"I heard that there were your words inside the sachet at that time?" Queen Wang continued to ask.
Liu Jingyu stood up and knelt down in front of Queen Wang. "Queen, I am not familiar with the Yongning Marquis's son. Although our two families have contacts, I have only met him once or twice. As for the words in the sachet in his hand, it may have been tampered with by someone else. Jingyu was delivering medicine to his mother at that time, so I don't know what happened afterwards."
This means that someone wants to deal with her, but this happened when she left the Duke of Qi's Mansion, and she couldn't explain it clearly.
"Could it be that Miss Qu San's sachet was originally intended to harm you?" Queen Wang asked after a moment's hesitation.
Liu Jingyu suddenly raised her head and looked at Queen Wang in disbelief, her voice trembling: "This... How is this possible? I have never interacted with Miss Qu San in the past, and we have no grudges against each other in the past and no grudges today."
"She didn't have that in the past, but she does now. I heard that she is now the concubine of Prince Jing's Mansion. She is just a little concubine, but she really thinks of herself as the mistress of Prince Jing's Mansion." Queen Wang curled the corners of her lips sarcastically. She was thin, with high cheekbones. She might have looked good when she was young, but now she looked a little more heartless.
Liu Jingyu blinked, immediately understood, and was shocked: "She... How dare she..."
"Why wouldn't she dare? The daughters of Minister Qu's family are all useless. They can only be concubines. This is true for concubines and legitimate daughters." Queen Wang said meaningfully, sitting up straight. "Be a concubine, then be a concubine. But she still has ambitions. It looks like the future Princess Jing will have a hard time!"
There was a special kind of deep affection in these words, and Liu Jingyu couldn't respond, so he could only lower his head.
"Get up!" Queen Wang waved her hand, and a palace maid came over to help Liu Jingyu get up and sit down on a chair beside him. As soon as he sat down, he saw Pei Luoan walked in, followed by a eunuch.
"Mother!" Pei Luoan bowed to Queen Wang.
Liu Jingyu also hurriedly stood up and saluted Pei Luoan. After Pei Luoan waved his hand, Liu Jingyu stood up obediently and sat down again.
"My son, please sit down first. How are you?" Queen Wang looked at her son's face with concern. Since Ji Hanyue passed away, her son's complexion has not been very good, and so has his health.
Pei Luoan sat down next to Queen Wang, looked up at Liu Jingyu opposite him, and coughed twice, "Mother, I'm fine, just a little cough."
"What little cough? You are the crown prince of a country, how can it be a trivial matter? If the servants around you can't even take care of such a trivial matter, what's the point of them coming here?" Prince Wang's face darkened, and he looked at the eunuch standing next to the crown prince with a bad look.
The eunuch was so frightened that his face turned pale and he dared not move.
"Mother, it's nothing. The imperial physician also said it's not a serious matter. I just slept late last night and caught a cold. I had already recovered, but now I have to take medicine again." Pei Luoan explained with a gentle smile.
"You slept late again last night? What were you doing? You always say you accidentally slept late or something delayed you. Which is more important, or your health?" Queen Wang said angrily, "The Crown Princess is gone. It's useless for you to sort out her things. As for the mourning hall in your house for her, please remove it.
You will marry a crown princess in the future, let's see how the new crown princess will view this matter."
When Queen Wang was speaking, she looked at Liu Jingyu and saw that she was sitting there very properly, with her eyes on her nose and her nose on her heart. She looked like a well-behaved person, so she nodded secretly.
Although she did not believe all of Liu Jingyu's words, at least she was satisfied with Liu Jingyu's utmost respectfulness.
"Mother, I'm not here for the Crown Princess's matter." Pei Luoan coughed twice again.
"Why isn't it for her..." Queen Wang wanted to say something, but she saw her son's eyes sweeping over her with some displeasure. She knew she couldn't continue to talk about it in front of Liu Jingyu. "Okay, okay, I won't talk about this anymore. You need to take good care of your body. Don't worry about such trivial matters anymore."
"Yes, thank you for your concern." Pei Luoan nodded gracefully, and glanced at Liu Jingyu, "Jingyu County Lord is here too, is it because of what happened yesterday?"
Liu Jingyu's heart skipped a beat when he heard this. Was he speaking so directly because the prince was dissatisfied
She stood up again in a hurry and said, "Your Highness, it is indeed because of yesterday's incident that Jingyu went to the palace to explain to the Queen, so that the Queen will not misunderstand Jingyu."
She did not say that it was Queen Wang who ordered her to enter the palace, but only said that she came in on her own initiative. She acted very innocent, and it also showed that Queen Wang trusted her very much and was always kind to her.
This performance satisfied Queen Wang. Her smile became much more sincere and she looked at the two of them with a kind expression. She was much more satisfied with this pair of children than she was when she looked at Ji Hanyue and her son.
In fact, she also had her eyes on Liu Jingyu at that time. Liu Jingyu's status and background were not inferior to Ji Hanyue's, and might even be higher. But her own son fell in love with Ji Hanyue. Finally, Queen Wang thought about it and felt that both sides had their own advantages and disadvantages, and she couldn't tell who was better, so she listened to her son's opinion.
"Is the sachet in the hand of the Prince of Yongning yours?" Pei Luoan asked directly.
Liu Jingyu couldn't stand up after hearing this question. He knelt down with a plop. His eyes were red again. "Your Highness, this matter has nothing to do with Jingyu. The sachet is not Jingyu's. Your Highness, don't you know what kind of person Jingyu is? How could he be related to the son of Yongning Marquis?"
There was one more thing she didn't say: there was no way she could possibly fall for someone like Xu Lipeng.
Even though Xu Lipeng was the ideal husband in the eyes of many young ladies from aristocratic families in Beijing at that time, Liu Jingyu was not one of them. Her goal had always been very clear: she wanted to marry into the royal family, to obtain enormous wealth, and to step onto the position that was second only to the emperor and above everyone else.
A mere wife of Marquis Yongning was worthless in her eyes.
What's more, Xu Lipeng's reputation is ruined now, so how could he possibly have anything to do with her
Pei Luoan looked at her expression, paused for a moment and then stood up, "Mother, how about I go to the side hall to talk with Jingyu County Lord?"
"Okay!" Queen Wang knew that her son had something to ask Liu Jingyu in private, so she didn't make it difficult and nodded.
Pei Luoan turned and went to the side hall on the left. Liu Jingyu stood up with the support of the palace maid, lowered his head and followed behind Pei Luoan, feeling nervous.
In the side hall, Pei Luoan sat down, and Liu Jingyu followed like a little wife, folding her hands in front of her, lowering her head.
She bit her cherry lips with a look of grievance. Even though he couldn't see her face, he could sense her sadness and grief. From Pei Luoan's perspective, he felt that the beauty was as beautiful as jade, gentle and pitiful.
"Tell me what happened yesterday!" Pei Luoan's gentle voice came from above.
Liu Jingyu tried hard to hold back her tears and repeated what she had just said to Queen Wang. After she finished, she could no longer hold back her tears, so she reached out for a handkerchief and turned her head to wipe her tears.
The hall fell silent, with only the sound of Liu Jingyu sobbing softly, which sounded very tender and pitiful.
"Miss Qu San wanted to harm Miss Qu Si. You knew about this because the maid reported it to you, but you didn't have time to verify it. You were sent back to the Duke of Qi's mansion to deliver medicine to your mother. When you came back, the incident happened. It was too late to save the situation. Yesterday, my second brother went to the Duke of Qi's mansion to ask for punishment. The Duke of Qi asked you to go to the Qu Mansion to apologize because Miss Qu San has not woken up yet?"
Pei Luoan sorted out the situation at once and recounted it slowly.
"Your Highness is right. His Highness Prince Jing showed up, and Jing Yu was afraid that the matter would get more involved. Grandfather and father also thought that it was best to settle the matter peacefully, so they went to apologize. I heard that Miss Qu San has woken up now. Fortunately, she has woken up, otherwise Jing Yu would be guilty of this for a thousand deaths."
As Liu Jingyu spoke, tears began to fall again, and she lowered her head hurriedly to wipe her tears.
As far as she was concerned, she was the most innocent one in the matter. The reason why she chose to keep quiet in the end was because she was afraid that the matter would be implicated by the prince. After all, King Jing had directly intervened.
"Miss Qu San is going to be my second brother's concubine?" Pei Luoan asked again.
"Yes, this is also the reason why King Jing can intervene directly. I heard that King Jing asked for an imperial decree yesterday, and the eunuch went to Qu Mansion to issue the decree." Liu Jingyu nodded and responded.
This matter is now widely circulated in the capital. Everyone says that the status of the daughter of Minister Liu is a bit low, but some people say that the reason why the status of Miss Qu San is so low is also because of Miss Qu San's own reasons. The affairs of the Duke of Qi's Mansion have been vaguely spread outside, and Qu Qiuyan's status is obviously a bit low.
Everyone was saying that there must be something wrong with this Miss Qu San, otherwise given her status she would have to be a concubine at the very least, and it was not so hasty to decide on her position as a concubine.
But there is another rumor that is about Liu Jingyu. Although the Qu Mansion is not bad, it is still not good enough to compete with the Mansion of Duke Qi and the Mansion of Minister Liu. That is why Minister Qu hastily agreed to send his daughter to the Mansion of Prince Jing as a concubine, just to let Prince Jing decide for his daughter.
It is also said that Liu Jingyu went to the Qu Mansion to apologize, so it was Liu Jingyu who dealt with the Third Miss Qu at that time, forcing the Third Miss Qu to lower her status and ask for King Jing's legitimate help.
With that said, the reputation of this Jingyu County Lord is not that good anymore! There are also rumors that this matter is really related to Jingyu County Lord, and the sachet that fell into the hands of the Yongning Marquis's son seems to have Jingyu County Lord's name on it.
Although the subsequent events were not spread throughout the entire capital, some rumors did spread among the aristocratic families.
Pei Luoan didn't say anything, but just looked at Liu Jingyu quietly for a long time, then said gently: "Since this matter has nothing to do with you, you should have less contact with the Qu family in the future. There is only one Miss Qu left in the Qu family. She has an eye disease and is the cousin of the Crown Princess."