The Empress Dowager had arrived as well. Her gaze swept over the young women standing on the platform below, and her originally benign face instantly wrinkled into a frown, her eyes filled with dissatisfaction. Throughout her life, the Empress Dowager had always favored women with fuller figures, believing that such women were blessed and better suited for childbearing. Bai Wutong winning the Emperor’s favor had, in the final analysis, been nothing more than an accident.
Yet, today, the aesthetic of the entire Capital had quietly shifted because of Bai Wutong. The young women before her were all gaunt and thin, and the Empress Dowager’s dissatisfaction reached a boiling point. If it were not for the fact that her influence was far from what it once was, she would have long since ordered these women—none of whom met her expectations—to be driven out, without leaving a single one behind.
Zhang Chengyan’s perspective, however, was diametrically opposed to the Empress Dowager’s. He scanned the stage below with keen interest, his eyes lingering on the group of women, a look of satisfaction upon his face. Finally, his gaze locked onto a woman in the front row. Her appearance and temperament bore subtle echoes of Jin Weige from years past, yet she possessed a uniqueness all her own. She was more slender and delicate than Jin Weige, and the exquisite charm between her brows added a different kind of allure. One could say she had cleverly fused Jin Weige’s brilliance with Bai Wutong…
Chapter 407