With a divorce letter, Chu Shaoyang and Shen Ning became passers-by. Then Shen Ning married away to Dong Qin. From then on, she and her son were thousands of miles apart, and she never saw her son again.
Queen Mother Zhou finally got rid of a heart problem.
But thinking of Shen Ning's appearance and talent, she couldn't help but feel sorry for her son. Such a good girl actually married Dong Qin. The prince of Dong Qin was really more blessed than her son!
Empress Dowager Zhou shook her head and threw all thoughts to the back of her mind. There were still three days left, and she had to make arrangements to ensure that her son would choose a girl with both talent and beauty to be the queen.
*
The emperor is going to choose a queen!
The news spread throughout the streets of Kyoto overnight, like it had wings, triggering a craze in Kyoto.
Moreover, they also heard that there will be a garden party held in the palace in three days. All talented girls in Kyoto will receive invitations. Regardless of their family background, as long as the girl is talented and knowledgeable, she will have the opportunity to be invited to the palace to attend the party.
This information made those ladies with prominent backgrounds resentful, because they had many more powerful competitors, but it made the girls from ordinary families burst into joy. They had never dreamed that they would have the opportunity to enter the palace. Now this opportunity is right in front of them.
As long as they receive the invitation and enter the palace, they have a chance to win the emperor's favor. If they catch the emperor's eye, then they will fly on the branches and become phoenixes, from an ordinary commoner girl to the empress of the world. .
This is simply what every girl dreams of!
Especially when they heard that this election would focus on talent rather than appearance, so the girls who were not outstanding in appearance were secretly happy. For the past three days, they had been holding onto their papers, hoping to show off their talents at the garden party and become a blockbuster.
And those beautiful girls are not discouraged. Although they value talent rather than appearance, how can they win the eyes of the emperor with only talent and virtue? Is there any man in this world who doesn’t like a delicate and beautiful face? They rushed to make new clothes and jewelry in order to attract the emperor's attention with their beautiful appearance that day.
Overnight, all the bookstores, embroidery shops and jewelery pavilions in Kyoto were crowded with young girls. They were thin and fat, wearing red and green clothes, attracting the attention of countless people.
The crowd gathered around these girls and commented on who was more beautiful, who was more talented and learned, and who had the hope of entering the palace.
*
Three days later, all the girls who received the invitations rushed outside the palace gate early, and then were sent into the imperial garden on soft sedans.
Regardless of their appearance, all the girls were beautifully dressed and surrounded by green jewels. For the first time in so many years, so many young girls appeared in the palace, and the guards and eunuchs in the palace couldn't get enough of them.
The girls walked together in twos and threes and strolled in the imperial garden. They greeted each other with polite smiles and greeted each other politely, but they were all smiling, and their faces were not in harmony with their hearts.
They only knew that the emperor would choose one of them to be the queen today, but they did not know how he would choose. Everyone was uneasy and at the same time deeply hostile to the girl next to them. They wanted to take advantage of the other party's words. They tried to trick each other out, but they also wanted to hide their own strength, so they intrigued each other and fought endlessly.
These girls were clearly divided into two groups.