Madam Tang turned out to be an interesting person too—she didn’t come with any grand fanfare, but instead chose to come at night, wrapped in a black cloak, arriving at the Yangxin Hall as though meeting an underground contact.

“This servant pays respects to my lady.”

Hua Chun looked her over and smiled. “Rise, come sit.”

“Thank you, my lady.” Lifting her head, Madam Tang caught sight of Hua Chun’s face and was instantly startled. “It’s you?”

Wasn’t this the girl who used to be around the Marquis of Gongyu? She remembered her quite well, for she’d had a remarkable appetite. At first she’d even suspected the girl was the Marquis’s wife, only to learn later that the Marquis had never married.

She never expected the girl to actually be the Marquis’s own sister, and now Consort De of the palace besides.

Hua Chun smiled and nodded. “It’s me. Thank you for the buns you treated us to that time.”

“…My lady flatters this servant. It was just a few buns.” Madam Tang laughed awkwardly, her mind churning as she looked at her and asked, “Are you… the Marquis’s own younger sister?”

His own sister? Hua Chun thought it over, then nodded. “More or less.”

That was a relief—otherwise, given how the Marquis had looked at her back then, Madam Tang might have started thinking in the wrong direction.

Seeing Hua Chun’s amiable manner, she relaxed a little, not as tense as she’d been around Consort Shu. She looked her over a few times, then said quietly, “My lady has such a dignified, graceful bearing, with a certain motherly radiance about you—no wonder there’s always been talk in the palace suspecting you might be pregnant.”

Startled for a moment, Hua Chun pulled the blanket beside her over herself, reclining against the couch. “This palace is full of rumors and truths, hard to tell apart. No need to worry about what others say—just take care of yourself.”

“That’s true.” Sighing, Madam Tang said, “If it weren’t for the Marquis sending this servant in, this servant would never have wished to enter the palace at all.”

Oh? Hua Chun raised an eyebrow, thinking back for a moment, then patted her forehead. “This palace recalls—weren’t you rather fond of my second brother, the Marquis of Gongyu, back then?”

Her face flushing slightly, Madam Tang glanced warily at Qing Niao beside them.

“No need to worry, she’s one of us, she won’t speak carelessly of it.” Hua Chun said. “You can speak freely about anything.”

“If my lady trusts her, this servant naturally trusts her too.” Madam Tang hesitated for a moment, then sighed. “There’s no one in this palace this servant can speak her true heart to. Only with my lady can this servant pour out her troubles. Coming to this point, this servant was forced into it.”

Hua Chun paused, feeling inexplicably uneasy. This girl was clearly thriving in the palace—how had she ended up “forced into it”?

Still, she forced a smile and kept listening, since after all, the girl belonged to her second brother.

“Before entering the palace, this servant did a great many things for the Marquis. Made pastries, studied etiquette, inquired about his preferences, worked to build closer ties with the people of his residence—and paid a great deal for it too,” Madam Tang said, lowering her eyes, her eyes reddening slightly. “But the Marquis remained utterly unmoved, and heartlessly sent this servant into the palace to belong to His Majesty instead. This servant’s heart was truly broken.”

This… Hua Chun smiled awkwardly. “You’re still dwelling on the Marquis?”

“No longer.” Wiping her tears, Madam Tang looked up. “He was so heartless toward me—why should I still care for him? Since I already belong to His Majesty, this servant will surely devote herself wholeheartedly to him from now on.”

“It’s good that you think this way.” Hua Chun nodded. “The past should be let go. You shouldn’t harbor resentment toward the Marquis of Gongyu either—his decision was for the good of you both.”

Her body stiffened, and Madam Tang frowned, glancing at Hua Chun, opening her mouth as if to say something, then holding back, only smiling. “My lady is the Marquis’s own sister, so of course you speak up for him. This servant doesn’t resent him—it’s just that while this decision may be good for him, it’s not necessarily good for this servant. This servant will make the best of her own life from now on, and if the chance arises, she’ll certainly demand an explanation from the Marquis.”

This was practically admitting she still held a grudge against her second brother. Hua Chun shook her head—there were plenty of situations like this between men and women, where one party adored the other endlessly, giving unilaterally, and when the other didn’t accept it, all that giving became a weapon to hold the other hostage, typically phrased as—”I did so much for you, and you’re this cold to me, have you no conscience at all?”

Or: “How can you be so heartless, after everything I’ve done, not the slightest bit moved? Fine then, give me back all the time, effort, and money I spent!”

Running into someone like that could only be called terrible luck, since falling for someone was your own decision, and giving was something you did willingly—as long as the other person never accepted it, they had every right to refuse you. Whatever losses you suffered, you had to swallow them yourself, without so much as half a word of complaint.

For now, Hua Chun couldn’t tell whether Madam Tang had any intention of making trouble over this, only that she felt somewhat put off by the fact that the girl had first been infatuated with the Marquis of Gongyu, yet still harbored discontent about following the Emperor instead.

She was already unhappy enough that the Emperor was favoring a newcomer, and now it turned out this newcomer’s heart wasn’t even set on the Emperor. She found herself, inexplicably, feeling wronged on Yuwen Jie’s behalf—where did he fall short, to be looked down on like this compared to He Chang’an?

See, this was a textbook case of a wife’s protective instinct kicking in.

Still, she didn’t let it show, just smiling along as she listened to what Madam Tang had said, then reached for her tea and drank.

Madam Tang, being extremely sensitive, noticed the shift in Consort De’s mood and stopped, changing the subject instead. “This servant has been staying close to Consort Shu, not to form an alliance with her, but because she has always treated this servant as a thorn in her side. The best way to eliminate an enemy is to become her friend—this servant only does it for self-protection.”

This also counted as making her position clear to Consort De, since she’d heard there had once been some friction between Consort De and Consort Shu as well.

Hua Chun nodded, smiling gently. “No harm in that. This palace does not involve herself in the harem’s power struggles, so you need only look after yourself. It makes no difference who you keep company with.”

Glancing at her, Madam Tang nodded, her gaze falling on Hua Chun’s belly, lingering there a moment longer than necessary.

Like this, could it really be that she wasn’t pregnant?

“My lady, the medicine is ready.” Rui’er called from outside.

Hua Chun nodded and looked at Madam Tang. “This palace won’t keep you any longer. This body isn’t well, and after taking the medicine I’ll need to rest.”

“Then this servant will take her leave.” Madam Tang rose, bowed, and withdrew from the main hall.

Outside, a maid happened to be bringing the medicine in, and Madam Tang glanced at it in passing, feeling somewhat curious. She asked her own personal maid, Ling’er, “What illness does Consort De have?”

Ling’er said quietly, “This servant isn’t sure either. Ever since she fell out of favor, she’s been recuperating in the palace, and the medicine has basically never stopped.”

Raising an eyebrow slightly, Madam Tang asked, “Then does the Yangxin Hall produce an unusually large amount of medicine dregs?”

“That’s for sure. Every day there’s a lot to dump.”

“Go find some, without alarming anyone else,” Madam Tang said. “Let’s see what illness Consort De actually has. Perhaps the imperial physicians can’t cure it, but some folk remedy might.”

“Yes.” Ling’er agreed, and hurried off toward where the palace disposed of its waste.

At first Hua Chun had used the medicine dregs from the Yangxin Hall to stuff pillows after drying them, but later, with the smell of medicine filling the whole hall, she found it unpleasant too, and specifically assigned a young maid to gather them up and, once a sufficient amount accumulated, send them off to the palace’s incinerator for unified disposal.

The work was easy but tedious. At first the young maid had been obedient and quite vigilant, insisting on watching with her own eyes to make sure the dregs were burned before leaving, but later she grew lazy, letting others take the dregs along whenever they went to dump the trash.

So it wasn’t difficult at all for Ling’er to get hold of the medicine dregs. She wrapped up a bundle and delivered it to Madam Tang.

Aside from making buns, Madam Tang also knew a bit about medicine, and could recognize the basic herbs without much trouble, so upon inspection she grew a little puzzled.

“Donkey-hide gelatin, perilla, astragalus, mugwort… why are these all things used to prevent miscarriage?”

Ling’er was startled. “That can’t be, can it? If Consort De were really pregnant, how could she possibly be so neglected? She’d have long since been elevated to the position of Empress by the Empress Dowager.”

Her hand trembling slightly, Madam Tang sucked in a breath, gathering up all the medicine dregs and shoving them at Ling’er. “I was just talking nonsense, don’t take it seriously. Go burn this.”

“…Yes.” Looking at her strangely, Ling’er nonetheless did as told.

Madam Tang’s gaze grew distant, staring at some spot on the table for a long while, then took a deep breath and rose to compose herself.

Consort Shu had been run ragged by all the trouble, and as the palace’s population was gradually sent out batch by batch, the situation finally began to improve—but then a letter arrived from the Xu family, scolding her harshly, saying that because of her, the family had made no end of enemies at court and could hardly move a step without difficulty.

“How shallow-minded.” Madam Xu, unconvinced, burned the letter. “What does it matter if we make enemies of others? As long as we win His Majesty’s favor, that’s all that counts.”

The attendant beside her looked at her worriedly, but Consort Shu stubbornly refused to admit any fault, and even ordered the process sped up to get people out of the palace faster.

Under pressure, she ended up keeping quite a few ranked ladies after all, but even so, the total number remaining in the palace now was probably under a hundred, making things considerably easier for her to manage.

“This month’s allowance should be distributed soon, shouldn’t it?” Consort Shu muttered, opening the ledger.

An attendant beside her reminded her quietly, “My lady, Noble Concubine Wu has already taken the initiative and distributed the allowances. They’ve basically all reached each residence already.”

“What?!” Consort Shu frowned. “How did this matter end up in her hands too?”

Distributing the monthly allowance was a task that won a great deal of goodwill, and could skim off a fair bit of profit besides—it had always been hers to handle.

The attendant shook her head, indicating she didn’t know the details. How could Madam Xu possibly swallow this? She went at once to Noble Concubine Wu’s quarters to demand an explanation.

The moment she walked in, she found dozens of consorts and concubines sitting together, chatting and laughing. Seeing her arrive, they all curtsied together, then went right back to their conversation, leaving her standing off to the side, ignored.

In such a situation, speaking up felt awkward too. She sat there stiffly for the time it takes an incense stick to burn, then rose in fury and left.

“This doesn’t look good.” Her personal maid said quietly. “You’re being isolated, my lady, just like the previous Consort Shu.”

“This palace will not end up like her!” Furiously flinging her sleeves, Madam Xu went straight to find Talent Tang.

Madam Tang looked at her with difficulty. “This servant is favored right now, but her rank isn’t high, so there’s not much this servant can do to help, my lady.”

“Isn’t it just a matter of rank? You’ve served His Majesty’s bed for quite a while now—it’s about time you were promoted.” Consort Shu said. “This palace will go ask on your behalf!”