Li Guo’er frowned as she looked at the inner room where only she remained alone, her gaze constantly searching around, but there wasn’t a trace of those two men anywhere, as if they had vanished into thin air.

If not for the warmth still lingering on her fingertips from touching the other’s cheek, she would almost think she had suffered hallucinations in broad daylight.

Had her imperial brother’s spirit come to find her? But how strange…

Walking out of Yuyi Tower in a daze, the female official beside her immediately approached, asking attentively: “Princess, are you satisfied with that woven brocade skirt?”

Li Guo’er was stunned for a moment, only then remembering that she hadn’t even thought to look at the woven brocade skirt. But she didn’t want to explain to others, so she simply composed herself and said lightly: “It doesn’t suit this palace’s taste. Have the Imperial Wardrobe Bureau make another one.” She spoke extremely casually, not putting this skirt worth one hundred million coins in her eyes at all. The palace maid with green-painted eyebrows beside her didn’t find it strange either, and the Imperial Wardrobe Bureau’s clothing department, having received the order, was carefully pondering exactly what didn’t suit Princess Anle’s taste. The palace maid with green-painted eyebrows carefully asked: “Princess, how should this woven brocade skirt be handled?”

Li Guo’er now didn’t even want to look at it, casually waving her hand: “You handle it. I heard you’re on good terms with an antique shop owner. Just hang it in his shop for display.”

The palace maid immediately thanked her graciously. Having served Li Guo’er for a long time, she could naturally see she was in a bad mood, so she wisely said no more.

Li Guo’er deeply exhaled, closed her beautiful eyes, and when she opened them again, had returned to being that domineering Great Tang princess.

2013 AD, Dumb House

After the tormenting dizziness passed, the doctor immediately opened his eyes and was relieved to find familiar surroundings. He stood up supporting his forehead and complained irritably to Lu Zigang: “How did we go back to the Tang Dynasty? Can this broken compass still work? Didn’t you say we’d go back one month?”

Lu Zigang sat in a yellow rosewood reclining chair, pressing his slightly aching temples and said with a bitter smile: “Didn’t I also say that the things on this Luoshu Nine Stars Compass are too profound? This compass has fifty-two layers, and the layer with the most has three hundred eighty-four grid spaces. How could a half-baked person like me understand how this operates?”

“Phew… fortunately we returned safely. So this means next time we’ll still have to rely on luck!” The doctor slumped on the counter, feeling that finding the boss was an infinitely distant prospect.

“That will have to wait until a month later. This Luoshu Nine Stars Compass can’t be used every day – each month requires calculating special periods before it can be activated.” Lu Zigang had just been scared into a cold sweat and took a long time of deep breathing to finally recover.

The doctor felt that his nose was still surrounded by the intensely invasive incense from that Great Tang princess. He spent a long time smelling the Yan-style Golden Dragon Boshan incense burner on the counter before eliminating that scent.

“Speaking of which, which Great Tang princess was that? Princess Taiping? Princess Gaoyang?”

“I keep feeling that the skirt hanging on the ruyi cloud-pattern clothes rack in that room looked so familiar…” Lu Zigang was lost in thought.

The doctor, having just experienced time travel for the first time, was quite excited. He had no sense of crisis about nearly being kept as a male favorite, and was still enthusiastically wanting to discuss: “Didn’t the Tang Dynasty advocate considering fat as beautiful? That princess just now wasn’t fat at all – she had quite a good figure.”

Lu Zigang glanced at him and said disdainfully: “That was when Yang Guifei was popular that fat was considered beautiful… and that was plump! Not obese!” He suddenly seemed to think of something and got up to walk toward the inner area of Dumb House.

The doctor curiously followed, watching Lu Zigang pass through the long corridor in Dumb House’s inner area, seeing him open the rooms inside one by one, finally stopping at the entrance of one room. Seeing Lu Zigang stop at the doorway, the doctor couldn’t help but push his back and squeezed in as well.

“What are you looking at… this is…” The doctor suddenly lost his voice, only able to stare blankly at the dress hanging on the clothes rack in the room, unable to speak for a long time.

The room had no lit lamps, only a fist-sized luminous pearl embedded in the ceiling, emitting a glowing light. Directly below the luminous pearl on a standing clothes rack hung an absolutely beautiful dress, magnificent beyond description.

“The Comprehensive Mirror to Aid in Government records that Princess Anle had a woven brocade skirt worth one hundred million coins, with flowers, plants, birds, and beasts all like grains of millet. When viewed straight on or from the side, in sunlight or shadow, each appeared as a different color.” Lu Zigang’s ethereal voice came from the darkness, pausing for a moment before continuing: “The one we just met should be the famous greatest beauty of the Tang Dynasty, Princess Anle. Sigh, that princess only lived to twenty-five before being killed.” Lu Zigang spoke matter-of-factly, because although he felt it was a pity, Princess Anle was notorious in history. Though no one knew what was true or false, she was ultimately saddled with the infamy of patricide.

The doctor stared blankly for a long time before regaining his senses. Just now in that extremely luxurious room, the woven brocade skirt hadn’t seemed particularly remarkable, but now in this plain room without any backdrop, this woven brocade skirt was completely captivating. The woven brocade skirt was preserved extremely well – even after a thousand years, it remained gorgeous and exquisite. The skirt surface was woven from the feathers of a hundred birds, producing color changes as his gaze moved. The skirt displayed the forms of various birds, even seeming to be endowed with life due to these changes, lifelike and truly ingenious.

“What a spendthrift… this is a skirt worth one hundred million coins!” The doctor marveled.

“Even more spendthrift is that according to historical records, she made two woven brocade skirts.” Lu Zigang also gossiped.

“Two!” The doctor walked around the standing clothes rack in the room and asked puzzledly: “There’s only one here.”

“Only one survived!” Lu Zigang shrugged. “Princess Anle’s woven brocade skirt was also called the Hundred Birds Skirt. It caused a fashion storm in Chang’an’s upper society, with all the ladies using bird feathers and precious animal furs to make clothes, resulting in the extinction of birds and beasts outside Chang’an city. Later, Emperor Xuanzong had to burn Princess Anle’s woven brocade skirt in front of Daming Palace. Well, probably one of the two was burned.”

“Too… spendthrift…” One hundred million coins just burned like that! The doctor felt his vocabulary was unprecedentedly lacking, only able to repeatedly mutter the word “spendthrift.” “Speaking of which, the boss gave this woven brocade skirt its own room – there’s nothing wrong with this skirt, is there?”

Lu Zigang shrugged indifferently: “You think every antique in Dumb House has something unusual about it? This is just a skirt. It probably gets its own room because it’s too expensive…”

“True…” The doctor immediately felt he was overthinking.

The two men admired and appreciated it for a while, but ultimately they were both men and didn’t have much interest in such luxurious clothing. Lu Zigang was also afraid that keeping the room open too long would affect the temperature and humidity inside, which wouldn’t be good for preserving the woven brocade skirt, so he left with the doctor.

The room became dark again, with only the luminous pearl’s light quietly shrouding the woven brocade skirt.

After an unknown amount of time, the door was silently pushed open. A black shadow flashed inside, quickly rolled the woven brocade skirt from the clothes rack into a bag, then departed gracefully. The entire process took less than three seconds.

The luminous pearl on the ceiling flickered twice, then suddenly went permanently dark…

Every antique in Dumb House has its own story, carrying many years with no one to listen. Because they cannot speak…

Dumb House Mini Theater

Lu Zigang: Speaking of which, Tang Zhongzong Li Xian also had a nickname called “Six Emperor Pills.”

Doctor: Huh? Six Flavor Rehmannia Pills? Did he invent them?

Lu Zigang: Li Xian himself was Tang Zhongzong, his father was Tang Gaozong, his brother Tang Ruizong Li Dan, his son Tang Shangzong, his nephew Tang Xuanzong Li Longji, and most critically, his mother was also an emperor – Wu Zetian… so… this family had six emperors… pills…

Doctor: …