the feast, which isn’t the perfect occasion for a meeting. Besides, it’s the Empress Dowager who wants me, not the Empress. How could Jiang Yashuang affect the decision of the Empress Dowager?”
“But you are now serving filial piety. How could you enter the palace?” Ruan Qingyan frowned with his glance low, “… I know. It must be because of Kang Lizhang!”
Qiu Yelan stunned for a moment and then realized that the Empress Dowager and the Empress were disagreeable. Last time the Empress Dowager ordered the death of close maids, and the Empress was desperate to promote the viciousness of the Empress Dowager. Now that the Empress wanted to help Kang Lizhang, the Empress Dowager must do something in return.
Surely the Empress Dowager might not know that the Persian cat was picked up by Qiu Yelan, but she definitely knew her grief at the Prince’s Mansion of Xihe. After all, after the death of Princess Ruan, the people in the Prince’s Mansion of Xihe had been bullying Qiu Yelan quite upright.
“It’s my destiny!” Qiu Yelan couldn’t help exclaiming. She rejected Jiang Yashuang’s idea at the Prince’s Mansion of Xihe, and she thought that she could escape the dispute between the Empresses. However, she didn’t realize that she couldn’t stay out of it since Princess Yongfu invited Kang Lizhang to the banquet.
A sudden thought came to her mind, “What if Princess Yongfu did it on purpose? Is it for the revenge on Kang Lizhang for confessing her credit, or is it because I am the fiancée of Deng Yi?”
Her mind had filled with a mess of thoughts, when she heard Ruan Qingyan said, “The dispute between the Empresses is not a trivial thing. You are too young to be involved in this mess… I’ll go find a doctor and ask him to say that you are too ill to be there!”
“The Empress Dowager had her orders. How could we just fool her so easily?” Qiu Yelan shook her head. “For whether the Empress Dowager or the Empress, my life is fully under their control! Therefore, it’s very likely that I’ll not be in danger if I enter the palace. Even if I crossed the Empress, I could still rely on the Empress Dowager as my patron.”
Ruan Qingyan said, panicked, “Empress Jiang was a decisive woman when it comes to killing, just like Marquess Qin! You must not offend her…”
“You need to be strong enough to maintain a good relationship with both sides. I’m not the Master Xue you told me before, cousin.” Qiu Yelan was biting her lips and said, “Furthermore, if I say that Cousin Kang actually treated me kindly and nicely, I would cross the Empress Dowager. I have to take my side now.”
Ruan Qingyan looked at her with a complex look, and he said after a moment, “I’ll try my best to get a good ranking in the imperial examination in spring. Then I could turn to the Prince’s Mansion of Guangyang, and raise your profile a bit… However, in this case, I don’t know what to do about your marriage.”
Qiu Yelan sighed, “Save that problem for later… I will have to enter the palace tonight and I definitely can’t wear my funeral clothes there. What should I wear?”
“…” It was such a hard question that even Ruan Qingyan had the confidence to ace the examination next year, he didn’t know the answer to it. Luckily, a carriage was sent by the Empress Dowager to pick her up by noon. The two nannies who came with the carriage tipped them directly, after Ruan Qingyan bribed them with some money. “The Empress Dowager heard that the Commandery Princess Ningyi was aggrieved at the Prince’s Mansion of Xihe. She is a Commandery Princess, and yet she doesn’t even have new clothes in New Year!”
Then, Qiu Yelan knew what she would do tonight. She needed to perform a tragedy of her own…