Immediately afterwards, the eunuchs filed in and brought twenty-three mats behind the girls.
Eunuch Su stood in the main hall, looked at the daughters of important ministers standing in the hall with a smile and said, "Girls, please take a seat."
"Yes." The other girls blessed themselves politely, and then sat down.
Ye Qiqi was startled for a moment, then he quickly followed the same example and sat down on the mat in an orderly manner.
Mo Hanqing's eyes kept falling on Ye Qiqi.
He silently watched her awkward salute, and couldn't help but feel soft in his heart.
"Your Majesty, everything is ready. Please give me the question." Seeing that all the ladies from each family had sat down, Eunuch Su turned around, bent towards the Emperor, and said with a smile.
"Yes." The emperor nodded, glanced around the hall kindly, and then cleared his throat and said: "It is midsummer now, and the lotus flowers are in full bloom in the pond in the imperial garden. Please invite me. Let’s compose a poem with lotus as the theme.”
"Yes." After hearing the emperor's words, the girls sitting on the mats stood up one by one, saluted the emperor again, and then sat down again.
Ye Qiqi felt a little speechless.
Why do they have to salute every time the emperor says something? They stand up and sit down again. Are they finished
But even though she was thinking this, because of the eight hundred thousand taels of silver debt, she could only accept her fate and follow those girls to stand up, salute, and sit down again.
"Okay, let's get started." Eunuch Su smiled at the girls in the palace.
As soon as Eunuch Su finished speaking, the other girls reached out and picked up the ink sticks on the small desk and began to grind the ink in the inkstone.
In just a moment, several girls picked up their brushes and started writing on the paper.
Mo Hanqing turned his gaze to Ye Qiqi and saw her sitting in front of the desk, motionless, just staring at the white paper in front of her with her head lowered, not knowing what she was thinking.
Mo Xiuzhu, Ye Chengan, and Murong Hongyu were naturally focused on Ye Qiqi.
Just seeing her sitting there without moving for a long time made several of them feel anxious.
Mo Xiuzhu was sitting among the princes, his eyes constantly glancing at Mo Hanqing, but the latter only looked at Ye Qiqi and had no intention of paying attention to him.
Ye Chengan and Murong Hongyu were sitting together, but they stared at Ye Qiqi for a long time and didn't see her raising her hand to pick up a pen. Ye Chengan couldn't help but lowered his voice towards Murong Hongyu and said: "Qiqi... shouldn't be able to write a poem about lotus, right??"
"I don't know." Murong Hongyu was silent for a moment, then shook his head and said, "Actually, I don't know much about lotus poetry."
"Hey, you've been practicing martial arts since you were a child." Ye Chengan thought about comforting Murong Hongyu, but as soon as he said these words, he paused, and then said with a frustrated expression: "Ye Qiqi, too She has been practicing martial arts since she was a child. From the looks of it, she really can’t know any song, right? Is she going to be kicked out in the first round?"
"..." Murong Hongyu didn't know what to say for a moment.
After a while of burning incense, several girls had already written poems.