After kneeling in the Taimiao and attending to various etiquette for a whole morning, it was finally time for the concubines to meet their natal families.
Ever since the queen passed away, this time of year has become awkward.
In the past, ladies of honor who had nowhere to go could go to the Queen's palace, but now that is gone, and the Queen Mother is also recuperating from illness, so there is nowhere to go for the time being.
Then you have to choose a place for concubines, which vaguely seems like taking sides.
Ye Yun has always been favored. Although she has been somewhat overshadowed by Qian Xiuyi in recent days, this does not prevent most people from wanting to curry favor with her.
After all, Yi Zhaorong's family was a new noble family in the court, so naturally they had many retainers.
Since the positions of Shufei and Defei were there, some people still went there, but just not many.
No one visited Wan Xiuyuan. After all, her family was from other places and would not come to Kyoto, and the eldest prince was not a valuable asset to bet on.
No one from other concubines made a special trip to meet him, instead they just went to see him with their family members.
As it stands now, the Third Prince and the Fourth Prince are evenly matched in terms of their support and advocacy among the court officials.
These ladies wouldn't do this blindly; they are all instructed by their families.
There are also disadvantages to meeting with ladies of high rank, for example, there is basically no time to have private conversations with family members.
There are so many people sitting in the room, it's not easy to chase them out.
Fortunately, this group of people were also very discerning, and in the end they all left early, leaving Ye Jun and her family nearly half an hour to talk.
"When mother heard that you left the palace, she was extremely anxious. Fortunately, the emperor was with you. Why is the Fourth Prince... Never mind, are you and the Fourth Prince okay?"
Chu held her daughter's hand, her eyes full of anxiety.
Ye Jun smiled and comforted her, "Don't worry, mother, my daughter is fine, Jing'er is fine too, the emperor still protects us mother and son, why didn't you bring Ran'er in?"
I was asking about Ye Zhe's daughter, Ye Shuran, who is three and a half years old this year.
"Ran'er is young and sleepy, so I didn't bring her with me since we got up early." Mrs. Chu explained.
Ye Jun nodded, "That's fine. Entering the palace is not something that should be pursued."
After saying this, he waved to Nan Zhi, "Go and get the things I prepared for home. Count them and bring them back to mother and aunt later."
"Your Majesty always gives rewards. You should always keep some good things for yourself." Yang said from the side.
Ye Jun smiled lightly, "Aunt, don't worry about me. I have a lot of things here, and some of the things I prepared are for my sister and brother."
Hearing her say this, Yang was naturally grateful.
He called the Fourth Prince out and met him. After talking for a while, it was time.
During this period, Chu gave the Fourth Prince a small jade ornament, a pendant, shaped like a lion rolling an embroidered ball. It was exquisitely carved, and the embroidered ball was hollow, so it looked very valuable.
The Fourth Prince liked it very much and immediately asked Bai Zhu to tie it around his waist.
Of course, Chu did not forget to give her daughter some personal money as usual, including another 50,000 taels of silver notes and a box of gold leaves.
Nowadays, the Ye family has few people, Chu has many lands and shops, and her parents' home often gives her money. It is more than enough for her and her granddaughter to spend, so she gives a lot of subsidies to her son and daughter every year.
The gift she gave to Ye Jun also contained a portion for the Chu family.
There is harmony in Zhaochunxuan, but it is not so good in Yaoguangxuan.
Qian Xiuyi had already sent her mother Wang and sister-in-law Mei away.
But her mother's words made it difficult for her to calm down.
Even though she knew that the emperor's current favor towards her might be a fraud, her family told her to seize the opportunity to get pregnant and have a baby. Even if she no longer had the emperor's favor in the future, it would be good to have a child to rely on.
This was originally a good thing to say, but the mother added that it would be best if she could give birth to a prince, so that the Chen family would have another empress dowager in the future.
Or maybe with the support of the Chen family, she could become the queen.
"What if I give birth to a prince and the emperor eventually rejects him? How will my child and I survive?" Qian Xiuyi couldn't help but ask.
Wang said, "With your father and the Queen Mother here, the Emperor won't do anything to you. Just like in the past few years, even though he didn't favor you, he never dared to treat you harshly."
It was this sentence that made Qian Xiuyi feel very uncomfortable.
Her parents only cared about power and glory and never cared about whether she was living a good life.
As long as you're alive, that's enough.
In the end, Mei couldn't bear it anymore and whispered to her, "It's rare for a woman to marry someone according to her own wishes. Whether you live a good life or not, you can only feel sorry for yourself. Don't just look at other people's thoughts."
I also saw some of my past self in this girl.
At that time, the family knew that Chen Xianwen was not an ideal match, but they still married her off for the sake of his title as the Duke of England.
Now, without the opportunity to inherit the title, Chen Xianwen is nothing.
Not only does she suffer, she also has to make plans for her children.
Fortunately, her father-in-law intended for her child to inherit the title, so she had more hope than her sister-in-law.
After all, inheriting the throne is much more difficult than inheriting a title.
However, what Mei didn't know was that while she was accompanying her mother-in-law to the palace to pay New Year's greetings every day from the first to the fifth day of the first lunar month, her incompetent husband had been hooking up with a woman who sold paintings outside.
He had also secretly spent money to buy a small house with two entrances to keep the woman as his mistress.
The person who arranged all this was naturally Ye Jun.
The woman was a suitable candidate that she had to ask her maternal grandfather for help and searched many places.
His appearance, talent, and scheming are all top-notch.
Now that the fish is hooked, it’s just a matter of waiting for the right moment to take the next step.
The first month of the lunar year was busy, and this year's Lantern Festival was just a small gathering of royal family members, not a big one.
Firstly, there is no mistress in the harem at the moment, so no one knows who would be better in charge; secondly, the empress dowager is nominally ill, so how can the children enjoy themselves
Time flies, and it’s already February in the blink of an eye.
The people from the Imperial Hospital informed the emperor that the imperial concubine was probably dying.
This is strange. I clearly said before that I could survive this winter for a little longer, but who would have thought that I couldn't.
However, only the Imperial Concubine knew that she was at the end of her rope and her obsession had faded.
Seeing Empress Dowager Chen imprisoned by her own son was more satisfying than seeing Chen die.
She just wanted to make Chen suffer.
Who let this stupid bitch take the place that should have belonged to her
Zhao Chunxuan.
Ning Chen sat on a wooden chair with a cup of tea, looking at a couple, one big and one small, painting together at the desk.
It’s not entirely correct to say that it’s painting.
It was the Fourth Prince's crooked scribbles, but Ye Jun turned decay into magic and made corrections on the parts where his son had scribbled.
Look, the Fourth Prince was originally painted as a chicken pecking at rice, but step by step it was changed into a peacock swimming among flowers.
The big, bright flowers are just like Ye Jun's personality, bold and bright.
It is true that a person's character can be seen from his calligraphy and paintings.
Ye Jun's paintings are rarely elegant, but mostly reveal a sense of warm charm. The handwriting looks beautiful, but the brush strokes are also sharp.
Ning Chen looked at the mother and son with an unconscious smile in his eyes.
Suddenly I felt that although the Fourth Prince looked very similar to me, his expression and demeanor seemed more like Ye Jun.