The next morning, Xu Fengjia sent those dozen or so servants back to Madam Xu’s dowry estate. Seventh Miss remained impassive, acting as if she had never interrogated Xiao Songhua. Her attitude toward her several sisters-in-law remained the same as always—even in front of the Fifth Young Madam, she showed no sign of anything amiss.

Since it had originally been agreed with the Fan family that the wedding would take place in the seventh month, now that it was changed to Yu’an, the Fan family still wanted to hold the ceremony within the year. The Grand Madam also hoped to find a match for Yu Ping before Yu’an’s wedding, so as not to disrupt the order of seniority. For several days running, Seventh Miss had been busy with Yu’an’s dowry while also keeping an eye out in the capital for suitable young men. With the Dragon Boat Festival approaching, there were also various household matters to handle. On top of that, after the Fourth Young Madam and Fourth Young Master had their argument, the pregnancy became troublesome. Over the next ten-plus days, she was constantly occupied—every day there was a pile of things to do. For more than ten days, she hadn’t been able to spare a hand to deal with Fifth Miss’s case.

However, perhaps because of this, when the Fifth Young Madam saw Seventh Miss, her attitude was much more amiable. Even the Grand Madam didn’t bring up the matter of concubines. Seeing this, Seventh Miss naturally felt some emotion.

In private, she sighed to Xu Fengjia, “When I didn’t know about it before, I just felt I had indeed done wrong—from the moment I entered the household, I hadn’t given Grandmother a pleasant face, so naturally when the old lady had a chance, she would suppress me like this. Now I realize that no matter how well I behaved, it would have been useless. The old lady’s heart was biased from the very beginning, tilted in who knows what direction.”

The current situation made it obvious that the Grand Madam favored the Fifth Household. She probably wasn’t unaware of the poisoning incident with the Fifth Young Madam—she simply took a permissive attitude. Add to that the one hundred thousand taels of silver, plus her attitude that fluctuated with Seventh Miss’s investigation progress… To say the Grand Madam was completely deceived by the Fifth Household was something even Xu Fengjia himself probably wouldn’t believe.

However, Xu Fengjia could speak of the Fifth Young Master’s faults and even complain about the Fourth Young Master’s dominance, but he rarely mentioned the wrongs of Duke Pingguo and the Grand Madam. After all, Great Qin still governed through filial piety. In many matters, even this young master who feared neither heaven nor earth had to be constrained by social rules. Seeing that he didn’t respond and that his expression was somewhat awkward, Seventh Miss changed the subject with a smile. “Actually, I’m quite curious—do you think Fifth Sister-in-law initially intended to poison Fifth Sister to death, or did she only want to make Fifth Sister’s health poor so she could hold power for a few more years and profit from it?”

This question stumped even Xu Fengjia. Instead, he asked Seventh Miss, “Setting aside that wang bu liu xing is hard to identify, saffron has a distinctive fragrance. How could the old woman brewing the medicine be so careless as to just toss it into the pot to boil?”

“That’s hard to say.” Seventh Miss sighed. “Not every nanny who brews medicine is proficient in medicinal theory. Where can you find people who are both loyal and capable for your use? Nanny Hu who brewed the medicine has already received countless lashes. She swore countless oaths saying she knew nothing—she only left briefly to use the privy and never left the room after that. Her background has been investigated countless times. Her whole family were dowry servants from our Yang family, completely separate from the household staff… If there could still be something wrong with her, then there would be no servants we could ever use again.”

She paused, then added, “However, just between you and me, I’ve long been familiar with Nanny Hu. Although she had quite a respectable position at Yuelai Pavilion, this person has more than enough loyalty but very insufficient ability—she’s quite clumsy. To have her brew medicine…”

She didn’t continue, but the meaning was already quite clear: Fifth Miss’s decision hadn’t been appropriate to begin with.

Xu Fengjia thought for a moment and sighed again. He said gloomily, “Shanli actually wasn’t stupid at all, so why…”

“Fifth Sister had that kind of temperament—free and unrestrained, with a touch of chivalrous spirit.” Seventh Miss said indifferently. “To be a household mistress, she lacked some caution. I had long guessed she would have to take a few falls before waking up, but I never expected…”

Never expected that this one fall would mean Fifth Miss never got up again.

The room fell silent for a time. Only the laughter of the maids in the courtyard filtered faintly through the windows, punctuating this heavy loneliness.

After a long while, Xu Fengjia said, “By the way, after the Dragon Boat Festival, let’s visit Anfu Lane.”

He half sat up and looked at Seventh Miss. “Feng Zixiu sent me a message today saying that his mother hasn’t been well recently and seems to be in poor condition. The Feng family doesn’t have many relatives in the capital, so he asked if it would be convenient for us to visit Anfu Lane and keep his mother company for a chat.”

Although he still rarely called Feng Jin “cousin,” he was quite polite when speaking of Madam Feng.

Seventh Miss quickly nodded. “That’s as it should be.”

She counted on her fingers. “We can skip the Dragon Boat Festival itself—we have to enter the palace to pay respects, and who knows, we might be delayed there for half the day. Right after comes the children’s birthdays. Though it’s a small matter, it wouldn’t be good if I weren’t home. Oh, and you need to remember—Eldest Sister-in-law said her maternal family has a distant cousin around Yu Ping’s age who recently came to the capital to study at the Imperial Academy. I asked about his background—his father held a fourth or fifth rank position back in the day, and the young man himself is quite accomplished. He passed the provincial examination last year and is only in his early twenties…”

After calculating for some time with Xu Fengjia, they determined they could spare time on the tenth of the fifth month to visit the Feng family. Xu Fengjia also reminded Seventh Miss, “When you’re at the palace, remember to sit with the Empress first. Don’t rush straight to Jingren Palace to find your Sixth Sister…”

He couldn’t help but laugh. “Never mind, when it comes to social niceties, you’re better than me!”

#

By the end of the fourth month, Yu Qiao’s forty-ninth day memorial had passed. Inevitably there was another round of ceremonial bustle at home. Madam Xu specially came back from Xiaotangshan to attend the ceremony. Seventh Miss couldn’t help but inform Madam Xu about the family she had in mind for Yu Ping. Madam Xu was quite satisfied after hearing about it and discussed it with the Grand Madam. The Grand Madam had no objections, so the Eldest Young Master and Fourth Young Master found an opportunity to bring Young Master Han to the household for Duke Pingguo to review. Duke Pingguo also found him quite suitable, so the Han family wrote to propose marriage, and so on. They remained busy right up until the Dragon Boat Festival itself. Early that morning, Seventh Miss got up and changed into formal attire. Together with the Fifth Young Madam, she went to show herself to the Grand Madam and Madam Xu before the two of them entered the palace together to pay respects to the Empress.

According to Great Qin custom, during every festival, all titled ladies both inside and outside the palace had to pay respects to the Empress. Since all the vassal princes were not in the capital, on such occasions, naturally the Niu family, Sun family, and a few others took precedence. When Seventh Miss led the Fifth Young Madam in, she actually wanted to first find Quan Ruiyun to exchange a few words with her, but unexpectedly, after looking around the vicinity, she didn’t see Quan Ruiyun anywhere. It was the Fifth Young Madam with her sharp eyes who nudged Seventh Miss and said with a smile, “Look, your sister-in-law is over there with Madam Sun.”

Seventh Miss looked carefully and finally noticed that Quan Ruiyun was indeed standing together with Second Miss, exchanging pleasantries with Madam Niu. She quickly said, “Fifth Sister-in-law, shall we go over together and greet them?”

The Fifth Young Madam smiled and waved her hand. “I have some relatives over here I need to speak with. Sixth Sister-in-law, you go ahead on your own. Remember to find me when it’s over so we can go to Cishou Palace together to pay our respects!”

The Sun and Yang families were also Seventh Miss’s relatives but indeed had no connection to the Fifth Young Madam. After Seventh Miss exchanged a few polite words, she agreed to meet up with the Fifth Young Madam after leaving Kunning Palace. Then she parted ways with her, separated from the crowd herself, and approached Second Miss and Quan Ruiyun.

Given Second Miss’s status, whenever she entered the palace, she was inevitably the center of attention among the titled ladies. As for Quan Ruiyun, though she was the wife of a Grand Secretary, she actually had no title herself—she relied on Quan Zhongbai’s influence. Ninth Brother had not yet achieved any honors, yet she already had a title. Normally when entering the palace, aside from when Seventh Miss had time to chat with her, Second Miss was often too busy to pay attention, let alone be surrounded and flattered by titled ladies in the middle of a crowd. However, today the liveliness around her was not much less than around Second Miss—she truly had the air of commanding widespread response.

It seemed that the most direct beneficiary of Sixth Miss’s pregnancy was still the Yang family.

Seeing Seventh Miss approach, both Second Miss and Quan Ruiyun beamed with smiles. Quan Ruiyun even intimately came forward to take her arm, smiling. “Seventh Sister just arrived? I was looking for you earlier.”

Second Miss called Seventh Miss to her side and looked her up and down before saying, “You’ve lost weight!”

With both of these prominent ladies being so warm toward Seventh Miss, naturally the looks others gave her carried an extra measure of respect. Someone laughed and said, “Whose daughter-in-law is this? I find her quite unfamiliar!”

Naturally there followed another round of introductions and pleasantries. After a while, Madam Quan arrived and led Quan Ruiyun aside to whisper privately, causing some commotion. Only then did the titled ladies emerge from Kunning Palace. When Seventh Miss looked up, she didn’t see Sixth Miss’s figure.

“Sixth Sister is carrying twins, and it’s been so hot lately.” Before she even turned her head, Second Miss was already explaining in her ear. “The Empress told her not to go out and get sunburned.”

She hummed softly again. “Look at that smug, arrogant appearance of Noble Consort Niu!”

Seventh Miss looked over and indeed saw Noble Consort Niu with a face full of spring breeze, emerging first from Kunning Palace with her head held high. If she didn’t still remember the occasion and hadn’t shown outright arrogance on her face, she would practically be treating Kunning Palace as her own territory.

Seventh Miss couldn’t help smiling silently to herself: the more smug Noble Consort Niu was, the safer Sixth Miss would be.

“Those who don’t know would think she’s the mistress of Kunning Palace…” She echoed Second Miss in a soft, delicate voice.

Second Miss was three parts more indignant than Seventh Miss. “Just because she gave birth to a boy, she’s this smug…”

She didn’t continue but put on a pleasant smile and walked to the front of the crowd, leading the titled ladies who had lined up properly into Kunning Palace.

#

After leaving Kunning Palace, the titled ladies successively withdrew from the Forbidden City. A young palace attendant sent by Imperial Concubine Xu had been waiting for quite some time. Seventh Miss found the Fifth Young Madam and suggested to her, “I need to follow Second Sister into Kunning Palace to pay respects to the Empress. Will Fifth Sister-in-law come along?”

The Fifth Young Madam’s eyes flashed. She smiled warmly and considerately said to Seventh Miss, “It’s probably about Noble Lady Ning, isn’t it? I won’t go then—it’s better if I go to Cishou Palace first to keep company with Aunt.”

Seventh Miss had only been making polite gestures anyway. She turned around and went out, following Second Miss into Kunning Palace for a private audience with the Empress. After exchanging pleasantries with the Empress for a while, the three finally sat down to talk.

Compared to when Seventh Miss had last seen the Empress, this noble lady was clearly much more haggard. Though she was only approaching thirty, there were already a few white hairs at her temples. That air of calm composure in her bearing had gradually been replaced by stern rigidity. In just half a year, the Empress’s state of mind seemed to have undergone great changes.

However, she was much warmer toward Seventh Miss than before. “It’s been half a year since I’ve seen Shanheng. How are things? Have you been well recently?”

Seventh Miss understood perfectly well: Second Miss ultimately hadn’t taken credit for the favor she and Sixth Miss had earned. She quickly answered the Empress respectfully, “Though busy at home, life has been fairly smooth.”

The Empress asked Seventh Miss a few more questions, displaying an affectionate attitude, then dismissed her with a smile. “I know you’re eager to go to Cishou Palace to talk—after leaving Cishou Palace, don’t forget to visit Jingren Palace to see Shanying. She’s been heavy with child recently and just sits quietly in her palace to nurture the pregnancy. It’s precisely when she lacks people to talk to. Keep her company more, and it’s fine to sit late.”

Ordinarily, titled ladies from outside didn’t dare to overstay their welcome in the palace. They would usually take their leave after lunch. This was the Empress specially bestowing favor on Sixth Miss and giving face to Seventh Miss.

Seventh Miss didn’t dare be negligent. She thanked the Empress properly, and seeing Second Miss signal to her with her eyes, she rose to take her leave. “In that case, Xiao Qi will presume to withdraw first and visit Cishou Palace…”

The Empress showed a weary smile and said softly, “Good, when you have time in the future, come in often to pay your respects.”

She no longer had her former composure—Seventh Miss had only just stood up and taken a few steps when she heard the Empress’s low, urgent complaints following from behind.

“Just the night before last, His Majesty went to Noble Consort Niu’s quarters again to see the Second Imperial Prince…”

She couldn’t help but feel a chill and quickened her pace out of Kunning Palace.

The atmosphere in Cishou Palace was much lighter than in Kunning Palace. When Seventh Miss entered, she happened to see Prince An standing under the eaves, playing with a small tiger made of mugwort in his hands. She quickly smiled, waved to Prince An, and asked, “What is the young prince playing with?”

Prince An immediately set down the mugwort in his hand and came forward to bow to Seventh Miss. “Sixth Cousin Sister-in-law—”

He had always been innocent and lively, with gentle and well-mannered behavior. Though they didn’t meet often, he could converse quite well with Seventh Miss. Seventh Miss smiled and took out a longevity cord from her bosom, tying it around Prince An’s arm. “This is a gift from your Sixth Cousin Sister-in-law. Your two young nephews have them too. Next time, have your Sixth Cousin Brother bring you out of the palace to play with your two nephews.”

Prince An was immediately delighted. “Sixth Cousin Sister-in-law isn’t lying, is she?”

In the palace, he only had the Crown Prince as a playmate of similar age, and their statuses and seniority were both different, so they couldn’t be completely carefree together. Just from Seventh Miss mentioning a few times that she wanted to introduce Prince An to Fourth Young Master and Fifth Young Master, two companions close to his age, Prince An had taken it to heart. Every time he saw Seventh Miss, he would clamor asking about this matter. Seventh Miss smiled and nodded. “The weather is hot now. When autumn comes, Sixth Cousin Sister-in-law will ask your Imperial Mother Consort for permission and bring you out.”

The two were talking under the eaves when Imperial Concubine Xu’s voice already came from the inner room. “Who’s outside?”

“Imperial Mother, Imperial Mother.” Prince An dashed into the room like a gust of wind. “Sixth Cousin Sister-in-law is here!”

Seventh Miss quickly followed Prince An into the main hall and bowed to the Imperial Concubine. “Xiao Qi pays respects to Aunt.”

When Imperial Concubine Xu saw Seventh Miss, she usually wore a face full of smiles, but today, despite Prince An’s cheerfulness, her smile was somewhat diminished. She nodded. “I thought you would go to Jingren Palace first before coming here.”

Seventh Miss’s heart skipped a beat. She measured her response. “Second Sister pulled me to Kunning Palace to pay respects to the Empress…”

She began pondering: could the Imperial Concubine be blaming her for the leak about the Crown Prince’s self-defilement incident?

However, given Sixth Miss’s cleverness, appeasing the Imperial Concubine shouldn’t be difficult. Even if the Imperial Concubine had suspicions, so much time had passed that her anger should have dissipated by now. Last time she entered the palace, the Imperial Concubine’s attitude toward her had still been quite warm…

She glanced at the Fifth Young Madam and set her thoughts aside for now, continuing, “The Empress also gave Xiao Qi some instructions and asked about matters outside, which is why it took longer. I’ve kept Aunt waiting!”

Imperial Concubine Xu seemed to notice her own coldness. She paused before changing to a smile and saying warmly, “No matter, I was just having a nice chat with your Fifth Sister-in-law!”

She dismissed the Fifth Young Madam. “Ningshou Palace just sent Madam Niu to Noble Consort Niu’s quarters. We shouldn’t be too conspicuous either. Your Sixth Sister-in-law will also be going to Jingren Palace later, so I think it’s best you return first. Give my regards to your grandmother and tell her I’m well, and I only hope she’s also peaceful and healthy.”

The Fifth Young Madam quickly rose to bow farewell to the Imperial Concubine. “Grandmother at home thinks of you day and night…”

Imperial Concubine Xu was quite moved. “What use is wealth and glory when one cannot fulfill filial duties? That is ultimately life’s great regret.”

She personally rose and saw the Fifth Young Madam out of Cishou Palace before turning back and dismissing Prince An. “Good child, go out and play.”

As soon as Prince An left the palace, Imperial Concubine Xu put on a stern face and scolded Seventh Miss. “What a foolish child! If your Fifth Sister-in-law hadn’t mentioned it, I wouldn’t have known you’d become this foolish!”

Even with Seventh Miss’s composure and depth, she couldn’t help but be momentarily stunned by Imperial Concubine Xu’s rebuke.