"Sister, Sister!" Xiao Ba ran at lightning speed, rushing straight up to Shen Yiren. Pointing in the direction of Fuan Hall where the old Madame lived, she said, "I just burrowed underground and followed Madam Shen. I heard them plotting to secretly send your dowry back to that fake, and the scented sachet too—they're going to hand that over to the old Madame in secret!"
"Are their whole family a bunch of thieves?" Shen Yiren sighed. "There's a true saying: like mother, like daughter!"
Cang Ming, who had heard every word: "???"
Such a strange expression.
"Xiao Ba, go into the cabinet and get the sachet." That was something the original owner had sewn with her own hands. Shen Yiren had kept it safe after taking it back, but now the only option was to destroy it.
She silently apologized in her heart, set fire to the sachet, and made sure the old Madame would never get her hands on it.
Yet what should be done with the dowry? It would be a shame to burn it.
"Dig a pit?" Shen Yiren looked at Xiao Ba, and the two ginseng spirits instantly connected on the same idea. They loved dirt more than anything else.
Xiao Ba could dig a massive pit just by burrowing through the ground twice.
Assuming they intended to dig with their bare hands, Cang Ming advised, "To bury the entire dowry, we'd have to tear up the whole courtyard. Anyone who walked in would immediately spot the loosened soil."
"I can tun—uh!" Xiao Ba's mouth moved too fast, though fortunately Shen Yiren's hand covered it even faster.
"Do you have a good solution?"
Cang Ming suggested, "We can ask the Prince for assistance."
"You mean move the dowry over to the Prince's place?" Shen Yiren pondered for a moment and decided it was feasible. She spun around and dashed back into the house. "You can deliver the medicine pills to him at the same time!"
Medicine pills? What medicine pills? Confused, Xiao Ba glanced at Cang Ming, then scampered after Shen Yiren, arriving just as she was about to open a jar.
Xiao Ba ran over, hugged the jar tightly, and gazed up with teary eyes.
"Just a little bit." Shen Yiren held up her finger, measuring out a single knuckle's worth. "Only this much, not a drop more for him. Just think—using this tiny bit is all it takes for me to become the Prince!"
"But, but he's not a ginseng spirit! Eating Buxian Mountain dirt won't do him any good."
"So, how about you spare a few tears?" Shen Yiren measured out that tiny amount once again, promising not to ask for more.
"No way!" Xiao Ba shook her head stubbornly. "Last time you pulled out my ginseng roots and fed them to him was bad enough, now you want him to eat me too? Even tears are out of the question, wahhhhh..."
Shen Yiren hurriedly fetched a bowl to catch them and tossed in a tiny pinch of soil for good measure.
Xiao Ba's eyes widened: "!!!"
Then she sniffed.
"Wah!" She cried even harder.
Shen Yiren tried to soothe her: "There, there... If you really must cry, catch it in the bowl. Don't waste it."
Xiao Ba: "..."
She stopped crying instantly!
Smiling, Shen Yiren continued kneading the mud, her fingertips twitching as a wisp of fine, emerald spiritual energy seeped into the clay.
The mud pill was formed.
"Alright, take the dowry and the medicine pill to him." Shen Yiren suddenly remembered she still didn't know the sickly Prince's name. "What is he called?"
"This subordinate dares not speak the Prince's name aloud."
Internally, Shen Yiren thought that was rather grand—no one dared to say his name aloud. She was definitely going to become this Prince!
"This subordinate will send word for someone to come collect them." Cang Ming didn't dare leave, fearing Madam Shen might bring trouble.
The person sent to collect the medicine and items was Cang Xu. He hadn't expected the cargo to be dowry items—a dowry being shipped to the Prince's Manor? The fleeting thought crossed his mind: *Could Miss Shen be planning to marry the Prince?*
Zhou Jinyan looked at the items on the ground tied with red cloth and marked with characters of double happiness, then turned his gaze to Cang Xu.
Cang Xu explained, "Miss Shen was worried Madam Shen would try to snatch her dowry again."
Zhou Jinyan withdrew his gaze and said lightly, "She wastes no time putting this Prince to use, does she? Where is the medicine?"
Cang Xu handed over the medicine pill wrapped in a leaf and opened it.
Zhou Jinyan looked closely. Why did it look so much like something rolled out of mud? And crudely rolled at that, not even round enough.
He had to enter the palace today, so the medicine couldn't be taken just yet; it would have to be stored away for now.
At that moment, a maid came forward to report: "Your Highness, Attendant Fu and Mother Ying have arrived. They request Your Highness's presence in the palace."
One was a head eunuch from the Empress's palace, and the other was the personal wet nurse of Zhou Jinyan's mother, Noble Consort Xian.
"I will change my clothes and come immediately." Zhou Jinyan changed his attire and entered the palace.
He had long enjoyed a special privilege: his carriage could drive directly into the palace grounds, stopping right at the gates of the Empress's Weiyang Palace, after which he had to walk.
After walking a short distance, he let out a soft cough, prompting Mother Ying to cast a worried glance his way. "Although it is already spring, Your Highness should still wear more layers."
Attendant Fu, on the other hand, smiled faintly. "This servant thinks Your Highness's complexion has improved somewhat. Why are you still coughing?"
"An old ailment. It doesn't get better." Zhou Jinyan brushed it off. Upon entering the main hall, he saw the Empress sitting high on her throne, alongside his mother, who stood nearby holding a square handkerchief to assist the Empress in wiping her hands.
For the first ten-odd years since his birth, he had always witnessed this exact scene, even though the Empress had the largest and finest retinue of maids and eunuchs in the entire inner court.
Lowering his gaze, Zhou Jinyan bowed. "This son pays his respects to the Empress and to Royal Mother."
"Yanyan has arrived." The Empress finished wiping her hands, handed the handkerchief back to Noble Consort Xian, and beckoned to Zhou Jinyan. "Come closer and let me and your royal mother have a good look at you. It has been four whole years. You really are something—upon returning to the capital, you didn't come to see us first, but instead made sure to attend Lord Cen's wedding banquet."
Zhou Jinyan stepped forward.
With a tall, upright posture and handsome features, his thin lips were pressed lightly together. Flanking his high bridge of the nose were a pair of deep, gentle eyes that closely resembled those of the Emperor in his youth.
Only his sickly, frail demeanor bore any resemblance to the delicate Noble Consort Xian.
Noble Consort Xian lifted her gaze, her restrained, cautious look sweeping over the son she hadn't seen in years. The last time they met, he only reached the tip of her nose; now, he was a full head taller than her.
And he had truly grown into his looks.
His complexion was indeed somewhat better, yet he still looked far from healthy.
"Yanyan's color is good. Yujing truly knows how to nurture people. It was a hardship for you to be sent off to such a remote fiefdom at such a young age." The Empress instructed Attendant Fu to grant him a seat. "I will speak with the Emperor; Yanyan should simply remain in Yujing."
"Empress, you cannot." Noble Consort Xian chimed in promptly, her soft, melodious voice betraying a hint of tension. "That would be against the rules. Yanyan has been enfeoffed as a Prince, and by rights he should remain in his fiefdom, forbidden to enter the capital without an imperial summons. This trip to Yujing was summoned by the Emperor, and once matters are concluded, he ought to return."
The Empress glanced at Noble Consort Xian, who stood before her with lowered eyes and a submissive posture, then looked toward Prince Duan, whose expression in the center of the hall remained impassive. She smiled slightly.
"Noble Consort, you have only this one son, yet you are truly so hard-hearted. Aren't you afraid Yanyan will blame you?"
Noble Consort Xian lowered her eyes and kept silent, her fingers curling slightly.
In his heart, Yanyan must surely blame her.
Zhou Jinyan looked toward his petite mother and frowned slightly.
"It is not that Yujing nurtures people; spring remains cold to this son. I am simply wearing extra layers, and the fever is what causes this flush of color. I beg the Empress and Royal Mother not to blame this son for failing to remove my fox-fur cloak. I am truly afraid of the cold, and alternating between heat and cold is likely to bring on an illness, which would only worry my Imperial Father and Royal Mother once more."
The Empress's smile widened. "Among all the princes and princesses, Yanyan is the most considerate of his parents. Summoning you back to the capital was my idea; Yanyan has already reached adulthood and it is high time he settled down."
She raised her hand, and Attendant Fu, followed by palace maids, presented scroll after scroll of paintings.
"These are noble daughters that your royal mother and I selected together. We commanded court painters to visit various noble houses to render portraits and send them here. Take a look, Yanyan, and see if any catch your eye."
Mother Ying, standing beside Noble Consort Xian, looked at those scrolls and sighed inwardly. There was no way these were selected alongside Noble Consort Xian; clearly, the Empress had chosen them first, presented them to Noble Consort Xian for a mere formality of a glance, and unilaterally finalized the list.
Yet in her heart, Noble Consort Xian still hoped her son would choose someone to settle down with—surely that was better than having no one by his side to keep him company.
Attendant Fu instructed the maids to unfurl the scrolls.
Zhou Jinyan swept his gaze across them. The foremost portrait depicted Xie Ling'er, the legitimate fourth daughter of the Minister's Estate.
She was also the Empress's own niece.
This was an attempt to place a watcher by his side.
Zhou Jinyan withdrew his gaze.
The Empress twirled her handkerchief and smiled lightly. "Among these portraits, is there anyone Yanyan fancies?"
"No."
Zhou Jinyan's blunt reply caused Noble Consort Xian's heart to leap into her throat. She hurriedly called out, "Yanyan."
"Royal Mother." Zhou Jinyan looked at his anxious, worried mother. "This son already has someone in mind, but she is not among these paintings."
Seeing the smile fade slightly from the Empress's face, Noble Consort Xian immediately interjected, "Yanyan, the young ladies the Empress chose for you are all daughters of Yujing's finest nobility."
What made a noble daughter? First, an illustrious family background; second, being born of the primary wife; third, possessing talent and artistry.
Noble Consort Xian shook her head slightly at her son.
"Noble Consort, do not suppress Yanyan so. He is a grown man and naturally has his own ideas." The Empress put on a benevolent smile once more, though her final words made Noble Consort Xian's nervousness apparent on her face.
On the surface, it sounded like having one's own ideas about marriage, but the subtext was that Yanyan was already slipping out of control—if he disobeyed when it came to choosing a wife, wouldn't he harbor treasonous ambitions in the future?
Coming merely from an ordinary merchant family in Jiangnan, she had been brought into the palace by the Emperor solely due to her exceptional beauty. Merchants held a lowly status, and despite spending years in the palace, she remained merely a Beauty. If not for Yanyan's birth and the Empress's deliberate patronage, she would never have been elevated to the rank of Consort.
Lacking a solid maternal family and holding only an empty title of Consort, she was powerless to protect her son.
"Yanyan..." Noble Consort Xian experienced a turmoil of conflicting emotions, terrified that the Empress might secretly plot against her son, yet equally worried that forcing her son to marry a woman he disliked would only drive a wedge between mother and son.
The Empress inquired aloud, "I wonder which family's young lady has caught Yanyan's eye?"